Daily cartoon / meme roundup: The top tweet is what a real threat of losing freedom looks like.

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Scottie’s world today

lived to be faact check by boy buns

I worked on this all day and only got through a third of the web sites. There is such a back long I did not even get to the fun ones. I will start early in the morning and try to plow through them to get some more fun ones for everyone. Best wishes and my very best hopes for the Ukrainians.

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Hey maskholes, truckholes and gun fetishists: THIS is what the threat of losing freedom looks like. https://t.co/RPXfyYRpyi

— Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger) February 24, 2022

Andy Marlette for Feb 23, 2022

Andy Marlette for Feb 22, 2022

Andy Marlette for Feb 21, 2022

Putrid campaign ads

Political cartoon

Andy Marlette for Feb 24, 2022

before and after putin

Trump is putin big fan

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destroy you from within.

mexico would like a word

Russian land stealers

Political cartoon

Reaching for a deadly book

it wont stop at the schools

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When the fence fails

before another god impregnates you

what is freedom of religion

selling a gun mean murder

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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes

The right wing wants to blunt the push to lower college costs and to cancel student loan debts. Look we tell people to get ahead they need an education. Then we make getting that education very hard to get for most people, well out of their price range. Then we allow predatory lending practices especially for the fly by night schools that don’t even graduate students or have jobs programs to charge huge fees and interest. It is all to make sure only the wealthy can get ahead. That only the wealthy can send their kids to higher educations, while poor families face the fact that their kids will have labor or menial jobs. The idea is the lower incomes children will work for and serve the higher income’s children. The other thing this does is promote profit for the lenders instead of that money going to help the economy and giving the people with these loans the chance to live decent lives instead of being financially destroyed by high interest loans.

This is the right wing misinformation media cartoonist Rivers. Need I even address it? While members of the right dress up as Nazis and carry their flag / symbols he accuses the left of doing so. While the right wing defends Putin invading a free and sovereign nation he accuses the left of being Nazis. The whole thing is a projection and an attempt to deflect from the actions from the right, tRump, and Putin.

Now he makes the same claim against Canada’s leader.

Again this is Rivers a far right delusional cartoonist. Here he makes the claim that Canada is an authoritarian nation worse than the Nazis. Well he does like Nazis.

I do not put much stock in this narrative any more. As the population in rural areas shrink it would seem those able would leave, and it maybe that the remaining older people might be stronger Republicans. But the population centers and the over all population in the US remains Democratic. I think this is an attempt to discourage Democrats in the rural areas to keep them from voting and to make the right wing feel stronger than they are.

The right wing media so badly misconstrued the Durham filing that he has to make a new filing explaining that he did not assert the things Fox and other far right media was saying he had claimed. The need by / on the right for something to support tRump’s wild claims and show that he never should have been investigated for the crimes and corruption he committed is so great they have resorted to making things up. But when the rest of the media doesn’t report their fantasys and made up stories they claim the media is bias and wont show things that cast tRump in a good light.

The Durham filing never claimed Hillary or her people spied on tRump. This is another creation of Fox media hosts. The techs looking into the servers at the White House were hired by the White House during the Obama presidency. But you can not gin up outrage by talking about techs hired to look at the traffic on a server by President Obama so they made up a story that would rile up the base.

The right wing has such a warped view of science, biology, and pregnancy they think an abortion is the murder of a human. I have been arguing with a right winger that claims the second of egg and sperm meeting the result is a human baby. Not the potential for one, but is one right then. That then leads to any sex is an attempt to make a baby.

Yes the price of fuel is rising fast. There is a war happening. Stocks are tumbling. Rivers is a right wing media cartoonist who appears to support Putin in this conflict. It is going to get worse. But the US and the world has no choice, we can not let Putin get away with invading a sovereign democratic nation. It will not only embolden him but every wannbe dictator on the planet.

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The sanctions that the US and the other countries being implemented will hurt Russia and the oligarchs badly. I doubt that it will cause Russia to withdraw from Ukraine but as Biden said these are sanctions that will hurt more over time. The longer Putin stays in Ukraine the weaker Russia will get and the weaker Putin’s hold on power will get. I think Putin misjudged the will of the rest of the advanced nations.

Those “sacred cows” didn’t commit treason by attempting to overthrow the government. And those “sacred cows” are fighting for civil equality and justice, not fighting to overturn a fair election under false pretenses. It’s sad when someone tries to compare Trump traitors to people who want the right not to be murdered by the police.

twclix Premium Member about 5 hours ago

@mlester101Mike, you really screwed this one up. The January 6 insurrection was a traitorous effort to support a lying psychopathic malignant narcissist in his effort to overthrow a clean election.

The BLM riots were violent, but much of the violence was instigated by right wing agitators and fools like Kyle Rittenhouse. And why the violence? Not because of a lying psychotic politician. But because of persistent embedded police violence towards Black citizens. Had the January 6 insurrectionists been Black, they all would have been killed before they got inside the Capitol.

Your defense of them shows you are in league with men like Putin and trump. That speaks to deficiencies that make me seriously question your character and your integrity.

The attempt to form an equivalence between an attempt to overthrow a valid federal election with the race riots inspired by right wing agitators and their BLM counterparts is simply wrong. There is no equivalence.

The BLM folks don’t want to be shot and killed by police anymore. They’ve had enough. It doesn’t excuse what a few rioters did, but it is completely understandable, and a civil matter.

On the other hand your insurrectionists were supporting baseless, pernicious lies that you and your ilk have been spreading. They are an open, obvious threat to the United States of America.

I find it hard to believe you cannot discern the difference between race riots and treason.

Why do you hate American aspirational morality, and spout such lying, destructive garbage?

Clearly you’ve been propagandized and brainwashed, but that’s no excuse. If the US survives you and your type, historians will look back at you with open disdain for having supported the destruction of our democracy by a lying psychopath and his fawning media support.

(Oh, and Mike, you are clearly a prime example of the fawning media that supports lies and treason.)

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And now some for fun

Sanctions 2.0

Eight years ago, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the U.S. and its allies harshly condemned the invasion and imposed economic sanctions on Russia.

It barely seemed to matter.

Russia still controls Crimea. Russia’s economy, after going through a recession, soon started growing again. President Vladimir Putin remains firmly in control of his government — and has now begun another invasion, this time of eastern Ukraine.

In response, President Biden yesterday announced a new set of sanctions, imposed in tandem with Britain and the European Union. Putin’s aggression, Biden said, is “a flagrant violation of international law, and it demands a firm response from the international community.” Biden also signaled that more sanctions may follow.

The obvious question is whether these sanctions will be any more effective than the earlier ones. Today’s newsletter lays out the possibilities.

The 2014 sanctions against Russia did have some effect — arguably more than many people have realized. They made it harder for Russian banks to obtain foreign loans and restricted Western companies from working with Russian oil companies, among other steps.

By the summer of 2014, Russia’s economy was shrinking, and it continued shrinking for two years. The value of the ruble plunged on global markets, increasing the price of many goods for companies and consumers. Russian businesses had a harder time raising money for new projects.

These economic problems seem to have softened Putin’s domestic support. His approval rating among Russians initially surged after the Crimea invasion — to around 80 percent — before falling. It has hovered between 60 percent and 65 percent for much of the past two years, according to the Levada Center. Last year, opposition groups held some of the largest protests of Putin’s nearly two decades in power.

The sanctions might even have been painful enough to have deterred Putin from invading eastern Ukraine in 2014, which he seemed to be planning, as Anders Aslund and Maria Snegovaya have argued in an Atlantic Council report.

“In 2014, when Putin invaded Ukraine the first time and annexed Crimea, the West acted too slowly and timidly initially,” Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, told me yesterday.

One reason is that the 2014 sanctions were the product of negotiations with European countries that wanted to be more cautious than the U.S. The sanctions were also intentionally narrow, designed to hurt sectors of the economy with close ties to Putin’s regime while minimizing the effect on most Russians and on the global economy.

The reality is that for sanctions to have big political repercussions, they often need to be harsh. “‘Smart’ or ‘targeted’ sanctions won’t work,” Edward Fishman and Chris Miller, two international-relations experts, recently wrote in Politico. “To really impose pain on Russia, the U.S. and Europe will have to bear some burden, too — although, fortunately, there are ways to minimize the fallout for Western economies.”

Biden acknowledged as much in his remarks at the White House yesterday. “Defending freedom will have costs, for us as well and here at home,” he said. “We need to be honest about that.” He added that he would take steps intended to minimize the increase in gas prices.

This is the approach that the U.S. took toward Iran more than a decade ago. It imposed tough sanctions, despite their likely effect on world oil markets and the damage to Iranians’ living standards. Those sanctions helped push Iran’s regime to negotiate over its nuclear program.

In Russia’s case, a more aggressive set of sanctions would start with a refusal to buy its oil — by far Russia’s biggest revenue source — perhaps phased in to mitigate the price increases on global markets. It could also involve restricting exports to Russia, like automobile parts and computers, or forbidding other banks from working with Russian banks.

More to come?

Which path are Biden and the E.U. choosing?

For now, they have imposed sanctions that Biden said went beyond the 2014 sanctions while still falling well short of what the U.S. and Europe could impose. The measures include blocking Russia’s government from borrowing money in Western financial markets and cutting off two large Russian banks from the U.S. financial system.

(My colleague Edward Wong has more details here. And Peter Coy of Times Opinion has written that isolating banks can be an effective tool.)

In the short term, those sanctions will almost certainly not cause Putin to stop menacing Ukraine. “Russia right now is sitting on quite a pile of extra cash,” Melissa Eddy, a Times correspondent in Berlin, told my colleague Claire Moses. “They have a war chest.”

But there are two big uncertainties: whether the sanctions hurt Russia’s economy once that war chest is drawn down; and whether the U.S. and Europe will impose tougher sanctions if Putin continues his war.

“The U.S. and the E.U. have worked hard over eight weeks to pull together what would be a serious, painful, massive package of sanctions that is designed to hurt,” Steven Erlanger, The Times’s chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, told us. They have not yet enacted all of those potential sanctions. But yesterday’s announcement, Steven added, “gives them room to hit Putin harder if he does more.”

Biden vowed yesterday to follow that strategy: “If Russia goes further with this invasion,” he said, “we stand prepared to go further.”

I want to thank Nan for the information above. This is from the New York Times. I hope it displays correctly it was a beast to get into the page. I did notice something I want to emphasize in the map. The area under control of the separatists is not the same as the area that Putin declared independent. The separatists actually controlled far less territory than Putin annexed. But it is not really important as Putin is now attacking the capital city Kyiv. He is trying to scare the Ukrainian government into surrendering. If not he will do it the hard way. At this point he is not going to leave without getting what he wants. There has already been Ukrainian deaths, but there will be a lot more.

Black Transgender Woman FINALLY Gets Justice For Sham Arrest

An Atlanta police officer was ordered to pay $1.5 million to a Black transgender woman who was falsely imprisoned for trafficking cocaine back in 2015. Ju’Zema Goldring claimed she was racially profiled and targeted based on her race and sexual orientation and was able to prove that in court since the officer found no trace of cocaine anywhere in her purse even after spending almost six months in prison.
“A federal jury ordered an Atlanta police officer to pay $1.5 million to Ju’Zema Goldring, who said she was profiled and falsely arrested for identifying as a Black, transgender woman. Goldring’s attorneys say she was walking with friends in October 2015 when two Atlanta Police Department officers stopped her for jaywalking, which Goldring denies she committed. Officers found a “stress ball” in her purse and tested it for cocaine. Goldring’s attorneys said officers charged Goldring with trafficking cocaine despite receiving a negative test result. Goldring spent nearly six months in jail. She was released when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation independently conducted a test, which attorneys said failed to detect cocaine. Attorneys also conducted tests in front of a jury at the trial.”

Prosecutors fight to keep Michigan school shooting suspect, 15, in adult jail

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/prosecutors-fight-keep-michigan-school-shooting-suspect-15-adult-jail-rcna17280

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/prosecutors-fight-keep-michigan-school-shooting-suspect-15-adult-jail-rcna17280

The 15-year-old accused in the deadly mass shooting at his suburban Detroit high school in November should be kept in adult jail as he awaits trial, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Kelly Collins said during a hearing about the teenager’s confinement that he’s demonstrated he can be calculating, has a desire to be remembered for his alleged crimes, and enjoys the notoriety the case has brought him, including email from women.

“How to do I get my fan mail, how do I get my hate mail”? he has said, according to Collins.

He has “a deeper and more calculated mind than any other 15-year-old,” she argued in court.

The teenager’s defense team formally asked the court that he be transferred from Oakland County jail to Children’s Village in Pontiac.

Collins said the teen already killed four classmates at Oxford High School on Nov. 30 and that teenagers at the juvenile facility would be put in danger that is “contrary to the rehabilitation of those at Children’s Village.”

“He enjoyed his dark side,” Collins said. “He’s fascinated with violence.”

The teenager’s defense team said he’s hardly been in direct contact with anyone, except his lawyers, since he’s been in jail, despite a possible need for psychiatric supervision.

“The jail is not equipped with handling juveniles,” attorney Paulette Loftin said during the hearing.

She said he was removed from “constant watch” in jail. His lawyers indicated in a court filing they plan to pursue an insanity defense.

Because the defendant had no prior criminal or disciplinary school record to speak of, Loftin said, he should be allowed to wait for trial in the children’s facility with defendants his age.

Loftin argued that because many of the people sending him email are women, such communication could be better supervised if he was held at Children’s Village.

“These are emails from strangers all around the world,” Loftin said. “At Children’s Village we are able to control that communication.”

Loftin did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.

Judge Kwame Rowe said he would make a decision in the upcoming days.

The suspect, Ethan Crumbley, has pleaded not guilty to two dozen charges, including murder. His parents are also being jailed on four counts each of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting. They have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The 15-year-old accused in the deadly mass shooting at his suburban Detroit high school in November should be kept in adult jail as he awaits trial, prosecutors say. https://t.co/EqL8YBLsw1
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 23, 2022

House panel OKs revised ban on videotaping police

https://apnews.com/article/death-of-george-floyd-business-george-floyd-arizona-appropriations-b4621082646129729a5900ee985b168c

So no civilian oversite and never video the cops breaking the laws. Think of it, the police were never held accountable until there was video evidence of their crimes. And they do illegal acts, plant drugs and weapons on people, kill unarmed black people shoot people running away and they often file false reports. The police want that halo of not being challenged as the good guys we had in the 1950s before we understood reality of cops. So they want to stop the public from filming them. This is a horrible idea

An Arizona House committee on Monday approved a proposed law that would make it illegal to make video recordings of police in many circumstances after the Republican sponsor made changes he said were designed to address constitutional concerns.

The original proposal from Rep. John Kavanagh made it illegal to record within 15 feet of an officer interacting with someone unless the officer gave permission.

Kavanagh said the amendment he offered that was adopted by the House Appropriations Committee Monday lowers the distance to 8 feet. It also allows someone who is in a car stopped by police or is being questioned to tape the encounter and limits the scope of the types of police actions that trigger the law to only those that are possibly dangerous.

He said the 8-foot limit was based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case involving abortion protesters.

“I think this fully conforms with constitutionality and weighs officer safety with the citizens’ right, the public’s right, to see law enforcement officers in action,” Kavanagh said.

Media groups including The Associated Press said the measure raises serious constitutional issues. They signed onto a letter from the National Press Photographers Association in opposition to the bill.

“We are extremely concerned that this language violates not only the free speech and press clauses of the First Amendment, but also runs counter to the ‘clearly established right’ to photograph and record police officers performing their official duties in a public place,” the letter said.

Letting an officer decide on the spot what First Amendment-protected activity should be allowed would be problematic in many situations, the letter said.

If enacted with the original 15-foot limit, some of the people who video-recorded former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck in 2020 might have been affected. The recording was key evidence that led to Chauvin’s conviction on second-degree murder and other charges.

Kavanagh’s bill makes a violation a petty offense, the lowest-level Arizona crime that can bring a fine but no jail time. Refusing to stop recording when an officer orders it would be a low-level misdemeanor subject to a 30-day jail sentence.

The Appropriations Committee voted 7-5 on party lines, with no Democratic backing to approve the bill. It now goes to the Rules Committee for a routine constitutional review and then to the House floor.

An Arizona House committee approved a proposed law that would make it illegal to make video recordings of police in many circumstances. https://t.co/VXlR8cTdNi
— FOX 10 Phoenix (@FOX10Phoenix) February 22, 2022

Biden: Sanctions To Target Russian Elites, Banks, Debt

Biden: Sanctions To Target Russian Elites, Banks, Debt

The Washington Post reports:

President Biden announced new sanctions on Russia on Tuesday after its moves against Ukraine, saying the actions amounted to a “flagrant violation of international law.”

In imposing economic penalties on Russia, the United States joins European allies in responding to Russia’s deployment of troops into two pro-Russian separatist regions of eastern Ukraine. Biden called Russia’s actions the “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Biden said a “first tranche” of U.S. sanctions against Russia would target two financial institutions, Russian sovereign debt and Russian elites and their family members.

The New York Times reports:

Mr. Biden said the United States is imposing “full blocking” on two large Russian financial institutions and “comprehensive sanctions” on Russian debt.

“That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western finance,” he said. “It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either.”

He also said that the United States would impose sanctions on Russian elites and their families, an effort to ensure that those closest to Mr. Putin do not escape financial pain that is expected to hit hard for average Russian citizens.

I am impressed. These are not small steps or weak words. Biden stood strong and firm and warned the country that defending democracy is going to come at a cost and it is going to hurt in some ways. I don’t think Russia / Putin expected this. I don’t think he thought the gas pipeline was threatened. These sanction will hurt the oligarchs which will threaten Putin’s hold on the country.

Says Joe Biden risks war with Russia because Vladimir Putin doesn’t “believe in transgender rights.”

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/21/jd-vance/jd-vance-says-transgender-rights-drives-looming-co/

Senatorial candidate JD Vance speaks at a rally in Mason, Ohio. (AP)

JD Vance says transgender rights drives looming conflict in Ukraine

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance said the State Department’s focus on transgender rights is inflaming the conflict with Russia in Ukraine.

Russia has placed as many as 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders.

Russia has said Ukraine’s ties to NATO are a key threat to Russia’s national security.

As the prospect of a ground war hangs over Ukraine, Ohio Senate hopeful JD Vance said he doesn’t “really care what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other.”

Speaking to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Vance, a Marine veteran, said there’s no reason for U.S. military intervention.

“We didn’t not serve in the Marine Corps to go and fight Vladimir Putin because he didn’t believe in transgender rights,” Vance said Feb. 19. “Which is what the U.S. State Department is saying is a major problem with Russia.”

Vance went on to say he is “sick of Joe Biden focusing” on Ukraine at the expense of dealing with problems on the border with Mexico.

Whatever the troubles on America’s southern border, Russia’s transgender policies are not affecting the current tensions in Ukraine.

The U.S. and its NATO allies estimate that since last spring, Russia has moved as many as 150,000 troops within striking distance of Ukraine’s borders.

“That is by any means, by any estimate, a massive number of forces,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Feb. 16. “We also know that the Russians have capabilities when it comes to electronic warfare, when it comes to aerial capabilities, any number of tactics they could employ, whether on their own or together as part of a broader onslaught.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said a Russian attack could come at any moment, if Russia wanted.

“They have enough troops and enough capabilities to launch a full fledged invasion of Ukraine with very little or no warning time,” Stoltenberg said Feb. 17. “That is what makes the situation so dangerous.”

President Joe Biden has said the warnings of war are aimed at forestalling it.

“We’re calling out Russia’s plans loudly and repeatedly, not because we want a conflict, but because we’re doing everything in our power to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine and prevent them from moving,” Biden said Feb. 18.

Europe hasn’t seen sustained warfare on its turf since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and that didn’t involve the prospect of Russian forces driving combat operations. With Ukraine, the potential scale of a military conflict is orders of magnitude bigger.