PMC Commentary

The world should be ashamed of its "Ukraine fatigue"

One of the world's three nuclear superpowers ruthlessly invaded neighboring Ukraine in violation of international law, has murdered thousands of noncombatants, raped and pillaged its way through a third of the country, threatened the use of its most deadly weapon, taunted and tormented NATO, cut energy supplies to Europe, and is now attempting to freeze into submission the children, women and men of the much smaller, invaded nation.  And yet the world is yawning.

Less than one year into the Russia-Ukraine war — the largest European ground war since 1945 and a conflict that could easily billow into WW III — television sets in warm living rooms no longer flash news at the top of the hour from the threefold fronts, and most newspaper coverage has slipped from page one. Because the citizens of the world no longer much care. They have tired of seeing the incalculable carnage in Ukraine; it's old news, same stories, nothing's changed. So it's tuned out.

This post is not an example of what's called "virtue-signaling." Its writer is far from being a humanitarian activist, and he is not attempting to demonstrate any sense of superior morality. He couldn't if he tried. Rather, this realpolitik post is meant to convey mammoth aggravation at a world that has turned its eyes in "Ukraine fatigue" from what haunts the entire world: authoritarian aggression, unmet by the globe's lasting fury.

Or even particular concern, even though nuclear-tipped Russian tentacles with a stranglehold on Ukraine could soon grip more of Europe, potentially exploding into a continental fireball, or encouraging a certain Asian autocracy to do evil in its backyard. The world's democracies are under assault by a stalking, authoritarian monster that could forge the 21st century into a more fascisitically successful mid-20th century. And yet the world is yawning.     

Today, in a kind of national Warsaw Ghetto, millions of Ukrainians awoke to subfreezing temperatures, from the Donbas to Kyiv to the extreme southwest. In its ninth-largest aerial attack, Russia launched 98 missiles — only 60 were shot down — at Ukrainian energy services yesterday. In the industrial, central city of Kremenchuk, population 200,000, heat was out for everyone as the temperature sank to -10 Celcius. In Kirovohrad, 83 miles from Kremenchuk, about one million people had no electricity. Two-thirds of Kyiv residents had no heat, no water, and 60% had no electricity; residents "huddled in stairwells and under overpasses as air raid sirens wailed." (NYT.) Also hit were Kharkiv and Odesa. 

This has been the cost of Ukraine's battlefield victories. As Vladimir Putin's forces collapsed on the ground, he took to the skies, raining down hell on noncombatants, on women and children. His strategy could affect Ukraine's military capabilities. Said the country's top commander, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, in an interview with The Economist: "We are balancing on a fine line ... when soldiers’ wives and children start freezing. What kind of mood the fighters will be in, can you imagine? Without water, light and heat, can we talk about preparing reserves to keep fighting?"

Said a citizen of Kyiv, "See how we live. We are fed up! We need to hit back at Russia. Give us weapons. We have enough soldiers — give us weapons." Such has long been the cri de couer from top to bottom, from the president's office to citizens huddled in stairwells: Give us more weapons, every kind of weapon, a surfeit of weapons to drive the invaders back to their motherland. Nearly a year into the war, Ukraine is still asking a contemplating, divided world for more armaments — a world that can't see the global threat down the road. Instead, the world yawns. 

Reported EuroNews in late August: "At the end of February, as Russian forces poured into Ukraine, so did the international news media. For weeks after the invasion, millions of people around the globe watched events unfold, hosted live and direct from Kyiv or Lviv by the familiar news anchors....

"But then things changed. [From elections to natural disasters, other news averted eyes.] It knocked the war in Ukraine off the front pages of newspapers, relegated the video to a later time slot in the news bulletin, or consigned the text further down your digital news source. That's how Ukraine war coverage fatigue sets in: by attrition and by necessity, rather than by design."

By attrition, yes; by necessity, no; by design, in a way. The attrition is manifest and on the record, above. Attrition by design comes from the human condition; weariness toward a story proximally unaffecting to the viewer or reader. But neither is driven by absolute necessity. The world can reawaken to Vladimir Putin's butchery in Ukraine, his inhumanity of paralyzing and killing civilians in subfreezing temperatures, and it can reawaken to the continental threat that he poses, a threat that could extend to a fellow authoritarian in Asia — both of which could ignite another world war.       

In short, the civilized, free world must wake up and get mad. It must demand that its leaders provision Ukraine with what it requests militarily, every bit of it. So that the madness is stopped there, and soon. Then my, and your — since you're reading a Ukraine story — aggravation at an apathetic world can cease. The much bigger payoff is that we'll all be much safer.  

Why can't Elon just go away?

Yesterday I whined on Twitter that ever since ideologically inebriated Elon bought the site, the site has been 90% about Elon. I use Twitter to promote this site, although I just read that publishers' traffic increases by only 1.5% because of their tweeted links. From my own, depressing experience, that percentage sounded exactly right. I get virtually no readers from Twitter, and I only began linking on it because several readers once asked me to. Facebook I am off completely. I have also used Twitter to pick up interesting news pieces, rare as they might be. But it's even a more useless site these days, with tweet after tweet centering on the bloated, thin-skinned, far-right censor, Elon Musk. With any luck, he'll soon tire of his new, egotistical toy and unload it for its actual price, at a loss of probably about $30 billion.

Elon Musk lives up to the right's love of censorship: They just can't handle the truth

I can't recall ever having critically commented on a right-wing site and then seen my comment survive. Without fail, my comment would be deleted and then my commenting "privileges" would be permanently suspended. My suspensions were never because of abusive language or personal attacks; they came about only because I disagreed with some viewpoint expressed on the right-wing site.

And the right cannot tolerate dissension.

The irony is that the people of that political persuasion have recently gone on a "free speech" kick. It seemed to begin when they accused the left of having "canceled" their cultural icons. Then it picked up major steam with free-speech-purist Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. But in no time at all, the Ayn Randian billionaire began suspending the accounts of those he simply did not wish to hear from.

Like all the right-wing sites I encountered, Mr. Musk just cannot tolerate dissension.   

Thus he has now suspended the Twitter accounts of numerous, inquiring-to-critical journalists. Musk has flimsily claimed they had posted "basically assassination coordinates" for him and his family. (Reports The Washington Post: "[We have] seen no evidence that any of the reporters did so.") No warnings were given, and the suspensions came just one day after Twitter altered its policy on providing "live location information" — a swift post hoc excuse to ban the reporters.

Now gone from Musk's $44 billion toy are Post technology reporter Drew Harwell; New York Times technology reporter Ryan Mac; CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan; Mashable's Matt Binder, who "was tweeting about O’Sullivan’s suspension when his account also went dark"; journalist Tony Webster; former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann; Intercept reporter Micah Lee; Voice of America’s Steve Herman; and Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist with a massive Twitter following.

The ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, had the obvious to say: "It’s impossible to square Twitter’s free speech aspirations with the purging of critical journalists’ accounts. The First Amendment protects Musk’s right to do this, but it’s a terrible decision."

Others among the right's self-proclaimed free-speech-purists, such as Dinesh D'Souza, immediately discovered that free-speech purism entails ... what else? ... censorship.

It’s no departure from the principle of free speech to cheer the suspensions of Aaron Rupar and Keith Olbermann. Why? Because these rabid advocates of censorship only learn when they get a taste of it themselves. They are like bullies who back off when their own feet get stomped

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) December 16, 2022

Musk also knows how to overthrow elections, right along with the best of them. To wit, his latest Twitter poll:

The most appropriate coda to this lurid tale is that last night, just before midnight, Musk agreed to join a Twitter conference call with a few journalists, "including some who had been banned," reports the Post. On the call, Musk restated that they had "doxed" him. "The journalists challenged him on this."

So "Musk left the call abruptly about four minutes into it."

Classic right-wing behavior.

An elite Russian fighting force is now in shambles

The 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade was once one of Russia's premier fighting forces. Principally assigned to guard the nation's nuclear-armed submarines stationed along the Kola Peninsula's coast, the widely feared unit has, on occasion, been called out for special duty elsewhere — such as in Ukraine, where it's been in close combat since the war's first days. 

Now, reports The Washington Post, the 200th Brigade is "effectively destroyed." It was part of the first units to launch Russia's "fearsome assault" on Kharkiv; two months later, it "was staggering back across the Russian border desperate to regroup." Since then, things have only gotten worse for the fighting 200th. This passage from the Poast's lengthy reporting explains much: 

"The [200th Brigade's] skilled troops and professional officers sent into battle at the start of the war with state-of-the-art tanks have given way to an assemblage of poorly trained conscripts pressed into service with paltry or outdated gear.

"Some of the brigade’s own soldiers described its condition as dire.

"'The unit is in a state of decay,' said a soldier now serving in the 200th after being drafted under mobilization orders that Putin issued in September. He and others were initially issued 'painted helmets from 1941 and vests without plates,' he said in an interview with The Post this month. 'They are not even training us.... They just tell you, 'You are a shooter now. Here you go, here is a machine gun.'"

The brigade fell victim not only to Ukraine's superior fighting forces of higher morale, notes the Post, but to "the same forces that derailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion plans — endemic corruption [and] strategic miscalculations." Notwithstanding Putin's desperate, belated efforts to correct course, the Ukrainian ground situation for the 200th Brigade is as pitiable as ever. 

The unit recently engaged in Luhansk, one of the two eastern provinces were Russian forces have concentrated of late. For the 200th, the fighting did not go well. Ukrainian intelligence provided the Post with a fact sheet listing the unit's wounded soldiers' names and birth dates — some, in their 50s. The Post contected one of the soldiers, who described himself as "a civilian person. I have a family, kids. I never even had a thought about needing to go fight" before Putin's mobilization.

Explained the brigade's soldier: "When I was in the hospital, there were guys from Moscow, just simple guys, some worked in car repairs or some other places. They were just pulled out of their civilian lives and sent to ‘take villages. [We were told] we are going to be in the rear, not on the front line. But it turned out to be the opposite."

Such are the not atypical remnants of perhaps Russia's finest fighting unit. Indeed they are characteristic of the Russian army as a whole. From an outside military observer came this devastating assessment: "In a war that has been disastrous for much of Russia’s military, the dismemberment of the 200th stands out. It entered the conflict with better training, newer equipment and more experience ... than most other units. Now, given the magnitude of its losses, one European military official said, it 'cannot be considered a fighting force.'"

Because President Putin also cannot turn around his military's predicament in the brief respite of winter, one can rather easily imagine which side will triumph in the spring — leaving Putin's rosy propaganda machine to work overtime.   

A new ... "art?"

My daughter's boyfriend used a photo of her to generate this AI portrait.

My daughter is beautiful in any shape, form, or medium, as all daughters are. But I confess I still prefer the old-fashioned, oil-painting method — in fact I painted a portrait of my infant daughter 22 years ago. On the other hand, I must face the modern world. I do not, however, have to face it without complaint.

Of this AI-generated, art-prizing work, The NY Times noted in a headline that "Artists Aren't Happy."

The Times: "This year, the Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition gave out prizes in all the usual categories: painting, quilting, sculpture. But one entrant, Jason M. Allen of Pueblo West, Colo., didn’t make his entry with a brush or a lump of clay. He created it with Midjourney, an artificial intelligence program that turns lines of text into hyper-realistic graphics."

And with it, Jason won the art competition.

"A.I.-generated art has been around for years. But tools released this year — with names like DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion — have made it possible for rank amateurs to create complex, abstract or photorealistic works simply by typing a few words into a text box," continued the Times.

"These apps have made many human artists understandably nervous about their own futures — why would anyone pay for art, they wonder, when they could generate it themselves? They have also generated fierce debates about the ethics of A.I.-generated art, and opposition from people who claim that these apps are essentially a high-tech form of plagiarism."

I gave up trying to sell my artwork. Consumers mostly want cheap, frameable posters of deer lapping water at a rustic stream with snow-capped mountains in the background — which, above all, matches their sofas. The last piece I sold — years ago, for $300 — was indeed the last piece sold before many more failed marketing efforts, and thus before I and my paint-stained towel called it quits. Now I occasionally paint just for the private pleasure of it.

At any rate, it appears that robots, of a sort, are replacing human artists, too. And so my Luddite inclinations grow.        

A U.S. president's negligent homicide, by the tens of thousands - final proof

An explosive new report from the House Intelligence Committee "partly vindicates the CIA and other U.S. spy agencies," writes NBC News, "noting that they raised the specter of a pandemic well before the World Health Organization declared one on March 11, 2020."

What's more, the committee's report "adds to the body of evidence showing that then-President Donald Trump misled the public about what he was hearing from advisers about the seriousness of the virus. The intelligence warnings summarized in the report debunk Trump’s contention that intelligence officials described the virus 'in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner.'"

The intel report tortures the conscientious mind — how any U.S. president could elevate his own political welfare above the lives of millions of Americans is beyond comprehension. And yet, that is what Mr. Trump did just as a lethal, global pandemic was heading to the United States like a speeding, out-of-control train loaded with toxic chemicals.  

The House report, notes NBC News, "looks closely at exactly when and how the intelligence community first learned about the virus [and] what warnings were given to the Trump White House." Those warnings came as early as December 2019.

On the last day of that month an analyst at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, a part of the Defense Intelligence Agency, observed an item on a listserv run by the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases. It addressed "an unexplained pneumonia" being witnessed in Wuhan, China.  

The analyst flagged the item in a report titled "Note: Possible Pandemic Warning Update." He also placed it in a database used by American military commanders around the world. "[The analyst] … flagged the disease as an event that warranted close scrutiny,” says the House report. So far, this was rather obscure reporting from the public health community.

But here's the thing: "The same day, The Associated Press published a story about the [Emerging Diseases] notice, which came to the attention of White House officials." And that's where this story of mass presidential homicide began. 

What existed before was but unofficial reporting on Trump's deliberate negligence; his sociopathic dismissal of American lives. As reporter Bob Woodward related in his book, Rage, Trump told him that "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic." His real reason, of course, was the avoidance of political responsibility for a deadly pandemic — precisely the behavior of a known sociopath.

Then-National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien informed Trump on 28 January 2020 that "this will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” reported Woodward. The House Intelligence Committee confirms, officially, that at least by January's end: "Despite the difficulties in getting clandestine collection, intelligence community analysts had sounded the alarm. Items on the coronavirus had probably appeared several times in the [president’s daily brief]" (my emphasis).

And yet two days after O'Brien's thunderingly unsettling briefing of Trump — his warning of an inescapable, deadly national train wreck — the president told a crowd at a Michigan campaign rally: "We think we have it very well under control.... We think it’s going to have a very good ending for us — that I can assure you."

Concludes the House report: "The divergence between the Intelligence Community’s late January conclusions and the former president’s rhetoric is striking."

It was also homicidal. I can't say with legal certainty exactly what charge would be leveled, but in any non-dysfunctional judicial system, such a president would be indicted for something akin to reckless endangerment or negligent homicide, on a massive scale.

The American right has since attacked President Biden for having overseen tens of thousands more American deaths from covid — but the motherlode of those deaths sprang from Trump & Friends' relentless belittling of covid's severity, plus their widely circulated denunciations of necessary mask-wearing and of the frightful "scam" of covid vaccinations. Given all that — which is still circulating — more American deaths have been unavoidable. 

NBC News: "A Trump spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment." The spokesman should have been speaking for Trump outside the walls of Atlanta's federal penitentiary.  

"A poisonous mixture of lies, hatred and absurdity" - Russia and its American friends

The title above refers not only to how a German magazine once described Russian propaganda about its war in Ukraine, it also pertains to how the American right's venomous media machine — principally, Fox News; chiefly, Tucker Carlson — has helped to prop Vladimir Putin in power and persuade millions of Russians that despite their army's successive battlefield losses and climbing death count, Russia is actually winning the war, Ukraine is a wreck, and its Western allies are buckling. 

That's the story conjured by the All-Russia State Television and Radio Company, known as VGTRK, the country's largest state-owned media firm. Recently, the group known as DDoSecrets hacked into the company's database and discovered "thousands of email exchanges" that promoted the false concept of a victorious Russia, assisted by the American right. "Be sure to take Tucker," wrote one Russian news producer to a colleague, since "Tucker" was a rich source of pro-Putin propaganda. 

VGTRK "operates some of the country’s most-watched channels, including Russia 1 and Russia 24, as well as a robust online operation," writes The NY Times, which also reports on the hacked emails, made publicly available by DDoSecrets. "With national and regional networks, it reaches nearly the entire Russian population." As Putin has cracked down on independent news sources and social media, VGTRK has grown in its propagandistic influence. 

Essential to VGTRK's broadcasts are clips from Fox News and other right-wing American outlets, described by the Times as "fixtures" of the Russian network's domestic offerings. The international relationship is incestuous, with VGTRK producers circulating, say, a Tucker segment highlighting Russia’s "sanction-proof" economy, which VGTRK's autonomous propaganda has already featured. Mr. Carslon's clips get "passed around" by the network's producers, and soon that material makes its way to other Russian media outlets, making the relationship a threesome. 

VGRTK's internal reports show that the network has tracked its influence in foreign lands, "categorizing [its 'pickups'] as positive, negative or neutral." One internal report centered on VGTRK's leading broadcaster, Dmitri Kiselyov — covered on this site here and here — "a firebrand" who once, on the air, proposed the idea of annihilating Britain with nuclear weapons. That, as one might imagine, generated rather negative foreign coverage. VGTRK noted a German magazine's remark that Russian television "under 'propagandists' like Mr. Kiselyov" was "a poisonous mixture of lies, hatred and absurdity."

Which is what one must say about Tucker Carlson and his network's coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war — "A Fox News spokeswoman didn’t provide a comment" to the Times — which has fostered Russians' false hopes while disposing millions of Americans antagonistically toward Ukraine's valiant efforts to repel Putin's armed forces from its sovereign lands.   

"Besides the political machine of what the Kremlin operates directly," says Vasily Gatov, a Russian media scholar at USC's Annenberg Center, "the [VGTRK] is the second-most important part of propaganda in Russia." The same can be said for the United States: Besides the political machine of what the Republican Party operates, the right-wing media machine is the second-most(?) important part of propaganda in the U.S.

Just as Fox News et al.'s relationship with Russia is incestuous, so is the GOP's and the right's "lying, hateful and absurd" media apparatus. I recall reading years ago that each morning, prior to airtime, Rush Limbaugh's fax machine would rattle out Republican strategists' talking points for the day, around which Rush would then tailor his three hours of propaganda. 

Compare that to this Times passage: "Collaboration between the Kremlin and state broadcasters dates back more than two decades, said Mr. Gatov.... Each day, the Kremlin provides a list of talking points for broadcasters. The closely guarded document, known as the 'temnik,' is delivered to senior officials at V.G.T.R.K. and other organizations, outlining issues the Kremlin wants covered, positively or negatively, along with views to endorse and people to criticize."

Only one difference — a huge one — exists today between Fox News/GOP and the Kremlin/VGTRK: The Republican Party does not yet control its Kremlin of a White House, or its Duma of a Congress. But under the Putinesque, authoritarian likes of a Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis and that president's rubber stamp of a Republican House and Senate, no American would be able to distinguish Moscow from Washington, D.C.

If not a Democrat, why not Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Imagine ...

"Trump has been working the phones, personally pitching right-wing lawmakers on voting to make Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader he has called "My Kevin," the speaker of the House."

This has been necessary, even though the highly respected "Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia ... is publicly vouching for Mr. McCarthy." 

What's this world coming to? A true visionary and crackerjack strategist throws her lot in with the venerable albeit Midas-touch-loser Trump, and yet His Kevin is still having trouble securing the top spot? 

Seriously, there may be a good opportunity here for Democrats to huddle with that handful of moderate Republicans to prevent not only McCarthy's elevation to the speakership, but any Republican's ascendence. The House GOP's majority is that slim, that precarious. 

Since 2016, we have learned at least this much: Anything is possible in American politics these days.

And if Democrats can't have one of their own as speaker, I'd suggest they then huddle with the opposition's now-and-then Constitutution-terminating wingnuts so as to elevate Marjorie Taylor Greene to the speakership.

What I can't imagine is any more suitable representative of the modern, nihilistic, neofascistic Republican Party grabbing the gavel.

A few left-leaning dreamers thought that after their disastrous November, Republicans would come to their senses and mellow. Yet the party has become even more militant, no surprise. Fact is, its final, stake-through-the-heart burial won't arrive until 2024, with post-DeSantis eulogies.

Once that competent authoritarian goes down, Republicans will cross their hearts, mumble a few Hail Marys full of Grace and throw in the towel. Trumpism begone. Until then, the party should have the real lunatic thing as the face of the People's House. Yes, I'm down with Marge. 

I never did trust this stuff

This World Cup commentator knows how to get press

This story — "US is an extraordinarily racist country, says Gary Lineker" – is notable mostly because of its placement. Because the story itself is remarkably diminutive in breadth and, substantively, a trifle pedestrian.  

The Times — what Americans call The London Times, to distinguish it from their younger gray lady — published the merely 259-word piece this morning as an above-the-fold ... shocker? And yet the piece is a bit of a yawner. 

For those of you, like me, who are soccer illiterate, it seems Mr. Lineker was a major star of the sport who now covers it for the BBC. And in a recent interview with a podcast by the name of News Agents, he wondered why the human-rights-hagridden nation of Qatar had been selected to host the 2022 games. His comments then motivated the head of Qatar's World Cup committee, Hassan Al-Thawadi, to call the BBC's coverage of the games "very racist."  Thrust and parried, as might be expected.  

The Times transcribed Mr. Lineker's remarks.

We pointed facts out at the beginning of the tournament; those facts remain. So, lots of people were killed doing the stadiums. Yes, the stadiums are extraordinary, but at a great price. Homophobia is an issue here, women’s rights are a little bit of an issue here.

For me, it was always really more about the corruption side of it because, as I said previously, I think pretty much every country, including our own, has got issues. And we’re off to America in four years’ time, with Canada and Mexico, but obviously America’s an extraordinarily racist country.

So, there’s always issues but it was more the fact that we just pointed out a few facts and particularly the aspect of it being so corrupt — they said it was going to be summer and it was in the winter. I don’t think anything’s particularly changed but it’s been a cracking tournament but that’s football; football is a wonderful sport.

And that was it, the story's totality, except for a brief, parting announcement about a semi-final match between France and Morocco today. 

Hence the reader — or this one, at least — is left wondering why such a short, rather commonplace commentary scored an above-the-fold placement in The Times. For by now the civilized world is quite aware of Qatar's xenophobic, homophobic and misogynistic personality disorders. Recently added: international corruption.

I suppose it's only natural that Lineker emphasizes the corruption side of Qatar's national faults, since he so casually equates America's racism with any other country's. This perforce includes, say, China, which indeed has been extraordinarily brutal in its racism. (Mr.Lineker: One should be more cautious when brushing up against superlatives.)

It is, of course, the downright silliness of Lineker's false equivalence that rated such a prominent place in The Times' morning edition — that is, its sensationalism was irresistible. Otherwise the sports commentator's remarks were, as noted, a bit pedestrian.

I guess even the older gray lady just cannot refuse a touch of the tabloid. 

The enemies within

Applause go to TalkingPointsMemo.com for this report.

"White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanged text messages with at least 34 Republican members of Congress as they plotted to overturn President Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. 

"Those messages are being fully, publicly documented here for the first time."

Just a few of the messages:

From Rep. Ralph Norman, of South Carolina.

 

 

From Rep. Brian Babin, of Texas.

 

 

From Rep. Mark Green, of Tennessee.

 

 

From Sen. Cynthia Lummis, of Wyoming.

 

 

And from Ohio's Rep. Jim Jordan, the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

 

 

And yet, just like "Landslide Lauren," each of these seditionists is still entitled to be addressed as "The Honorable ..."

'Landslide Lauren'

This just in. In a mandatory recount under state law, The Honorable Lauren Boebert "barely held off her Democratic challenger, businessman Adam Frisch, reclaiming Colorado's third district by ..." 546 votes!

Once again, the Centennial State has this to be proud of.

An old Soviet joke, all for Dmitry Medvedev

Yesterday I noted former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul's tweet to the former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who seems to have gone a bit off bubble, writing threateningly on Telegram about Russia's "increasing production" of new weapons — "the most powerful means of destruction." 

McFaul speculated that despite Medvedev's public weirdness, he could not possibly, privately believe what he says, "but he says it anyway." Hence the former U.S. ambassador finished by asking, "Dmitry, have you no shame?" 

In the comment section to McFaul's tweet — and this is what I wanted to update with — was a follow-up to McFaul and an indirect message to Medvedev by another diplomat, Ukraine's former ambassador to Austria, Olexander Scherba. And it's hilarious.

The thing is - he is deeply despised also by those whose voice he wants to become now. A truly pathetic human being.

PS. In the Soviet times hobos were called “бич”. Some joked that it stood for “бывший интеллигентный человек”. pic.twitter.com/Rejz4CINjt

— olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) December 11, 2022

So, in English, what would the Soviets have called Hobo Medvedev? "A former intelligent man." 

Republicans will have four House speakers: Kevin McCarthy & the Crackpot Triumvirate

Kevin McCarthy may be the House speaker in name, but beside him will be the de facto co-speakers of Reps. Jim Jordan, James Comer and Marjorie Taylor Greene. To retain power, McCarthy must be powerless. He'll be at the pitiless mercy of the maniacal threesome, hence this will form the House's first quadrumvirate speakership, with the internal fanatics bouncing off each other.

The Washington Post writes that "Republicans in Congress are splintering over how aggressively to run interference for former president Donald Trump as he faces potential criminal prosecution." Yet there is no splintering, no "chasm," as the Post further describes the nonexistent situation of insider differences. There are indeed those "who have started to quietly inch away from" Trump, although the astute reader will note that not one of them volunteered a public comment on the matter.     

On the other hand, liberally quoted by the Post are Jordan and Comer, the incoming chairmen of the Judiciary and Oversight Committees. Jordan was his usual oblivious self, squawking that "our Justice Department" appears to be "making decisions on a political basis.... We’re concerned about anything that is being done in a political fashion at the Justice Department." He's six years too late.

Comer was less blinkered than just plain laughable. Might his Oversight Committee take, perhaps, a little look-see into the former president's brassy mishandling of highly classified documents? That "will not be a priority," said the future chairman. Instead he intends to investigate Twitter’s handling of reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop.  

"The American people deserve to know why Twitter took down the Hunter Biden laptop story even when [company execs were] questioning the rationale for suppressing the story," Comer had written to three of those executives. Never mind that the American people already know why Twitter took down "the story." The stricken posts likely contained politically motivated hacks by Russian intelligence, and most definitely "the images contained in the [NY Post] articles include personal and private information — like email addresses and phone numbers — which violate our rules," explained Twitter at the time.

Said a veteran Republican congressional investigator to the Post: "When the investigators give you an answer you don’t like, investigate the investigators.... Even if things turn out to be really stupid things they are investigating, they’ll get a lot of Fox News out of it." Added a House Republican staffer: "It’s an easy crutch for them to grasp.... They lean on [an evil Justice Department and Hunter's libidinous laptop] as opposed to defending [Trump] on the facts, which they can’t do." 

Both investigator and staffer insisted on anonymity, as did the one lone member of the Republican House willing to speak with the Post. Which is to say, the GOP caucus is still cowering before the Jordans and Comers, thus the Post's reported schism is a phantom. Most elected GOP members know what the talkative but anonymous member knows. "The rhetoric has got to be toned down," said the Republican, a member of the Oversight Committee. "Sure, I’ve got questions and concerns about the DOJ and the FBI, but, man, some of the tweets you’re seeing is just for dramatization."

Which brings us to the last member of the House's speakership quartet: Marjorie Taylor Greene. "If you want to be taken seriously," observed the one talking, elected Republican, "you have to treat the issue seriously. The question is: Can Comer control some of the potential new members — like the woman from Georgia — that care less about substance and more about their Twitter profile?"

The shortest answer is no. Comer can't and McCarthy won't. The titular speaker's position and power will be balanced on the more powerful extremist caucus, the Jordans and Greenes. Via fax, email or text, McCarthy will receive his orders each morning from Crackpot Corner. The one upside will be his a.m. press conferences, in which poor Kevin will wrap his famously errant tongue around his foot. 

The bigger picture, as they say, and as the Post reports, is that House Republicans' strategy will "[resemble] how Trump allies worked to undermine the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election by seizing on the FBI’s use of a dossier produced as Republican and Democratic opposition research." The abovementioned Republican investigator "said the approach has become almost formulaic": the right-wing media will parrot Republican lawmakers and the lawmakers will parrot the right-wing media. Just one big happy family, including the Fox-addled base.  

Two years of this nonsense. It'll be excellent fodder for political commentators — and for that I must thank Messrs. McCarthy, Jordan, Comer and Ms. Greene  — but — need it be said? — it will also range from the stridently appalling to the merely embarrassing for the country.

It's called Republican governance. 

The world's free nations have "pledged allegiance" to a Nazi, says high-ranking Russian official

The poor man has been imbibing way too much of Vladimir Putin's vodka-spiked Kool-Aid.  

Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir's presidential predecessor (2008-2012), wrote yesterday on Telegram that Russia is "increasing production of the most powerful means of destruction. Including those based on new principles." Channel News Asia reports that Medvedev, who now serves as Putin's deputy chairman of the Russia Security Council, "did not provide details of the weapons."

Why the need for the peace-loving fatherland to produce the world's newly designed, "most powerful means of destruction?"

Because, explained Dmitry in a Smirnoff moment, "Our enemy dug in not only in the Kyiv province of our native [Ukraine]. It is in Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and a whole number of other places that pledged allegiance to the Nazi."

That would be the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. 

It would seem, however, that Russia's new and powerful weapons — what Putin has previously described as "more modern and even-more-efficient"-than-U.S. cruise missiles and hypersonic systems — are lagging a bit in production.

Note: The NY Times reports that Russia's barbaric bombings of Ukraine's energy grid are from missiles that are "part of a cache of weaponry handed over to Russia by Ukraine in the 1990s as part of an international agreement aimed at assuring Ukraine’s sovereignty."

That is to say, Russia hasn't enough of its own missiles to freeze and massacre Ukrainian women and children.

Medvedev's Telegram message prompted the former U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation to write:  

Medvedev may be the most pathetic senior official in Russia. There is no way he believes the BS he spouts. But he says it anyway. Дмитрий, как тебе не стыдно?

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) December 11, 2022

In English, "Dmitry, have you no shame?"