Manoj Gajurel: World Class Comedian https://t.co/AtiaoZnqiI @gajureal @thapagk @BarshamanPun1 @drckraut @hamrorabi #nepal
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) August 12, 2022
Showing posts with label ukraine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ukraine. Show all posts
Friday, August 12, 2022
Manoj Gajurel: World Class Comedian
Friday, May 27, 2022
News: May 27
As U.N. Rights Chief Visits China, Some Fear She’ll Become Part of the Spin Michelle Bachelet’s tour includes Xinjiang, where China has been accused of genocide. The terms of her visit are unclear, and critics say Beijing is using her for propaganda.
The Stupefying Tally of American Gun Violence
Uvalde Had Prepared for School Shootings. It Did Not Stop the Rampage.
Nothing Is Going to Stop the N.R.A.’s Gun Orgy in Texas
The Buffalo Shooting Was Not a Random Act of Violence
Why Are Bikes So Much Fun? Because They’re Not Cars.
The G.O.P. War on Civil Virtue It’s hard to say which of the Republican responses to the latest mass shooting was most reprehensible. The reliably awful Senator Ted Cruz attracted considerable attention by insisting that the answer is to put armed guards in schools, never mind that Uvalde’s school system has its own police force and officers seem to have been on the scene soon after the shooter arrived. ......... But if you ask me, the worst and also most chilling response came from Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas. What we need to do, declared Patrick, is “harden these targets so no one can get in, ever, except maybe through one entrance.” That restriction would have interesting consequences in the event of a fire. But in any case, think about Patrick’s language: In a nation that’s supposedly at peace, we should treat schools as “targets” that need to be “hardened.” What would that do to public education, which has for many generations been one of the defining experiences of growing up in America? Don’t worry, says a writer for The Federalist: Families can keep their kids safe by resorting to home-schooling. ............. if you take the proposals by Cruz, Patrick and others literally, they amount to a call for turning the land of the free into a giant armed camp. There are around 130,000 K-12 schools in America; there are close to 40,000 supermarkets; there are many other venues that might offer prey for mass killers. So protecting all these public spaces Republican-style would require creating a heavily armed, effectively military domestic defense force — heavily armed because it would face attackers with body armor and semiautomatic weapons — that would be at least as big as the Marine Corps. ..........
It’s Not Looking Too Good for Government of the People, by the People and for the People The antislavery politicians of the 1840s and 1850s did not speak with a single voice. Some opposed slavery for moral and religious reasons and hoped to wipe its terrible mark from the body politic of the United States. Some opposed slavery but denied that the federal government had any right to interfere with the institution in the 15 states where it persisted. They were committed to “free soil” in the West more than abolition in the South. Still others weren’t concerned with slavery per se as much as they were fiercely opposed to Black migration from the South. They opposed slavery, and supported colonization, because it was the way to ensure that the United States would remain a “white man’s democracy.” ......... gave the slaveholding oligarchs of the South a virtual lock on much of the federal government, including the Supreme Court. “Between Washington’s election and Lincoln’s,” Richards points out, “nineteen of the thirty-four Supreme Court appointees were slaveholders.” ......... I am thinking of this in the context of guns, gun violence and the successful movement, thus far, to make the United States an armed society. .......... the capture of America’s political institutions by an unrepresentative minority whose outright refusal to compromise is pushing the entire system to a breaking point. ........ Large majorities of Americans favor universal background checks, bans on “assault-style” weapons, bans on high-capacity magazines and “red flag” laws that would prevent people who might harm themselves or others from purchasing guns. ............ by using the filibuster, a small number of Republican senators representing an even smaller faction of voters can kill legislation supported by most voters and most members of Congress. ......... a country so saturated in guns that there’s no real hope of going back to the status quo ante. ........ If the Supreme Court rules as expected in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, it will strike down a law that requires a license for carrying a concealed firearm. ........ Whether or not the public wants a world of ubiquitous firearms, the conservative majority on the court — which Americans have never voted for and which would not exist without the counter-majoritarian institutions that gave Donald Trump the White House and the Republican Party a Senate majority — seems ready to impose one. ............ To say that it is possible for a narrow faction of ideologues to weaponize the counter-majoritarian features of our system against the “republican principle” is, basically, to describe the current state of our democracy. It is, in other words, to state the crisis.
Why Californians Love California The state’s population might be dropping slightly, but more Americans choose to live in California than anywhere else.
The Southern Baptist Moral Meltdown moral behavior doesn’t start with having the right beliefs. Moral behavior starts with an act — the act of seeing the full humanity of other people. Moral behavior is not about having the right intellectual concepts in your head. It’s about seeing other people with the eyes of the heart, seeing them in their full experience, suffering with their full suffering, walking with them on their path. Morality starts with the quality of attention we cast upon another. .......... In 2007 a woman named Christa Brown had the courage to testify before Southern Baptist officials that her youth pastor had repeatedly sexually assaulted her when she was 16. She reported that one official turned his back, literally refusing to look at her, refusing to see her. That is the sort of dehumanization that creates indifference that enables rape, abuse and all the other horrific dehumanizing acts down the road. ......... Character is not measured by a person’s beliefs but by the ability to see the full humanity of others. It is not automatic. It’s a skill acquired slowly. It’s about being able to focus on what’s going on in your own mind and simultaneously focus on what’s going on in another mind. It’s about learning how to minutely observe, absorb and resonate with other people’s emotions. ......... It comes about through years of shared experiences, decades of other-centered attention, engagement with the kind of literature that educates you in what can go on in other people’s heads. It’s spiritual training to get out of your own egotistic self-referential thinking and into the habit of asking what’s this moment like for that other person. .......... it’s very easy to get people to dehumanize each other. You divide people into in-groups and out-groups. You spread a tacit ideology that says women are less important than men or Black people are less important than white people. You use euphemistic language so that horrific acts can be abstracted into sanitized jargon. ......... You bureaucratize: You create a system of nonresponsibility in which rules and procedures matter, not people. When you read the report on the Southern Baptists you realize, once again, how much horror can be done by dutiful functionaries who focus on minimizing legal liabilities but not honoring human beings.
America May Be Broken Beyond Repair why access to these weapons is, for the right, a matter of existential importance ........ “The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting,” said Masters. “It’s about protecting your family and your country. What’s the first thing the Taliban did when Joe Biden handed them Afghanistan? They took away people’s guns.” Guns, in this worldview, are a guarantor against government overreach. And government overreach includes attempts to regulate guns. ......... It will be impossible to do anything about guns in this country, at least at a national level, as long as Democrats depend on the cooperation of a party that holds in reserve the possibility of insurrection. The slaughter of children in Texas has done little to alter this dynamic. ......... Victims of our increasingly frequent mass shootings are collateral damage in a cold civil war, though some Democrats refuse to acknowledge it, let alone fight it. ........ Fine’s words echoed Donald Trump’s during the 2016 election, when he said that “Second Amendment people” might be able to stop a President Hillary Clinton from appointing Supreme Court justices. What was once a barely concealed insinuation of violence has morphed, especially after Jan. 6, into an even more forthright menace. ......... dozens of members of the Oath Keepers militia were arrested in connection with the attack on the Capitol, but that hasn’t stopped the organization from “evolving into a force within the Republican Party.” .......... the more America is besieged by senseless violence, the more the paramilitary wing of the American right is strengthened. ........ a vision of a society — if you can call it that — where every family is a fortress. ........
How Does It End? Fissures Emerge Over What Constitutes Victory in Ukraine In the past few days alone there has been an Italian proposal for a cease-fire, a vow from Ukraine’s leadership to push Russia back to the borders that existed before the invasion was launched on Feb. 24, and renewed discussion by administration officials about a “strategic defeat” for President Vladimir V. Putin — one that would assure that he is incapable of mounting a similar attack again. ........... After three months of remarkable unity in response to the Russian invasion — resulting in a flow of lethal weapons into Ukrainian hands and a broad array of financial sanctions that almost no one expected, least of all Mr. Putin ......... At a moment when the U.S. refers to Russia as a pariah state that needs to be cut off from the world economy, others, largely in Europe, are warning of the dangers of isolating and humiliating Mr. Putin. ........ The administration now sees a chance to punish Russian aggression, weaken Mr. Putin, shore up NATO and the trans-Atlantic alliance and send a message to China, too. Along the way, it wants to prove that aggression is not rewarded with territorial gains. .......... “I get the sense that instead of the year 2022, Mr. Kissinger has 1938 on his calendar.’’ ......... Zelensky has at various moments voiced contradictory views on what it would take to end the war, even offering to commit his country to “neutrality” rather than aspiring to join NATO. ............ In the end, American officials say, the hard choices will have to be made by Mr. Zelensky and his government. But they are acutely aware that if Mr. Putin gets his land bridge to Crimea, or sanctions are partially lifted, Mr. Biden will be accused by Republican critics — and perhaps some Democrats — of essentially rewarding Mr. Putin for his effort to redraw the map of Europe by force. .......... Three months ago, Mr. Putin’s own strategic objective was to take all of Ukraine — a task he thought he could accomplish in mere days. When that failed in spectacular fashion, he retreated to Plan B, withdrawing his forces to Ukraine’s east and south. It then became clear that he could not take key cities like Kharkiv and Odesa. Now the battle has come down to the Donbas, the bleak, industrial heartland of Ukraine, a relatively small area where he has already made gains, including the brutal takeover of Mariupol and a land bridge to Crimea. His greatest leverage is his naval blockade of the ports Ukraine needs to export wheat and other farm products, a linchpin of the Ukrainian economy and a major source of food for the world. ........... on April 25, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, speaking with a bluntness that took his colleagues by surprise, acknowledged that Washington wanted more than a Russian retreat. It wanted its military permanently damaged. .......... over time administration officials have gradually shifted in tone, talking more openly and optimistically about
Biden Says We’ve Got Taiwan’s Back. But Do We? one of the most explicit U.S. defense guarantees for Taiwan in decades ........ I have been involved in dozens of war games and tabletop exercises to see how a conflict would turn out. Simply put, the United States is outgunned. At the very least, a confrontation with China would be an enormous drain on the U.S. military without any assured outcome that America could repel all of China’s forces. ........ China has the world’s largest navy and the United States could throw far fewer ships into a Taiwan conflict. China’s missile force is also thought to be capable of targeting ships at sea to neutralize the main U.S. tool of power projection, aircraft carriers. ......... If China’s leaders decide they need to recover Taiwan and are convinced that the United States would respond, they may see no other option but a pre-emptive strike on U.S. forces in the region. Chinese missiles could take out key American bases in Japan, and U.S. aircraft carriers could face Chinese “carrier killer” missiles. In this scenario, superior U.S. training and experience would matter little. .......... China could disrupt networks like the United States Transportation Command, which moves American assets around and is considered vulnerable to cyberattacks. China may also have the ability to damage satellites and disrupt communications, navigation, targeting, intelligence-gathering, or command and control. Operating from home turf, China could use more-secure systems like fiber-optic cables for its own networks. ........... A 2018 congressionally mandated assessment warned that America could face a “decisive military defeat” in a war over Taiwan, citing China’s increasingly advanced capabilities and myriad U.S. logistical difficulties. ......... guaranteed U.S. intervention in a conflict over Taiwan would cost Beijing too much, even if it took the island. ......... China’s military is bigger and more formidable than Russia’s, and its economy far larger, more resilient and globally integrated. Rallying support for economic sanctions against Beijing during a conflict — China is the biggest trading partner of many countries — would be more challenging than isolating Russia. ........ shrewd diplomacy. Mr. Biden needs to stand firm against Chinese intimidation of Taiwan, while working to ease Beijing’s anxieties by demonstrating a stronger U.S. commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue. ........ Twenty years ago, China’s poorly trained army and largely obsolete naval and air forces had no chance. But that was then.
What Taiwan Really Wants
It’s Still Covid’s World. We’re Just Living In It.
America Kills Our Enemies in Our Name. And Then Keeps It Secret.
In 1791, enslaved Haitians did the seemingly impossible. They ousted their French masters and founded a nation.
Republican Governors Lose Their Dread of Trump
Hindi Novel Wins International Booker Prize for the First Time “Tomb of Sand,” written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell, won despite getting little previous attention from reviewers.
Live Updates: Russia Advances in Ukraine’s East as Civilian Toll Rises Russian forces seized Lyman, the second small city to fall this week, and moved closer to encircling Sievierodonetsk. A new report by legal and rights experts cited a “genocidal pattern” by Russia.
The Stupefying Tally of American Gun Violence
Uvalde Had Prepared for School Shootings. It Did Not Stop the Rampage.
Nothing Is Going to Stop the N.R.A.’s Gun Orgy in Texas
The Buffalo Shooting Was Not a Random Act of Violence
Why Are Bikes So Much Fun? Because They’re Not Cars.
The G.O.P. War on Civil Virtue It’s hard to say which of the Republican responses to the latest mass shooting was most reprehensible. The reliably awful Senator Ted Cruz attracted considerable attention by insisting that the answer is to put armed guards in schools, never mind that Uvalde’s school system has its own police force and officers seem to have been on the scene soon after the shooter arrived. ......... But if you ask me, the worst and also most chilling response came from Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas. What we need to do, declared Patrick, is “harden these targets so no one can get in, ever, except maybe through one entrance.” That restriction would have interesting consequences in the event of a fire. But in any case, think about Patrick’s language: In a nation that’s supposedly at peace, we should treat schools as “targets” that need to be “hardened.” What would that do to public education, which has for many generations been one of the defining experiences of growing up in America? Don’t worry, says a writer for The Federalist: Families can keep their kids safe by resorting to home-schooling. ............. if you take the proposals by Cruz, Patrick and others literally, they amount to a call for turning the land of the free into a giant armed camp. There are around 130,000 K-12 schools in America; there are close to 40,000 supermarkets; there are many other venues that might offer prey for mass killers. So protecting all these public spaces Republican-style would require creating a heavily armed, effectively military domestic defense force — heavily armed because it would face attackers with body armor and semiautomatic weapons — that would be at least as big as the Marine Corps. ..........
Mass shootings are very rare outside the United States.
.......... imagine the reaction if a prominent liberal politician were to declare that the reason the United States has a severe social problem that doesn’t exist elsewhere is that Americans are bad people. ......... I personally don’t believe that Americans, as individuals, are worse than anyone else. ........ what has always struck me when returning from trips abroad is that Americans are (or were) on average exceptionally nice and pleasant to interact with. ......... What distinguishes us is that it’s so easy for people who aren’t nice to arm themselves to the teeth. ......... They’re barely even trying to make sense. Instead, they’re just making noise to drown out rational discussion until the latest atrocity fades from the news cycle. The truth is that conservatives consider mass shootings, and for that matter America’s astonishingly high overall rate of gun deaths, as an acceptable price for pursuing their ideology. a broad assault on the very idea of civic duty — on the idea that people should follow certain rules, accept some restrictions on their behavior, to protect the lives of their fellow citizens. ......... When you hear talk of home-schooling, remember that the United States basically invented universal public education. Environmental protection used to be a nonpartisan issue: The Clean Air Act of 1970 passed the Senate without a single nay. And Hollywood mythology aside, most towns in the Old West had stricter limits on the carrying of firearms than Gov. Greg Abbott’s Texas. ........ the very people who shout most about “freedom” are doing their best to turn America into a “Hunger Games”-type dystopian nightmare, with checkpoints everywhere, loomed over by men with guns.It’s Not Looking Too Good for Government of the People, by the People and for the People The antislavery politicians of the 1840s and 1850s did not speak with a single voice. Some opposed slavery for moral and religious reasons and hoped to wipe its terrible mark from the body politic of the United States. Some opposed slavery but denied that the federal government had any right to interfere with the institution in the 15 states where it persisted. They were committed to “free soil” in the West more than abolition in the South. Still others weren’t concerned with slavery per se as much as they were fiercely opposed to Black migration from the South. They opposed slavery, and supported colonization, because it was the way to ensure that the United States would remain a “white man’s democracy.” ......... gave the slaveholding oligarchs of the South a virtual lock on much of the federal government, including the Supreme Court. “Between Washington’s election and Lincoln’s,” Richards points out, “nineteen of the thirty-four Supreme Court appointees were slaveholders.” ......... I am thinking of this in the context of guns, gun violence and the successful movement, thus far, to make the United States an armed society. .......... the capture of America’s political institutions by an unrepresentative minority whose outright refusal to compromise is pushing the entire system to a breaking point. ........ Large majorities of Americans favor universal background checks, bans on “assault-style” weapons, bans on high-capacity magazines and “red flag” laws that would prevent people who might harm themselves or others from purchasing guns. ............ by using the filibuster, a small number of Republican senators representing an even smaller faction of voters can kill legislation supported by most voters and most members of Congress. ......... a country so saturated in guns that there’s no real hope of going back to the status quo ante. ........ If the Supreme Court rules as expected in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, it will strike down a law that requires a license for carrying a concealed firearm. ........ Whether or not the public wants a world of ubiquitous firearms, the conservative majority on the court — which Americans have never voted for and which would not exist without the counter-majoritarian institutions that gave Donald Trump the White House and the Republican Party a Senate majority — seems ready to impose one. ............ To say that it is possible for a narrow faction of ideologues to weaponize the counter-majoritarian features of our system against the “republican principle” is, basically, to describe the current state of our democracy. It is, in other words, to state the crisis.
@ChahalNonProfit thanks for the follow -- keep up the good work
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 27, 2022
@paulkrugman a voice of reason in a country going off the rails https://t.co/luSmybF3bk
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 27, 2022
Why Californians Love California The state’s population might be dropping slightly, but more Americans choose to live in California than anywhere else.
The Southern Baptist Moral Meltdown moral behavior doesn’t start with having the right beliefs. Moral behavior starts with an act — the act of seeing the full humanity of other people. Moral behavior is not about having the right intellectual concepts in your head. It’s about seeing other people with the eyes of the heart, seeing them in their full experience, suffering with their full suffering, walking with them on their path. Morality starts with the quality of attention we cast upon another. .......... In 2007 a woman named Christa Brown had the courage to testify before Southern Baptist officials that her youth pastor had repeatedly sexually assaulted her when she was 16. She reported that one official turned his back, literally refusing to look at her, refusing to see her. That is the sort of dehumanization that creates indifference that enables rape, abuse and all the other horrific dehumanizing acts down the road. ......... Character is not measured by a person’s beliefs but by the ability to see the full humanity of others. It is not automatic. It’s a skill acquired slowly. It’s about being able to focus on what’s going on in your own mind and simultaneously focus on what’s going on in another mind. It’s about learning how to minutely observe, absorb and resonate with other people’s emotions. ......... It comes about through years of shared experiences, decades of other-centered attention, engagement with the kind of literature that educates you in what can go on in other people’s heads. It’s spiritual training to get out of your own egotistic self-referential thinking and into the habit of asking what’s this moment like for that other person. .......... it’s very easy to get people to dehumanize each other. You divide people into in-groups and out-groups. You spread a tacit ideology that says women are less important than men or Black people are less important than white people. You use euphemistic language so that horrific acts can be abstracted into sanitized jargon. ......... You bureaucratize: You create a system of nonresponsibility in which rules and procedures matter, not people. When you read the report on the Southern Baptists you realize, once again, how much horror can be done by dutiful functionaries who focus on minimizing legal liabilities but not honoring human beings.
America May Be Broken Beyond Repair why access to these weapons is, for the right, a matter of existential importance ........ “The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting,” said Masters. “It’s about protecting your family and your country. What’s the first thing the Taliban did when Joe Biden handed them Afghanistan? They took away people’s guns.” Guns, in this worldview, are a guarantor against government overreach. And government overreach includes attempts to regulate guns. ......... It will be impossible to do anything about guns in this country, at least at a national level, as long as Democrats depend on the cooperation of a party that holds in reserve the possibility of insurrection. The slaughter of children in Texas has done little to alter this dynamic. ......... Victims of our increasingly frequent mass shootings are collateral damage in a cold civil war, though some Democrats refuse to acknowledge it, let alone fight it. ........ Fine’s words echoed Donald Trump’s during the 2016 election, when he said that “Second Amendment people” might be able to stop a President Hillary Clinton from appointing Supreme Court justices. What was once a barely concealed insinuation of violence has morphed, especially after Jan. 6, into an even more forthright menace. ......... dozens of members of the Oath Keepers militia were arrested in connection with the attack on the Capitol, but that hasn’t stopped the organization from “evolving into a force within the Republican Party.” .......... the more America is besieged by senseless violence, the more the paramilitary wing of the American right is strengthened. ........ a vision of a society — if you can call it that — where every family is a fortress. ........
Guns are now the leading cause of death for American children. Many conservatives consider this a price worth paying for their version of freedom.
.......... The filibuster renders the Senate largely impotent. Trump, a president who lost the popular vote, was able to appoint Supreme Court justices who are poised to help overturn a New York state law restricting the carrying of concealed weapons. It’s increasingly hard to see a path to small-d democratic reform. ........... America is too sick, too broken. It is perhaps beyond repair. ......... two chapters imagining scenarios for how the dissolution of the country might happen. One involved a mass shooting at a school in California, to which the state’s people reacted “with white-hot rage.” French envisioned furious state politicians defying the Second Amendment, leading to a nullification crisis and blue-state secession. ........ The nightmare is that we simply stumble on, helpless as things keep getting worse.I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President — try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place.
— Rep. Randy Fine (@VoteRandyFine) May 25, 2022
How Does It End? Fissures Emerge Over What Constitutes Victory in Ukraine In the past few days alone there has been an Italian proposal for a cease-fire, a vow from Ukraine’s leadership to push Russia back to the borders that existed before the invasion was launched on Feb. 24, and renewed discussion by administration officials about a “strategic defeat” for President Vladimir V. Putin — one that would assure that he is incapable of mounting a similar attack again. ........... After three months of remarkable unity in response to the Russian invasion — resulting in a flow of lethal weapons into Ukrainian hands and a broad array of financial sanctions that almost no one expected, least of all Mr. Putin ......... At a moment when the U.S. refers to Russia as a pariah state that needs to be cut off from the world economy, others, largely in Europe, are warning of the dangers of isolating and humiliating Mr. Putin. ........ The administration now sees a chance to punish Russian aggression, weaken Mr. Putin, shore up NATO and the trans-Atlantic alliance and send a message to China, too. Along the way, it wants to prove that aggression is not rewarded with territorial gains. .......... “I get the sense that instead of the year 2022, Mr. Kissinger has 1938 on his calendar.’’ ......... Zelensky has at various moments voiced contradictory views on what it would take to end the war, even offering to commit his country to “neutrality” rather than aspiring to join NATO. ............ In the end, American officials say, the hard choices will have to be made by Mr. Zelensky and his government. But they are acutely aware that if Mr. Putin gets his land bridge to Crimea, or sanctions are partially lifted, Mr. Biden will be accused by Republican critics — and perhaps some Democrats — of essentially rewarding Mr. Putin for his effort to redraw the map of Europe by force. .......... Three months ago, Mr. Putin’s own strategic objective was to take all of Ukraine — a task he thought he could accomplish in mere days. When that failed in spectacular fashion, he retreated to Plan B, withdrawing his forces to Ukraine’s east and south. It then became clear that he could not take key cities like Kharkiv and Odesa. Now the battle has come down to the Donbas, the bleak, industrial heartland of Ukraine, a relatively small area where he has already made gains, including the brutal takeover of Mariupol and a land bridge to Crimea. His greatest leverage is his naval blockade of the ports Ukraine needs to export wheat and other farm products, a linchpin of the Ukrainian economy and a major source of food for the world. ........... on April 25, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, speaking with a bluntness that took his colleagues by surprise, acknowledged that Washington wanted more than a Russian retreat. It wanted its military permanently damaged. .......... over time administration officials have gradually shifted in tone, talking more openly and optimistically about
the possibility of Ukrainian victory in the Donbas
. ........... Ukraine must emerge as a vibrant, democratic state — exactly what Mr. Putin was seeking to crush. ......... Hungary, which has supported five earlier sanctions packages, has balked at an embargo on Russian oil, on which it depends. And the Europeans are not even trying, at least for now, to cut off their imports of Russian gas. ......... Leaders in central and eastern Europe, with its long experience of Soviet domination, have strong views about defeating Russia — even rejecting the idea of speaking to Mr. Putin. Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, and Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, speak of him as a war criminal, as Mr. Biden did. ........ But France, Italy and Germany, the biggest and richest countries of the bloc, are anxious about a long war or one that ends frozen in a stalemate, and nervous of the possible damage to their own economies. ........... Those countries also think of Russia as an inescapable neighbor that cannot be isolated forever. Following his re-election, Emmanuel Macron of France began hedging his bets, declaring that a future peace in Eastern Europe must not include an unnecessary humiliation of Russia, and could include territorial concessions to Moscow. .......... the war will have to end with a diplomatic solution, not a sweeping military victory. ........... While Ukraine did remarkably well in the first phase of the war, Donbas is very different. To go on the offensive normally requires a manpower advantage of 3 to 1, weaponry aside, which Ukraine does not now possess. ......... “The Biden Administration’s comfort zone is not a bad place to be — that it’s up to the Ukrainians to decide,” Mr. Fried said. “I agree, because there’s no way a detailed conversation now on what is a just settlement will do any good, because it comes down to what territories Ukraine should surrender.”Biden Says We’ve Got Taiwan’s Back. But Do We? one of the most explicit U.S. defense guarantees for Taiwan in decades ........ I have been involved in dozens of war games and tabletop exercises to see how a conflict would turn out. Simply put, the United States is outgunned. At the very least, a confrontation with China would be an enormous drain on the U.S. military without any assured outcome that America could repel all of China’s forces. ........ China has the world’s largest navy and the United States could throw far fewer ships into a Taiwan conflict. China’s missile force is also thought to be capable of targeting ships at sea to neutralize the main U.S. tool of power projection, aircraft carriers. ......... If China’s leaders decide they need to recover Taiwan and are convinced that the United States would respond, they may see no other option but a pre-emptive strike on U.S. forces in the region. Chinese missiles could take out key American bases in Japan, and U.S. aircraft carriers could face Chinese “carrier killer” missiles. In this scenario, superior U.S. training and experience would matter little. .......... China could disrupt networks like the United States Transportation Command, which moves American assets around and is considered vulnerable to cyberattacks. China may also have the ability to damage satellites and disrupt communications, navigation, targeting, intelligence-gathering, or command and control. Operating from home turf, China could use more-secure systems like fiber-optic cables for its own networks. ........... A 2018 congressionally mandated assessment warned that America could face a “decisive military defeat” in a war over Taiwan, citing China’s increasingly advanced capabilities and myriad U.S. logistical difficulties. ......... guaranteed U.S. intervention in a conflict over Taiwan would cost Beijing too much, even if it took the island. ......... China’s military is bigger and more formidable than Russia’s, and its economy far larger, more resilient and globally integrated. Rallying support for economic sanctions against Beijing during a conflict — China is the biggest trading partner of many countries — would be more challenging than isolating Russia. ........ shrewd diplomacy. Mr. Biden needs to stand firm against Chinese intimidation of Taiwan, while working to ease Beijing’s anxieties by demonstrating a stronger U.S. commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue. ........ Twenty years ago, China’s poorly trained army and largely obsolete naval and air forces had no chance. But that was then.
What Taiwan Really Wants
It’s Still Covid’s World. We’re Just Living In It.
America Kills Our Enemies in Our Name. And Then Keeps It Secret.
In 1791, enslaved Haitians did the seemingly impossible. They ousted their French masters and founded a nation.
Republican Governors Lose Their Dread of Trump
Hindi Novel Wins International Booker Prize for the First Time “Tomb of Sand,” written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell, won despite getting little previous attention from reviewers.
Live Updates: Russia Advances in Ukraine’s East as Civilian Toll Rises Russian forces seized Lyman, the second small city to fall this week, and moved closer to encircling Sievierodonetsk. A new report by legal and rights experts cited a “genocidal pattern” by Russia.
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Monday, May 09, 2022
News: May 9
Putin Delivers Defiant Speech, but Stops Short of Escalation The Russian leader praised his forces in a Victory Day speech that seemed aimed at a domestic audience, with an unexpected acknowledgment of the cost of war.
Putin defends his Ukraine invasion, invoking World War II, but does not signal an escalation. he did not make any new announcements signaling a mass mobilization for the war effort or an escalation of the onslaught. ...... restated his past claims that attacking Ukraine was “inevitable” and “the only correct decision.” ....... Russian troops in eastern Ukraine were fighting “on their land” ....... “So that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers and Nazis.” ....... evoking Russia’s victorious World War II past — perhaps the most unifying element of the country’s diverse identity. ......... His army’s efforts have fallen well short of expectations: They have been vanquished around Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital; pushed back in the northeast; and are making only sporadic gains in the Donbas, the eastern region Russia now says it is focused on. ....... The Russian leader did not renew his implicit threats of nuclear war, after warning late last month that countries that “create a strategic threat to Russia” during the war in Ukraine could expect “retaliatory strikes” that would be “lightning fast.” ........ depicting America as the true aggressor and Russia as a stronghold of patriotism and “traditional values.” ......... He also made plain his ever-more-open nostalgia for the Soviet empire, describing May 9, 1945, as a day of triumph for “our united Soviet people.” ......... “But we are a different country. Russia has a different character. We will never give up love for the Motherland, faith and traditional values, the customs of our ancestors, respect for all peoples and cultures.”
Ukraine’s turbulent history overlays commemorations at World War II memorials. generally the capital’s streets were nearly empty. Local governments canceled all ceremonies, telling citizens to stay home and urging them to pay attention to air raid sirens. Many residents who could find gasoline in the midst of a countrywide fuel shortage left the city over the weekend for the relatively safer countryside. .........
I’m a Pro-Choice Governor, and I’m Not Going to Sit on My Hands Waiting for Congress As I read the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, I was devastated. It was shocking to see, laid out in cold legalese, the blatant ideological reasoning gutting the constitutional right to abortion. ........ If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan, without exceptions for rape or incest. ........ a very real danger that in a few short years, with complete control of the federal levers of power, anti-choice, anti-women extremists could enact a federal abortion ban, which could abolish abortion nationally, regardless of state law. This is not theoretical — it is their endgame. ....... A handful of states protected access to abortion via ballot initiatives in the 1990s. In 2019, Illinois, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont codified access in their state laws. Massachusetts joined in December 2020, and New Jersey did in January 2022. Colorado did last month, and Connecticut did last week. In California, there are efforts underway to add access to safe, legal abortion to the state constitution. States are leading the way. .......... despair is a choice, and pessimism is a luxury. We must take unprecedented steps to protect the right to choose.
The War Is Getting More Dangerous for America, and Biden Knows It Things are actually getting more dangerous by the day. ....... For starters, the longer this war goes on, the more opportunity for catastrophic miscalculations — and the raw material for that is piling up fast and furious. ....... Putin’s behavior is not as predictable as it has been in the past. And Putin is running out of options for some kind of face-saving success on the ground — or even a face-saving off ramp. ........ Putin was trying to push back on NATO expansion, and he’s ended up laying the groundwork for the expansion of NATO. ........ I am in awe of Zelensky’s heroism and leadership. If I were him, I’d be trying to get the U.S. as enmeshed on my side as he is. ......... Ukraine was, and still is, a country marbled with corruption. ....... Putin’s Plan A — taking Kyiv and installing his own leader — has failed. And his Plan B — trying just to take full control of Ukraine’s old industrial heartland, known as the Donbas, which is largely Russian speaking — is still in doubt. ........ After the war started, Biden personally explained to Xi in a lengthy phone call that China’s economic future rests on access to the American and European markets — its two largest trading partners — and should China provide military aid to Putin, it would have very negative consequences for China’s trade with both markets.
As a ‘Seismic Shift’ Fractures Evangelicals, an Arkansas Pastor Leaves Home Kevin Thompson thought he would lead his hometown church for the rest of his life. Then came Trump and everything after........ a loving, accessible God and remote, inaccessible celebrities. ........ A young woman texted him, concerned; another member suggested the reference to Mr. Hanks proved Mr. Thompson didn’t care about the issue of sex trafficking. Mr. Thompson soon realized that their worries sprung from the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims the movie star is part of a ring of Hollywood pedophiles. ........... “Jesus talks about how he is the truth, how central truth is,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview. “The moment you lose the concept of truth you’ve lost everything.” .......... The disruption, fear and physical separation of the pandemic has exacerbated every rift. ........ Forty-two percent of Protestant pastors said they had seriously considered quitting full-time ministry within the past year ....... a “seismic shift” coming, with white evangelical churches dividing into two broad camps: those embracing Trump-style messaging and politics, including references to conspiracy theories, and those seeking to navigate a different way. ......... more often, the ruptures are quieter: a pastor who moves to another church to avoid a major confrontation, or who changes careers without fanfare. ........... In many evangelical settings, “political” means biased or tainted — an opposite of “biblical.” .......... attributes like gentleness and self-control, which show that the Holy Spirit is working in a Christian’s life. ......... if he spoke about race in ways that made people uncomfortable, that was “politics.” And, Mr. Thompson suspected, it was proof to some church members that Mr. Thompson was not as conservative as they thought. ......... The pastor wrote a blog post that did not critique Mr. Trump by name, but whose point was clear. “Many who thought Bill Clinton was the Antichrist now campaign for a man who would make Bill Clinton blush,” he wrote. .......... When Mr. Thompson wrote in a 2020 blog post that “Black lives matter,” the friction in his church suddenly looked more like a crisis. ..........
Clarissa Ward: ‘Fear and Panic Are Bedfellows’ in Ukraine Putin has had to dramatically downsize his ambitions in Ukraine. ....... their progress has been incremental at best. And it’s really shaping up to be a long grind, a war of attrition ........ if Russia was hoping for an easier victory in the East, it’s already becoming clear that it’s not going to be that. And this could go on for months. .......... it’s the danger of a lot of autocracies that you start to believe your own talking points and your own propaganda ........ to give them some credit, if you look at how things played out during the annexation of Crimea, where not a shot was fired and where the Russian presence there has largely been embraced, you can understand the sort of hubris that allowed President Putin to think it might be a similar reception in other parts of the country. ......... All of us were shocked to see how effective Ukrainian counteroffensive forces were.... if you remember at the beginning of the war, U.S. intelligence officials were saying, two or three days until Kyiv falls. ......... and again, this happens a lot in dictatorships — where President Putin is just being told all the time whatever people think he wants to hear. ........ Ukraine has been fighting a war for eight years, and it’s been much more limited in its scale and scope. But what that has done is, you know, there’s already been a paradigm shift in the mentality of people. .......... Ukrainians are fiercely patriotic, by and large. .......... Kharkiv is — I mean, first of all, it’s a wonderful city. It’s Ukraine’s second largest city. Beautiful city center — used to be a major buzzing sort of tech town, and everything changed overnight. I mean, completely changed. Anyone with children now lives underground. They’ve either left or they live underground. ............ there’s no part of the city that’s really safe. ........ a tactic the Russians used a lot in Syria. It’s called the double tap. So you send a mortar or an artillery round into — an apartment building, in this case. You wait half an hour. And then, when the first responders get on the scene, and there are more people on the scene trying to help those, you hit it again. And in doing so, you maximize the number of casualties. ........... let fear sit in the passenger seat, but you don’t let it take the driver’s seat. Because the problem with fear is that fear and panic are bedfellows, and panic is what will really get you hurt, potentially, in a war zone. .......... it’s still a bit of a taboo to talk about mental health and PTSD and trauma and therapy. ......... I used to come back from Syria particularly, and I’d feel so detached. I would feel like — I feel nothing for my husband, I feel nothing for my — I know intellectually that I love you, but I feel nothing. ........... a really undisciplined army? ....... oh my gosh, this camp, this mess, this squalor speaks to a real lack of discipline and a lack of morale. .......... a lot of the women who have been raped, particularly in and around Kyiv and those suburbs, have said that there was one guy, and the other soldiers were trying to tell him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop. So they have framed it as more of a kind of regular aberration, as opposed to, this was the strategy. ......... this intercepted phone call, which literally haunted me — I can’t stop thinking about it — between this man and his wife. He’s a Russian soldier. He’s talking to his wife in Russia. And he’s like, do I have permission to rape women while I’m here? And she’s like, yeah, sure, you do, just make sure you use protection. ........... what we have found time and time again in Ukraine is people want their story on the record. .......... Her daughter was taken by Russian troops. She was also taken for three nights, and then they let her go. She has no idea where her daughter is. ......... and see and feel the full force of that horror and that suffering is by far and away the hardest part of the job. ......... I think as storytellers and as journalists, our job is to keep finding ways to make sure that we don’t become numb and desensitized to the horrors of war, because that is exactly how wars continue and grind on. ......... some of the most powerful storytelling comes out of opportunities where you do have a little bit more time. .......... the fact that the Americans — this $33 billion, which is very, very significant — I think the fact that the Europeans are talking about an oil embargo — these are things that probably would have been inconceivable at the beginning of the war. So I do think it speaks to an intensification of Western support. ........
When Health Care Workers Are Protected, Patients Are, Too
The Supreme Court as an Instrument of Oppression
TikTok May Be More Dangerous Than It Looks
America, Unmasked
America Is Not Ready for the End of Roe v. Wade Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t. The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on where they lived. ......... The court system — and the Supreme Court in particular — exists to protect those rights when state and local authorities refuse to. ........ leaving the matter to individual states and the political process means that millions of Americans will be denied their fundamental rights — in this case, the right of women to decide what happens inside their own bodies. ........ The draft opinion relies heavily on the lack of a mention of abortion in the Constitution, and therefore argues that the document cannot be the basis for the right to terminate a pregnancy. The Constitution also says nothing about interracial marriage, but that didn’t prevent the justices from finding in the 14th Amendment the guarantee that no couple may be treated differently because of the color of their skin. ........ constitutional rights are meaningless unless they apply across the entire country. That is why the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia and Roe v. Wade as it did. These rights are inherent in the Constitution, even if they are not explicit in it. ....... Within a few months, abortion could be illegal in more than half the states. The anti-abortion movement isn’t stopping there. Efforts are already underway to impose a nationwide ban on abortion as soon as Republicans regain the White House and Congress, which could happen as soon as 2025. ........ Missouri lawmakers, for example, are considering a bill that would allow its residents to sue anyone in any state who helps a Missouri resident get an abortion. ......... the public’s complex position on a morally fraught issue. ...... The majority of Americans do not want these cases overturned, and an overwhelming majority say that abortion should not be banned outright. ..... If you thought Roe v. Wade itself led to discord and division, just wait until it’s gone.
Has Shanghai Been Xinjianged? Shanghai used to be the glamorous China, while Xinjiang was the dark China. Now both are casualties of authoritarian excess.
The Woman Steering Russia’s War Economy
Inside Elon Musk’s Big Plans for Twitter Here’s what Mr. Musk is projecting for Twitter’s finances over the next few years, according to a pitch deck he presented to investors.
A Woman Alone in Oman: Three Weeks Along the Arabian Coast In December, a photographer set off on a 2,600-mile road trip, traveling from the Yemeni border to the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s what she saw.
A Landlord ‘Underestimated’ His Tenants. Now They Could Own the Building. When a new landlord bought their building in the Bronx and threatened to raise rents and kick them out, tenants banded together. They never expected how far they might get: the chance to buy their apartments for $2,500 each.
Putin defends his Ukraine invasion, invoking World War II, but does not signal an escalation. he did not make any new announcements signaling a mass mobilization for the war effort or an escalation of the onslaught. ...... restated his past claims that attacking Ukraine was “inevitable” and “the only correct decision.” ....... Russian troops in eastern Ukraine were fighting “on their land” ....... “So that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers and Nazis.” ....... evoking Russia’s victorious World War II past — perhaps the most unifying element of the country’s diverse identity. ......... His army’s efforts have fallen well short of expectations: They have been vanquished around Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital; pushed back in the northeast; and are making only sporadic gains in the Donbas, the eastern region Russia now says it is focused on. ....... The Russian leader did not renew his implicit threats of nuclear war, after warning late last month that countries that “create a strategic threat to Russia” during the war in Ukraine could expect “retaliatory strikes” that would be “lightning fast.” ........ depicting America as the true aggressor and Russia as a stronghold of patriotism and “traditional values.” ......... He also made plain his ever-more-open nostalgia for the Soviet empire, describing May 9, 1945, as a day of triumph for “our united Soviet people.” ......... “But we are a different country. Russia has a different character. We will never give up love for the Motherland, faith and traditional values, the customs of our ancestors, respect for all peoples and cultures.”
Ukraine’s turbulent history overlays commemorations at World War II memorials. generally the capital’s streets were nearly empty. Local governments canceled all ceremonies, telling citizens to stay home and urging them to pay attention to air raid sirens. Many residents who could find gasoline in the midst of a countrywide fuel shortage left the city over the weekend for the relatively safer countryside. .........
“On the day of our victory over Nazism, we are fighting for a new victory”
I’m a Pro-Choice Governor, and I’m Not Going to Sit on My Hands Waiting for Congress As I read the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, I was devastated. It was shocking to see, laid out in cold legalese, the blatant ideological reasoning gutting the constitutional right to abortion. ........ If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan, without exceptions for rape or incest. ........ a very real danger that in a few short years, with complete control of the federal levers of power, anti-choice, anti-women extremists could enact a federal abortion ban, which could abolish abortion nationally, regardless of state law. This is not theoretical — it is their endgame. ....... A handful of states protected access to abortion via ballot initiatives in the 1990s. In 2019, Illinois, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont codified access in their state laws. Massachusetts joined in December 2020, and New Jersey did in January 2022. Colorado did last month, and Connecticut did last week. In California, there are efforts underway to add access to safe, legal abortion to the state constitution. States are leading the way. .......... despair is a choice, and pessimism is a luxury. We must take unprecedented steps to protect the right to choose.
The War Is Getting More Dangerous for America, and Biden Knows It Things are actually getting more dangerous by the day. ....... For starters, the longer this war goes on, the more opportunity for catastrophic miscalculations — and the raw material for that is piling up fast and furious. ....... Putin’s behavior is not as predictable as it has been in the past. And Putin is running out of options for some kind of face-saving success on the ground — or even a face-saving off ramp. ........ Putin was trying to push back on NATO expansion, and he’s ended up laying the groundwork for the expansion of NATO. ........ I am in awe of Zelensky’s heroism and leadership. If I were him, I’d be trying to get the U.S. as enmeshed on my side as he is. ......... Ukraine was, and still is, a country marbled with corruption. ....... Putin’s Plan A — taking Kyiv and installing his own leader — has failed. And his Plan B — trying just to take full control of Ukraine’s old industrial heartland, known as the Donbas, which is largely Russian speaking — is still in doubt. ........ After the war started, Biden personally explained to Xi in a lengthy phone call that China’s economic future rests on access to the American and European markets — its two largest trading partners — and should China provide military aid to Putin, it would have very negative consequences for China’s trade with both markets.
As a ‘Seismic Shift’ Fractures Evangelicals, an Arkansas Pastor Leaves Home Kevin Thompson thought he would lead his hometown church for the rest of his life. Then came Trump and everything after........ a loving, accessible God and remote, inaccessible celebrities. ........ A young woman texted him, concerned; another member suggested the reference to Mr. Hanks proved Mr. Thompson didn’t care about the issue of sex trafficking. Mr. Thompson soon realized that their worries sprung from the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims the movie star is part of a ring of Hollywood pedophiles. ........... “Jesus talks about how he is the truth, how central truth is,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview. “The moment you lose the concept of truth you’ve lost everything.” .......... The disruption, fear and physical separation of the pandemic has exacerbated every rift. ........ Forty-two percent of Protestant pastors said they had seriously considered quitting full-time ministry within the past year ....... a “seismic shift” coming, with white evangelical churches dividing into two broad camps: those embracing Trump-style messaging and politics, including references to conspiracy theories, and those seeking to navigate a different way. ......... more often, the ruptures are quieter: a pastor who moves to another church to avoid a major confrontation, or who changes careers without fanfare. ........... In many evangelical settings, “political” means biased or tainted — an opposite of “biblical.” .......... attributes like gentleness and self-control, which show that the Holy Spirit is working in a Christian’s life. ......... if he spoke about race in ways that made people uncomfortable, that was “politics.” And, Mr. Thompson suspected, it was proof to some church members that Mr. Thompson was not as conservative as they thought. ......... The pastor wrote a blog post that did not critique Mr. Trump by name, but whose point was clear. “Many who thought Bill Clinton was the Antichrist now campaign for a man who would make Bill Clinton blush,” he wrote. .......... When Mr. Thompson wrote in a 2020 blog post that “Black lives matter,” the friction in his church suddenly looked more like a crisis. ..........
the phrase “Black lives matter” rankled some congregants.
........ America does have a history of racism, he said. But “if the slave trade had never happened, would they still be in Africa? Would they have the prominent positions?” he wondered about Black people. “And now our pastor’s talking about it, and we’re systemically racist because we’re white?” ....... “If you grew up in any way like me, there’s bigotry within you” and encouraged listeners to seek out perspectives other than their own. ......... His friend Steven Dooly, a white former police officer with two Black children, sometimes urged him to speak even more directly on racial justice. But he knew Mr. Thompson was in a difficult position. “You’d hate to see a church fall completely apart over a few lines in a sermon,” he said. ....... “A lot of people are getting tired of going to church and hearing this message: ‘Hey, it’s a great day, every day is a great day, the sun is always shining.’ There’s this big disconnect between what’s going on behind the pulpit in those churches and what’s going on in the real world.” ........ People he thought should have known better were endorsing online conspiracy theories about Covid and the results of the 2020 election. On his blog, he called for Christians to apply “research and discernment.” “When we share, promote, like and further things that are not true about others, we are violating the ninth commandment,” he wrote. ....... Issues including masks and vaccination have fractured relationships, and people doubt the leaders they once trusted. ........ A local woman emailed her Bible study group in the summer of 2020, warning that he was promoting a “progressive Leftist agenda.” When Mr. Thompson invited her to meet with him, pointing out that he was a frequent guest of Focus on the Family Radio and hardly a leftist, she accused him of being beholden to “The Marxist Agenda” and “the BLM agenda.” ........ Seminaries are shrinking, and many in his own congregation seemed to view his theological training as the thing that turned him “liberal.” The next generation might have less training, and be more inclined to turn churches into “an echo chamber of what the people want.”Clarissa Ward: ‘Fear and Panic Are Bedfellows’ in Ukraine Putin has had to dramatically downsize his ambitions in Ukraine. ....... their progress has been incremental at best. And it’s really shaping up to be a long grind, a war of attrition ........ if Russia was hoping for an easier victory in the East, it’s already becoming clear that it’s not going to be that. And this could go on for months. .......... it’s the danger of a lot of autocracies that you start to believe your own talking points and your own propaganda ........ to give them some credit, if you look at how things played out during the annexation of Crimea, where not a shot was fired and where the Russian presence there has largely been embraced, you can understand the sort of hubris that allowed President Putin to think it might be a similar reception in other parts of the country. ......... All of us were shocked to see how effective Ukrainian counteroffensive forces were.... if you remember at the beginning of the war, U.S. intelligence officials were saying, two or three days until Kyiv falls. ......... and again, this happens a lot in dictatorships — where President Putin is just being told all the time whatever people think he wants to hear. ........ Ukraine has been fighting a war for eight years, and it’s been much more limited in its scale and scope. But what that has done is, you know, there’s already been a paradigm shift in the mentality of people. .......... Ukrainians are fiercely patriotic, by and large. .......... Kharkiv is — I mean, first of all, it’s a wonderful city. It’s Ukraine’s second largest city. Beautiful city center — used to be a major buzzing sort of tech town, and everything changed overnight. I mean, completely changed. Anyone with children now lives underground. They’ve either left or they live underground. ............ there’s no part of the city that’s really safe. ........ a tactic the Russians used a lot in Syria. It’s called the double tap. So you send a mortar or an artillery round into — an apartment building, in this case. You wait half an hour. And then, when the first responders get on the scene, and there are more people on the scene trying to help those, you hit it again. And in doing so, you maximize the number of casualties. ........... let fear sit in the passenger seat, but you don’t let it take the driver’s seat. Because the problem with fear is that fear and panic are bedfellows, and panic is what will really get you hurt, potentially, in a war zone. .......... it’s still a bit of a taboo to talk about mental health and PTSD and trauma and therapy. ......... I used to come back from Syria particularly, and I’d feel so detached. I would feel like — I feel nothing for my husband, I feel nothing for my — I know intellectually that I love you, but I feel nothing. ........... a really undisciplined army? ....... oh my gosh, this camp, this mess, this squalor speaks to a real lack of discipline and a lack of morale. .......... a lot of the women who have been raped, particularly in and around Kyiv and those suburbs, have said that there was one guy, and the other soldiers were trying to tell him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop. So they have framed it as more of a kind of regular aberration, as opposed to, this was the strategy. ......... this intercepted phone call, which literally haunted me — I can’t stop thinking about it — between this man and his wife. He’s a Russian soldier. He’s talking to his wife in Russia. And he’s like, do I have permission to rape women while I’m here? And she’s like, yeah, sure, you do, just make sure you use protection. ........... what we have found time and time again in Ukraine is people want their story on the record. .......... Her daughter was taken by Russian troops. She was also taken for three nights, and then they let her go. She has no idea where her daughter is. ......... and see and feel the full force of that horror and that suffering is by far and away the hardest part of the job. ......... I think as storytellers and as journalists, our job is to keep finding ways to make sure that we don’t become numb and desensitized to the horrors of war, because that is exactly how wars continue and grind on. ......... some of the most powerful storytelling comes out of opportunities where you do have a little bit more time. .......... the fact that the Americans — this $33 billion, which is very, very significant — I think the fact that the Europeans are talking about an oil embargo — these are things that probably would have been inconceivable at the beginning of the war. So I do think it speaks to an intensification of Western support. ........
there’s a sense of, wait, the Ukrainians actually could win this thing.
....... every day they’re not winning is a day they’re losing ...... there is very clearly a right and a wrong here. ........ the obvious one is chemical weapons or some kind of a tactical nuke, which — again, it would be so disastrous and so horrifying, it’s impossible to fathom how that would be possible. I still believe that Putin is a rational actor within the context or framework of his universe. So I want to believe that that would not happen. ....... I was wrong about the invasion. I never thought the invasion would happen. ......... we’re actually going to consider doing this and call it a false flag, and just escalate things off the charts. ......... This is a war of information. It’s really the first internet war in a lot of ways ......... blatant censorship. ..... I lived in Russia twice. I have had a long and very complicated relationship with Russia, but have a lot of love for many elements of it, particularly the culture and the history and the literature. ..........Navalny, of course, which is their biggest, most painful spot.
......... wide-eyed credulity with which the Russian public does seem to be absorbing a lot of this propaganda in spite of the facts that, granted, are harder for them to get to, because it’s not on state T.V., and you maybe are not on Telegram or one of these social media apps that would allow you to access some slightly more impartial and filtered information. ..... But still, I know people who should know better. ......... I have a friend who’s spent a lot of time in Russia — same thing. She can’t believe it, how many of her friends in Russia are telling her the opposite. And I was like, you do not have a Trump relative then — Fox news-watching Trump relatives. ............. there is a side of America that actually thinks that Russia is powerful and justified, and that does not hate President Putin. The other is just more broadly to cast America as this kind of chaotic, riven with internal disagreement, divided, angry nation, where people are just shouting at each other and disagree about absolutely everything. ............ you really want this? This is your democracy. Look at this. It’s just angry people shouting at each other. And so they like to trot that one out a lot. .............. It could be that President Putin decides to claim Mariupol as a victory, and that with Kherson, they can start to fashion a kind of land corridor to Crimea and try to market that as some kind of a victory. I think that’ll be very tough for him to call that a victory at this stage, especially when they’ve just said that the Donbas is the goal now. .......... I worry that the more Ukraine wins, and the more Putin’s back is against the wall, and the more likely a scenario is in which something really terrible and crazy happens along the lines of some kind of a chemical attack ........... I sort of had talked about this around the time he went back to Russia — I said, OK, he’s ready to be Russia’s Nelson Mandela. ........... rumors about his health, which are impossible to confirm, but they don’t seem to be completely unfounded. I think the oligarchs know — oligarchs will not bring him down ........... The people would be able to bring him down potentially are the so-called siloviki, right, the strong men who surround him and who empowered him. ............ He had this national security council meeting right before the war, where he summoned all of them and he made them sit like little schoolboys in these chairs, and then he sat sort of majestically aloof at this enormous desk. ............ And he made each of them stand in front of the microphone and be like, I support this, I believe that the Donbas should be independent. And he kind of humiliated a lot of them along the way. It was the most bizarre psychodrama I have seen in quite some time. ............ the intended effect, at least in part, was, well, now you’re all on the hook for this. Now, none of you can say, oh you know, I was vehemently opposed to this. You’ve all gone on television and said, we’re with you, boss. ........ wars are what the CNN machine is made for. .......... you’re always going to need content. You need great content. ..........When Health Care Workers Are Protected, Patients Are, Too
The Supreme Court as an Instrument of Oppression
TikTok May Be More Dangerous Than It Looks
America, Unmasked
America Is Not Ready for the End of Roe v. Wade Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t. The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on where they lived. ......... The court system — and the Supreme Court in particular — exists to protect those rights when state and local authorities refuse to. ........ leaving the matter to individual states and the political process means that millions of Americans will be denied their fundamental rights — in this case, the right of women to decide what happens inside their own bodies. ........ The draft opinion relies heavily on the lack of a mention of abortion in the Constitution, and therefore argues that the document cannot be the basis for the right to terminate a pregnancy. The Constitution also says nothing about interracial marriage, but that didn’t prevent the justices from finding in the 14th Amendment the guarantee that no couple may be treated differently because of the color of their skin. ........ constitutional rights are meaningless unless they apply across the entire country. That is why the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia and Roe v. Wade as it did. These rights are inherent in the Constitution, even if they are not explicit in it. ....... Within a few months, abortion could be illegal in more than half the states. The anti-abortion movement isn’t stopping there. Efforts are already underway to impose a nationwide ban on abortion as soon as Republicans regain the White House and Congress, which could happen as soon as 2025. ........ Missouri lawmakers, for example, are considering a bill that would allow its residents to sue anyone in any state who helps a Missouri resident get an abortion. ......... the public’s complex position on a morally fraught issue. ...... The majority of Americans do not want these cases overturned, and an overwhelming majority say that abortion should not be banned outright. ..... If you thought Roe v. Wade itself led to discord and division, just wait until it’s gone.
Has Shanghai Been Xinjianged? Shanghai used to be the glamorous China, while Xinjiang was the dark China. Now both are casualties of authoritarian excess.
The Woman Steering Russia’s War Economy
Inside Elon Musk’s Big Plans for Twitter Here’s what Mr. Musk is projecting for Twitter’s finances over the next few years, according to a pitch deck he presented to investors.
A Woman Alone in Oman: Three Weeks Along the Arabian Coast In December, a photographer set off on a 2,600-mile road trip, traveling from the Yemeni border to the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s what she saw.
A Landlord ‘Underestimated’ His Tenants. Now They Could Own the Building. When a new landlord bought their building in the Bronx and threatened to raise rents and kick them out, tenants banded together. They never expected how far they might get: the chance to buy their apartments for $2,500 each.
Friday, May 06, 2022
News: May 6: Ukraine
विदेशबाट लौराँ भोट खसाल्न सकिने व्यवस्था रहेछ कि क्या हो?
— Madhu Raman Acharya (@MadhuRamanACH) May 5, 2022
खुबै जोसिएका छन्!!
बालेन शाह केशव स्थापित जस्तो मान्छे होइन, सही कुरा https://t.co/N5Xj2pbSU9
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
Balen Shah For Kathmandu Mayor https://t.co/e9k23oaEY2
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
First time in a while I have felt real panic in the market.
— Gavin Baker (@GavinSBaker) May 5, 2022
This is well beyond just forced selling.
If your (or your friend's) fintech company is winding down and you're looking for a new home for your team, I will connect them directly with the best founders I know building fintech products; no questions, no charge.
— Nik (@NikMilanovic) May 5, 2022
congrats on the charity work ----- how about giving to charity:water and taking clean drinking water to everybody?
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
I just learned that samosas AND naan aren’t actually called that by Indians. I am shooketh. Thanks @iankar_.
— stevieisinbuildmode (@steviemctweets) May 6, 2022
This is news to me.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
I've just created "How To Turn Your Country Into A Democracy As An Average Person" collectible! https://t.co/YaBK8rHUwV #rarible #ethereum #nonfungible #digitalasset #nft via @rarible @variainayurt
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
How To Turn Your Country Into A Democracy As An Average Person https://t.co/XazOfdPt28 @VitalikButerin @elonmusk @cz_binance @brian_armstrong @fredwilson @katie_haun @cdixon @pmarca @Iiterature @mcuban @variainayurt @iam_preethi @raypaxful @Aroosh_ND #Ukraine #russia #putin
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
Who Will Shed Tears When Nitish Kumar Walk Into The Sunset?
Some news. https://t.co/vCbURrZ4tN
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@K_JeanPierre) May 6, 2022
I have a pitch for you.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
I met Justice Samuel Alito in 2008 when I accepted the George Washington Book Prize at black-tie dinner of 500 at Mount Vernon. He sat ten feet from me and glared angrily as I explained how the enslaved were the nation’s real founding mothers and fathers. It was a happy moment! pic.twitter.com/fSSu76B155
— Marcus Rediker (@MarcusRediker) May 5, 2022
Japan to use nuclear reactors, renewable energy to lower dependency on Russian oil https://t.co/qMOfE7v1lA
— Republic (@republic) May 6, 2022
We can avoid the worst of climate change, but only if we take bold and immediate action NOW. https://t.co/CUjvtmU4BP
— Climate Reality (@ClimateReality) May 6, 2022
I don't know about naan, but samosa is called samosa in every Indian language I know.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
On that note, how would you like to invest? Details over email.
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 6, 2022
Twitter And Voice https://t.co/kh4RkFa0c2 @twitter @elonmusk @pmarca @Aroosh_ND @raypaxful @ljin18 @jack @ev @biz @paraga @fredwilson @bfeld @msuster @cdixon @katie_haun @mehtasanjay @manishk04730288 @itsalexmilligan @Iiterature @iam_preethi @justingordon212 @strollinghome
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 5, 2022
Wishing Israel a happy Yom Ha’atzmaut! On their 74th Independence Day, I wish the people of Israel a joyous celebration, peace and continued strength. pic.twitter.com/K1F14nP6iq
— Jenifer Rajkumar (@JeniferRajkumar) May 5, 2022
Happen to miss @brian_armstrong’s panel at the @MilkenInstitute Crypto Pioneers event?
— Coinbase (@coinbase) May 5, 2022
Don't worry, we've got your back. Watch the full session here 👀 👉 https://t.co/5nPxTlHPIu pic.twitter.com/xphNExVkjU
The Louisiana GOP just advanced a bill out of committee that says life begins at “the moment of fertilization.”
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) May 5, 2022
It took 3 days for Republicans to criminalize contraceptives, IVF, and miscarriages. pic.twitter.com/RJeh5Y5TNy
Tech bros be earning $500k a year in cash and stock options and then have an apartment like this pic.twitter.com/u6PPZ8KjSI
— Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. (drpatel.eth) (@ParikPatelCFA) May 4, 2022
Personal news
— Sar Haribhakti (@sarthakgh) May 5, 2022
I was one of the people let go. Startup life is tough! Most journeys are not up and to the right
My most recent role was working with early stage fintech teams globally and I very much enjoyed it
I’m a free agent! Still processing but open to ideas for next opp https://t.co/yBcciBMs6Y
REMINDER: Elon Musk has nearly twice the audience size of The New York Times on Twitter.
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) May 5, 2022
Twitter does about 2x more revenue and profit than The New York Times as well.
The media company is just attacking their competition 🤷🏽♂️
Mariupol is destroyed,the inhabitants have fled, vegetate in cellars or died.And one of the 1st steps taken by the Russian occupiers is to exchange the Ukrainian-language place-name signs for Russian-language ones
— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (English) (@mbk_center) May 5, 2022
While fighting is still going on around Azovstal
via @thomas_dudek pic.twitter.com/bwJEoK2kiq
The New York Times is really out here blogging about Elon Musk like they’re teenagers gossiping about a kid at their high school 🤣
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) May 5, 2022
A new study based on Moderna’s Phase 3 clinical trial data suggests recipients of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine may be more likely to suffer repeated infections, perhaps indefinitely.https://t.co/Rv9cWDhQ1M
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 5, 2022
Meanwhile in Iraq: Dust storm sends 5,000 to hospital as millions are losing access to water, food, and power because of rising temperatures and record low rainfall.
— Assaad Razzouk (@AssaadRazzouk) May 5, 2022
Government warns country could face "272 days of dust" a year, driven by soil degradation and intense droughts pic.twitter.com/OIPl3ysWsv
I am trying to imagine a situation where Democrats and Republicans would unite for something in America can you think of it I can’t?
— Jeffrey Weber (@jjjinvesting) May 5, 2022
Oh look, George W. Bush is *against* illegal invasions of sovereign countries now. https://t.co/ZzTVPsqS69
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 5, 2022
In 2014, I was the Chief Business Officer of WhatsApp.
— neeraj arora (@neerajarora) May 4, 2022
And I helped negotiate the $22 billion sale to Facebook.
Today, I regret it.
Here’s where things went wrong:
Wednesday, May 04, 2022
News: May 4
EU nears total ban of Russian oil The European Union Wednesday was getting closer to a deal of phasing out Russian oil imports — proposing a complete oil embargo on the country by banning the import of crude oil within the next six months and refined oil products by the end of the year.
Most Americans ever quit in March Tightness in the labor market has resulted in there being nearly two open jobs for every unemployed worker, as companies struggle to find enough employees to meet rebounding demand during the pandemic recovery. The pressure on wages, as employees quit for better jobs or pay elsewhere, is reinforcing expectations the central bank will lift borrowing costs by half a percentage point on Wednesday.
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