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

[Catlady in training]

Russian forces pull back from Kyiv, exposing horrors of war

I have just been reading about all the war crimes commited and my blood is boiling. If all of these monsters including all Russian leadership are not put to some special tribunal after the war is over, we have failed as humanity.

[Tami]

Long before Ukrainian deportations, Soviets abducted Baltic citizens

“It was a foggy morning, March 25. I could see a line of soldiers in long coats. And then they came and said, ‘Get ready to go …”

“And the teacher came and said, ‘Please don’t take the children.’ In 25 minutes, it was all done. And we were taken in 11 trucks …”

Thus spoke two survivors of Operation Priboi, the code name for the forced deportation by the Soviet authorities of more than 40,000 Latvian men, women and children on March 25, 1949.

Those nightmarish memories might also have issued from the tens of thousands of Estonians and Lithuanians who were likewise swept up that day by flying squadrons of Soviet troops and dispatched to Siberia. A total of half-a-million residents of the three Baltic states were deported between 1941 and 1952.

“It is unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN, noting that she could not confirm the widespread reports of thousands of people being taken against their will from the besieged port city of Mariupol.

Assuming the reports are true, Russia would be in violation of international law, particularly the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of civilians in wartime. Survivors of the earlier Baltic abductions have no trouble believing the reports.

The fact that they coincide with last week’s regionwide commemoration of the mass deportations of March 25, 1949, makes the news all the more haunting.

“Today, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are commemorating the victims of mass deportations effected by the Communists,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said last week, before joining the annual commemoration of the March genocide, as it is called here, by laying a wreath at the Freedom Monument in Riga. “Present-day Russia commits crimes against humanity in Ukraine.”

“We Baltic people are well aware of what Chekists are capable of,” Rinkevics continued, using the name of the original Soviet secret service, which carried out the first wave of deportations in the 1940s, along with their indigenous communist collaborators

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles of the current U.S. House Representative for South Carolina’s 3rd District, Jeff Duncan, who in that original spotlight, we discussed the fact that Rep. Duncan hung out with the very, very insane Rick Wiles to discuss his desire to investigate President Obama’s birth certificate, as well as the time he had Secretary of State John Kerry testifying at a Benghazi hearing and asked him why the United States embassy in Libya was smuggling arms to Syrian rebels (for which Kerry schooled him like a kindergarten teacher). Duncan has also warned against a federal gun registry, warning that it would be used so that liberals could hunt down every last gun owner and hack them to death with a machete, just like how “the Hutus slaughtered the Tutsis in Rwanda”. Duncan has also compared illegal immigrants to “vagrants and animals”, and responded to the Paris Terror attacks with a Twitter post that read, “How's that Syrian refugee resettlement look now? How about that mass migration into Europe? Terrorism is alive & well in the world. #No” which conveniently assumed that attackers were refugees from Syria (when in fact, they were from France and Belgium). Duncan also gleefully participated in Chik-Fil-A Apprecation Day to support the fast food chain’s anti-gay support, denies climate change, and voted against Hurricane Sandy relief. Oh, and speaking of things we’ve covered in his voting record, Duncan has sponsored a bill to require women across the nation to be forced to undergo a medically unnecessary ultrasound prior to getting an abortion and was a big supporter of the 2013 Government Shutdown, so much so that when the time came to reopen the government, Duncan voted to keep it closed. Our last note would be that upon the death of Antonin Scalia, Duncan was one of 27 Congressmen who sent a letter to Mitch McConnell immediately demanding the nomination of ANY Supreme Court Justice for the next year be blocked. On the 2015 anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, Duncan got on social media to wonder if France would institute “knife control” because one teacher was injured in a stabbing the day prior.

And, in the twelve months since we last left Rep. Duncan, he has nearly thrown his back out carrying water for the Trump administration whenever possible, like in May of 2017 when he went on social media to demand apologies and retractions from CNN because they reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had conducted undisclosed meetings with the Russian Ambassador during the presidential transition period, claiming the story was false (it isn’t).

By October of 2017, Duncan’s rage against Trump critics wasn’t limited only to the media, but also to members of his own party, when he said any Republican who spoke ill of Trump had “drank the water” and was “part of the swamp”. Then again, you have to consider that perhaps Jeff Duncan is a deranged idiot, especially when in December of 2017, he still was saying that the GOP’s U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama, Roy Moore, was “a man of high principle and steadfast character”, which is a rather flattering thing to say about a fanatical racist pedophile. After being in office for almost a decade, Jeff Duncan has no signature legislation he’s worked on, and has simply used his tenure in office to be a partisan hack who flings whatever s*** he finds around like a deranged simian. Perhaps no moment underlines that more when after the GOP Senate refused to allow witnesses or any real impeachment trial for Donald Trump in February, he falsely claimed the result proved that Trump had been “vindicated”.

[worstblogever]

South Carolina’s 3rd District has had a +19 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index and in 2020, that led Duncan to a victory with 71% of the vote to get re-elected to a fifth term in office. And, looking to his voting record, if you were wondering, yes, he’s still awful:

• January 27th, 2019: Jeff Duncan voted against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attacking our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
• March 7th, 2019: Duncan votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance.
• October 23rd, 2019: Duncan is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”.
• December 18th, 2019: Rep. Duncan ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Duncan votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• October 2nd, 2020: Jeff Duncan is one of 17 Republicans who vote against a resolution to condemn the Qanon conspiracy theory after its followers started to make death threats against Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski.
• December 10th, 2020: Duncan signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
• January 6th, 2021: Jeff Duncan votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Duncan votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
• February 4th, 2021: Jeff Duncan votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Duncan votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Duncan votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Jeff Duncan votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Duncan votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Duncan is one of 172 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 19th, 2021: Rep. Duncan votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Jeff Duncan is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• July 22nd, 2021: Rep. Duncan is one of 16 Republicans who vote against HR 3895, the Allies Act, which was passed without his support to raise the amount of visas offered and to expedite their issue to Afghan translators and their families to honor our promise to protect them against the Taliban after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, thus feeling we should go back on our word and leave them to die.
• November 5th, 2021: Jeff Duncan votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Jeff Duncan is a miscreant still stuck in the years from 2017-2020, and he still is hung up on policy ideas like building a f***ing useless, extremely expensive, and mostly cosmetic wall along the U.S./Mexico border in Trump’s name, and spreading xenophobic lies about migrants crossing the border being deliberately released while positive for Covid-19. He has, at least, been reaaaal quiet about how proud he was to object to the certification of the electoral college votes after, y’know, the coup attempt he helped throw fuel onto the fire for and has predictably gone on to try to impeach Joe Biden over things that came to pass because of Trump’s idiocy, like the U.S. having to leave Afghanistan in a hurry.

South Carolina’s 3rd will be better off once Jeff Duncan shuffles out of Congress.

[Tendrin]

Rep. Lisa McClain wrongly claimed Osama bin Laden was caught during the Trump administration.

Bin Laden was killed during a 2011 raid under the Obama administration.

McClain also falsely claimed unemployment is at a 40 year high, calling the Biden administration "weak."

Michigan Congresswoman Lisa McClain falsely claimed during a Saturday campaign rally that Osama bin Laden had been caught by the Trump administration.

"Well, President Trump was in office. We didn't have a war and I think he made three peace treaties," McClain said during her speech. "Caught Osama – Osama bin Laden and Soleimani, Al Baghdadi. And this President is weak. And I'll tell you weakness breeds aggression. We need strength."

*facepalms*

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-rep-m...051548590.html

Oh WBE-Eeeee...

[Jack Dracula]

Elections don't often go as predicted. There are way too many factors to even make an educated guess. We won't know until the last vote is counted.

I first read this as "way too many fascists..."
That should tell you where my mind is these days.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I first read this as "way too many fascists..."
That should tell you where my mind is these days.

In touch with a sad reality?

[Tami]

Two Russian soldiers die and 28 are in hospital ‘after being fed poisoned pies’

Two Russian soldiers have died after eating “poisoned” pies that had been gifted to them by Ukrainian citizens, a Ukrainian intelligence agency has claimed.

The soldiers from Russia’s 3rd Motor Rifle Division died immediately after eating the delicacies served by residents in Izium near Kharkiv, according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine.

A further 28 Russian troops are in intensive care, with hundreds more suffering “severe illnesses” after drinking poisoned alcohol of “unknown origin”.

The agency said: “Ukrainians resist the occupiers by all available means. According to available information, local residents of the Izium district (Kharkiv region) ‘treated’ Russians from the 3rd Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian Federation with poisoned pies.

“As a result, two occupiers died at once, another 28 were taken to the intensive care unit. Their current state is being clarified.

Officials said the Russian government is writing off these cases as "non-combat losses."

I immediately thought of one of my favorite shirts

Make-Pie-Not-War.jpg

[Catlady in training]

Well, it looks like Hungary has chosen to get one more step closer to totalitarianism. As one of our sayings goes, He who can't accept advice, can't be helped.
Now, can we please kick them out of EU and take in Ukraine instead?

[Tami]

Well, it looks like Hungary has chosen to get one more step closer to totalitarianism. As one of our sayings goes, He who can't accept advice, can't be helped.
Now, can we please kick them out of EU and take in Ukraine instead?

You have to wonder why people vote that way, it's hard for me to understand.

[Jack Dracula]

You have to wonder why people vote that way, it's hard for me to understand.

Some people want to be lied to.

[Malvolio]

Some people want to be lied to.

And some people like being lied to.

[The Cool Thatguy]

And some people like being lied to.

And some people are dicks.

I'd bet that a fair portion of people in Russia who support the war against Ukraine do so because they miss the time when Russia was an empire. Because they don't mind the boot on their neck, so long as there's a bigger one on people lower.

[norj]

Well, it looks like Hungary has chosen to get one more step closer to totalitarianism. As one of our sayings goes, He who can't accept advice, can't be helped.
Now, can we please kick them out of EU and take in Ukraine instead?

People forget that Hungary was a member of the AXIS during WW2.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Two Russian soldiers die and 28 are in hospital ‘after being fed poisoned pies’







I immediately thought of one of my favorite shirts

Make-Pie-Not-War.jpg

This would almost be laughable if those soldiers hadn’t died, as it was, that was a major facepalm moment. You’d think those idiot grunts would’ve known better than to accept ANY sort of offering from a populace they’ve been trying to wipe off the map.