Category: Gun Control
The world war is already here. The only question is are we doing enough?
We have sanctioned the president of the attacking country, we have sent arms to destroy the attacking armies tanks, we have given real time intel to help the defender to know where the attackers are. We are involved! We are not by standers. Think if the situation was reversed and we had invaded a country and others were doing what we are to help them, would we see it as being engaged in the war? Yes we would. So we are involved, we are engaged. We are only arguing about how much we want to put in. Right now we are the teen boy saying we will only put the tip in. It never works that way. We need to decide if the 758 billion plus we as a nation spend each year on the US military is worth it. If not, if we are scared to use them because someone else threatens to use theirs, then we need to drastically reduce what we spend on a useless military and return that money to the people as government services such as universal health care and food / housing / education security. The US people don’t have these rights because we have such a large military, the largest in the world by more than the next 12 countries, yet we are afraid to say no to the killing of children and old people? If that is the case it is not worth it.
Ukraine says 300 died in theater attack, hunger grips cities
A man rides a bicycle as black smoke rises from a fuel storage of the Ukrainian army following a Russian attack, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)U.S. President Joe Biden says after meeting with NATO and G-7 leaders that more aid is being sent to Ukraine and that a chemical attack by Russia “would trigger a response in kind.” (March 24)A Ukrainian soldier undergoes surgery after being injured as the Russian attack continues in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)At least one house was destroyed, and others caught fire, as Russia continued its relentless shelling of Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities. (March 24)A member of the Ukraine territorial defense unit prepares to go to the front line in Yasnogorodk, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)Medical staff transfer an injured Ukrainian soldier to the operating room as the Russian attack continues in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)A Ukrainian soldier lays on the operating table before surgery after being injured as the Russian attack continues in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)Farmer Valerie Puzakovi, 56, left, poses for a picture with his wife Svitalna, a few block from their home in Yasnogorodk, a rural town where the Ukrainian army stopped the advance of the Russian army, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)Damage is seen inside a Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Yasnogorodk, a rural town where the Ukrainian army stopped the advance of the Russian army, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies on Saturday, March 19, 2022 shows the aftermath of the airstrike on the Mariupol Drama theater, Ukraine, and the area around it. (Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies via AP)A woman and her children speak to journalists sitting in their flat without electricity on the territory which is under the Government of the Donetsk People’s Republic control, on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday, March 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)Local residents gather near a supermarket to get free food and water on the territory which is under the Government of the Donetsk People’s Republic control, on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday, March 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)A banner with the image known as “Saint Javelin” depicting a saint holding a Javelin, an American-made portable anti-tank missile system, is displayed in a check point in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)In this image from video provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the leaders of the European Council during their summit in Brussels from Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 24, 2022. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)A woman and her children have a meal after fleeing the war from neighboring Ukraine at a railway station in Przemysl, Poland, on Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)A volunteer helps an elderly Ukrainian refugee walk along a platform at a railway station in Przemysl, Poland, on Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)16-year-old Julia from Dnipro, who is traveling alone, holds her pet rabbit Baby after arriving to the Lviv main station, western Ukraine, Thursday, March 24, 2022. She was on her way to join her mother and then go on to Poland or Germany. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)A child refugee fleeing the war from neighbouring Ukraine with her family grimaces as she sits in a bus after crossing the border by ferry at the Isaccea-Orlivka border crossing, in Romania, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)About 300 people were killed in the Russian airstrike last week that blasted open a Mariupol theater, Ukrainian authorities said Friday in what would make it the war’s deadliest known attack on civilians yet.
In a vain attempt to protect the hundreds of people taking cover inside the theater, “CHILDREN” in Russian had been printed in huge white letters on the ground in two places outside the grand, columned building to make it visible from the air.
For days, the government in the besieged and ruined city of Mariupol was unable to give a casualty count for the March 16 attack. In announcing the death toll on its Telegram channel Friday, it cited eyewitnesses. But it was not immediately clear whether emergency workers had finished excavating the ruins of the Mariupol Drama Theater or how witnesses arrived at the figure.
Still, the emerging picture is certain to fuel allegations Moscow has committed war crimes by killing civilians, whether deliberately or by indiscriminate fire. And it could increase pressure on NATO to step up military aid. The alliance has refused so far to supply warplanes or establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine for fear of getting into a war with Russia.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Friday the reaction to the theater bombing was “just absolute shock, particularly given the fact that it was so clearly a civilian target.” He said it showed “a brazen disregard for the lives of innocent people.”
The scale of devastation in Mariupol, where bodies have been left unburied amid bomb craters and hollowed-out buildings, has made information difficult to obtain.
But soon after the attack, the Ukrainian Parliament’s human rights commissioner said more than 1,300 people had taken shelter in the theater, many of them because their homes had been destroyed. The building had a basement bomb shelter, and some survivors did emerge from the rubble after the attack.
The reported death toll came a day after Biden and allied leaders promised that more military aid for Ukraine is on the way. But they stopped short of providing some of the heavy weaponry that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said is urgently needed. Zelenskky has pleaded for planes, tanks and no-fly patrols over Ukraine.
The U.S. and the European Union on Friday did announce a move to further squeeze Russia economically: a partnership to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian energy and dry up the billions of dollars the Kremlin gets from the sale of fuel.
Moscow is bristling at the tightening noose of sanctions around Russia’s economy, and President Vladimir Putin’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, characterized the Western pressure as “a real hybrid war, total war.”
“And the goals are not hidden,” he continued. “They are declared publicly — to destroy, break, annihilate, strangle the Russian economy and Russia on the whole.”
The Russian military said 1,351 of its soldiers have died in Ukraine and 3,825 have been wounded, though it was not immediately clear if that number included pro-Moscow separatist forces or others not part of the Defense Ministry, such as the National Guard. Earlier this week, NATO estimated that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of fighting.
In Ukrainian towns and cities that day by day increasingly resemble the ruins that Russian forces left behind in its campaigns in Syria and Chechnya, the misery for civilians grows ever more acute.
In the village of Yasnohorodka, some 50 kilometers west of the capital Russian troops who were in the village earlier in the week appeared to have been pushed out as part of a counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces.
The tower of the village church was damaged by a blast and houses on the main crossroads lay in ruins. Loud explosions and bursts of gunfire could be heard.
“You can see for yourself what happened here. People were killed here. Our soldiers were killed here. There was fighting,” said Yasnohorodka resident Valeriy Puzakov.
Tens of thousands of people have left Mariupol in the past week, most of them driving out in private cars through dozens of Russian checkpoints.
“Unfortunately, nothing remains of Mariupol,” said Evgeniy Sokyrko, who was among those waiting for an evacuation train in Zaporizhzhia, the closest urban center to Mariupol and a way station for refugees. “In the last week, there have been explosions like I’ve never heard before.”
Oksana Abramova, 42, said she ached for those left behind in the city, who have been cut off from communication with the shelling of cell, radio and TV towers and lack the means to escape.
“Many people have no connection yet. All the time I think about how they are, where they are. Are still hiding, are they alive? Or maybe they are no longer there,” she said.
In the capital, Kyiv, ashes of the dead are piling up at the main crematorium because so many relatives have left, leaving urns unclaimed. The besieged northern city of Chernihiv is now all but cut off.
Chernihiv first lost its main road bridge over the Desna River to a Russian airstrike this week. Follow-up shelling damaged a pedestrian bridge, trapping remaining inhabitants inside the city without power, water and heat, authorities said. More than half of Chernihiv’s pre-war population of 285,000 is thought to have fled.
In other developments:
—Russia said it would offer safe passage starting Friday to 67 ships from 15 foreign countries that are stranded in Ukrainian ports because of the danger of shelling and mines.
—The International Atomic Energy Agency said it has been told by Ukrainian authorities that Russian shelling is preventing worker rotations in and out of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant.
—Russia’s military claimed it destroyed a massive Ukrainian fuel base used to supply the Kyiv region’s defenses, with ships firing a salvo of cruise missiles, according to the Interfax news agency. Videos on social media showed an enormous fireball near the capital.
For the vulnerable — the elderly, children and others unable to join millions heading westward — food shortages loom in a country once known as the breadbasket for the world.
In relentlessly shelled Kharkiv, mostly elderly women lined up stoically to collect food and other urgent supplies this week, as explosions thudded in the distance. Fidgeting with anticipation, a young girl watched as a volunteer’s knife cut through a giant slab of cheese, carving out thick slices, one for each hungry person.
Hanna Spitsyna took charge of divvying up the delivery of food aid from the Ukrainian Red Cross. Those waiting each got a lump of the cheese, dropped into plastic bags that people in line held open.
“Among those who stayed, there are people who can walk on their own, but many who cannot walk, the elderly,” Hanna said. “All these people need diapers, swaddle blankets and food.”
Half Of All Ukrainian Children Displaced | The Mehdi Hasan Show
Wladimir Klitschko: The Third World War Has Already Started In Ukraine
The US waited to enter world war 2 until it affected us personally. Same with the world war 1. World war 3 is here now. How will history see the US, as a defender of the attacked people, or weak and fearful of the attackers. Look we are involved. We are sending arms, we are sending intel, we are giving advice, we are giving money, the only damn thing we are not giving is our own ability to save lives. I was a US military man, I served in two branches of the US military. There are things we believe in and the stopping the slaughter of the defenseless is one of those things. Look back at history and see when the US intervened in a conflict. Will we wait until all the women and children are killed and driven out? What is our goal? If we want to save lives how do you say we need to wait because the future life saved is more worthy than the lives of the dead children happening now. It is easy to give support from a world away when our kids are not dying, when our elderly are not going hungry starving to death. The US is a world leader willing to stand up, or we are not and need to stand down. Now we find out where the real spine of the US is.
Refrigerated trailers become makeshift morgues for over 700 Russian soldiers
‘It is a feeling of helplessness’: Ukrainian teen on her experience before leaving Mariupol
‘My mother was still alive while she was on fire’: Teen describes horrific attack
Enough Damn it, enough! The US and NATO has the ability to stop much of this, stop more of these kids suffering from watching their mothers burn to death. Think about what the rest of this kid’s life is going to be like. The US doesn’t have to declare war on Russia, the US doesn’t have to threaten to invade Russia. We simply need to say no more and close the airspace above Ukraine. Yes Russia will threaten to use nukes or biological weapons. But remember the idea of mutual destruction is the counter threat. We don’t need to storm and yell; we don’t need to threaten to go first. We do what we have always done and say if you start it with that, we will end you! All bets are off then. Why is it only Russia and Putin get to threaten and the US backs off. Nato wants to do more, but without the US they cannot. We are watching atrocities happen and saying we could stop it but maybe the guy behind it will get even more angry. Either we stand for something or we do not. There are things worth dying for. The US as attacked enough countries to get what we wanted; it is now time for the US to use its military might to stop the tragedy now happening. We once said never again. Did we mean it? A genocide is happening, but we say we won’t stop it because we are afraid the person behind it might do worse. We are going to look back at what is happening in Ukraine with the full knowledge we could have stopped it and were too afraid. Damn it, we as a country do not have so many things other countries do so we can maintain the world’s most might military, yet we cower when others threaten that if we use it they will react. If we wont act because the enemy might do something then reduce the damn military and give me universal healthcare, give us free college, give us a higher standard of living because being afraid to use the military we give up those things to pay for is useless. Look anyone who says we may be saving other lives needs to ask these kids if they think it is worth it our staying out of it as they watch their friends and families die. Ask the families that have seen their kids die if it is worth the worry about the maybe others dying. These people are dying right now damn it. Right now. We do not need to invade Russia, we just need to be willing to threaten, to use our might. From the start we said we wouldn’t fight, now we watch kids die, pregnant mothers die, where is the pro-life militia? Am I angry yes I am. Either we use our might or admit we only take on those unable to stand up to us. That is the stance of bullies and cowards.
Ginni Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, exchanged texts with Mark Meadows about efforts to overturn the 2020 election
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/virginia-ginni-thomas-clarence-wife-mark-meadows-texts-2020-election/
Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks following the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post.
Those messages — part of 29 total messages obtained — reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and then-President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to subvert the election results.
The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to encourage and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results — and how receptive and grateful Meadows said he was to receive her advice. Among Thomas’ stated goals in the messages was for lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted incendiary and unsupported claims about the election, to become “the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team.
The messages were among the 2,320 text messages that Meadows provided the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The existence of messages between Thomas and Meadows — 21 sent by her; eight by him — have not previously been reported and were reviewed by CBS News and The Post. They were then confirmed by five people who have seen the committee’s documents.
Daily cartoon / meme roundup: The people are struggling to survive in the US with insufficient incomes / resources to have decent lives while the majority of our elected officials get wealthy in office by serving the wealthy donors.
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Scottie’s world today
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We need to restore campaign finance laws. Citizens United ruling is malware for democracy.
Republicans have no policy, no consistent beliefs. Their media is not journalism.
They are reduced to abusing the emotions of their unspectacular base.
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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
The same congress where 8 members voted against aid to Ukraine? The same congress where half the Republicans supported Putin? The right wing hates to admit that President Biden has lead the world in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They hate that Biden gets credit when their cult leader couldn’t stand up to Putin even to support the US own intel agencies.
Gods the right wing cartoonist are desperate. Russia is not a communist country. They are hoping none of their viewers are smart enough to know it is not 1980 anymore. Bernie never touted communism for the US. Bernie wants the government to work for the public and not just for the wealthy. That is not communism. It is about the taxpayers getting a return on their tax money.
Christians like Payne are adamant in forcing everyone to think and enjoy hatreds like them, especially when it comes to racism, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia. Conserves are “woke” against “woke”. They don’t want white heterosexual folks to be offended by all those others around them. Some Disney employees participated in a walkout Tuesday to protest Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill The bill, which has not yet been signed into law, would limit discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools PREVIOUS: Disney opposes Florida’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, CEO to meet with Gov. DeathSantis. Payne hates gay people apparently.
Isn’t that virtue signaling? I though right wingers considered virtue signaling to be bad. The right didn’t care about Uyghurs during Trump’s term. Now they are pretending to care about an ethnic group they didn’t care about before because they need a reason to paint President Biden as a bad guy over something. So, what do you armchair quarterbacks expect President Biden to do? Trump tried imposing tariffs on China because of their unfair business practices. It didn’t work very well, and Trump had to ask Congress to give farmers money to help them out. America is busy dealing with Putin. A dictator that some right wingers to praise. Trump called him a genius for his invasion of Ukraine. Seems like a bad idea to pick a fight with two countries with nuclear weapons. As for Canada “mistreating” Christians, give me a break.
Anti-vaxxers remind me of the person that got mauled by the tiger at the zoo because they decided to go into the tiger pit. They were warned many times of the danger but decided to overcome the obstacles put in place designed to prevent such a tragedy from happening. Such safeguards are put in place in order to prevent people from dying from COVID. If you decide to have a hissy fit and not do what is expected to stop COVID, then don’t expect me to feel sorry for you if you die. I will only feel sorry for the people that died from COVID because they had a compromised immune system. Taking the analogy farther, they remind me of the person who decided to release the tiger so it could wander the city freely, mauling whomever it wants.
The cartoon over looks the new varient to push one of their favorite villains Dr Fauci and the fear that he will force you to do things you do not want to do. People Dr. Fauci is only an advisor. But it is easier to make him the villain and pretending tRump was not in charge of the things people hate.
tRump is not responsible for the vaccine development nor for their distribution. While tRump was throwing the US treasury to any organization that would promise him anything to save his bacon, the leading vaccine maker did not take the money from the US. All the vaccine manufactures had started working on vaccines before tRump started offering money. tRump offered money to people who claimed their businesses to develop vaccines were in their living rooms. The tRump people had no plan or method to get the shots into peoples arms. For that the credit goes to the Biden administration. But the real reason to not give credit to tRump / Republicans is their catering and fostering an anti-vaccine insanity that is not only prolonging the covid issue but has led to unnecessary death and economic problems. But the right doesn’t care about facts, they want to worship their cult leader tRump and pretend science is not real.
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And now some for fun
Scottie's Playtime 