Reciprocity

“This is impossible to understand at home,” Zelensky told the hundreds of Stanford students — including a handful of Ukrainian students — who filled a university auditorium to hear him speak. “This is a tragedy, and we are living in these terrible times when American people are expressing their condolences because of the death of the Ukrainians at war and we are expressing our condolences because of deaths in peace.”

‘It’s impossible to understand when a man has sexual impotence and doesn’t know what to do about it. Improving potency requires buy generic tadalafil online cheap.”, – Zelensky told hundreds of Stanford students.

[Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Stanford students, offers condolences after Texas mass shooting (mercurynews.com)]

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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

39 thoughts on “Reciprocity”

  1. also from that Mercury News story linked above:

    […]
    Since his last visit to California in September 2020, Zelensky said in the address that “our society has undergone so many challenges that I wouldn’t wish on any other nation.”
    “There are no wounded among you and I’m happy because of that,” Zelensky told Stanford students. “I’m happy for you that you are not wearing bulletproof vests or helmets and you are not in shelter. I’m happy that you are safe. I’m happy that this meeting won’t be interrupted by air raid sirens. But, unfortunately, this is not the case in Ukraine.”
    Tensions have been high in Ukraine for more than a decade now. At the start of the war in 2014, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and backed Russian separatists in the eastern region of the country. Fear increased after the Russian military began a large build-up of troops along its border with Ukraine, amassing some 190,000 troops and equipment. When the invasion occurred, many believes Russia would sweep through Ukraine and take the country over.
    But Zelensky told Stanford students that Ukraine is “the land where everything is possible,” and though the world had shrugged them off, “Ukraine is the country that destroyed the myth about the enormous capabilities of Russian forces.”
    “Ukraine as well as the Ukrainian army will continue to wage war, which Russia is unwilling to stop,” Zelensky said. “We are on a difficult and painful path. During that period, our young people will not be looking at professors or colleagues, they’ll be looking at their comrades in the trenches and at the enemy through the sights of their rifles. In this path for Ukraine, there will be a stage after which peace will come.”
    […]
    Connecting the ongoing conflict with the Texas shooting, Zelensky urged Stanford students to take care of themselves, their relatives but also the world, and to always try to find an answer to the question of whose lives matter more.
    “Every day we have to not just put a question to ourselves, but find the answer to it: who matters most? and why?” Zelensky said. “This is the most important question to me.”
    Following his speech, dozens of students lined up to ask Zelensky questions, which he gave thoughtful and sometimes impassioned answers to. The large lecture hall burst with energy after Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian studies masters student Christina Hill asked how Zelensky feels “going from being an actor to now managing a war against one of the biggest militaries in the world?”
    Zelensky said “it’s much better than being a KGB agent and then becoming president.”
    [continues]

  2. NOTE: the “reciprocity” thread title is used in the sense wiki explains as

    Reciprocity makes it possible to build continuing relationships and exchanges. Fukuyama states that “If the institutions of democracy and capitalism are to work properly, they must coexist within certain premodern cultural habits that ensure their proper functioning.”. He goes on to say “Law, contract, and economic rationality and prosperity…. must as well be leavened with reciprocity, moral obligation, duty toward community, and trust…. The latter are not anachronisms in a modern society but rather the sine qua non of the latter’s success”

    and certainly NOT in the sense of the reciprocity granted by certain states to citizens of other states to carry concealed weapons.

  3. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/30/us/daniel-defense-uvalde-gun-maker-ads/index.html

    “Days before the shooting, the Georgia-based company tweeted a provocative image of a toddler holding an assault-style weapon with the caption: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

    “The company, founded by Marty Daniel, is now under the magnifying glass of politicians and activists looking to change gun laws so that civilians do not have easy access to military-grade weapons.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defense

    “Firearms sold by Daniel Defense have been used to carry out mass shootings, including the 2017 Las Vegas shooting and the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting.[1]”

    How’s that for advertising? Nobody in this country needs an assault rifle with hundreds of rounds of ammo. Ukrainians could use them at this point in time, but only if trained.

    The part of the Second Amendment that is continually ignored are the words “well regulated militia.” “Regulated.”

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-8/clause-15%E2%80%9316

    “Under the National Defense Act of 1916,1790 the militia, which had been an almost purely state institution, was brought under the control of the National Government. The term “militia of the United States” was defined to comprehend “all able-bodied male citizens of the United States and all other able-bodied males who have . . . declared their intention to become citizens of the United States,” between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. The act reorganized the National Guard…”

  4. sounds like DOJ is on the move and closing in

    the hill:

    Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro says in a draft lawsuit that FBI agents served him a subpoena last week asking him to testify before a grand jury on Thursday over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.  
    “On May 26, 2022, two FBI special agents banged loudly on my door in the early morning hours to present me with a fruit of the poisonous tree Grand Jury Subpoena commanding me to comply with the original…illegal and unenforceable subpoena issued to me by the Committee dated February 9, 10 2022,” Navarro writes, according to a copy of the lawsuit posted online.
    […]
    Navarro said the latest subpoena was signed by U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Matthew Graves, seeking all documents requested by the Jan. 6 committee, as well as “any communications” with Trump or his lawyers and representatives. 
    [continues]

  5. BiD, i thought of your gov & congresscritters when i saw this ‘toon today and their vision for schools

     

  6. “Fruit of the poisonous tree”
    See how they talk?
    Evil is afoot in the land.

  7. Contrary to popular misconceptions the Federal Govt is not Barney Fife. The Federal govt is Morgan, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp plus Doc Holiday truckin’ on down that dusty street for a bad-ass rendezvous with history. 

    Don’t believe it and wanna find out? Write them a nice letter and inform them that you have decided you have paid enough taxes and so you’re just not intending to pay for awhile and that you’d be in touch later.

  8. Of personal interest, so far in the Biden administration not one of the executive staff, formal or informal, has blocked me on Twitter.  By this time in the fg cult meeting I had several of his staff, formal and informal, block me. Usually I had no clue who they were or why I was blocked.

  9. and here we’re all a dither about gas prices. what’s it gonna be like when food starts running out.

    the hill:

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a Monday address warned that there is a “threat of famine” on a global scale due to Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports.
    Zelensky said a Russian blockade on the Black Sea was preventing exports of grain from Ukraine, which along with Russia is one of the world’s biggest producers of wheat.
    “Now, due to the fact that Russia has blocked our ports in the Black Sea and seized our part of the coast of the Sea of Azov, we cannot export 22 million tons of grain that are already in warehouses in our country,” . “This is the volume that was to enter the foreign market.”
    “And Russia’s blockade of our exports is destabilizing the situation on a global scale. As a result, food is becoming increasingly expensive in different countries. Consequently, there is a threat of famine. In Africa, in Asia, in some European countries.”
    Fears of severe food shortages because of the Russian-Ukraine war have been growing as it becomes clear there is no end of the fighting in sight.
    [continues]

    maybe the weapons now being sent to ukraine will be employed to unblock the blockade

  10. Sturg, all I can say is Navarro ain’t dealing with a group of congress critters anymore with very little recourse other than to ask the DOJ to file a suit in federal court to enforce its subpoenas. They have a judge at their beck and call and federal marshals to come calling if a subpoenaed witness is recalcitrant.

  11. There’s a whole bunch of Clantons running around out there ain’t got no idea the shit that’s about to go down.  
     

  12. Is Garland waking up from his nap? Federal grand jury in Washington issues subpoena to Trump White House aide Peter Navarro for testimony and records regarding Jan. 6, including “any communications” with Trump himself.

  15. Clinton lawyer Sussman acquitted of lying to the FBI.  WaPo. 

    A federal jury found Michael Sussmann, an attorney for Democrats including the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, not guilty of lying to the FBI when he brought them allegations against Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race.

    Tuesday’s verdict was a major setback for Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed during the Trump administration and has spent three years probing whether the federal agents who investigated the 2016 Trump campaign committed wrongdoing.

    Sussmann was the first person charged by Durham to go to trial. Another person charged in the investigation is due to face a jury later this year.

    The Sussmann jury began deliberating Friday, weighing the testimony of current and former FBI officials, former Clinton campaign advisers, and technology experts. In closing arguments, prosecutors told the jury that Sussmann thought he had “a license to lie” to the FBI at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. Sussmann’s attorneys countered that the case against their client was built on a “political conspiracy theory.”

    Over two weeks of testimony, the case rehashed some of the bitter controversies from the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton presidential contest. Sussmann was charged with a single count of lying to the FBI when he delivered allegations of a secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which is based in Russia. Specifically, Durham alleged that Sussmann claimed he did not bring the information to the FBI on behalf of any client, when he allegedly did so on behalf of two clients: the Clinton campaign and a tech executive, Rodney Joffe.

    The jury ultimately rejected those claims, apparently swayed by the argument from Sussmann’s attorney, Sean Berkowitz, who said the prosecution was tryingto turn a brief 30-minute meeting more than five years ago into a “giant political conspiracy theory.”

    Jurors were tasked with answering a fairly simple legal and factual question — whether Sussmann lied about his client and whether that lie was relevant to the FBI investigation. Prosecutors argued Sussmann’s lie was just one part of a larger scheme by Clinton loyalists to use the FBI and news reporters to launch a damaging, last-minute revelation against Trump that would tip the election to Clinton.

    ***

    The key witness of the trial was James Baker, who was the FBI’s top lawyer when he met with Sussmann on Sept. 19, 2016. Baker told the jury he was “100 percent confident” that Sussmann insisted to him he was not acting on behalf of a client and that if he had known, he would have handled the conversation differently and perhaps not even agreed to the meeting at all.

    Since Sussmann did not testify, Baker gave the only direct witness account of the conversation. Sussmann’s attorneys repeatedly challenged Baker’s credibility, noting that in one earlier interview, Baker said Sussmann was representing cybersecurity clients; in another, he seemed to say he didn’t remember that part of the talk. In response to questions on the witness stand, he said he couldn’t remember 116 times, according to Berkowitz.

    Baker, who now works for Twitter, testified that Sussmann told him that a major newspaper — he later learned it was the New York Times — was preparing to write about the allegations. That apparently worried Baker, who said he knew a news story would probably cause any suspicious communications to stop, so he wanted the FBI to be able to investigate before an article appeared. Prosecutors say it was Sussmann himself who had provided the allegations about Trump to the Times.
     

    Follow that?  Neither did the jury.  Article subtitle should be Durham takes cockamamie to federal court and comes home with bupkus..

  17. pogo, according to rawstory durham didn’t just waste a lot of busy people and the court’s time

    Meanwhile, Durham spent $2.36 million in tax-payer dollars over the course of three years, doing nothing other than making wild accusations in court filing documents, according to Sussmann’s lawyer.

    wonder what and how $2.36 million could have been spent otherwise during these last few years.

  18. That’s a lot of money on court filings for a prosecution over whether Sussman failed to tell the FBI he represented Clinton at the time he spoke with them. 

  19. not sure how they came up with that figure and whether it includes the cost of junkets that he and bill barr made touring europe ostensibly looking for evidence.  also dont know if it did/does include his salary and staff expense. 

  20. https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-growing-up-in-rural-germany-taught-me-about-gun-control/

    “In Germany, if you want to have a “real” gun, you need to have a good reason. Maybe you’re a hunter; maybe you need to protect yourself; maybe you use it for sport. Whatever your reason, you need to apply for a permit and your arguments will be considered and, sometimes, rejected. If you belong to any extremist organization, such as a neo-Nazi group, you are automatically barred from owning a gun. Magazines with more than 20 rounds for handguns and more than 10 rounds for long guns are illegal. The government figures if you’re that bad a shot, you shouldn’t own a weapon in the first place.”

    “Every five years, authorities will recheck that the reasons you needed a gun still apply.”

    “I understand gun culture. But if you love guns, you should want them to only end up in the hands of the most responsible people. As Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times: “Automobiles are a model for the public health approach I’m suggesting. We don’t ban cars, but we work hard to regulate them — and limit access to them — so as to reduce the death toll they cause. This has been spectacularly successful.”

    All good points. Cars, however, are created for a different reason than guns. Still, if we have to live with guns, let’s regulate them so we actually get to live.

  21. While cleaning various plastic containers of stuff left to return to its original condition, and if that is not possible the condition mold, mildew, bugs and bacteria reduce it to, I had a flash return to the late nineteen fifties. My mother, approaching ninety-five this year, in her thirtiesh year telling me how exciting things were now that plastic made containers to store in our ancient, nineteen forties, refrigerator.  I still am not sure I fell into the plastic life.  I do like the containers for storage, but they eventually fail and need to be sent to the plastic graveyard.  Oh well.

  25. Speaking of Iraq , remember  the “Marsh Arabs” that  lived near Basra  where their two great rivers  met ? Well that once great marsh is gone , all of it.  It was one of  greatest marshes on Earth.  crammed with life.  And we murdered it. 
     
    And it only took us around 70 years to do it.  The people, the wildlife all of it gone. It was a key  stop over for birds flying from Africa to Siberia .
    A bird gas station , going and coming.  No more frog/bug buffet. 
    Just  a salty  desert with pump jacks , & pipe stacks flaring off  natural gas. 

  26. Everyday  I  regret  Joe Biden a little more.  Just because he’s so fucking old.  Age brings wisdom , but  this age brings being nimble , and old folks are not nimble. 

  27. Read that  wheat story.  And think about the invention of  agriculture .
    All though  I’m in the Turkey camp now.  Anatolia  invented  it but ,  folks down stream really put the ideas to work.
    This is pattern as old as us.  Great ideas never live long in a bottle , and new minds  improve them.
    This gave us the AR-15 , and the  Webb Telescope. 

  28. Well Bob Dylan  is selling his hand written lyricis  “Blowing in the Wind”, and  “Like a Rolling Stone”. 
     
    I hope that old bastard  does something  good  with all his money.
     

     
    This idea  males me sick , they’re  going to sell  car  insurance off this deal,   

  29. This why I never wanted  children. 
    To live in a world  where  we try to crush very nickel  out of every grape. 

  30. BB – Pyrex.  It’s heavy, but it lasts.  The storage containers have plastic tops, but are not prone to quickly degrade like plastic containers.   Plastic is everywhere. Plastic is always and forever.  

  34. This women’s issue  , and guns is the way to run. 
    Inflation seems like the winner.  But  the idea of one’s body  is much bigger with moms  , her kids  and her life. 
     
    And the left  needs every  one of these women to vote.  

  36. The   21 st   century  is a shit storm , and not the Golden future , of “Free
    Trade” . 
     Bill Clinton  is a fool. 

  38. Remember this , your seat cushion is a floatation device in the event of a water landing.  If you   crash on land , it will burn fire cracker . 
     
    Nite all.

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