It’s All Relative

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Author: patd

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

34 thoughts on “It’s All Relative”

  3. on that latter question of relativity — war OR piece of ukraine –  fareed zakaria has this in a thoughtful op ed in wapo:

    Last week, I outlinedRussia’s interests and strengths in this crisis. It is vital to understand its weaknesses as well. “When Putin took Crimea in 2014, he lost Ukraine,” as Owen Matthews writes in a thought-provokingessay. After it declaredindependencein 1991, Ukraine was divided between an unabashedly pro-Russia segment of its population and a more nationalistic one. But by annexing Crimea and plunging eastern Ukraine into open conflict, Matthews writes, Putin has energized Ukrainian nationalism and fed a growing anti-Russia sentiment. And the math does not help. Putin took millions of pro-Russia Ukrainians in Crimea and Donbas out of the country’s political calculus. (Those in Donbasdon’t votein Ukrainian elections because the area is too unstable.) As a result, a Ukrainian politician estimated to me that the pro-Russia seats in Ukraine’s parliament have shrunk from a plurality to barely 15 percent of the total.
    In retrospect, if Putin’s aim were to keep Ukraine unstable and weak, it would have made far more sense to leave those parts of Ukraine within the country, supporting the pro-Russia forces and politicians in various ways so that they could act as a fifth column within the country, always urging Kyiv to forge closer ties with Moscow. Instead, Ukraine is now composed mainly of a population that is proudly nationalist and that has become much more anti-Russia.
    Putin’s aims are probably twofold — to make Ukraine weak and more dependent on Russia but also to divide the West and render NATO less effective. As far as the latter is concerned, the opposite is happening. [continues]

  4. pressing the point is a photo in that wapo article

    A poster of Russian President Vladimir Putin used for target practice in Ukraine on Jan. 21. (AFP Contributor#AFP/AFP via Getty Images)

    See the source image

  5. How would the movie “Red Dawn,” land with Fluffy Carlson’s crowd?  Should the kids welcome the Russian invaders?

  6. What the former guy did to destroy NATO to appease putin is now being reversed.  It would be very interesting to hear what the translators know about the sfb and putin talks.

  7. Fox News is way off the mark with their “credible” speculation that VP Harris will be President Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court, and Stephen has a song for Senator Ron Johnson who thinks society has no duty to take care of children.

  9. and from one of those fiends BiD is referring to according to

    axios:

    Carlson has noticed the changes in how Republicans talk about Russia specifically and foreign intervention in general, but he thinks the party isn’t changing fast enough.
    “I just want to go on the record and say I could care less if they call me a pawn of Putin,” Carlson told Axios. “It’s too stupid. I don’t speak Russian. I’ve never been to Russia. I’m not that interested in Russia. All I care about is the fortunes of the United States because I have four children who live here.”
    “I really hope that Republican primary voters are ruthless about this,” Carlson told Axios, and vote out any Republican “who believes Ukraine’s borders are more important than our borders.”

  10. See the source image

     

    daily beast also speaks of the tucker’s “Why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which I am?” statement:

    During the episode of his Monday show, Carlson pondered: “Why is it disloyal to side with Russia but loyal to side with Ukraine?” Three years earlier, Carlson admitted that he is rooting for Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. He said, in part: “Why do I care… what is going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? And I’m serious. Why do I care? Why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which I am?”

  11. The problem as I see it is that the 1/3 of the country who listen to Tfucker’s drivel are teh people who scream the loudest about communists and socialists in the Democratic Party, but somehow don’t have as much problem buying his “Why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which I am?” bullshit and are too stupid to see the hypocrisy. So when does construction of the wall between the Russian sphere of influence and eastern Europe not under Russian domination begin?

  12. 1/3 of the country who listen

    …way less than that, his nonsense is amplified by assholes like us
     
    Someone on twitter called him “Tuckyo Rose”, gave me a chuckle

  14. The dork just needs to say the most outrageous thing he can think of, and wait for the predictably reactionary liberal media and twits to give him unlimited free publicity, for a show that someone would have to be braindead to sit through for an hour every night

  15. Democrats might try inserting “poison pills” into anti-abortion legislation that would outlaw “erectile dysfunction” drugs

  16. I should qualify that – his listeners are largely from the 1/3 of the country who identify as republicans and see Faux and OAN, etc. as legitimate news sources. He obviously doesn’t have 1/3 of the country watching him.

  18. I sincerely hope the CIA, real journalists, and anyone good at uncovering the truth starts to pull at Fluffy’s string.

    He is good at drawing focus. Where else should our attention be aimed?

  19. Where else should our attention be aimed?

    i thought your “Reasons to be Cheerful” links were in the right direction.  Personally, i’m focused on these crypto-scam markets and their potentially destabilizing effect on global financial markets and how they enable more exacerbated weath-inequality

  21. Crypto means hidden, after all. 

    Yes, RTB Cheerful has good stuff. I always think of OM when I read the climate articles.

  22. i saw the picture of the WV governor and his dog’s asshole, i’m just having trouble telling which one is which

  24. Over 2400 deaths from COVID, not including the deaths misdiagnosed, each day.  To be a bit morbid, or rather continuing to be, that probably means about 2000 each day are no longer legally voting for the gqp.  These are significant because of where those former voters lived. 
     
    And, yes, I do have a list of those I would prefer to see not wasting oxygen anymore.  The other side has told me many times that they would like me to be worm food and a few offering to help that happen.  So, nice is making a pot of tea.  Not nice is what mcconnell and the hate mongers practice.  Dems need to shove nice down those peoples

  26. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/28/texas-attorney-general-law-enforcement/

    “One of the great myths of Texas politics is that the attorney general is “the top law enforcement officer” in the state.“

    “Here’s the language on the AG’s own website: “Under Texas law, the county or district attorney has primary jurisdiction to prosecute most criminal offenses. The Office of the Attorney General assists local prosecutors at their request. The law also authorizes this agency to proffer assistance to local prosecutors. Most OAG prosecutions are undertaken on referrals.”

    “The state Constitution, however, does not. That issue was addressed last month by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled 8-1 that the state Constitution leaves prosecution of election law violations to district and county attorneys, who are in the judicial branch of government, and not to the AG, who’s in the executive branch.“

    “Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, didn’t like that answer.”

    “Call them out by name,” Paxton said on Lindell TV, an online outlet run by My Pillow CEO and prominent Donald Trump supporter Mike Lindell. “I mean, you can look them up. There’s eight of them that voted the wrong way. Call them, send mail, send email.”

    “It’s odd for a top government lawyer to sic the public on one of the state’s two high courts: the Court of Criminal Appeals for criminal law and the Texas Supreme Court for civil law.”

    “He’s ignoring a local prosecutor’s demand that he release information related to his activities in Washington, D.C., on the day of last year’s Capitol insurrection. Paxton’s office oversees open information laws; he contends he’s already done what the law requires.”

    “Paxton, while pining for the power to prosecute election law, also busted the deadline for disclosing the names of the donors who contributed $2.8 million to his campaign last year.“

    “And there’s that chronic securities fraud indictment alleging that Paxton, as a private lawyer, solicited investments without telling the potential buyers he was being compensated for doing so. That indictment, from July 2015, still hasn’t gone to trial, lingering almost as long as Paxton’s tenure as the state government’s top civil lawyer.“

    “Some of the (now former) top lawyers in the AG’s office accused him of using his state office to benefit a political donor, a bramble of whistleblowing allegations and repercussions still being argued in the courts.“

    “This is when candidates for attorney general — including the incumbents — turn on the law enforcement hoopla. Their Twitter feeds are full of images and stories of police and of crime along the Texas-Mexico border. Bush contends “Paxton has ignored more human trafficking cases than he’s prosecuted.” Guzman, whose husband is a retired police officer, peppers her messages with “border security” and “back the blue.” Gohmert, like Paxton, wants the office so he can prosecute election law violations.“

  31. the CORPSES of republican voters are the pawns in their game to retain power at any cost, hit ‘em hard, Dems

  32. go to the comments of the original article about LeMay’s resignation embedded within that link and be regaled by the stupidity of conservative idiots trying to wrap their head around what a “vaccine” is, in real-time
     
    i promise every conservative you know knows someone else who got fucked by covid, the jig is up

  33. You’re going to need someone more tactful than me to make the case, but every single pedestrian conservative knows they were lied to, which plants the seed in their head “what else were they lying about?”
     
    EVERYTHING

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