All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[achilles]

Russian commander deliberately killed by his own demoralised troops, Western officials claim

I can't be bothered to click on that because I'm lazy, was that the really thin guy?

[AnakinFlair]

I can't be bothered to click on that because I'm lazy, was that the really thin guy?

Well, he was run over by a tank, so if he wasn't thin before, he is now.

[CaptainEurope]

Damndest thing I’ve ever heard. My history is faulty, was it THIS bad for Russia during their war in Afghanistan?

That was still the Soviet Union, so they had Ukrainians, Georgians etc. fighting together.
Also, this was before satellite phones, social media, camera phones. Very hard to get accurate information about how that went.

[CaptainEurope]

Ketanji Brown Jackson is the most popular Supreme Court nominee in years

Five recent surveys have indicated strong support for President Joe Biden's decision to nominate Jackson for the Supreme Court seat retiring Justice Stephen Breyer is vacating. According to an average of polls by Gallup, Fox, Monmouth University, Quinnipiac University and the Pew Research Center, about 53% of Americans supported her confirmation, with about 26% of Americans opposed. This is good for a +27-point net popularity rating.

If Jackson's ratings hold up through her likely confirmation, she would be the most popular nominee to be confirmed since John Roberts in 2005. Jackson's popularity should only help her in the confirmation process.

It's important to note, though, that none of those 5 polls were done on twitter, nor where any Russian oligarchs asked. So your mileage may vary. Grain of salt etc.

[CaptainEurope]

No surprise here:

Infamous Russian Troll Farm Appears to Be Source of Anti-Ukraine Propaganda

One account created last year, @Ne_nu_Che, shared a video of a man standing in front of rows of dark gray body bags that appeared to be filled with corpses. As he spoke to the camera, one of the encased bodies behind him lifted its arms to stop the top of the bag from blowing away. The video was taken from an Austrian TV report about a climate change demonstration held in Vienna in February. But @Ne_nu_Che claimed it was from Ukraine.

The Twitter profiles are part of a pro-Putin network of dozens of accounts spread across Twitter, TikTok and Instagram whose behavior, content and coordination are consistent with Russian troll factory the Internet Research Agency, according to Darren Linvill, a Clemson University professor who, along with another professor, Patrick Warren, has spent years studying IRA accounts.

[Tendrin]

In early January, a day before students returned from winter break, Jeremy Glenn, the superintendent of the Granbury Independent School District in North Texas, told a group of librarians he’d summoned to a district meeting room that he needed to speak from his heart.

“I want to talk about our community,” Glenn said, according to a recording of the Jan. 10 meeting obtained and verified by NBC News, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Glenn explained that Granbury, the largest city in a county where 81% of residents voted for then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, is “very, very conservative.”

He noted that members of Granbury’s school board — his bosses — were also very conservative. And to any school employees who might have different political beliefs, Glenn said, “You better hide it,” adding, “Here in this community, we’re going to be conservative.”

That’s why, he said, he needed to talk to them about some of the books available in the school district’s libraries.

Frigging disgusting.

https://www.propublica.org/article/w...sgender-people

[shooshoomanjoe]

What is it with conservatives' obsession of banning books.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”posted profiles of Kelly Keisling, a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives who prior to the 2012 election, made headlines by sending out an e-mail forward from his government account that contained a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration was going to stage a “false flag” assassination attack to institute martial law in major cities and prevent the elections from happening. The theory, insane as it was, originated from a Canadian conspiracy theorist and was then circulated through the hard-right conservative crowd via the Constitution Party of Florida, and their forwards eventually found their way to Keisling’s inbox. After widespread criticism, Keisling defended forwarding the e-mail to his constituents, saying, “I wouldn’t put anything past anybody.”

As a legislator up until this point in his first two terms, had voted to nullify the Affordable Care Act, voted for stricter Voter ID laws to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters to prevent statistically non-existent in person-voter fraud, had voted to prevent enacting the United Nations’ Agenda 21 environmental treaty, voted for abstinence-only sex education in Tennessee schools, voted for abortion to be outlawed if a fetal heartbeat is detected (i.e. six weeks in, before many women even realize they’re pregnant), voted to bring back the electric chair as a valid method of execution in the Volunteer State, and voted for every pro-gun bill that flew through the Tennessee state legislature prior to the 2016 NRA convention being hosted in Nashville.

In 2018, Keisling has co-sponsored a fetal heart abortion ban in Tennessee that would effectively ban abortion at 6 weeks, or before many women even realize they are pregnant, and voted for a bill to allow adoption agencies to refuse to allow couples to adopt children based on “religious exemptions” like deciding that they’re just going to discriminate against gay people rather than let a child be adopted into a loving family because of some twisted ideology.

In 2020, he was re-elected with… sigh… 86% of the vote. He went back to work to help his constituents during the Covid-19 pan… nope. Just kidding… he was one of 29 Tennessee Republicans who went “all in “ on Donald Trump’s “Big Lie’ and signed on to a letter encouraging the Tennessee GOP caucus not to certify the results of the 2020 election (which, y’know, led to the Capitol Attack on the day after he sent it), he was a co-sponsor of HB 23, Tennessee Republicans’ attempts to go full-fascist and be able to remove judges who overturn any laws they write, (citing a judge who supported absentee voting in 2020 as an example) removing the ability to do so from voters, as well as voting for SB 623, a bill to prevent the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” in K-12 schools even though no one is even teaching the conservative buzzword in public schools anyway.

[Catlady in training]

The rest of the world is not just watching.

Apart from the sanctions which have patently hurt Russia, several Western countries have been supplying arms to Ukraine. And Poland has been amazing in the welcome it has given to refugees.

My own guess is that Russia has been surprised by the extent of the actions, given how feeble past responses have been to various Russian actions.

Of course, you could say it’s not enough, but it’s obviously factually wrong to say “nothing”. And it’s obvious that it’s an incredibly hard balancing act for US/ EU/ etc to know what to do…if a no fly zone had been imposed, for example the Russian escalation might have been horrifying.

I really, really don’t envy the senior Western politicians having to deal with this….it’s really far from obvious what the best course of action is.

Yeah, you're right about it not being nothing, I am prone to exagerating when feeling desperate. But there is still a lot more that can be done, both with sanctions and with millitary equipment and I am afraid that it's going to be too slow. I don't envy decisions makers either, but I hope they are looking at it moer from human perspective and not economical.

Regarding Poland, I agree. I have not been their fan for a long time because of their almost cult-like catholic mindset and its results in their open hostility towards women and LGBT+ people. But right now, they are really amazing with their help, both with refugees (whom their president even called "our guests, not refugees") and with how they are Ukraine's strongest advocate in all deliberations.

[Catlady in training]

In case you have someone who falls for russian propaganda in your circle, this can be one of things to show them:

BBC News: What untruths is Russia spreading about Nazis in Ukraine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gNp0PfK0CI

[Tami]

Chris Wallace Says Life at Fox News Became ‘Unsustainable’

“I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox.”

Chris Wallace uttered those words matter-of-factly, in between bites of a Sweetgreen salad at his new desk inside the Washington bureau of CNN, the network he joined in January after nearly two decades at Fox News.

For those on the left who admired him, and those on the right who doubted him, it’s a statement that was a long time coming.

A down-the-middle outlier at Fox News who often confounded conservatives by contradicting the network’s right-wing stars, Mr. Wallace was also one of the channel’s fiercest defenders, disappointing liberals who hoped he might denounce colleagues like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

So why did Mr. Wallace change the channel?

“I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion,” Mr. Wallace said in his first extensive interview about his decision to leave. “But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.”

[babyblob]

What is it with conservatives' obsession of banning books.

But you know only Dems are part of the cancel culture. all the books the GOP ban are for valid reasons. But us darn Dems we just cancel people for no reason.

[Johnathan]

Yeah, you're right about it not being nothing, I am prone to exagerating when feeling desperate. But there is still a lot more that can be done, both with sanctions and with millitary equipment and I am afraid that it's going to be too slow. I don't envy decisions makers either, but I hope they are looking at it moer from human perspective and not economical.

Regarding Poland, I agree. I have not been their fan for a long time because of their almost cult-like catholic mindset and its results in their open hostility towards women and LGBT+ people. But right now, they are really amazing with their help, both with refugees (whom their president even called "our guests, not refugees") and with how they are Ukraine's strongest advocate in all deliberations.

I think we are being cautious and probably should be even more cautious. First, there is no good reason the United States or NATO should be getting involved directly in any military conflict in Eastern Europe. US military intervention has not made things much better anywhere in the world, and there is no certainty it will improve the situation here. If Russia had rolled in and overwhelmed Ukraine in two days, the political cost would be severe but the humanitarian cost would have been less. Our governments are supporting Ukraine's defense of their nation, but that has consequences in the amount of death, destruction and refugees that a prolonged war incurs. We can't just write that off as the price of liberty as the Ukrainians are the ones paying that price.

On top of that, I doubt that the United States and NATO are entirely altruistic in their support of Ukraine as well. They are pressing their advantages if that is only to weaken Russia. In that regard, the humanitarian cost of the sanctions almost certainly will have long term effects on millions of Russians who have nothing to do with the war and those may overwhelm any gains made from supporting Ukraine in the long term. Especially considering the global impact the sanctions could have if they are maintained as long as Putin remains in power.

[Malvolio]

But you know only Dems are part of the cancel culture. all the books the GOP ban are for valid reasons. But us darn Dems we just cancel people for no reason.

And often it's not even Democrats or liberals who are doing the "canceling." For instance, in the controversy over Dr. Seuss, no one on the left was demanding or even asking for the cancellation of any Dr. Seuss books. It was the publisher, completely on their own, who decided to take six books (five of which I had never even heard of) out of circulation. The most popular Dr. Seuss books, such as the Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, are still widely available. So no one "canceled" Dr. Seuss.

[4saken1]

What is it with conservatives' obsession of banning books.

Well it takes a certain amount of mental gymnastics, but it begins with the rationalization that they are not 'banning' anything. In their minds, they are simply removing things from the curriculum that they don't like, only burning books that are deemed 'offensive', protecting the children, etc. If there is a 'good'reason to do so, how can a negative pejorative like 'banned' be assigned to the action?