Ukraine / Russia - Actions and Reactions
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This week, the New York Times trotted out a classic mental Trojan Horse, one of the most awful kinds of deliberate mental manipulation. Let’s study yet more media malfeasance in this recent New York Times headline:
A debate “inside the White House?” At first, I thought they meant Joe Biden was arguing with himself again, probably challenging himself to pushup contests or calling himself weird made-up insult names.
Haha, just kidding. Obviously, it’s not Joe and it’s also not that Team Biden is holding any kind of formal debate inside the White House. We are meant to interpret the headline as a metaphor. Which means the headline is not, strictly, true.
In point of fact, the article entire predicate is false. It is a big fat lie. And most vexing, it’s an obvious lie that busy people will credulously swallow and become manipulated tools.
They are trying to sell a horrible idea. The scheme to allow Ukraine to launch U.S. missiles at undefended, innocent civilian targets in Russia — in other words, war crimes — is literally the worst idea the neocons have ever had, bar none, in a painfully long list of previous terrible, no-good ideas.
(Ukraine’s actual missile strikes on a civilian apartment building in Russia last week)
The Administration’s problem is that they’ve already admitted that letting Ukraine use our weapons to attack Russian soft targets “would violate Mr. Biden’s mandate to ‘avoid World War III.’” But they now argue that Team Biden has sleepwalked the Resident over Russia’s red lines before, and nothing happened: “each time Mr. Biden relented, the worst fears he had about escalation did not materialize.”
This craven logic is like a Japanese tourist pushing a fried chicken leg through the bars into Boris the brown bear’s cage. At first, he just sticks the greasy snack halfway through the metal bars, but the bear ignores it. So the tourist pushes the leg in a little further, just inside the cage, and quickly yanks his hand back. But Boris still just seems bored. So the tourist figures, well, the bear hasn’t reacted so far, so he hops over the fence and chucks the crispy chicken leg toward the alert mammal.
And that’s when Boris the bear bites his head off.
But I digress. The headline’s metaphor is meant to persuade readers that some kind of dynamic debate is happening over this perilous policy among the brainiest members of Biden’s top team. Conflict! It sounds juicy. It teases readers who expect to read about something similar to an episode of Survivor (Political Island).
Readers rightly reflect: Who’s on which side of this zero-sum argument? Which Biden advisors are like YOLO!! and which ones are like you’re barking mad!! Are they throwing things at each other? Which group does Papa Joe favor today? When does the tribe vote? Has anyone located an immunity idol?
I’m exaggerating, a little. But readers reasonably expect to find out who is supposedly arguing with whom about nuclear escalation. Now, get ready for the journalistic sleight of hand: this was the only paragraph in the article explicitly referring to any debate:
Let’s see the word magic. First note the use of the unattributable passive voice: “there is now a vigorous debate,” as though debates have their own existence separate from people. The phrase “inside the Administration” is meant to suggest — without saying so — that this critical discussion is private.
Only then did the Times begin describing a rogue’s gallery of aggressive neocons, every single one quoted arguing in favor of letting Ukraine use U.S. weapons for war crimes in Russia. There was not a single quote in the article arguing against the reckless policy. Not one.
Three people quoted weren’t even part of the “White House”: former president Zelensky (quoted most often in the article), and for some random reason, British foreign secretary David Cameron. Then the Times quoted former State Department warmonger Victoria Nuland, who is back on the stage! And she’s making the rounds on TV. Here’s how the Times glowingly described Vicki, the human conflict escalator:
The only actual members of Biden’s Administration quoted in the article, both in favor of the proposal, were Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. That’s it! And to be fair, Austin’s “support” was lukewarm (at best).
Once we wipe away the fog of confusion, the Times provided only two legitimate White House officials, Blinken and Austin, who weren’t debating each other. Who did the Times say was on the other side of the debate? Nobody.
Apparently, only the Glorious Leader and policy decider Biden remains to be convinced, along with some unnamed and uncounted anonymous “aides.” Aides? Who on Earth are they? The Times did not say who was involved in this historic decision:
So nobody except Blinken is on record favoring this harebrained escalation, based on a frantic hope that Russia will keep ignoring crossed red lines, and won’t mind its citizens being slain with U.S. weapons with the U.S. giving Ukraine explicit approval.
Reading critically, we discover there is no debate. There is only Blinken, Zelensky, the ghost of Viktoria Nuland, and the pugilistic echoes rattling around inside Joe Biden’s empty skull.
Why then did the Times call this a debate? Why try to dress it up as an argument?
Read critically. This article is propaganda, a weaponized press release, probably drafted by Blinken, a psychological transition tool. Biden fully intends to arm our proxy state Ukraine with weapons that will be used to attack Russia directly — a foolish game of high-stakes chicken that was never even considered at the pinnacle of the Cold War and anti-Soviet mania.
But because they know it is a terrible idea and nobody sane would ever agree, they must make it sound like Biden struggled with the decision, and in the end only agreed with the greatest reluctance.
Biden isn’t just crossing a red line this time. He’s rowing across Russia’s red river. And they don’t call it a red line because it’s the color of Valentine’s Day.
To be clear, Blinken’s ‘proposal’ surpasses Dr. Strangelove’s insanity-levels. Biden wants to push the nuclear chicken leg inside the Russian bear cage as far as he can, to find out what happens. Hopefully, they’re right about Putin’s remarkable restraint. Otherwise, a global thermonuclear war is about to bite our heads off.
☕️ BRONX BODEGA ☙ Friday, May 24, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
We shoot down the New York Times latest propaganda missile launched at America; the Fauci shredding story grows a couple more insectile legs; and a political earthquake hits the Bronx. And more.
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In a story that is actually about what must either be the incalculable stupidity or planet-sized mendacity of the United States government about the single most important debate of our lifetime, a debate that is not being held, the New York Times ran more war propoganda yesterday headlined, “Blinken Hints U.S. May Accept Ukrainian Strikes in Russia With American Arms.” Antony Blinken is everywhere these days. He’s like the Pale Rider of Revelation, dragging Hell and destruction everywhere he goes. The headline is wrong; Blinken didn’t just hint. He said them; the most provocative and escalatory words ever uttered by a Secretary of State.
And it was much worse than the headline suggested. Blinken didn’t just say Ukraine could use American weapons to strike targets in continental Russia. The moronic Secretary of State said we would help Ukraine do it:
Where is the Congress while Blinken is out running his mouth like this? Is there anyone left in government who wants to stop World War III from breaking out over the rubble of Ukraine?
This is exactly what we all predicted would happen two years ago when Biden first drove us into the Ukrainian bog.
In a wordy but meaningless follow-up article last evening, the Times ran another hand-wringing story headlined, “From Allies and Advisers, Pressure Grows on Biden to Allow Attacks on Russian Territory.” The sub-headline explained the ultra-high stakes: “President Biden is weighing fears of escalation with a nuclear-armed adversary as he considers whether to let Ukraine shoot American weapons into Russia.”
Once again, the grotesque parody of a newspaper never quoted a single White House official. The only quotes are from Blinken. Not even Biden. The Times laughably offered Biden’s lack of public comment to his profound reflection on these complicated and important issues:
Haha! They don’t trust Biden to talk about this. And, again the Times attributed one of the most significant decisions of our lifetimes to invisible, unidentified “aides.” Who are these aides evaluating these critical decisions about whether it’s worth risking global thermonuclear war to help Zelensky? Why are they so secretive? Are they like fairies who leave security briefs on the doorstep if you put cookies out before you go to sleep?
Or, is the truth there are actually no ‘aides’ at all, and it is really just Blinken?
Even more hilariously, the Times explained that, even if Biden does decide to give Ukraine the nuclear green light, don’t ever expect him to say so. Why would he? It’s not like it affects the whole country or anything. The truth is they still don’t want Sleepy Joe answering questions about it:
Great. It will be an official unstated U.S. policy. Can you imagine the media outcry if Trump were stage-managing this disastrous train wreck of a foreign policy?
The awful, terrible, no-good New York Times failed to quote a single response from the Russians, in either article, about the proposed change in U.S. policy, even though the shift marks a historic moment, the first time in history a nuclear superpower has ever authorized a proxy and supplied the weapons with which to directly attack the other nuclear superpower. It would be like Russia giving Cuba long-range tactical missiles (able to carry nukes!) and providing all the telemetry and guidance for how to hit the White House.
We have lived long enough to witness the final failure of the long-lauded policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). It’s been replaced with Mutually Assured Brinksmanship. And at the end of the day, it was us, the United States, that shattered MAD into a million dagger-like fragments.
In yet more journalistic malpractice, despite the unimaginably-high stakes, the Times never even tried to call the Russian embassy for a reaction. It never even went on Twitter. If we citizens wish to stay fully informed about what is happening, we are forced to visit the Kremlin’s website for ourselves.
Putin gave an interview yesterday. In the interview, he responded to this idiotic proposal to fire long-range strategic weapons directly at Russia. The full interview transcript is up on the Russian government website. The Times could easily have found it there, and quoted Russia’s president, but they ignored him, because they are Putin-deranged. Or something even worse.
Since nobody else will provide the life-and-death, critical Russian point of view about the Biden Administration’s ‘evolving’ policy, I will tell you what Putin said. (He’s a little wordy, and it’s translated, so I’ll edit for brevity and clarity.) You can read the original interview for yourself (and you should) at the link above. Here’s what Putin said, not responding to Blinken, but to similar comments made yesterday by UN Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, another intellectually-depleted gasbag.
First off, Putin clearly and logically pointed out the most massive problem with Biden’s proposed policy, totally obvious in hindsight, which of course has been completely ignored by corporate media and the New York Times. The biggest problem is that these high-tech missile systems don’t stand alone. They operate inside vast Earth-space technology infrastructures and networks that Ukraine absolutely does not have. In other words, even with a full belly packed with borscht, Olaf the Ukrainian soldier could not even hope to fire one of our long-range missiles.
Our long-range strategic weapons require a small crew of experienced, highly-trained U.S. or NATO technical specialists, to manage every single step of the process. Meaning, even if a missile were staged for launch from the territory of Ukraine, the United States would be the one pushing all the buttons. They would never let Olaf get anywhere near the costly weapon.
In Putin’s own words:
If you ask me, Putin’s next warning about the dire consequences was, if anything, highly restrained. Using diplomatic words, he soberly warned that Russia would retaliate against any nation that attacks it, regardless of picky technicalities like which base the missile launched from. In Putin’s careful words:
Our corporate media loves wailing about how Putin is threatening nuclear war again, but have you noticed they never directly quote him? Honestly, I am no Putin fan, but I still find Putin’s arguments clear, thoughtful, and compelling. I defy anyone to explain how any of it was disinformation.
Do we really expect the Russians to just sit on their hands while nuclear-capable missiles are streaming across their border?
Putin’s interview included even more fascinating information unaccountably absent from our own media’s analysis. One great example is Putin’s precise, lawyerly discussion about why Zelensky is a non-president under Ukraine’s constitution, despite his self-serving martial law declaration.
I don’t know what could possibly be a more important and necessary national discussion than this debate about helping Ukraine attack Russian territory. But nobody except the Times’ mysterious “aides,” spooks, and ghosts appear to be having the debate. And as I said, you should read the whole Putin interview for yourself.
☕️ T MINUS ☙ Thursday, May 30, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Jury deliberates historic Trump verdict; Biden playing footsie with global thermonuclear war and Putin quietly responds; historic mega-sunspot is back; best example of how to to attend court; more.
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But before we delve into the Trump Verdict fallout, and we will, I must first show you what they tried to slip through while we were all distracted by the Verdict. Politico ran this hastily-assembled bit of pure propaganda yesterday:
The ‘story’ is 100% deeply fake news. Let’s read it critically. The headline was about Biden. Biden was the decider. The decision may be the most momentous decision he ever made. And yet, Politico’s article was devoid of a single quote from the alleged deciding leader of the Free World.
I’ll be you a hundred bucks we never hear anything from Biden about it.
Proving the article was government-drafted propaganda and not news, all of Politico’s sources, every one of them, were anonymous: “three U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the move.” Other people? Other people who aren’t U.S. officials? Who are they? Viki Nuland? Zelensky? How did they get so familiar with it?
Politico violated its own journalistic ethic rules by not stating why the five sources wished to remain anonymous. They just are.
Apparently, not one single official in the Biden Administration wants the credit for this deplorable decision. They don’t even want to be attached to helping make it. And that’s why they did it lightning fast, right before the Trump verdict came out, so we would be so distracted by the verdict (a verdict we knew was coming anyway) that we’d completely miss Joe’s nuclear news nugget.
Intellectual Dark Web luminary Eric Weinstein (1 million followers) also noticed the lack of any official justification for this insane WWIII escalation:
As we navigate the Trump Verdict fallout, keep your eyes open! They cannot be trusted, as this little stunt conclusively proves. If you needed any proof, that is.
☕️ HERE COME THE CHICKENS ☙ Friday, May 31, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Well, it happened. Let's see how the two-tiered justice system is doing so far.
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Reuters ran a cautionary story yesterday headlined, “Russia warns US against 'fatal' miscalculation in Ukraine.” Not that anyone is listening, mind you. In saner days, this would have been the week’s top story.
Last week, without any public comment, without any public debate, without any Congressional involvement — but after “extensive debate” among anonymous aides — former Vice-President Joe Biden quietly authorized Ukraine to use U.S. missiles to strike at targets inside Russian territory.
No U.S. President has ever authorized missile strikes on the territory of a nuclear peer country, ever. You wouldn’t know how historic Biden’s decision was from reading corporate media though, which “informs” its readers the same way a worm “informs” a cabbage.
Yesterday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov starkly said the United States could face "fatal consequences" if it ignores Moscow's warnings not to let Ukraine target Russian territory with Washington’s weapons. "I would like to warn American leaders against miscalculations that could have fatal consequences. For unknown reasons, they underestimate the seriousness of the rebuff they may receive," Ryabkov advised.
For some reason, Minister Ryabokov takes a dim view of U.S. officials. He suspects Washington thinks it is playing Call of Duty or something. “I urge these figures to spend some of their time, which they apparently spend on video games, judging by the lightness of their approach, on studying what was said in detail by President Putin," Ryabkov said.
I’ve been trying to warn them. Russia has been trying to warn them. Scott Ritter has been trying to warn them. But Biden’s hearing aids are out of batteries.
☕️ FLYING GARBAGE ☙ Tuesday, June 4, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
WaPo's woke reporting leads to surprise shakeup; Biden critic rudely de-passported; Hunter trial starts; SADS congressional cancer; Russian warnings over Ukr; Fauci comes to Congress; and LOTS more.
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Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) ran a story in contrasts yesterday, headlined “Putin: 'Nonsense' that Russia wants to attack NATO.” Since the Proxy War started, Putin is not often accurately quoted in Western media, and it was his first meeting with international media since February, 2022.
The occasion for the unprecedented interview was Russia’s 25th annual economic forum in St. Petersburg, an event aimed at Eastern European and Asian business development. The interview included reporters from unfriendly corporate media platforms Reuters and AFP.
"Don't form an image of Russia as an enemy," Putin advised the reporters. He denied rumors Russia would invade the entire world. “You have made up the fact that Russia wants to attack NATO. Have you completely lost your mind? Who made that up? It's rubbish. It's absolute nonsense."
Most importantly, Putin responded to Biden’s recent decision to allow Ukraine to fire U.S. missiles right into Russia’s sovereign territory. Putin plainly explained the simple calculus: "If you want to stop the hostilities in Ukraine, stop supplying weapons."
Then, he suggested Russia’s possible counter-move. "If someone sends such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us,” he wondered, “then why don’t we have the right to send our weapons of the same class to regions of the world where strikes can be made on sensitive facilities of these same countries?"
In other words, Putin noticed that just as the U.S. is arming Ukraine with better, modern, high-tech weapons to fire into Russia, Russia can similarly supply better, modern, high-tech weapons to the U.S.’s enemies, like Iran and North Korea. Which would cause huge headaches for the world’s police force, the United States.
The very last thing Israel and South Korea need is better-armed antagonists.
One suspects Biden and his insulated war planners are like chimpanzees trying to play checkers. Who is advising them? It’s like they simplistically concluded, Russia can’t do anything, so let’s go for it. But now that they’ve moved up one square, Putin is showing them his move, which jumps four checker pieces.
And as DW insightfully noted, coincidentally Russia is planning a naval exercise in the Caribbean, just off Florida’s coast, with visits to Venezuela and Cuba. CBS headline, two days ago:
How will Antony Blinken like it if Putin arms the Cubans with hypersonic missiles?
Next, they asked the Russian President about Donald Trump’s recent conviction in Manhattan. President Putin said the Verdict showed the US was "burning themselves from the inside, their state, their political system."
Finally, DW quoted Putin’s comments about nuclear war, brought up by the reporters. “You keep accusing us of waving some kind of nuclear stick," Putin calmly said. "Did I raise the possibility of using nuclear weapons? No, it was you who did that. You reporters raise this topic and then write that I am waving a nuclear stick."
Answering the question, President Putin criticized the U.S.’s total lack of diplomacy in light of the apocalyptic stakes: "We have a nuclear doctrine. If someone's actions threaten our sovereignty and territorial integrity, we consider it possible for us to use all means at our disposal. This cannot be taken lightly. It must be handled professionally."
There has been a two-year embargo on anything Putin says. You won’t find Putin’s comments anywhere in U.S. corporate media. But it is telling and significant that Western media — in this case, Germany’s DW — interviewed and fairly quoted the Russian President.
The stark difference between Biden’s warmongering D-Day comments and Putin’s calm, careful calls for peace and diplomacy could not be more obvious. At this point, I’d take a class of middle schoolers over Biden’s neocons.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the good news is that the Russians remain sane.
☕️ STORMS ☙ Friday, June 7, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
D-Day veterans survive Biden campaign speech; international reporters interview Putin and inadvertently draw comparisons; reliable corporate media narrative pusher questions climate science, and more.
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Droning Russia’s nuke radars is the dumbest thing Ukraine can doAttacks on the early warning system actually highlights the fragility of peace between the world's nuclear powers
For a fleeting moment on May 22 the world may have come closer to a catastrophic nuclear accident due to a reckless Ukrainian drone attack on two Russian strategic nuclear early warning radars at Armavir.
Fortunately, a subsequent Ukranian drone attack on a third radar station at Orsk in Russia on May 26 failed.
The incidents underscore a few important things. First, the Ukrainians could have needlessly sparked a crisis in which the Russians, feeling like one of their defenses against a U.S. nuclear attack, were down, struck back hard in retaliation. And second, it highlights the need for Russians to acquire comprehensive space-based nuclear radar of their own.
What happened and what it means
The Ukrainian attack at Armavir was a big deal. It shut down both Russian radars immediately. And it’s likely that within minutes of the attack, an emergency meeting took place with the commander of the Russian strategic rocket forces along with his highest-level officers.
The attacks should not be taken lightly, and President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken should be giving this special attention.
Even after decades of expensive Russian attempts to build a space-based early warning system that could provide global surveillance of U.S. submarine missile launches, Russia has been unable to marshal the extremely specialized high-technologies needed to build such a system.
To in part deal with this serious shortfall in Russia’s nuclear early warning capabilities, Vladimir Putin himself initiated and publicly supported a highly visible national effort to build a dense and capable nuclear strategic early warning radar system that utilizes numerous giant radars (typically about 30 to 35 meters high).
Since these radars basically form the singular foundation of Russia’s strategic nuclear early warning capabilities, any tampering with their functions in any unpredictable global situation is accompanied by very grave risks of misinterpretations of intentions that could lead to a massive launch of Russian nuclear forces.
Figure 1 below shows a satellite photograph of the two radars at Armavir. The radar beam from what is labeled “Radar Fan 1” is pointing in a counterclockwise direction from North of roughly 125°. Radar Fan 2 is pointing in a clockwise direction from North of roughly 125°.
Putin Says There’s ‘No Need’ to Use Nuclear Weapons to Win the War in Ukraine
“Putin, whose forces have been making advances in eastern Ukraine in recent months, said he did not see the conditions for the use of such weapons and requested that people stop discussing the nuclear topic.”
But the leader of the world’s biggest nuclear power did not rule out changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine.
Russia could also test nuclear weapons, although he saw no need to do so right now.
Asked about how the west sees him as a villain, Putins said: ‘Let them be afraid’.
“Putin’s response came to a question from Sergei Karaganov, an influential Russian analyst, who asked if Putin should hold a ‘nuclear pistol to the temple’ of the West over Ukraine.
‘The use is possible in an exceptional case – in the event of a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. I don’t think that such a case has come. There is no such need’, Putin said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
‘But this doctrine is a living tool and we are carefully watching what is happening in the world around us and do not exclude making some changes to this doctrine. This is also related to the testing of nuclear weapons’.”
Eject, eject, eject! Last week, Politico ran this unintentionally hilarious Proxy War headline: “Ukraine frustrated with US over F-16 pilot training.” Among other things.
A running Proxy War theme greatly amusing the warbloggers is the endless cycle of euphoria that always begins with media celebrations over some game-changing weapons system to be provided to Ukraine. Shortly after delivery, the new wonder weapon inevitably fizzles out, just like a 200 million dollar M1 Abrams tank mired in the Ukrainian mud.
Then, the media always claims it was never that big of a deal in the first place. And moves on to the next high-tech wonder weapon. Rinse, cycle, repeat.
Of all the game-changing weapons systems glowingly predicted to turn things around for Ukraine, there was one that stood out above the others, a master weapon to rule them all, the high-tech wingman that Ukraine needed most to help it show those wily Russians who they were messing with: the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
To say former Ukraine president Zelensky has been anxious to get his tiny hands on some free U.S. fighter planes would be an exercise in understatement. The F-16 Fighting Falcon retails for an affordable $80 million dollars out of the hangar, not including missiles, maintenance, or delivery charges.
But alas, some problems have popped up on the runway.
The biggest problem is that American flyers aren’t allowed to fly the damned things. American pilots flying American fighter jets launching American missiles at Russian military assets would break the rules. Thus, Ukrainians must fly the planes.
Needless to say, flying F-16s isn’t like driving a golf cart. It’s hard even if you’re sober. They are possibly the most difficult and demanding mode of transportation ever invented, where even tiny errors can be fatal and wildly expensive. If Top Gun taught us anything, it’s that it takes years of training and mad skills to graduate a new fighter pilot.
So that’s one problem. But now, Politico reports, it seems Ukraine’s jet fighter pilots didn’t sign up on the Top Gun program’s application website in time:
We’re still training them anyway, slowly, in small groups. However, the graduation rate isn’t encouraging. They expect to have the first full squad of fighter pilots by the end of next year:
That prediction might seem obvious, even wildly optimistic, given that Ukrainians aren’t known for air combat skills. But the long training lead time wasn’t obvious to corporate media. Last September, the AP predicted Ukraine’s F-16s would already be taking it to the Ruskies:
On top of the now-delayed timeline, and possible worse news for Ukraine, the F-16 narrative from anonymous U.S. officials is unpromising. The officials quoted carefully shrank expectations for the new F-16 fighter jets, miniaturizing the deadly air fighters from game-changer status down to just a teeny tiny “increment of capability”:
Note the journalistic sleight of hand in the quote above. They softened the negative impact by slyly sliding in — without citing a source — that officials have warned for months the F-16s won’t make much difference anyway. So. No biggie.
It’s a mental trick. By dropping in the phrase “officials have warned for months,” Politico’s reporter gave the impression that this isn’t news, everybody already knows it. But that’s not true, at all. Lies! A mere three weeks ago, Business Insider mendaciously called the F-16s’ now-incremental capability a vital role that would personally humiliate Russia’s president:
A month before that, military think tank GIS Reports misleadingly predicted that F-16s would change the war:
Early last year, ABC wrongly described how the ill-fated fighters would “turn the tide:”
I can’t end this chain of journalistic disgrace without quoting CNN, whose humiliating headline even included the fateful words “game changer:”
To cap the story off, the F-16s are only the latest grim example of broken Biden promises. In January of last year, Biden vowed Ukraine would not receive any F-16s, since that would be too much of an escalation. CBS headline from January 23, 2023:
Last year, President Robert L. Peters said, “nyet:”
I’ll grant you it’s fair to wonder whether Biden even knows what he’s saying most of the time. He might have just thought he was answering a question about whether he’d reached his hair-sniffing limit yet. But I will maintain the dignity of this blog and assume the leader of the free world understood what planet he was on.
There’s a lot you could say about all this official lying. Biden’s shrinking group of defenders would say he changed his mind, which presumes he has a mind to change. They would say the media, well, what can they say about the media? The best you can say about official F-16 policy is that the U.S. is totally reactive, with no plan, and the unshameable, lizard-lipped media continues lyingly covering for our wandering war schemes and official dissembling.
☕️ BAGGING IT ☙ Sunday, June 9, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Trump mystery juror update, kind of; Hunter trial update; Texas GOP W's; bird flu origin; jabs cause worse covid; Ukraine's F-16 plans crashing and burning; WWIII war weapons look trashy; and more.
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NGOs are the new way for the govt to do its dirty work.
Welcome to the new bizarro world, where left is right, right is wrong, and everything is upside down and topsy-turvy. To set the dining table, recall that last week, without a shred of public discussion and without consulting anyone except his traditional neocon toadies, in secret, Biden armed the Ukrainian army with missiles to shoot into Russian cities. Apparently unsatisfied with having dared the Russians to object to U.S. missiles flying across their breakfast tables, completely spoiling Russians’ morning blini, Biden is still sprinting the wrong way up the nuclear war escalator.
Azov recruitment poster
The alleged President of the United States, the free world’s bastion of freedom and democracy, the shining light upon the hill, the country that saved the world from the German Chancellor with the funny mustache, is now officially and literally arming nazis.
In a story describing Ukraine’s infamous Azov Battalion only as “a one-time militia with a checkered past,” the Washington Post ran this understated headline: “U.S. lifts weapons ban on Ukrainian military unit.”
A military unit! Not even a “controversial” military unit!
The article competed for being WaPo’s shortest story, offering only a few terse paragraphs. There’s so much that could have been said about Azov, including easily obtained, eye-popping visuals like the one I included above, all fussily ignored by WaPo’s editors.
In WaPo’s few short paragraphs, the corporate media platform never applied the N— word directly to Azov. Instead, it reported the goose-stepping regiment as having “far-right and ultra-nationalist roots,” which is the same generic label it often slaps on Americans attending a MAGA rally.
A long-standing federal statute — the Leahy Law — sensibly bars any U.S. military aid to foreigners who ever committed serious human rights violations. So up until now, the deal with Ukraine logically prohibited giving any of our U.S. high-tech weapons to the Azovs, who not only believe in literal Hitlerian Nazism, but since 2014 were busy little nazis overrunning western Ukraine, where they committed countless serious human rights abuses against Russian-speaking people, which President Putin often claims was one of the reasons for the invasion in the first place.
Following a short but disastrous flirtation and betrayal between Stalin and Hitler at the start of World War II, Russians have always hated Nazis. Especially Nazis who rape and pillage their comrades with the official imprimatur and support of Ukraine’s government.
But like Alfred E. Neuman always said, don’t worry! The State Department’s neocons have now given Azov the all clear. Apparently, Azov’s stormtroopers have refrained from war crimes for a short while, and they aren’t even really the Azov battalion at heart, so it’s all okay now:
To reach its abhorrent conclusion, the morally flexible State Department performed some legalistic sleight of hand, redefining the current Azov Battalion as different from the old pre-war one.
Why do this now? My best guess is that Biden’s Neocon Brigade thinks this is a way to hurt Russia, by turning the propaganda knife in the nazi wound, and siding with Russia’s historic enemies even while preposterously insisting the Azovs are reformed nazis, and not nazis per se.
The WaPo briefly acknowledged how badly the Russians are likely to take this sordid development:
Forget about the Russians. How will the rest of the world view this new Biden escalatory scheme? Arming Nazis evokes a level of hypocrisy and moral flexibility undermining the credibility of America’s status as a world “leader.” If the party that prides itself on “liberal values” is willing to arm literal Nazis whenever it's geopolitically convenient, what does that say about the Democrats’ true priorities and beliefs?
The well-worn Pogo meme is, in this case, directly appropriate, thanks to one Joseph Robinette Biden:
In the cartoon’s original version, sketched for 1971’s Earth Day, the leaves were labeled with words like "morals", "ethics", and "values.” Walt Kelly’s now famous slogan was a twist on an old military chestnut, "We have met the enemy, and he is ours,” long attributed to American Naval Officer Oliver Hazard Perry in 1813.
Biden and his State Department Necons want to slice this maneuver very thinly by simply pretending that the Azovs aren’t Nazis, despite everybody knowing perfectly well that is just a lie of convenience. By arming neo-Nazi insurgents like the Azov Battalion, Biden is shamefully turning America into the very evil it fought in World War II.
Chalk this up as one more red line over which Biden has wandered. I’ll ask again: Where is Congress?
☕️ MEETING THE ENEMY ☙ Tuesday, June 11, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Unbelievable, immoral new Proxy War escalation; poor Biden polling; more about the 9th's great decision; Florida winning in culture wars; the rest of EU joins France in conservative resurgence; more.
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