This has not gotten the attention I felt it should have so I am posting it again. The Us is in this conflict up to its eyeballs so why not step in all the way and save the people. Stop the torture and stop the rapes. I still am struggling with the idea of a preteen with their teeth pulled out that was repeatedly reported when the Russians withdrew. I have not heard one reason not to go in that is not based on fear that Russia will lash out at the countries that do. Guess what they already are. I have heard people say they don’t want to extend the area of conflict but guess what Russia already did. Don’t let Russia set the rules, these are people that torture, rape, and terrorize civilians. Don’t let the worst people make the rules the rest of the world lives by. You have already seen what Russia is willing to do by violating their gas and oil contracts to hurt other countries. How much of Europe is the world willing to let Putin have? Where you see pictures in the below quoted story there are videos on the linked page. Please go to the link to see the videos.
Ukrainian forces have used specific coordinates shared by the U.S. to direct fire on Russian positions and aircraft, current and former officials tell NBC News.
As Russia launched its invasion, the U.S. gave Ukrainian forces detailed intelligence about exactly when and where Russian missiles and bombs were intended to strike, prompting Ukraine to move air defenses and aircraft out of harm’s way, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News.
That near real-time intelligence-sharing also paved the way for Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war, the officials say, helping repel a Russian assault on a key airport near Kyiv.
It was part of what American officials call a massive and unprecedented intelligence-sharing operation with a non-NATO partner that they say has played a crucial role in Ukraine’s success to date against the larger and better-equipped Russian military.
The details about the air defenses and the transport plane, which have not previously been reported, underscore why, two months into the war, officials assess that intelligence from U.S. spy agencies and the Pentagon has been an important factor in helping Ukraine thwart Russia’s effort to seize most of the country.
“From the get-go, we leaned pretty heavily forward in sharing both strategic and actionable intelligence with Ukraine,” a U.S. official briefed on the matter told NBC News. “It’s been impactful both at a tactical and strategic level. There are examples where you could tell a pretty clear story that this made a major difference.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said, “We are regularly providing detailed, timely intelligence to the Ukrainians on the battlefield to help them defend their country against Russian aggression and will continue to do so.”
NBC News is withholding some specific details that the network confirmed about the intelligence sharing at the request of U.S. military and intelligence officials, who say reporting on it could help the Russians shut down important sources of information.
“There has been a lot of real-time intelligence shared in terms of things that could be used for specific targeting of Russian forces,” said a former senior intelligence official familiar with the situation. The information includes commercial satellite images “but also a lot of other intelligence about, for example, where certain types of Russian units are active.”
Ukraine continues to move air defenses and aircraft nearly every day with the help of American intelligence, which is one reason Russia has not been able to establish air dominance. In some cases, Ukraine moved the targeted air defense systems or planes just in time, the officials said.
“The Russian military has literally been cratering empty fields where air defenses were once set up,” one U.S. official said. “It has had an enormous impact on the Russian military’s ability on the ground.”
While U.S.-Ukrainian cooperation had been building since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, the Biden administration shifted into high gear in the weeks before the Russian invasion, when a U.S. military team visited to assess the state of Ukraine’s air defenses. The Americans provided Ukraine with detailed advice about how to disperse their air defense systems, a move that U.S. officials say helped Ukraine prevent Russia from seizing control of the skies.
Once the invasion got underway, lawyers in the U.S. defense and intelligence bureaucracy imposed guidance that in some cases limited the sharing of targeting information that could enable lethal Ukrainian strikes against Russians. But as Russia’s aggression has deepened, and under pressure from Congress, all of those impediments have been removed, officials say.
Earlier this month, for example, the director of National Intelligence withdrew and replaced a memo that prohibited intelligence sharing for the purposes of regaining captured territory or aiding Ukrainian strikes in Crimea or the Donbas, officials said. NBC News was first to report on the expanded sharing.
Intel has helped Ukraine defend, and also attack
Even before the change, the U.S. had provided Ukraine with timely information enabling it to better target Russian forces.
Ukrainian forces have used specific coordinates shared by the U.S. to direct fire on Russian positions and aircraft, current and former officials tell NBC News.
Those early shoot-downs helped thwart the Russian air assault operation designed to take Hostomel Airport near Kyiv, which would have allowed the Russians to flood troops and equipment to the region around the capital. The Russians eventually took the airport for a time, but never had enough control to fly in massive amounts of equipment. That failure had a significant impact on the battle for Kyiv, U.S. officials say.
The CIA is also devoting significant resources, current and former officials say, to gathering intelligence with the aim of protecting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom the Russians want to kill. The agency is consulting with the Ukrainians on “how best to move him around, making sure that he’s not co-located with his entire chain of command, things like that,” a U.S. official said.
“I would say where we are at is revolutionary in terms of what we have been able to do,” Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress last month in describing the sharing of information and intelligence between the U.S. and Ukraine.
CIA Director William Burns told Congress last month that when he met with Zelenskyy in Kiev in January, “We shared with him intelligence we had at the time about some of the most graphic and concerning details of Russian planning about Kyiv as well and we’ve continued to do that every day since then.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last month that the U.S. has shared “a significant amount of detailed timely intelligence on Russia’s plans and activities with the Ukrainian government to help Ukrainians defend themselves,” adding that the material “includes information that should help them inform and develop their military response to Russia’s invasion, that’s what’s happening — or has been happening.”
The U.S. military and the CIA began seeking to deepen their relationships with Ukrainian counterparts after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. The CIA first helped Ukrainian services root out Russian spies, the former senior official said, and then provided training and guidance. The U.S. military also trained Ukrainian soldiers.
Ukrainian soldiers walk on a destroyed bridge in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, last week.Emilio Morenatti / AP
“There has been a very robust relationship between U.S. intel agencies and the Ukrainians for the last eight years,” the official said, adding that by the time Russia invaded two months ago, the U.S. trusted Ukraine enough to provide details of Russian troops’ deployment, attack routes and real-time targeting information.
“The foreknowledge we had of Russian plans and intentions shows that our intelligence was very solid on the overall situation,” said John McLaughlin, a former acting CIA director who now teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “So just logically, if we so earnestly want them to win as we have publicly said, it only follows that we’d be giving them the results of intelligence. It would be along the lines of, ‘Here’s what we know — it doesn’t matter how we know it.’”
One Western intelligence official noted that it’s not only the intelligence that has proven decisive — it’s the performance of the Ukrainians in using it. The source said Ukrainians have fought the Russians with agility and courage, and when they have received actionable intelligence, they have moved with astonishing speed.
McLaughlin said the Ukrainians have made clever use of so-called open-source intelligence — commercial satellite imagery and intercepts of Russians talking openly on unencrypted radios.
“The fact that there is so much open source [intelligence] available means that those collecting classified intelligence can focus on the things that are really hard and not publicly available.”
As the Ukrainian government sees it, intelligence sharing has improved, a source familiar with the government’s view told NBC News. That’s as far as he would go.
Again no CC. But the story is important. This is what happens in a country of uncontrolled capitalism where the wealthy get to suck every drop of money from the lower incomes. How is it acceptable that hedge funds bought up most of the housing in the US paying over market prices so they could then jack up rents. Builders see the profit and are buying up land at over market value. Cities are cracking down on homeless as more and more people have no where to live but in their cars or on the streets. Here where I live any wooded areas are being cleared out because the homeless set up camps in them, often at the risk of their lives. I have talked about James moving back home to afford housing even though he works every hour he can get at a county job. He talks about in three or five years moving from Florida. Ron and I want too also. But the where to go that is decent on a fixed income with what we can get for our home. More and more the governments at every level, local, state, federal are working for the wealthy to increase their wealth but do nothing for the people as we slide into desperation. This is why tRump won the first time, he spoke of helping the people. Democrats speak of that every four years but never do it. The Democrats have shown that most of them are corporate owned as much as the Republicans. Build Back Better would have helped the people out immensely and it would have cost less a year than the aid to Ukraine so far, but the wealthy / large corporations in the US cannot have the government helping the people. Businesses in the US need a desperate work force to make the most profit. The people must be kept desperate so they will accept any job at any low wage under any harsh conditions and be grateful they got it. Notice right after months of debate about giving the people of the country scraps, the congress then approved a 800 billion dollar plus military budget without any debate. None. Just passed it. A military we are now afraid to use in Ukraine to save those people. Why do we have it then and deny ourselves other services? Because the profit generated for the defense contractors. It comes down to what kind of country do we want, other advanced countries don’t live this way. Canada doesn’t? Mexico doesn’t either and we use to call them the poor people? Ever wonder why the immigrants at the southern border are not majority Mexicans? We are the ones with a lower standard of living now. They are growing better standards for their people; the US is regressing to the days of robber barons.
I am sorry there is no CC with this. The point of these stories are these are people living on the front lines that Russia is shelling. They cannot leave and have nowhere to go. They are old and disabled. They survive by the aid that gets brought to them. The area has no military targets yet Russia has kept up bombardments of the area. This is terrorism. The driving out of the population and making the death toll and pain as high as possible so the Ukrainians will give in. Russia doesn’t see a difference between military targets and civilians, it is all just targets. We have the ability to stop this. We have a duty to help stop it. Aid wont last, and military aid can not get there fast enough. The Ukrainians barely have half the bullets they need because their weapons don’t use the same ammo as Nato guns. Lets not only give them NATO guns, lets send in NATO troops to use them, to show the Ukrainians how to use our equipment. The Ukrainians are a democracy fighting to survive against someone who has threatened to take large parts of other countries. Do we just let Putin do it? And what about the next country that wants some of their neighbors’ lands? The strong protect the weak in a just world, those that can, have a responsibility to do. We can, and we have a responsibility to do so.
CNN’s Sam Kiley goes to Severodonetsk, Ukraine, a frontline city in the war with Russia, to talk to Ukrainians desperate for resources as they live amid Russian shelling.
Former President Donald Trump reportedly told state governors to “ask [him] nicely” for federal assistance and relief for natural disasters. Connecticut’s Democratic Governor Ned Lamont recounted his experience when asking Trump for help in restoring electricity to residents after a massive storm in 2020 while Trump provided FEMA aid to Florida and Texas without question. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“Former President Donald Trump made governors flatter him personally for federal aid after natural disasters, a new book says. The revelations are made in an upcoming book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, according to The Independent. In the book, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said Trump told governors who wanted aid: “You have to call and ask me nicely.” Hogan claimed that Trump had a policy in which only Texas and Florida, two states with governors Trump considered close allies, would be given federal aid when needed without question. Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut, a Democrat, recounted a similar experience, The Independent reported. Lamont said he asked the White House for assistance in obtaining federal disaster aid after a storm in August 2020 left parts of Connecticut without electrical power.”
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Greene blasted the Catholic Church in a recent interview, saying that Satan is controlling the church since they helped migrants and refugees find housing in the country. Greene accused the U.S. Catholic Church of illegally using taxpayer and federal funds to “assist in illegal immigration”.
“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tore into the Catholic Church in a recent interview with right-wing activist Michael Voris of Church Militant. In the wild interview, flagged online by Right Wing Watch, Greene charges “Satan’s controlling the church.” In a clip from the interview, Voris charges that U.S. Bishops “taken enormous sums of money from the federal government, federal taxpayers to assist in illegal immigration, some refugee resettlement also” to “essentially skirt around U.S. immigration laws.” “I thought we had a separation of church and state,” Greene said in response. “What it is, is Satan’s controlling the church,” Greene continued. Greene’s campaign website doesn’t list specifically what denomination of Christian is, but notes her “strong Christian faith.””
Fox News host Kennedy revealed the Republican Party’s master plan live in an appearance on the network, calling for an end to public schooling supplemented by the federal government. Republicans want nothing more than to privatize education and push marginalized groups, especially the poor and working classes, to the edges of society while rewriting curriculums to their liking. “Fox News host Kennedy just casually suggests that public schools should be eliminated. “A great time in our country’s history where we rethink whether or not we have public schools. Maybe we should not have the government involved in education at all.””
Red States like Tennessee are moving more and more money out of public education funding, opting to give the funding to private charter schools through vouchers and other means of fund diversion. The privatization of education has long been underway as the right-wing has been chipping away at teacher unions, panicking over CRT, and more recently, the accusations that LGBT teachers are ‘grooming’ children to be gay in public schools. Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks.
It is 3:30 PM my time. We stopped on the way home and picked up some wings of assorted flavors and after eating took a nap. Got up at three. I shut down the video computer and unplugged everything, Ron placed it on the table. I opened it all up and took the front off so Ron could clean it all up. Then I am going to replace the hard drive and see what I need to install an SSD drive. I have to replace the hard drive in it as I have an issue developing with it that I need to run a hard drive portioning / repairing program over it. Then I will shut down this one and let Ron clean the insides of it also as this one as the CPU chip is overheating in it. Ron cleaned both of them really well not too long ago but we have a long haired cat whose hair goes every / anywhere. When we took off the fan over the CPU heatsink the cat hair was matted into the fins of that. How I don’t know. I never had these troubles when I had my computers up on shelves. Seems being on floor level they become dirt magnets. I will be having them up off the floor in the new office.
The car saga. Remember we were told first the car was hit and then they couldn’t move it because they were waiting for the police to come and make a police report. Then we were told that an employee had rammed the car into a pole. But that meant they moved the car. It was staged so Ron wouldn’t see what it hit. We figured out why they only wanted one of us to see the car, so we couldn’t back each other up on what we seen. By only Ron saying what he seen, it is a he said they say issue. Then we were not able to find a police report, so we called the police, and the insurance company. The police said they were called there two days prior for an accident on the ground but not for our car ever. The insurance company said they would have been sent the police report automatically and were not.
So we took the loaner Lincoln car which is nice but has an all dark interior and drove to the dealership. As we drove up to the sales area there were two guys out front. I figured this was going to be easy because when we bought the car there they were more than happy to work a deal. Not this time. As I got out, I noticed neither guy walked up to us. As we started to the building one guy called out, “What are you guys looking for”? I said I was interested in the Escape hybrid Titanium with all the options. Guy looked at his phone and said he had an SEL and one other, both I understood to be midrange. I said no I would be ordering one if I were to buy. “No you won’t they have closed orders on 2022 Escape Hybrids” he said. I asked if other dealerships might have what we wanted and he shrugged. We don’t trade cars anymore as no one wants to do that as their own demand is too high, he told us. I was getting really pissed. He lost interest the minute he realized what I wanted, and he did not have it. I was getting angry. Did not even offer to help us into a different vehicle.
We drove further into the lot to the repair area and went in. We waited while they found the service advisor Deborah. Remember I called her three times yesterday and she never called us back. So when she walked up to us the first thing she said was she had a plumbing emergency at home and was not there yesterday, to which I turned to Ron and said they kept telling me she was, and they would deliver the message. Then seeing she was caught she was there in the morning but had to leave early. We understood emergencies but about 30 minutes later I would ask her about the water emergency and the story changed again. So I told her the reason I wanted her was mute because the dealership did not have the car we wanted and was unwilling to help us get one. I explained I wanted that detailed list of damages as I was going to go to other dealerships, even the other manufacturers to see if I could work a deal. Well that sent her into overdrive and she got us sitting down and went to talk to her manager again. When she got back she told us there was a waiting list for the 2022 Escape Hybrids and anyone still on the list was going to get the 2023-year ones automatically. Were we interested? I said yes. So she disappeared again. When she came back she said that she was to call a person named Shelly in the sales department and that she would try to work a deal to get us on the 2022 list to get a 2023 for the 2022 price. But you might not get delivery for 6 months or more she said. I said as long as the numbers are locked in and we either keep our Escape to drive or their Lincoln loaner I did not care. I told her to make me sad, have us drive their loaner Lincoln for 6 months. She laughed. But then I asked her about her water emergency and if there was a lot of damage. Oh no she replied they had an odor issue with their water as many on well water here do, so had new pipes and pump in the well all redone. But the smell was still there so the company was coming to bore out the pipes they had not changed. Which told me she knew she was taking the afternoon off for an appointment and did not have an emergency and just blew us off. She also managed to get away without giving us a detailed list of damage to our car. Seems they really do not want us to have that.
And now to shut off this computer for Ron to clean. Best wishes. Scottie
So yesterday morning I got off a few posts, we got busy going back and forth with the dealership. Found out what happened to the car on Friday but even though they said they would give it to us they have failed to turn over a detailed list of the damages. Turns out that an employee rammed it into a post. Plus the part of how they couldn’t move it was a lie as they moved it to where they showed it to Ron. We got home yesterday, ate, napped, and when we got up found we had no innerwebs for the rest of the day. Today we will spend checking out the new Ford Hybrid Escape. We will have to have the salespeople deal with the situation if we like the car, because I am too pissed off to be civil about it. So if the innerwebs are working when I get home and I feel halfway up to it, I will try to answer the growing comment list. There is a lot of great news happening including that Finland says they are readying for a Russian attack and the UE is thinking of having an article 5 clause. That would be one way to enter the Ukrainian conflict without being NATO that does it. The problem is the EU has some very sketchy countries in it right now. Until we meet again, best wishes.
Beau breaks down how much Gov. Abbott’s right wing grandstanding cost the people of Texas, hurt the US economy, helped shrink the US GNP like Putin wished he could do, all for nothing. They found no extra drugs, they found no illegals, but they did cause at least 7 deaths.
Scottie's Playtime 