(Un)Vaccination Nation, Con't

Last year I warned that Ohio Republicans throwing out vaccination requirements for everyone, not just for Covid, but for childhood diseases like measles, mumps, rubella and whooping cough, would cause mass suffering as the state's vaccination rate dropped below herd immunity percentages.

 

Ohio already allows parents to exempt kids from vaccinations out of choice (and the state's vaccination level among children has dropped to 88%), but this would essentially reverse decades of medical science and thousands would end up suffering from preventable diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella.

But Republicans are bound and determined to kill as many Ohioans as possible. Everyone has to suffer and die for their utter stupidity. DeWine, for his part, is trying to stop this bill, but he can easily be overridden.

We'll see if Ohio becomes a third world country.

 

Surprise! The largest outbreak of measles in America right now is in Columbus, Ohio as dozens of cases are being reported in Franklin County, and the epidemic is only going to get worse this winter.  

The country's largest measles outbreak is happening in Central Ohio — with no signs of slowing down. Of the 106 nationwide cases reported as of Thursday, 75% were in Franklin County.

Why it matters: Until this outbreak, our area hadn't confirmed a measles case in 20 years.The highly contagious respiratory disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but dipping vaccine rates during the pandemic have revived it among unvaccinated pockets.

Threat level: The CDC and WHO said last month that measles is "an imminent threat in every region of the world," Axios' Jacob Knuston reports.Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes, with a signature rash appearing three to five days later.
Serious complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis are possible.

By the numbers: Of the 81 local cases confirmed as of Monday, none were fully vaccinated and 36% were hospitalized. All are kids younger than 18. 27% are under 1 year old, meaning they're too young to be vaccinated and were relying on herd immunity for protection.

State of play: Measles likely arrived in Columbus after four unvaccinated travelers separately went to measles-endemic countries from June to October, Columbus Public Health commissioner Mysheika Roberts tells Axios.The CDC was here for the two weeks after Thanksgiving and is offering support.

Of note: The two-dose measles vaccine is 97% effective.The challenge is reaching the small number of Central Ohioans spreading the virus by not vaccinating their children.

What they're saying: "It's very frustrating, knowing that it's preventable with a vaccine — a safe, effective, accessible vaccine," Roberts says. The health department is ready to administer shots, but only half a dozen parents have brought kids in since the outbreak started this fall.

 

So ballpark math from the US Census quick facts page for Franklin County, 1.3 million people, 23% kids, is 300K kids. Only 86-88% are vaccinated, so that's 40-45 thousand kids without the vaccine. Let's say 5K are under 1 and too young to be vaccinated, that's still 40,000 unvaccinated kids facing measles in Franklin County. 

So yes, the epidemic is only beginning.  Flu, Covid, now measles.

But for god's sakes, don't wear a mask or get vaccinated, because that makes yo a pussy cuck beta loser.

A sick or dead one, but hey.

 

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

The House Ways and Means Committee yesterday voted to release a report on Donald Trump's taxes during his term in the Oval Office. What exactly that report will consist of, well, we don't know. Yet.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to make six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns public — potentially ending years of speculation about what they might reveal about his business dealings and personal wealth.

The panel voted along party lines to make the returns available and information could be available as soon as Wednesday — the day the House Jan. 6 committee is set to issue its final report on the riot at the U.S. Capitol — which will be the final days of Democratic control of Congress before Republicans take over the House in January.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Penn., said the vote will make public the tax returns and a separate report about Trump's tax information.

"The actual returns themselves will also be transmitted to the full House and become public, but I was told it will take a few days to a week in order to redact some info that needs to be redacted,” Boyle said.

The information that must be removed is personal in nature.

“The staff is authorized to make technical corrections to the report and to redact sensitive personal identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, street addresses, personal identification numbers and banking information," committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said.

The Ways and Means Committee had spent hours in a closed-door session before taking the vote.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the ranking member, criticized the Democrats’ move and said committee members did not know “exactly what we are releasing” when they voted.

The move is could spark threats of some sort of retaliation from Republicans, who have already vowed to launch probing investigations into President Joe Biden and his family. Some Republicans have already accused Neal of seeking the returns solely for political reasons.

Neal defended the vote immediately afterward.

"This was not about being punitive, it was not about malicious, and there were no leaks from the committee," he said. "We adhered carefully to the law."

Brady told reporters ahead of the meeting that Democrats were pushing an "unprecedented action that will jeopardize the right of every American to be protected from political targeting by Congress."

"No party in Congress should hold that power. It is the power to embarrass, harass or destroy a private citizen through disclosure of their tax returns," Brady said.

 

But of course Republicans and Kevin Brady will regularly use that power against Democrats over the next two years. And note that Richard Neal successfully kept anything from being leaked to the press about Trump's returns other than speculation.

 

Republicans will leak information to FOX all day.  Watch.

Last Call For Lake Woe? Be Gone!

Professional Arizona Republican Election Loser Kari Lake will actually get a chance to prove her claims in court, as a judge tossed most of her election fraud case...but not all of it.

 

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled Monday that Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who lost last month’s gubernatorial race, will be allowed to head to trial on two narrow claims in an election lawsuit.

Judge Peter Thompson ruled that the majority of the claims Lake made in her initial complaint – 8 out of 10 – would be immediately dismissed. The motion to dismiss hearing in Maricopa County did not present evidence or witness testimony. But on two of the counts, the judge found Lake should be allowed to proceed to a trial to attempt to prove intentional misconduct that resulted in her loss.

Lake lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, the secretary of state, by about 17,000 votes.

The judge narrowed one allegation involving the printers on Election Day, allowing the Lake campaign to present evidence to back her claim that a Maricopa County employee had interfered with Election Day printers resulting in her losing votes.

The judge will also allow the Lake team to present evidence that Maricopa County violated its election manual regarding ballot chain of custody. The Lake campaign claims an unknown number of ballots were added, resulting in her loss. The judge called this claim a dispute of fact, rather than law, so Lake should be allowed to present her evidence in court.

Despite most of her lawsuit being dismissed, Lake tweeted, “Our Election Case is going to trial. Katie Hobbs attempt to have our case thrown out FAILED. She will have to take the stand & testify.”

She added: “Arizona, We will have our day in court!”

Lake has been tweeting out links to a fundraising site, urging followers to send money to support her legal effort.

The judge also ruled that Hobbs could be called to testify in her capacity as secretary of state, an office she’ll hold until she is sworn in as governor.

Democratic attorney Marc Elias, whose legal team is representing Hobbs, framed the court decision as a victory, pointing out that most of the claims were dismissed and that a higher hurdle lies ahead in the trial. “Proving intentional wrongdoing and that it affected the outcome of the election will be impossible for Lake,” Elias tweeted.

 

Again, Lake is alleging deliberate election fraud, specifically through the fabrication of ballots by Katie Hobbs. She will have to prove that to a judge.

It will not end well for her, and that's a good thing. Heavy sanctions should be applied to Lake and her legal team when this suit fails.

Dean Scream, Cincy Edition

Howard Dean's Democracy For America PAC is shutting down this month due to lack of money, and nearly everyone involved with it is pointing the finger at former Cincy City Councilwoman Yvette Simpson as the main culprit in the organization's demise.

 

As the liberal group Democracy for America approached insolvency following the midterm elections, staffers faced a related problem: their CEO, Yvette Simpson, was on vacation at a vineyard in California.

Weeks earlier Simpson had told two members of the development team that $320,000 needed to be raised for DFA to make it through the year, according to two former employees. But as the group’s dire financial state started to become clear to staff, she attended a leadership training paid for by the organization and a personal multi-day sommelier education course in Napa Valley, according to five former employees.

“Is this heaven? No, but it’s pretty close!” Simpson posted on Instagram while there. Eventually, she held an all-staff Zoom call while in Napa, in which she announced that DFA was running out of cash, according to an audio recording.

“We didn’t get major donations as we expected last month so we ended up using $100,000 from our reserve just to cover expenses,” she said. “If I were you, I would be looking for another job. … I want every member of this team to go out into the marketplace to see if they can get another job just in case.”

Though DFA was in deep trouble before Simpson left for California, her lack of substantial outreach to donors and her personal time away at that critical juncture was the culmination of the organization’s demise, according to the five former employees and a staffer’s contemporaneous notes and documents from inside DFA. She resigned on Dec. 7 as CEO and all non-leadership staffers were laid off the same day without any severance.

And last week, POLITICO reported that DFA was about to shut down while its separate 501(c)4 nonprofit would stay afloat.

It was an ignoble sendoff of a group that was once a major arm of the progressive movement. DFA was started in the wake of Howard Dean’s unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign. The group harnessed his progressive supporters and the anti-Iraq War movement’s momentum to support like-minded candidates across the country. It leaned on small-dollar fundraising to aggressively back progressives in competitive primaries. And in recent years, it expanded its focus to include secretary of state and attorney general races, ranked choice voting, student debt relief and Medicare for All.

But in a progressive ecosystem where groups have become more narrowly focused on issue advocacy or specific electoral tasks — such as candidate recruitment or voter protection — DFA has struggled. Dean left the organization after he became chair of the DNC in 2005 but continued to occasionally advise DFA from 2009 until 2016. He called the demise of DFA “sad” in a brief interview but declined to elaborate.

“DFA left it all on the field this year to stop the red wave and win critical elections up and down the ballot across the country. As DFA heads into the next cycle in this difficult fundraising environment, the decision was made to wind down the PAC by the end of the year,” said DFA special adviser Charles Chamberlain. “The DFA Advocacy Fund will continue its work for the foreseeable future focused on election reforms like ranked choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.” Simpson is still on the board of that fund, according to a person familiar with the matter, but it’s unclear whether she will remain in that position in the longer term.

 

The Cincinnati Enquirer weighed in on the story as well, interviewing Jim Dean, Howard Dean's brother and the head of DFA until Simpson stepped in three years ago.

Jim Dean told The Enquirer he stepped down in part because Simpson was available. He also said the demise of Democracy for America was not Simpson's fault. The organization had gone through similar lean financial times before her tenure.

"We have never, in the 18 years of our existence, never were flush with cash," Jim Dean said. "There was never any huge cushion. I’m a little bit surprised that seemed to be lost on the staff, because some of these folks had been there for a while and been there when we had cash shortages. It wasn’t the first time that’s happened."

 

But, the fact remains that DFA is shutting down under Simpson, and that given the rampant success of the 2022 midterms and fundraising off of a myriad of issues, Simpson couldn't get the money needed to keep DFA afloat.

Needless to say, this is the person who lost to John Cranley in the mayoral primary five years ago. She left the City Council in 2018 and went national, but this is the result.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

With the January 6th Committee referring Donald Trump and several in his inner circle for criminal prosecution on multiple charges, Ryan Goodman at Just Security explores how the J6 referrals can bolster any Justice Department investigations into Trumpian criminality.

On Monday, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol released an executive summary of its final report, which focuses primarily on former President Donald Trump’s alleged criminal efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The committee, however, also presented new evidence of criminal efforts to interfere with its investigation – on the part of some witnesses, their attorneys, and others associated with the former president. It is the kind of evidence that may have far-reaching implications including bolstering Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6th and Mar-a-Lago investigations.

Among the most significant new revelations is the statement in the summary:

“The Committee has substantial concerns regarding potential efforts to obstruct its investigation, including by certain counsel (some paid by groups connected to the former President) who may have advised clients to provide false or misleading testimony to the Committee” (emphasis added).

A recent Washington Post report revealed how similar ties have existed in the Mar-a-Lago investigation. That includes Trump’s Save America PAC paying for the lawyers for key witnesses including Walt Nauta who apparently initially lied to the FBI before confessing knowledge of Trump’s concealing classified materials. (The committee explicitly notes this connection to the Post’s reporting.)

The committee’s revelations accordingly sweep in a set of lawyers who have exposed themselves to criminal liability. The committee also identified some witnesses who appear to have followed through by lying to the committee.

These individuals may not have any criminal exposure involving the scheme to overturn the election itself, but now have criminal exposure for their actions toward the congressional investigation as part of a coverup. Their potential criminal liability could provide leverage for Special Counsel Smith to try to flip individuals to cooperate against Trump in the January 6 investigations and, if they also have insights into Mar-a-Lago, then in that investigation as well.

More specifically, according to the committee’s summary, one “lawyer had advised the witness that the witness could, in certain circumstances, tell the Committee that she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them.” The committee also stated:

“During a break in the Select Committee’s interview, the witness expressed concerns to her lawyer that an aspect of her testimony was not truthful. The lawyer did not advise her to clarify the specific testimony that the witness believed was not complete and accurate, and instead conveyed that, ‘They don’t know what you know, [witness]. They don’t know that you can recall some of these things. So you saying “I don’t recall” is an entirely acceptable response to this.’”

Some of the witnesses also apparently followed through in falsely declaring an inability to recall pertinent information. The executive summary states: “Certain witnesses and lawyers were unnecessarily combative, answered hundreds of questions with variants of ‘I do not recall’ in circumstances where that answer seemed unbelievable.”

The committee also provided detailed analysis of other witnesses, such as former Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Anthony Ornato, who appeared to have lied to the committee.

It can be a federal crime for any witness to tell congressional investigators that she does not recall information, when she does in fact clearly recall. It is also a federal crime to counsel someone to commit that act. Indeed, one of the most incriminating Nixon tapes included the sounds of President Richard Nixon coaching his senior aides to lie by claiming “I don’t remember, I can’t recall.”

 

So Trump's legal advisers and his pals in the House GOP are, well, feeling a cold wind blowing. We're running out of time to bar Trump from office again, and putting him in prison, but the framework is now there to do so if Jack Smith and Merrick Garland decide to act.

The "if" there is of course the size of American political history...and its future.

Last Call For Fantasma Santos

New York Republican George Santos, who won NY-3's House seat on Long Island in November, seems like on the surface the kind of Republican who could have a long career as the "reasonable" Red State warrior in Blue New York, young, openly gay, and charismatic, the well-educated scion of a Long Island real estate empire and the son of Brazilian immigrants.  

The problem is of course that like many Republicans, he's an inveterate liar.

 

George Santos, whose election to Congress on Long Island last month helped Republicans clinch a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, built his candidacy on the notion that he was the “full embodiment of the American dream” and was running to safeguard it for others.

His campaign biography amplified his storybook journey: He is the son of Brazilian immigrants, and the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent. By his account, he catapulted himself from a New York City public college to become a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” with a family-owned real estate portfolio of 13 properties and an animal rescue charity that saved more than 2,500 dogs and cats.

But a New York Times review of public documents and court filings from the United States and Brazil, as well as various attempts to verify claims that Mr. Santos, 34, made on the campaign trail, calls into question key parts of the résumé that he sold to voters.

Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, the marquee Wall Street firms on Mr. Santos’s campaign biography, told The Times they had no record of his ever working there. Officials at Baruch College, which Mr. Santos has said he graduated from in 2010, could find no record of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating that year.

There was also little evidence that his animal rescue group, Friends of Pets United, was, as Mr. Santos claimed, a tax-exempt organization: The Internal Revenue Service could locate no record of a registered charity with that name.

His financial disclosure forms suggest a life of some wealth. He lent his campaign more than $700,000 during the midterm election, has donated thousands of dollars to other candidates in the last two years and reported a $750,000 salary and over $1 million in dividends from his company, the Devolder Organization.

Yet the firm, which has no public website or LinkedIn page, is something of a mystery. On a campaign website, Mr. Santos once described Devolder as his “family’s firm” that managed $80 million in assets. On his congressional financial disclosure, he described it as a capital introduction consulting company, a type of boutique firm that serves as a liaison between investment funds and deep-pocketed investors. But Mr. Santos’s disclosures did not reveal any clients, an omission three election law experts said could be problematic if such clients exist.

And while Mr. Santos has described a family fortune in real estate, he has not disclosed, nor could The Times find, records of his properties.

Mr. Santos’s eight-point victory, in a district in northern Long Island and northeast Queens that previously favored Democrats, was considered a mild upset. He had lost decisively in the same district in 2020 to Tom Suozzi, then the Democratic incumbent, and had seemed to be too wedded to former President Donald J. Trump and his stances to flip his fortunes.

His appearance earlier this month at a gala in Manhattan attended by white nationalists and right-wing conspiracy theorists underscored his ties to Mr. Trump’s right-wing base.

At the same time, new revelations uncovered by The Times — including the omission of key information on Mr. Santos’s personal financial disclosures, and criminal charges for check fraud in Brazil — have the potential to create ethical and possibly legal challenges once he takes office.

Mr. Santos did not respond to repeated requests from The Times that he furnish either documents or a résumé with dates that would help to substantiate the claims he made on the campaign trail. He also declined to be interviewed, and neither his lawyer nor Big Dog Strategies, a Republican-oriented political consulting group that handles crisis management, responded to a detailed list of questions.

The lawyer, Joe Murray, said in a short statement that it was “no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at The New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations.”

 

So he lied about his work at Goldman Sachs, he lied about his Baruch College degree, he lied about his family business, and oh yeah he's wanted for bad checks back in Brazil.

 

That Democrats in the state left Tom Suozzi's seat open for this clown to win it over Robert Zimmerman, figuring Zimmerman would win by osmosis or something, should serve as a critical lesson to the state's cancerous Democratic state party.

The fact that this level of scrutiny was not given to Santos until after her won with the rank lies and fabrications is a failure of the NY Times itself. This white supremacist clown should have been exposed months ago.

But the NY Democratic Party should have had this oppo research ready to go. Even an afternoon of work would have cost Santos the race, and they just didn't care to do basic due diligence.

 

Better late than never, and hopefully he faces crushing ethics and campaign finance investigations that drive him out of politics for good. But he never should have been allowed to run in the first damn place, let alone win.

 

And in the end? This is all the fault of the GOP, with another material fraudster in office.

Do better, Entire State of New Fucking York.

Ron's Gun Wrong, Con't

If you thought Florida was in trouble before, wait until everyone has a gun in the Sunshine State.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday he expects lawmakers during the 2023 regular legislative session to pass a major change in Florida gun laws.

The change would allow what supporters call “constitutional carry.”

Under current law, people who want to carry guns must get concealed-weapons licenses from the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Constitutional carry would allow people to carry guns without the licenses.

DeSantis was asked about the issue Friday during an appearance in Lee County, after House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, indicated Thursday that the House would approve constitutional carry.

“Basically, this was something that I’ve always supported,” DeSantis said. “The last two years, it was not necessarily a priority for the legislative leadership. But we’ve been talking about it, and he’s (Renner’s) pledged publicly that’s moving forward, and it’ll be something that will be done in the regular session.”

The 2023 session will start March 7.

 

I expect the law will pass easily and quickly over the objection of law enforcement, who will have to deal with even more of the populace carrying firearms, but the response is going to be "assume the suspect is packing" and just drill them full of holes.

 

On the other hand, dead people don't make DeSantis and his private prison buddies any money incarcerating them, just expect the suspects that live to be turned over to the prison system, and the rest -- especially Black folk who mistakenly believe "constitutional carry" applies to us in any way, in any state that has it -- to end up in the ground.

 

Gunmerica is bad enough. DeSantis's version, well...

Orange Meltdown, Con't

With the very real chance of Trump being referred by the House January 6th Committee to the Justice Department as soon as today, Trump is rallying his flying monkey brigades to openly engage in some "Will nobody rid me of these troublesome FBI investigators?" stochastic terrorism.

Donald Trump was slammed for another round of threats and incitement Saturday after evoking last year’s Jan. 6 insurrection — and then telling his followers it’s now time for the FBI and Justice Department “thugs” to be “dealt with.”

Critics considered the threatening messages to be a clear dog whistle to his followers, many of whom are armed. Some 62% of gun owners voted for Trump in the 2016 election. And his Oath Keeper supporters had a “massive stockpile” of weapons stashed in the Washington, D.C., area last Jan. 6 to support Trump in the event he tried to seize control of the government and remain in power, according to trial evidence.

Trump baselessly insisted in a Truth Social post that the FBI was “absolutely” involved in a “coordinated effort to change election results” to make him a loser. That justified last year’s violent Jan. 6 “protest” at the U.S. Capitol, he insisted, even though nearly 1,000 rioters have been indicted for crimes related to the insurrection that day.

Now, Trump is urging his followers on Truth Social that the “weaponized thugs and tyrants” in the FBI and DOJ “must be dealt with.”

Trump supporters on Truth Social responded by blasting the FBI as the “gestapo” and members of “organized crime,” which could put agents lives in jeopardy among Trump acolytes.





Conde Nast legal affairs editor Luke Zaleski called Trump’s brutal message the “exact speech he gave on Jan. 6.”

“He’s continuing the rhetoric that incites violence against the United States and his thugs know what ‘must be dealt with’ means,” Zaleski tweeted.

 

As I've said before, the real test of this country's future is if we survive Trump being indicted. We're nowhere hear ready as a country to have that conversation yet, but very soon we won't have a choice about having it.

Last Call For Messi, Cleaning Up

Argentina is your 2024 World Cup champ, led by the legendary Lionel Messi.

 

It took 90 minutes of regulation, 30 minutes of extra time and a penalty kick shootout to decide it — but Argentina is the 2022 World Cup champion.

It was the two superstars who stepped up first for their sides in the shootout. France kicked first and Kylian Mbappé, who had a hat trick in the game, blasted it by Argentina's Emiliano Martínez.

Next up was the legend. Lionel Messi approached the spot and calmly rolled one in to tie it up.

That tit for tat exchange was fitting for a match where each side's talisman turned in an inspired performance.

But after that, France missed their next two attempts to give Argentina a big advantage. And after Gonzalo Montiel made it four in a row for Argentina, it was over.

Going into the shootout, the two sides were tied at 3-3 after some truly epic moments of open play.

Messi’s two goals helped La Albiceleste capture their third World Cup and first since Diego Maradona led the team to glory in 1986 in Mexico.

The defending champion France was seeking to become the first team to win back-to-back World Cup titles in 60 years (Brazil 1958, 1962).

Despite the loss, France’s Kylian Mbappé’s hat trick secured him the Golden Boot, awarded to the tournament’s leading goal scorer.

 

Messi gets what Ronaldo was denied: a WC finals win.

 

And as for Mbappe...here's someone who scored a hat trick in the finals in nearly sixty years to singlehandedly keep France in the match and his team still lost on PKs.

 

That one's going to leave a scar. 

 

On to North America in four years...hopefully.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

While white nationalist violence continues daily against LGBTQ+, Muslim, Black, Hispanic and Asian folk here in the US, let's not forget that antisemitic violence is at the highest point in our lifetimes.

The New York Police Department is investigating an alleged attack in Central Park this week in which a man in his mid-40s assaulted a 63-year-old man and spewed antisemitic comments before yelling out “Kanye 2024,” a reference to rapper Ye’s recent antisemitic rhetoric.

The older man was walking in Central Park about 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday when the other man allegedly hit him from behind, according to police. When the older man fell to the ground, he broke his hand and chipped a tooth, authorities said.

The attacker then uttered “numerous” antisemitic comments toward the man, according to police. Before the attacker fled on a bicycle — with a trailer featuring a sign reading “Hungry Disabled” — police say he referenced the artist formerly known as Kanye West, who has issued several antisemitic tirades, saying “Kanye 2024.”

The 63-year-old man, who has not been publicly identified, was hospitalized in stable condition, police said.

Antisemitic attacks in the United States are at an all-time high. An audit released in April by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) showed that 2,717 antisemitic incidents were reported to the organization in 2021. That total represents the highest number of incidents since the ADL started tracking antisemitic attacks in 1979 — and a 34 percent increase from 2020.

The incidents, the ADL said, include “criminal and noncriminal acts of harassment and intimidation, including distribution of hate propaganda, threats and slurs, as well as vandalism and assault.”

Antisemitic attacks have spiked in New York, with an increase of 125 percent last month compared with November 2021, according to data released by the NYPD and reported by the New York ABC affiliate. This month, the NYPD arrested a man who was accused of firing a BB gun at a Jewish father and son outside a kosher supermarket in Staten Island, CBS reported. In another incident, an online threat to attack a New York synagogue, two men — one of whom is Jewish — were indicted by a grand jury, according to CNN.

 

Meanwhile, white evangelical Christian Republicans continue to believe that they are the most persecuted group in the US, and nearly half of Americans believe the US should be declared a Christian country.

And all the while we have a Supreme Court that is systematically disabling the protections of minority groups because they believe those protections violate the rights of the majority to discriminate, block, hate, and harm minority groups.

So here we are. Be careful out there, and always speak out about injustices like this. People are being hurt and even killed.

Don't remain silent.

Sunday Long Read: Membrane In The Ukraine

This week's Sunday Long Read is the NY Times investigation into how Vladimir Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine in February, and how it will be a fateful choice that will affect the history of Earth for a long time to come.

They never had a chance.

Fumbling blindly through cratered farms, the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been factory workers and truck drivers, watching an endless showcase of supposed Russian military victories at home on state television before being drafted in September. One medic was a former barista who had never had any medical training.

Now, they were piled onto the tops of overcrowded armored vehicles, lumbering through fallow autumn fields with Kalashnikov rifles from half a century ago and virtually nothing to eat, they said. Russia had been at war most of the year, yet its army seemed less prepared than ever. In interviews, members of the brigade said some of them had barely fired a gun before and described having almost no bullets anyway, let alone air cover or artillery. But it didn’t frighten them too much, they said. They would never see combat, their commanders had promised.

Only when the shells began crashing around them, ripping their comrades to pieces, did they realize how badly they had been duped.

Flung to the ground, a drafted Russian soldier named Mikhail recalled opening his eyes to a shock: the shredded bodies of his comrades littering the field. Shrapnel had sliced open his belly, too. Desperate to escape, he said, he crawled to a thicket of trees and tried to dig a ditch with his hands.

Of the 60 members of his platoon near the eastern Ukrainian town of Pavlivka that day in late October, about 40 were killed, said Mikhail, speaking by phone from a military hospital outside Moscow. Only eight, he said, escaped serious injury.

“This isn’t war,” Mikhail said, struggling to speak through heavy, liquid breaths. “It’s the destruction of the Russian people by their own commanders.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s war was never supposed to be like this. When the head of the C.I.A. traveled to Moscow last year to warn against invading Ukraine, he found a supremely confident Kremlin, with Mr. Putin’s national security adviser boasting that Russia’s cutting-edge armed forces were strong enough to stand up even to the Americans.

Russian invasion plans, obtained by The New York Times, show that the military expected to sprint hundreds of miles across Ukraine and triumph within days. Officers were told to pack their dress uniforms and medals in anticipation of military parades in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

But instead of that resounding victory, with tens of thousands of his troops killed and parts of his army in shambles after nearly 10 months of war, Mr. Putin faces something else entirely: his nation’s greatest human and strategic calamity since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

Putin will go down in history as one of the great villains, but none more so than in Russia itself.  He has destroyed the country for a generation, and when his power collapses, it's going to be an absolute mess. I don't know what will rise from the ashes of Putin's Russia, and anyone who tells you that they know is a liar. The real question is how much damage he does to the planet before he's removed.