Month: February 2022

Categories
Foreign Policy Russia

Former CIA Chief: Putin’s Invasion Of Ukraine Has Backfired Badly On Him

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has bogged down as Russian troops attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, according to The Telegraph:

Units in Russia’s vast army have got lost in Ukraine and some have run out of fuel as poor planning and fierce Ukrainian resistance appears to be hampering Vladimir Putin’s plans for a lightning invasion.

Russian forces seemed to be bogged down with the war a little over 48 hours old, as more Ukrainians took up arms and the West sent millions of pounds worth of new lethal weapons.

Russia on Saturday appeared to have sent secondary units to some areas, possibly in a bid to relieve exhausted troops and energise the advance on Kyiv.

These latest developments beg the question of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has overplayed his hand and is now facing a protracted war and occupation that is already sparking large anti-war protests at home.

Steve Hall, who served as CIA Chief of Russia Operations, says he believes the Ukraine invasion has already backfired badly on Putin, telling CNN host Jim Acosta:

“It really is amazing, and it is almost like you would love to somehow have a phone call with Putin, and say really? Is this how you thought it was going to work? You spent most of the past decade trying to split the west and you are doing a good job of it, not just here in the United States, but split the NATO allies. There was a lot of discontent. People were talking about how much NATO was spending. Is it still relevant and all of that. All of a sudden you have this amazing unification.”

Hall added:

“The same thing inside of Ukraine. There was this sort of cultural similarity… and now, what he has done is what I don’t think any other Soviet leader or Russian leader could possibly have ever hoped to do, which is alienate Ukraine, which is a really significant country for Russia, so initially, it appears to have backfired. We have a long way to go on the fighting part of it. There is still a lot of Russian soldiers that are on Ukrainian territory. We’ll have to see how it works out. In terms where he wanted to end up geopolitically, it seems like the opposite of what he wanted.”

If Putin thought the Ukrainian people would roll over when they saw Russian troops, he was mistaken. Now he has what seems to be an endless war on his hands and unity among the NATO nations. He’s also facing crippling economic sanctions that threaten to cause astronomical inflation and bring the Russian economy to a standstill. That will only increase the anti-war protests, which will further weaken Putin.

It’s impossible to know exactly what Putin’s endgame is at this point, but it certainly appears he’s in one hell of a quagmire with no end in sight.

Categories
Congress GOP Justice Department WTF?!

Matt Gaetz Tells CPAC That Congress Should Keep The DOJ From Investigating Him For Sexual Trafficking

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida on Saturday evening, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) suggested that Congress should have the power to make the Justice Department stop investigating him or anyone else for whatever disgusting crimes they may have committed.

Gaetz is currently under federal investigation for allegedly engaging in the sexual trafficking of an underage girl. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

But if the Florida congressman has his way, the investigation would disappear:

“The Judiciary Committee should stop the DOJ from targeting political opponents whether they are parents, whether they are falsely labeled as extremists, or whether they are lawmakers engaged in the oversight of the DOJ.”

Gaetz also accused the FBI of “cheating worse than the Russian figure skating team.” However, he offered no proof for his specious allegation.

Gaetz’s remarks set off a wave of mockery and ridicule on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/mmkaycomputer/status/1497691519414849539?s=20&t=mOE9b8mms1FoQcfwcL_cWA
https://twitter.com/NPendent/status/1497692203178725382?s=20&t=mOE9b8mms1FoQcfwcL_cWA
 

Categories
Donald Trump Supreme Court

Biden’s SCOTUS Nominee Has Already Laid A Legal Smackdown On Trump

When he nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, President Joe Biden not only picked an eminently qualified jurist to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, he also chose someone who has a prior legal skirmish with former President Donald Trump which didn’t go the way the ex-president was hoping.

Josh Gerstein of Politico notes that a ruling Jackson issued against Trump in 2019 made it clear she doesn’t have a problem speaking her mind, even when she’s doing so in response to the president of the United States:

When the House’s lawsuit seeking to enforce a subpoena against former Trump White House Counsel Donald McGahn was randomly assigned to Jackson in 2019, the consensus among court watchers was that Trump was likely to be fileted. What emerged from Jackson was an 118-page jeremiad that did not mince words in dissecting Trump’s claim that his advisers had an absolute right to ignore Congressional subpoenas at his direction.

“Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings,” Jackson wrote, dismissing the longstanding argument as “a fiction” and “a proposition that cannot be squared with core constitutional values.”

Such a ruling will likely lead some Republicans (i.e. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who claimed the choice had been made by Biden after pressure from the “radical left” ) to brand Jackson as a liberal, activist judge who will try to legislate from the bench, but her record doesn’t support such a ludicrous allegation:

“There’s very little there that can legitimately be characterized as radical. She’s a judge who takes pains to find and apply the law in an evenhanded manner with a balanced tone,” said Tomiko Brown-Nagin a constitutional law scholar and dean of the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute.

Judge Jackson is a former public defender, which gives her a unique perspective on the legal process that most Supreme Court justices (the majority of whom are former prosecutors) don’t possess. That experience alone will make her a welcome addition to the highest court in the land.

Also, knowing how Trump likely feels about Jackson makes her appointment even sweeter. She’s exactly the sort of jurist he would never have given a second look, if only because of the color of her skin.

Categories
Elections GOP

Did Rick Scott Just Cost Republicans The Midterm Election?

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., speaks to reporters after a Republican strategy meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

On Tuesday, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who serves as chairman of National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is tasked with retaking the U.S. Senate from Democratic control in the 2022 midterm elections, issued what he dubbed his “Plan to Rescue America,” and it contains incredibly controversial proposals such as forcing schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and imposing taxes on anyone who doesn’t currently pay income tax because they fall below the poverty line.

The 31-page plan was released through Scott’s campaign account and includes a provision that would provide funding for Donald Trump’s border wall, along with naming it after the failed, one-term former president once it has been completed.

The Scott agenda also features a bogus allegation that Democrats are trying to “rig” elections:

“Today’s Democrat [sic] Party is trying to rig elections and pack the courts because they have given up on Democracy. They don’t believe they can win based on their ideas, so they want to game the system and legalize voter fraud to stay in power.

“In true Orwellian fashion, Democrats refer to their election rigging plans as ‘voting rights.’ We won’t allow the radical left to destroy our democracy by institutionalizing dishonesty and fraud.”

Scott’s fellow Republicans, however, are said to be livid by his plan and are warning that it’s so controversial and divisive it’s likely to cost them a chance to retake control of Congress come November.

One GOP consultant told Politico’s Alex Isenstadt that Scott’s plan is an “unforced error” that’s “given Democrats the first thing they can attack in six months.”

Another Republican operative noted, “This is what happens when Rick Scott’s presidential ambitions run headlong into Mitch McConnell’s goal of taking back the Senate majority.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has made it clear for months now that he doesn’t plan to lay out any concrete agenda should the GOP retake Congress in the fall, deciding the election should instead be a referendum on President Joe Biden and Democrats.

Now, however, it appears the election could well be a referendum on Republican cruelty and their utter tone deafness.

 

Categories
Capitol Insurrection GOP Right Wing Morons WTF?!

CPAC Speaker Says Biden Is ‘Terrorizing’ Jan. 6 Rioters By Letting The DOJ Prosecute Them

This is the weekend for the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) to meet, and they’re doing in so in Florida to keep failed, one-term former President Donald Trump from having to travel too far since he’s become a doddering old man who requires frequent diaper changes during the day.

One of the speakers was a woman named Julie Kelly, who is listed as a Senior Writer for something called “American Greatness,” Media Matters reports:

Kelly began her remarks by rattling off a list of things that had been done by an unnamed person:

“He’s using this law enforcement agency, armed agents, military-style vehicles to conduct pre-dawn raids at the homes of political dissidents. Terrorizing these dissidents in front of their children, and, in some cases, their elderly spouses. Hauling them off, concocting charges against them, fabricating evidence, and in almost 100 cases, hauling them off to prison where they have been denied bail.”

Dissidents? That has echoes of the old Soviet Union, where people were hauled away by the KGB and put in gulags for all sorts of nonsensical charges.

Kelly then continued:

“And dozens of them, actually, shipped off to a special political prison in the nation’s capital, where these detainees are then kept away from their family, their defense attorneys, they can’t see the evidence against them – all the rights that those citizens have from their country’s charter are completely gone. No due process. No presumption of innocence. Trials are delays. Evidence is covered up. Their lives are destroyed. Their families are destroyed. Their businesses are destroyed.”

All of that led Kelly to this conclusion, which was eagerly lapped up by the audience:

“The media, of course, helps out the regime in smearing these people and ruining their lives. Now, who am I talking about? Not Vladimir Putin, of course. Joe Biden.”

Apparently, if you storm the Capitol, terrorize members of Congress, and defecate in the halls of the seat of the U.S. government, you’re not a domestic terrorist. To the right-wing Trumpers, such behavior qualifies you as a “dissident.”

While we’ve known for some time now that conservatives are obsessed with Putin, to hear a member of their ranks compare President Biden to a mass murderer like the Russian tyrant is a new level of disgusting.