Whiffs of War?

NATO jets scrambled after Russia launches huge aerial attack on Ukraine (msn.com)

NATO jets have been scrambled this morning over Russia’s latest missile and drone attack on Ukraine.

The NATO planes were scrambled to defend Poland’s airspace as Russia used long-range rocket strikes to attack Ukraine in a five-hour bombardment.

Late last month the Polish prime minister warned ‘we are in a pre-war era’ as Vladimir Putin’s missiles struck close to its border.

The Kremlin’s drone and missile strikes on Ukraine have forced Poland to scramble jets multiple times in recent weeks.

A spokesperson from Warsaw’s Armed Forces said: ‘Polish and allied aircraft operate in the airspace, which may result in increased noise levels, especially in the southeast area of the country.

‘Intense long-range aviation activity of the Russian Federation is observed tonight, due to rocket strikes on objects on Ukrainian territory.

‘All necessary procedures aimed at ensuring the safety of Polish airspace have been launched.’

Thursday morning’s bombardment from the Kremlin appeared to target Stryi, in the Lviv region of western Ukraine, which is known for having vast underground gas stores.

It’s thought this is part of a wider strategy to disrupt energy supplies in the country, as at least 200,000 people were plunged into darkness by emergency power cuts.

Grid operator substations and power generating facilities in the Odesa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv and Kyiv regions were damaged.

Second city Kharkiv suffered 15 punishing strikes, while Odesa and Kyiv were also hit, forcing residents to take shelter underground.

Air defences took down 18 of the incoming missiles and 39 drones, Ukraine’s air force commander said.

The latest attack comes amid concerns that Putin could be planning for a war with NATO ‘sooner than expected’ – before mocking the military alliance.

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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

41 thoughts on “Whiffs of War?”

  3. stephen and christine on our international relations

    CNN Chief Global Anchor Christiane Amanpour lends an international perspective to the news that Arizona is banning all abortions, at a time when countries like France are moving in the other direction and codifying women’s reproductive rights into law. Stick around for more with Christiane and watch “The Amanpour Hour” every Saturday on CNN.

    meanwhile in other news

    Guillermo is very excited for Jon Bon Jovi to be on the show, for the first time ever the women’s NCAA basketball final got more viewers than the men’s, the Bidens hosted the Prime Minister of Japan and his wife at the White House and Paul Simon provided music for the event, Joe Biden sat down with Univision and the guy that interviewed him knocked it out of the park, Trump took a break today from trying to derail his porn star hush money trial to make a “surprise” visit at Chick-Fil-A and he claimed that he’s done more for the black community than Abraham Lincoln, and Jimmy checks in with MyPillow Mike Lindell (James Adomian) to learn more about his new wife and what’s going on in Pillowtown.

  4. While the GOP Putin caucus blocking Ukraine funding gets much deserved attention, this is also worth notice:

    Trump is getting even more brazen at pleasing Putin for his help in the election. Gutting our ability to investigate foreign spies must be a top Russian priority.

    After Trump Broadside, Surveillance Bill Collapses in the House
    Right-wing lawmakers blocked a move by Speaker Johnson to extend a key foreign intelligence surveillance tool after former President Donald J. Trump urged lawmakers to “kill” the law underlying it. — NYT free link

  5. craig, those anti-fisa GOPers just don’t want their dalliances with puti discovered. 

    from WAPO last night:

    Hard-liners had telegraphed that they would sink the procedural vote if the House Rules Committee did not include a change to the legislation to reshape how those services surveil malicious foreign actors, by ensuring that they don’t spy on U.S. citizens swept up in the communications-gathering without a warrant.
    And they may have been emboldened by a Wednesday morning social media post from former president Donald Trump decrying the FISA law.
    “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!” he wrote on Truth Social.
    Trump supporters falsely claim that without reforms, the “weaponized” Justice Department under President Biden will continue to target Trump and other conservatives. Spy agencies, however, do not have authority to surveil U.S. citizens under FISA.

  6. Yahoo reported that as a response to the CPI news yesterday:

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 1.1%, or almost 425 points. The S&P 500 dropped nearly 1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost almost 0.9%.

    But Trump Media stock beat the hell out of those trends, falling 8.57% yesterday. Now that shows leadership. Bwahahahahahah. Looking good Dumbass.

  7. Funny line in GA focus group from former Trump voter (a man) switching to Biden over abortion:

    “Wait a second. The government can’t do anything right, and you’re telling me we’re going to turn our bodies over to them?” (MSNBC)

  9. What is the only funny thing happening in this world? Anything that dumps a load on sfb.  Current laugh is the billionaires are no longer propping up the stock of the media company.  Anything stupid touches dies.  The stock is once again doing the outline of a cliff.  Good laugh for the morning. I don’t know if he shorted his own stock, don’t even know if that is legal, but that is the only way he will make any money off that pump and dump garbage pile.

  10. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-supreme-court-immunity-seal-team-six-1235001541/
    “As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear oral arguments in Donald Trump’s presidential immunity case, his allies are working to tamp down any concerns the justices might have about one of the more absurd and disconcerting arguments offered by any Trump lawyer ever: that a president would have to be impeached and convicted before he could be prosecuted if he were to, hypothetically, order the assassination of a political rival.”
     
    “The America First Policy Institute, a think tank led by former top Trump advisers and allies, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court last month arguing that the justices should not consider this hypothetical in their decision, because the military would never follow such a command. “A president cannot order an elite military unit to kill a political rival,” says the brief, adding, “The military would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the president to kill nonmilitary targets.” 
     
    “Unfortunately, according to Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, he as president did suggest to senior administration officials that they should order U.S. troops to open fire on some of his political enemies — namely, street protesters.”
    “Can’t you just shoot them?” Trump asked, regarding Black Lives Matter demonstrators and others who were protesting around the White House in June 2020, according to Esper. “Just shoot them in the legs or something?” (Trump has denied this account.)

  11. What freedom will you lose next? Hmmm.  

    Let’s see…Republicans are weakening voter rights, defunding public school,  weakening child labor laws,  planning to deport those coming over our southern border, banning reproductive rights for women (including contraception).  

    It sure sounds like they are building a Time Machine to the past, where only straight, white men who profess to be Christian have any power..and rich/powerful white men who are certainly not Christian are the ones actually in power, but they set up the world up so other white men do the lowereds’ work to make sure they keep everyone else pushed down. ~Law and order~
     

  12. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-fired-police-officer-new-hampshire_n_6616de8ce4b0999df35397ba
    “One of Donald Trump’s county campaign chairs in New Hampshire lost his job as a police officer after threatening to kill his colleagues in a shooting spree, murder the department chief and rape the chief’s wife in retaliation for his suspension over his relationship with a high school girl, according to a newly released report from an internal affairs investigation.”
    “Jonathan Stone, who is currently a second-term state representative, was announced as Trump’s Sullivan County chair by his campaign on June 27, 2023. The coup-attempting former president first came to know Stone during Trump’s 2016 run, when Stone gave him an inscribed AR-15 assault rifle at a campaign stop.”
    Adolf has an AR-15?  Is he allowed to possess firearms while out on bail? 
     

  13. Trump has denied this account

     
    Since he often claims to “not recall” many things, who would believe his denials? Or maybe he actually walks around in a fugue state most of the time. 

  14. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/10/opinions/trump-hush-money-trial-jury-eisen/index.html
    “Opinion: Trump seems to be searching Manhattan for one angry juror”
    “He keeps filing motions that seem certain to lose, and then when they do he sometimes refiles them again. Some have suggested that he is using the trial to cultivate a narrative of grievance to boost his political standing among his followers nationally, and he undoubtedly is.”
     
    “…it appears to me that he is attempting to reach his supporters in Manhattan in the hopes that at least one will make it onto the jury and then steadfastly refuse to convict him — no matter the strength of the evidence. (Trump denies all wrongdoing.) Judge Juan Merchan’s just-released and extremely detailed jury questionnaire demonstrates that he’s on guard against Trump’s maneuvering — but that doesn’t mean that, if this is Trump’s strategy, the former president won’t continue to try.”

    “When a juror completely disregards the evidence and the law and instead decides based on other reasons such as bias, that is known as “jury nullification,”…

    “Here’s how it works. Step one: Cue up a fight with the court, no matter how ridiculous. The point is the fight itself — not to win.”

    “Step two: Try to get a hearing out of it, provoking even more intense news coverage in the heart of New York City — and further goose attention by having Trump be present in court for the most high-profile clashes, guaranteeing they will dominate the headlines in the days before, during and after the hearing itself.”

    “Step three: Hold a Trump press conference, which ensures that any jury nullification advertisement has the broadest possible reach with the jury pool.”

    “…Trump is in a position of weakness. He is at great risk of conviction and a sentence of incarceration, and he knows it. That is reflected in his desperate motions strategy, whatever its explanation.”

  15. Ivy, That is an excellent point.  How does he deny something he claimed to not recall in a deposition, under oath? 
    ps – The SC justices who lied under oath about abortion, is there a way to reprimand them or give them the boot?  Clarence Thomas should just permanently recuse himself and go in a cruise. 

  16. Oh, FFS! Nobody cares to rehash the OJ case now that he’s dead.   More important stuff, MSM!  Move on! 

  17. On today’s “Countdown” Old Berman takes a rhetorical shiv to Ron Klain.   It’s deserved.   

  19. So the market went to shit over an inflation number in the threes yesterday and has rebounded to recover yesterday’s losses on the strength of a less than predicted PPI today. And before anyone starts jumping out of windows, the Dow sits at 38,533.68, +4,902.54 (14.58%)over the past 6 months. Somebody (think retailers) is making money.  
     
    And in related news, Trump Media stock has lost another 4.7% so far today, sitting at $32.59 with half an hour left in trading.

  20. Authors of the :  Rare Birds  

    James Ellroy
    AMERICAN TABLOID 

    Arnaud de Bourchgrave and Robert Moss
    THE SPIKE……1980 and all that went with it.

    Richard Condon
    WINTER KILLS

  22. I used to have a photo of Jack Ruby’s mother screaming at the cameras on the steps of the courthouse in Dallas.  She was givin’ ‘em hell.     I probably still have it somewhere.    After I watched her I went back to the Adolphus Hotel—you might say I moseyed—and had steak and eggs in the hotel diner.  
    The next day I had a ticket to see “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World”. I think it was “Cinerama”.

    (5 Mads)

  25. Still hanging around here in Texas. Remembering why, once-upon-a-time, I was proud to be a voting, tax-paying citizen of this former republic.

    A colleague of mine’s relative took one of the photos of Ruby shooting Oswald. Not sure which one and don’t remember how or why we were discussing it.

  28. Had dinner with another friend and former colleague who uttered a quote of my own: 
     

    If you have to live in Texas, Austin is the place to do it. 

     
    That’s if Greg Abbott doesn’t ruin it. People of Austin: it’s up to you to Keep Austin Weird. 

  29. Sturgeone – you are correct about Cinerama.  It was a technological marvel.  The viewing was great.  My grandparents took me to several movies at the one in Detroit.  It was, at the time, the IMAX of the era. 

  31. The other Cinerama I saw was “How the West Was Won” summer of ‘63 at an opera house in Auckland.  That train wreck in Cinerama was a plumb doozy.

  32. Somebody’s teeth fell out on the sidewalk and they left them there. Austin is so weird. 

  33. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-calls-earlier-presidential-debates-biden-rcna147461

    “Donald Trump’s campaign is calling for more presidential debates to be held between him and President Joe Biden, and for the proposed face-offs to begin as early as possible to ensure that more Americans “have a full chance” to see the candidates in action before they cast their ballot.”
     

    Well, President Biden has kind of a full plate with things both domestic and foreign, including supporting Ukraine against tRUMPsky’s handler, but sure, if Adolf can squeeze in a debate between trials…
     

    I hope there are women in the audience who will shout down Adolf when he starts lying about bodily autonomy.  Anyone in the audience trying to shout down Biden over aid to Israel is a MAGAt plant, because everyone knows the whole world is at risk from tRUMPsky. 

    Also, I hope we jam communications for Adolf’s earpiece, because there is no way he is smart enough to answer questions, nor does he have the ability to stay on topic nor even string together an intelligible sentence.

  34. https://www.barrons.com/articles/djt-truth-social-trump-media-stock-buying-a7bffe7d

    “Who Is Buying DJT Stock? It’s a Mystery.
    Regulatory filings for the Truth Social owner, like all stocks, show very little about who’s ultimately behind the trading.”

    “Plenty of people are asking because of the potential for the company to affect the November presidential election. But there is no reliable way to answer the question for Trump Media or any other stock. That’s because public disclosure regulations provide a limited and belated look at stock ownership.”
     
    Nothing about DWAC seems like it’s on the up-and-up.
     
     

  36. https://southdakotasearchlight.com/briefs/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-bans-gov-kristi-noem-from-reservation-oglala-cheyenne-river/

    “The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, headquartered in North Dakota but with reservation borders expanding into South Dakota, is the third tribal nation to ban Gov. Kristi Noem from tribal lands this year.”
     

    “The Wednesday announcement comes after the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council voted to banish Noem for “racially charged” comments she made last month at two town halls alleging some tribal leaders are “personally benefitting” from Mexican drug cartel activity on reservations.”

    “Governor Kristi Noem’s wild and irresponsible attempt to connect tribal leaders and parents with Mexican drug cartels is a sad reflection of her fear-based politics that do nothing to bring people together to solve problems,” said Tribal Chairwoman Janet Alkire in a news release. 
    “Five tribes have demanded an apology from Noem since then. She has not issued an apology, but has issued press releases calling on tribes to “banish the cartels.”
     
    “Noem crashed the Pe Sla Sacred Sites quarterly meeting in Rapid City at the end of march, where tribal leaders were meeting with representatives of the U.S. Forest Service to discuss co-stewardship efforts in the Black Hills.”
     
    “Noem was previously banned from the Pine Ridge Reservation in 2019 after signing two bills into law regulating protests over the Keystone XL pipeline.”
     
     
     
     

  37. i got a better question: who’s going to trust a NASDAQ ipo after they listed that piece of shit?

    Maybe DWAC will be the catalyst for the collapse of American capitalism

    ETTD

  38. There’s a thought! 

    ps – American capitalism will cannibalize itself when it finishes siphoning money off of consumers and the government.  Any day now.

  39. Addendum to requirements for presidential debates: drug testing
     
    No Adderall for Donny.  Let’s see how he manages unassisted. 
     
     
    https://www.newsweek.com/adderall-trends-after-kevin-mccarthy-says-biden-lacks-energy-trump-needs-more-sleep-1591832
     
    “Stand-up comedian Noel Casler, who worked on Trump’s The Apprentice TV show for several years, fueled speculation and rumors of the Adderall claim in 2018. Casler said of the then-TV star: “He’s a speed freak. He crushes up his Adderall and he sniffs it because he can’t read and he gets nervous.”

    “And in 2016, people shared a photograph which appeared to show boxes of European-brand Sudafed, a drug sometimes used to increase alertness and achieve a “high,” inside a cabinet in Trump’s office.”

    “Despite McCarthy’s claim, a leaked copy of Trump’s daily presidential schedule showed he routinely did not start working in the White House until nearly noon. And several hours of the former president’s mornings were blocked off for “executive time” which mainly consisted of him watching cable TV news.”

  40. boy, do it siphon 
     
    hey i got an idea, let’s regulate it and have the best of both worlds 
     
    oh wait 
     
    😴 

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