The World is Watching, Weighing and Worrying

Avatar photoby

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcom Turnball joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House to break down Donald Trump’s infatuation with authoritarian leaders on the worlds stage, as news comes that Hungarian PM Viktor Orban is set to meet Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago this week. 

💬 Add your voice: Comment on today’s post
Share

27 thoughts on “The World is Watching, Weighing and Worrying”

  2. meanwhile, stephen weighs in

    The Supreme Court is damaging its legacy and moral authority by delaying justice in Trump’s insurrection trial, President Biden passed his annual physical, and Donald Trump Jr. believes Amish voters could put his father back in office.

  3. Mourners form long queues for funeral of Putin critic Alexei Navalny in Moscow – Russia-Ukraine war live (theguardian.com)

    Mourners are starting to gather outside a church in Moscow where opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, is due to be remembered ahead of his burial amid uncertainty about whether police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye.
    The memorial service, presided over by a priest and accompanied by choral singing, allows people to walk past the open casket of the deceased to say their farewells.
    Two hours before the service, a heavy police presence was visible around the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows in the Maryino district, where Navalny used to live.
    There have already been reports of arrests with several Navalny supporters detained as they left their apartments to attend the funeral.
    The lead-up to the funeral was marked by controversy. Navalny’s family repeatedly accused the Kremlin of pressuring them into holding a closed ceremony without the public.
    His mother was forced to battle for days to retrieve his body for over a week. Investigators tried to blackmail her into holding a quiet funeral in the remote Arctic region where he had died.
    Allies on Thursday also said that attempts to hire a hearse to take Navalny’s body to his own funeral had been thwarted by unknown individuals.
    After the church memorial service, Navalny will be buried at the Borisovskoye cemetery about 1.5 miles away.

    also at same link

    AP have the following update:
    Hours before the funeral was set to start, hundreds waited to enter the church under the watch of police who deployed in big numbers. Western diplomats were spotted in the long line.

    On livestreamed footage, his coffin could be seen being taken out of the vehicle, with the crowd applauding and chanting in the background: “Navalny! Navalny!”

    The funeral is streamed live on Navalny’s YouTube channel, added AP.
    Two hours before the service, a heavy police presence was visible around the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows in the Maryino district, where Navalny used to live.
    There have already been reports of arrests with several Navalny supporters detained as they left their apartments to attend the funeral.

  4. This is an example of the NAFO people having fun with some pictures and our famed “brain damaged cartoon dogs”.  The human is the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaya Kallas.  The others are fellas. 
     
    This week one of the spokes people of the Ukraine defense department gave us a shout out.  NAFO groups provided several ambulances, pickup trucks, other vehicles, a fire truck, and a few hundred thousand dollars. Also, cases of MRE’s, hundreds of drones, drone jammers, ammunition, sniper rifles and uniforms.

  5. some good news for a change: the little ‘copter that could still can

    The NASA Mars helicopter’s work is not done, it turns out (msn.com)

    NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has been grounded since January 18 after suffering damage to one of its rotors as it came in to land.
    The team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which oversees the Ingenuity mission, celebrated the plucky helicopter for achieving way more flights on the red planet than anyone had expected — 72 in all — and becoming the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet.
    Ingenuity’s success helped engineers to learn more about how to fly aircraft on Mars and in other challenging environments, paving the way for work on more complex rotorcraft for future missions.
    The Mars helicopter is now in its final resting place on a dune inside Mars’ Jezero Crater. But while most people have been thinking that it’s mission accomplished for the helicopter, it turns out that it’s actually still operating and in touch with its team at JPL.
    Responding to a question during an ask-me-anything session on Reddit this week, a NASA official revealed that Ingenuity is in fact snapping images and beaming them back to Earth. While the pictures are mostly of martian sand due to the camera’s downward-facing position, the team is using the imagery to learn about geological processes on Mars.
    As per NASA: “The team continues to run vehicle health checks while snapping images of the martian surface. Though we mostly see the sand below us with the color camera, martian scientists can learn about geological processes by having a series of images taken from one spot to see how dust, sand, and rock particles move in response to martian weather and wind.”
    Fans of Ingenuity are sure to be delighted to learn that while it’s no longer able to take to the skies, the trusty device is still powered up and working away on the martian surface.
    It’s not clear how for much longer Ingenuity will be able to operate. Much will depend on the time it takes for martian sand to cover its solar panels. When that happens, as it did it with NASA’s stationary InSight Mars lander in 2022, it will be well and truly game over for the Mars helicopter.

  6. also on a lighter note more from outer space

    David Horsey’s op ed Maybe the moon is trying to tell us something | The Seattle Times

    Today, let’s leave behind the dismal headlines on this planet and take a run up to the moon, where the news is happier — or at least funnier.
    Lunar probes from both Japan and the United States have in recent days landed on Earth’s barren satellite to gather scientific data. The landers are the latest sign that we earthlings are resuming lunar exploration after a half century of neglect following the end of the U.S. Apollo program that put the first humans on the moon.
    That is the happy news. The funny part is that the Japanese lander is stuck upside down in the lunar dust, while the American lander is resting on its side. It is a new beginning, but a less-than-auspicious one.
    The two mishaps show how very far we still are from the fictional worlds of “Star Wars” and “Star Trek,” where intrepid space travelers in the distant future, or in a galaxy far, far away, zip around from planet to planet like it is a drive to the shopping mall. Compared to those dashing adventurers, we seem to still be not all that advanced beyond the stick-tossing primates in the opening scenes of  “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
    The one person who is currently pushing humanity most urgently toward the stars is Earth’s richest man, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company has developed the first rockets that can shoot into near space and then return to terra firma and make a precise landing. Musk is eager to get to Mars before he dies because the gazillionaire firmly believes the only hope for preserving human consciousness in the universe is to find people a new planet.
    Musk is convinced of this, in part, because he fears artificial intelligence will very soon become all-powerful and inclined to exterminate homo sapiens. He might be right about AI. (If so, why is he helping bring it to life?) But salvation may not lie on the Red Planet.
    As my favorite caustic, contrarian comedian, Bill Maher, has noted more than once, Mars is not our kind of place. The thin Martian atmosphere consists mostly of carbon dioxide. If that doesn’t kill you, the extreme range of temperatures will. There are no animals, no birds, no fish, no dolphins. There are no lakes or oceans, no apple trees or grass or blueberry bushes. Mars is Death Valley without air to breathe.
    Musk and other alleged geniuses insist that, over time, human settlers on Mars will develop ways to cope with all of that. Nevertheless, I wonder if human consciousness is worth preserving if we stupidly screw up this lovely planet so badly that we have no survival option left other than escape into the frigid void of space.

  7. Yesterday’s almost real-time debate between Trump and Biden on immigration was a study in the contrast between authoritarianism and democracy. Trump blathered on about how he would fix it by himself as a first-day dictator, while Biden presented real solutions with bipartisan compromise.

  8. Regarding SCOTUS dragging their feet, will a determination of immunity (or not) make difference after the election but before the meeting of the Electoral College?  Before the oath?
     
    Hoping Biden gets a second term, but how does the timing play into it if, heaven forbid, he doesn’t?  

    And, it already looks bad because of this nonsensical delay, but all one has to do is point out (as Rachel Madow did) that Ford had to pardon Nixon. So, no, presidential immunity is not a thing.

  9. BlueID, I’m thinking if Trump wins the election and the trial/conviction happens later but before January 2025 certification day then a newly Democratic House and Senate could refuse to certify his election on the grounds that he is a convicted insurrectionist (especially if the Supreme Court rules in the current 14th Amendment case that Congress must define and execute the Sec. 3 insurrection clause).

  13. BlueID, while Ford’s pardon of Nixon specifically said he was exposed to criminal liability I can’t figure out how that’s a legal argument in a subsequent case. Just because the president said it doesn’t make it the law. Still need the courts to settle the issue.

  16. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/highlights-putins-address-russias-parliament-2024-02-29/
    “President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state-of-the-nation address on Thursday to Russia’s elite…”  ELITE?
     
    On the Russian war on Ukraine:
    “We did not start this war in Donbas. As I have said many times, we will do everything to end it, to eradicate Nazism. To fulfill all the tasks of the special military operation. To protect the sovereignty and security of our citizens.”
     
    NATO:
    “The West provoked the conflict in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in other regions of the world, and continues to lie, without any embarrassment, saying that Russia allegedly intends to attack Europe.”
    “There has been talk about the possibility of sending NATO military contingents to Ukraine … the consequences for possible interventionists will be … tragic.”
    “We also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilisation. Don’t they get that?”
     

    MISSILES, NUKES, ARMS RACE
    “Strategic nuclear forces are in a state of full readiness for guaranteed use.”
    “The hypersonic dagger aircraft system has not only been put into service, but is also being used with high efficiency to hit particularly important targets in the course of the special military operation.”
    “The hypersonic sea-based complex Zircon has also already been used in battle. The hypersonic units of the intercontinental range Avangard (and) the laser systems Peresvet are on combat duty. The tests of the Burevestnik unlimited-range cruise missile are being finalised. And the unmanned underwater vehicle Poseidon… The first mass-produced Sarmat heavy ballistic missiles have been delivered to the troops.”
    “The West is trying to drag us into an arms race.

     
     
     
     

    POVERTY AND SOCIAL SUPPORT
    “The problem of poverty is still acute, it now directly affects more than 9% of the population. And among large families…the poverty rate is more than 30%.
     

    Support the birth rate???   It sounds like the Handmaid’s playbook will be instituted in Mutha Russia, too. 

     
     
    “We need constant work to improve quality of life of families with children (and) support the birth rate. For this purpose, we will launch a new national project called ‘Family’.

     

    Did I say Putin was weak? I meant crazy. He’s crazy, which is a kind of weakness.
     
     
     

  17. So amazing to see how many Russians at the burial doing TV interviews even though reporters are reminding them they could be put in jail for years under current law.

  18. “ We need constant work to improve quality of life of families with children (and) support the birth rate.”
     
    Translation: “i need more cannon fodder”

  20. …should be an easy win if Republicans shut down the government they are responsible for keeping open
     
    messaging like “you’d lose YOUR job if you performed like these Republicans”

  21. BiD, I don’t think the Nixon pardon has any effect on the current situation.  Watergate hearings and an expected impeachment were the only things that had occurred before he left office and was pardoned by Jerry Ford. The pardon kept any further action re: criminal prosecutions from occurring so the question never got before a court. That ship has sailed in Dumbass’ case and now he’s raising immunity as a defense.  Normally claims of immunity are fact specific, and I suspect that the Court will say something to that effect.  He’s got two federal criminal cases pending and each has a very different set of facts so it could apply in one but not in the other.  Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances.

  22. From the rumours I have heard about Tricky Dicky, there are many more crimes that have not been talked about or written about.  Bad security things, nothing like giving away to the Soviets or Chinese, but internal acts.  Those are what I am sure Ford was including when he issued the pardon.
     
    This happened before the end of the Vietnam War. 
     
    It also ended Ford’s future as a president.

  23. BB, I’d be astounded if we knew Al of Nixon’s bad deeds. There were certainly more than I’m aware of. 

Comments are closed.

Join the Trail Mix

Get an alert when Craig goes live, and the link when our Open Thread heats up.