SunSeeker
SunSeeker's JournalOne of the worst ways Putin is gaslighting the world on Ukraine
Among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s many fantastical pretexts for invading Ukraine, the urgent need for its “denazification” may be the most preposterous. Ukraine isn’t free of domestic extremists, but Putin’s claims are pure disinformation. In fact, the Russian strongman has been supporting neo-Nazis and white supremacists for years, including mercenaries and separatists who have waged war on Ukraine since 2014.
Putin isn’t fighting neo-Nazism. He nurtures it, making his gaslighting about Ukraine even more repellent.
Perhaps Moscow’s most notorious military proxy is the Wagner Group, mercenaries the Kremlin has used to wage deniable war and otherwise promote its interests in places like Syria, Libya and Mozambique. Recently the Wagner Group deployed to the Central African Republic, and it has shown up in Mali, where its brutal methods appear to be replacing previous efforts by the international community to fight terrorists active in the country.
The Wagner Group is named after the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner, whose music Adolf Hitler adored. The group’s leader, Dmitry Utkin, reportedly wears Nazi tattoos, including a swastika, a Nazi eagle and SS lightning bolts. Wagner mercenaries are reported to have left behind neo-Nazi propaganda in the war zones where they’ve fought, including graffiti with hate symbols.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/putin-nazi-pretext-russia-war-ukraine-belied-white-supremacy-ties-rcna23043
Truck convoy protesting COVID mandates is heading to California
A group of truck drivers protesting COVID-19 mandates on roads and highways around the Washington, D.C., area in recent weeks will head to California next, an organizer announced Sunday night.
During a livestream of the People’s Convoy nightly rally Sunday, organizer Mike Landis read a list of measures aimed at controlling COVID-19 in California, The Herald-Mail reported.
“I think stopping those is more important at this point in time than getting the emergency declaration repealed because that’s already in place and we need to stop stuff like these bills from getting in place,” Landis said, “otherwise, the rest of us that don’t live in California are going to end up subject to the same situation.”
https://ktla.com/news/california/truck-convoy-protesting-covid-mandates-heading-to-california/
Just what California needs, a bunch of idiots in semis fucking up our already FUBAR traffic. California has dropped just about all the covid mandates, so I don't know what the fuck they're protesting.
Accused Russian Agent Gave to One Politician: Tulsi Gabbard
Source: Daily Beast
Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and 2020 presidential dark horse candidate, has long perplexed U.S. officials and observers with her seemingly inexplicable pro-Russian positions. And a new development this week is sure to reinforce the half-jokes that Gabbard is a “Russian asset”; as it turns out, her campaign took money from one.
That agent—dual Russian-American national Elena Branson, also known as Elena Chernykh—stands accused of illegally pushing pro-Russia policies in the United States for nearly a decade, at the direction of top Kremlin officials, without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), according to a criminal complaint federal prosecutors filed this week in the Southern District of New York.
But, in all her time lobbying for Russian goals, she gave money to just one federal candidate: Gabbard.
According to Federal Election Commission records, an Elena Branson made two donations in 2019 to Gabbard’s presidential campaign. The filings tie the donation to Branson’s former address at a million-dollar condo on Central Park West. However, the merchant banker listed her occupation as “not employed.” (Branson lived in the United States for decades and holds American citizenship, so the contributions were legal.)
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/accused-russian-agent-elena-branson-gave-to-one-politician-tulsi-gabbard?ref=home
Russian troops are resupplying by looting Ukrainians' stores, banks.
From Newsweek:
Videos on social media appear to show Russian soldiers looting banks and grocery stores in Ukraine.One video which has circulated widely on Twitter over the last few hours purportedly shows armed Russian soldiers taking items from a Ukrainian supermarket.
It was not immediately clear where the incident took place, and Newsweek is still trying to verify the details.
Meanwhile, another video appears to show Russian soldiers who had broken into a bank in the Kherson region of Ukraine.
https://www.newsweek.com/videos-show-russian-soldiers-looting-banks-grocery-stores-ukraine-1683027
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497853526881546241
Most speech watchers say State of the Union made them feel optimistic, proud - CBS News poll
Source: CBS News
Most Americans who watched President Biden's first State of the Union address approved of what they heard, and many said it made them feel optimistic and proud.
After nearly two years of the coronavirus pandemic, more than half who tuned in Tuesday night said the speech made them feel like the coronavirus is mostly behind us.
Older Americans who watched the speech were a bit more likely to say the speech made them feel the coronavirus will be with us for a while. CBS News interviewed speech viewers immediately after the president's speech.
Overall, about 8 in 10 of speech watchers approved of Mr. Biden's address tonight, including majorities of both Democrats and independents. Among members of his own party, his speech received high marks among both liberals and moderates.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-state-of-the-union-speech-watchers-reactions/?dc_data=4165335_samsung-browser-us&utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=taboola_news&jd=V1_600865245568363801
Lots more breakdown of opinions at the link. Good news for Biden, showing he moved the needle in his favor on several key issues, like inflation.
Facing massive blowback, RNC's McDaniel changes "legitimate political discourse" censure language.
The RNC'c censure resolution yesterday claimed Cheney and Kinzinger, the only Republicans on the nine-member select committee investigating the Capitol riot, "are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes."
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel echoed that language in an interview with The Washington Post. But McDaniel modified that language in a statement to NBC later Friday afternoon, distinguishing the so-called legitimate political discourse from the violent riot.
Cheney and Kinzinger "chose to join [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol," McDaniel's latest statement said. The text of the resolution itself made no such distinction.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/04/rnc-censures-liz-cheney-adam-kinzinger-for-investigating-jan-6-pro-trump-riot.html
L.A. firefighter accused of wiping butt, leaving fecal matter on non-compliance letter in protest of
The Los Angeles Fire Department is investigating an incident in which a firefighter “responded inappropriately” after being handed a letter to comply with the city’s vaccine mandate, a department spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The Stentorians of Los Angeles City, a group representing African American firefighters, said Wednesday that the LAFD member responded to receiving the non-compliance letter by dropping his pants and wiping his buttocks with the letter, leaving fecal matter on the document. He then dropped the letter on the ground.
The alleged incident underscores the deep resistance among some within the Fire Department over the city’s mandate that employees be vaccinated.
LAFD spokeswoman Cheryl Getuiza said the alleged incident occurred on Nov. 18. “The department is aware of the seriousness of the allegations and took immediate action upon learning of this incident,” she said Wednesday, but declined to comment on the details.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/l-a-firefighter-accused-of-wiping-butt-leaving-fecal-matter-on-non-compliance-letter-in-protest-of-vaccine-mandate/
In related news...
LAFD spent more than $22.5M on overtime related to COVID, much of it to cover for sick firefighters
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/lafd-spent-more-than-22-5m-on-overtime-related-to-covid-much-of-it-to-cover-for-sick-firefighters/
Missing N.C. teen found after using TikTok hand sign alerting she was in danger
Authorities were able to find a missing 16-year-old girl after she caught the attention of a driver by using hand gestures popularized on the social media platform TikTok.
According to the Laurel County Sheriff's Office in Kentucky, the girl was inside a silver-colored Toyota car when the driver saw her using hand signals known on TikTok "to represent violence at home — I need help — domestic violence."
After recognizing what the signals meant and seeing that the teen "appeared to be in distress," the driver called 911, the sheriff's office said in a statement.
https://twitter.com/HaltonPolice/status/1430218446281875463
The alert led to the arrest of 61-year-old James Herbert Brick of Cherokee, North Carolina, Thursday afternoon while driving near a Kentucky interstate. The teenager found inside the car Brick was driving had been reported missing by her parents in Asheville, North Carolina, Tuesday morning, Laurel County Sheriff John Root said in a statement.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missing-n-c-teen-found-after-using-tiktok-hand-sign-n1283401
Alabama spends $670k/yr on a Confederate memorial while Black history museums struggle.
MOUNTAIN CREEK, Ala. — Down a country road, past a collection of ramshackle mobile homes, sits a 102-acre "shrine to the honor of Alabama's citizens of the Confederacy."
The museum’s exhibits explain what the White Alabamians who took up the cause of the Confederacy felt was on the line — Alabama was 10th of the then 33 states in the value of livestock, seventh in peas and beans, and second in cotton production. The only hope to save its economic position, the exhibit quotes a former state governor as saying, was for it to secede from the union, and though not mentioned directly, maintain the bondage of hundreds of thousands of Black Americans. On a recent morning, there was just one visitor on the property and he didn’t enter the museum.
There are a number of museums that tell those stories spread across Alabama, but the Confederate Memorial Park is different. It is the only museum in the state that has a dedicated revenue stream codified in the state’s constitution. So while other museums struggle to keep their doors open, search for grants for funding and depend on volunteer staff, the Confederate Memorial Park is flush with cash. In 2020 alone, the park received $670,000 in taxpayer dollars. That’s about $22 per visitor and more than five times the $4 admission price for adults.
The fight over how to fund Alabama’s museums comes as state lawmakers debate what and whose history should be taught and promoted. In August, the Alabama State Board of Education passed a resolution that banned the teaching of critical race theory, an academic framework that examines the role of race and racism in the crafting of American laws and social norms.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/alabama-spends-more-than-a-half-million-dollars-a-year-on-a-confederate-memorial-black-historical-sites-struggle-to-keep-their-doors-open/2021/10/03/77953f7e-222a-11ec-8fd4-57a5d9bf4b47_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F34df4dc%2F615b29e59d2fda9d41fb49d9%2F5bc97fa5ae7e8a50f8217d42%2F38%2F74%2F615b29e59d2fda9d41fb49d9
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