Post by mhbruin on Mar 29, 2022 10:34:17 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 560 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
↓ 0.5% Cases, two-week change
↓ 27.9% Deaths, two-week change
982,836 Total confirmed deaths
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday March 22)
There was some rain in the Nor Cal. A little more in the ten-day.
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The Last Time Daily Deaths Were Below 700 was August of Last Year
However, new daily cases seem to have plateaued.
COVID Fatigue is Not a Strategy for Dealing With BA.2
Time to Roll Up Your Sleeve Again, If You Are Old Enough to Remember Watching All in the Family
U.S. regulators on Tuesday authorized another COVID-19 booster for people age 50 and older, a step to offer extra protection for the most vulnerable in case the coronavirus rebounds.
The Food and Drug Administration's decision opens a fourth dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to that age group at least four months after their previous booster.
Until now, the FDA had cleared fourth doses only for people 12 and older who have severely weakened immune systems. The agency said this especially fragile group also can get an additional booster, a fifth shot.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Anyone Happy to Know He's Out of Jail? Certainly not the ChowChildren.
A 70-year-old man imprisoned for the 1976 kidnapping of a bus full of children has been approved for parole, according to spokesperson Joe Orlando of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
Frederick Newhall Woods, 70, was one of three men who kidnapped 26 children and their bus driver in Chowchilla, a small city in Northern California's Madera County, more than 45 years ago.
All 27 captives were taken to Livermore, more than 100 milies away, placed into a moving truck and buried alive in a quarry owned by Woods' father. The kidnappers then demanded $5 million ransom while the victims were underground in what was the largest mass kidnapping in US history, a scheme apparently inspired by a plot point in the movie "Dirty Harry."
After 16 hours underground, the driver and the children dug themselves out and escaped as the kidnappers were asleep.
Woods and his co-conspirators, Richard and James Schoenfeld, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and were each given 27 life sentences without the possibility of parole. However, an appeals court overturned the sentence and ruled that they should have the chance for parole.
Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012, and James Schoenfeld was released in 2015. Woods is the last of the three still in prison.
CBS Got Rid of Dan Rather, But They are Hiring Mick the Hack
CBS has hired former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney as a contributor in a move that should be unbelievable, but somehow isn’t. Mulvaney is a piece of work, with a record of shamelessly defending some of Trump’s worst moments. But CBS is the real issue here for looking around and, out of every expert whose input they could have paid for, going with Mulvaney.
Mulvaney, a former member of Congress from South Carolina, served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget and acting chief of staff for Trump. Perhaps his most astonishing—and most relevant to the events of early 2022—moment came in the latter role as Trump’s extortion of Ukraine for personal political advantage was coming to light.
Trump had held up nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while he pressured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then newly elected, to help Trump smear now-President Joe Biden. The Trump administration tried to cover up what Trump had done, but Mulvaney came out and said that of course Trump had done exactly that.
“Did [President Trump] also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely—no question about that. That’s it, and that’s why we held up the money,” Mulvaney told reporters. “What happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation, and that is absolutely appropriate.” (“The corruption related to the DNC server” was a conspiracy theory about the 2016 elections.)
Pressed by reporters on whether he was describing a political quid pro quo that Trump had previously denied, Mulvaney said, “I have news for everybody: Get over it,” because, “There is going to be political influence in foreign policy.”
Coal Joe's Corruption
The New York Times has done a deep dive on how Sen. Joe Manchin got rich off of the coal business, and in a nutshell: Holy crap, is Joe Manchin corrupt.
If you pay attention to Manchin, you might know that he gets around $500,000 a year in income from his own personal coal company. Maybe you know that Manchin’s coal company has one customer to which it provides waste coal—coal that burns extra dirty—that customer being the only power plant left in West Virginia burning the waste coal at an expensive loss. But it gets worse.
If You Don't Subscribe to the Times, You Can Read Details Here
Previous Guy Will Probably Blame Rose Mary Woods (RIP)
White House records handed over to the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot show a gap of seven hours and 37 minutes in former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, phone log, The Washington Post and CBS News reported Tuesday.
The House of Representatives committee is investigating whether Trump used back channels, borrowed phones or disposable “burner phones” to communicate during the time the Capitol was attacked by his aggrieved supporters, the news outlets reported.
Documents obtained by the outlets show no White House notation of calls to or from Trump from 11:17 a.m. until 6:54 p.m. on Jan. 6. The attack began unfolding about 1 p.m. that day, when protesters stirred by Trump’s false claims of election fraud broke through the outer police barrier around the Capitol.
The 11 pages of records sent to the committee by the National Archives show that Trump was active on the phone in the morning and evening that day. He spoke with former White House strategist Steve Bannon twice, and also spoke with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, among others.
Trump also participated in phone calls that day that have been widely reported, but do not appear in the logs. One is a call to former Vice President Mike Pence in late morning, before Trump headed to the rally at the Ellipse at noon.
Bingo!
I Don't Have Any Friends That Hang Around With Nazis
Here's How to Get a Five-Month Paid Vacation
Silent body camera footage released earlier this year showed a Florida police officer choking his female colleague after she pulled him away from a Black man’s arrest. Recently released audio shows what the cop had said to the suspect and what likely caused the junior officer to intervene.
Sunrise police were responding to a call about a man accused of attacking people outside a convenience store in November. Officers handcuffed a 25-year-old man and tried to get him into a police vehicle. Sgt. Christopher Pullease then arrived on the scene, taking an aggressive lead on the arrest and pointing a Mace canister at him while cursing at the man.
“Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me! You wanna fucking play fucking games? You’re playing with the wrong motherfucker,” Pullease tells the handcuffed man entering the police cruiser, according to the audio initially obtained by Miami TV station WSVN and published March 23.
“Do what you gotta do, man,” the suspect responds. “You gonna Mace me? Mace me.”
According to Pullease’s body camera footage, the sergeant then leans into the vehicle to get closer to the handcuffed man.
“Look at me, motherfucker. You wanna play fucking games? You wanna be disrespectful with my fucking officers?” Pullease shouts. “I will remove your fucking soul from your fucking body.”
It was at that point when the 28-year-old female officer intervenes by grabbing the back of Pullease’s belt to pull him out of the car, as shown in body camera footage belonging to another officer on the scene. The junior cop, who has about two years of experience on the force, appears to be trying to deescalate Pullease’s confrontation with the suspect.
The sergeant then turns around and grabs her by the throat, backing her up against a patrol car.
“What the fuck? Don’t ever fucking touch me again,” the sergeant screams at her. “Get the fuck off me.”
Pullease then tells the junior officer that he’ll “fucking see you in about five minutes.” The sergeant briefly goes to his police vehicle before coming back and demanding all officers on the scene “turn off their fucking cameras.” The footage ends at that point.
Sunrise police suspended Pullease, who has been with the department for over 21 years, in November with pay after launching an internal investigation into his behavior. The Broward County State Attorney’s Office launched a criminal probe into the sergeant in January. Yarborough said that the department is working with State Attorney Harold Pryor’s office and has paused its internal investigation due to the criminal allegations.
Here's What's Really Happening: QOP Lawmaker are Dressing Up Like Human Beings, and It's Raining Lies Like Cats and Dogs.
A Nebraska state lawmaker apologized on Monday after he publicly cited a persistent but debunked rumor alleging that schools are placing litter boxes in school bathrooms to accommodate children who self-identify as cats.
Sen. Bruce Bostelman, a conservative Republican, repeated the false claim during a public, televised debate on a bill intended to help school children who have behavioral problems. His comments quickly went viral, with one Twitter video garnering more than 300,000 views as of Monday afternoon, and drew an onslaught of online criticism and ridicule.
Bostelman initially said he was “shocked” when he heard stories that children were dressing as cats and dogs while at school, with claims that schools were accommodating them with litter boxes.
“They meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion,” Bostelman said during legislative debate. “And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?”
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
One Smalls Man Can Make a Difference
When former Amazon worker Chris Smalls organised a small protest outside a massive Amazon warehouse in New York two years ago, he didn't intend to pick a years-long fight with one of the world's largest companies. He just wanted his team to be able to do their jobs safely.
"When the pandemic came, employees underneath me were getting sick," he says. "I realised that something was wrong."
Amazon fired him, citing quarantine violations. But his concerns caught the world's attention - an early sign of a much bigger labour battle brewing at the e-commerce giant.
In the following months, as its business surged thanks to the pandemic, Amazon faced accusations around the world that it neglected staff welfare - claims it denied.
In the US, the company now faces its most serious labour unrest in decades.
After walkouts and protests across the country, workers at three warehouses in New York and Alabama are deciding whether to join a labour union - which would be a first for Amazon in the US.
Mr Smalls is one of the leaders in the fight.
He says he's embracing a role the shopping giant set out in a leaked memo from 2020, which described Mr Smalls as "not smart or articulate" and argued that if he became "the face of the entire union/organising movement" it would help to undermine it.
Mr Smalls, who worked at Amazon for more than four years, starting as an entry-level worker before getting promoted, said he was blindsided by the memo, which some saw as racist, though Amazon told reporters at the time the author wasn't aware Mr Smalls was black.
"My whole life changed in one minute," the father-of-two says. "From there, I started to pretty much try to make them eat their words."
For 11 months, the 33-year-old and his team have staked out a spot opposite his former workplace, the JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, intercepting staff on their way home to make the case that they need a union to fight for them in negotiations with the e-commerce giant.
His team are seeking higher pay, longer breaks, more paid time off and paid medical leave, among other changes. They want to convince workers that a union will be a more effective way to raise complaints over rules like one that requires staff to work unscheduled overtime shifts.
What Do You Say to a Doofus in Your Press Conference?
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Invasions Have Consequences
I Wonder If They Have Tools on Board. What If Phi Had a Hammer? Would They Hammer in the Morning?
The UK has seized its first superyacht in British waters as part of sanctions against Russia.
The £38m yacht, named Phi, is owned by an unnamed Russian businessman.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the individual was not currently sanctioned but had "close connections" to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The 58.5m (192ft) Phi was first identified as being potentially Russian-owned on 13 March but its ownership is "deliberately well hidden", the government said.
It added that the company the ship is registered to is based in the Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis but it carried Maltese flags to hide its origins.
Odesa Takes Small Steps Toward Normal. The Odesa Steps.
Amid the whining air raid sirens, the checkpoints, neighbourhood patrols, and enduring fears of Russian attacks - from the sea, air, or land - the historic and cosmopolitan Ukrainian resort city of Odesa is gently trying to reconnect with its famously relaxed holiday spirit, as if embracing it were a form of defiance against the Kremlin.
"Music is life. When music is silenced, anything can happen. Music is a way of protecting our minds," said Olexandr Proletarskyi, a music critic, sitting on a bar stool in a dark cellar venue near the city centre.
But the recent reopening of clubs, beach restaurants, and nail salons across Odesa is not simply an expression of defiance, or an economic necessity. It also reflects growing local confidence in the course of the war against Russia, at least here on the Black Sea coast.
"The city is coming alive, I feel. I think the fear is going away a bit. People believe in our army, which is protecting us, and feel comfortable, feel safe. I don't think the Russian army is winning," said Alexander Hodosevich, a drummer for an instrumental psychedelic band, sitting with a group of friends after finishing an hour-long set at the More Music club.
The venue has just reopened, staging live (and live-streamed) concerts in the late afternoons, to give audiences enough time to get home before curfew.
If Putin Attacks Odesa, It Might Look Like This
It's 11 am. Do You Know Where Your Soldiers Are?
Russia reduces military activity:
Russia announced two steps to de-escalate the conflict, including a "drastic reduction in military activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions," and also the possibility of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.
The United States is already observing these movements underway, with Russian forces beginning to withdraw from the surrounding areas around Kyiv and focusing on gains in the south and east, according to two US officials.
The US assesses Russia will cover their retreat with air and artillery bombardment of the capital, one of the officials said. US officials caution that Russia could always reverse again if the battle conditions allow.
The US views this as a longer-term move as Russia comes to grips with failure to advance in the north.
Evacuation corridors: Local officials are working to evacuate people living in towns suffering heavy Russian shelling despite the failure of fighting parties to formally agree a humanitarian corridor, the regional governor of Luhansk in Ukraine’s far east said. Thirty people had been moved out of Rubizhne on Tuesday morning, as well as people from other nearby towns, Gov. Serhii Haidai said.
The Ukrainian government said residents of Mariupol, Melitopol and Enerhodar are once again able to reach the city of Zaporizhzhia, which remains in Ukrainian hands and has become the key transit point for people looking to escape fighting in the southeast. This comes after Ukraine said Monday that no corridors would function over fears of possible "provocations" by Russian forces.
Ukraine counterattacks: Military officials say Ukraine has launched counteroffensives against Russian forces in the Kyiv region as well as in the south of the country. Russian forces have been struggling to hold their front line northwest of the city of Kherson, and Ukrainian officials say the military has also pushed Russian troops back around 31 miles (50 kilometers) in fighting near the city of Kryvyi Rih.
He Who is 4th, Shall Later Be Last, For the Times, They are A'Changin'
Russia’s 4th Guards Tank Division (GTD) was considered one of it’s “elite” units, headquartered near Moscow.
The division's units participated in the First Chechen War of 1994-1996, and personnel took part in peacekeeping operations in South Ossetia during 1997, in Kosovo in 1998 to 2002, later participating in the Second Chechen War of 1999-2009. During this period, it was one of the Russian Army's "constant readiness" divisions, with at least 80% manpower and 100% equipment holdings at all times.
In other words, this unit was kept at maximum readiness, unlike other army units pilfered and plundered for dachas and vodka. It 2008, it had 12,000 soldiers, 320 tanks, armored personnel carriers, 130 howitzer artillery, and 12 GRAD rocket artillery. In 2012, Russia did away with the divisions as its main maneuver unit, replaced with Battalion Tactical Groups, in large part, because of the great grift opportunities they offered. (They have proven woefully inadequate for their task.) Still, for whatever reason, Russia rebuilt the division in 2015, outfitting it with 228 battle tanks, 300 armored personnel carriers, 90 artillery guns, and 19 MLRS GRAD rocket artillery.
This was one of the best funded and equipped units in the entire Russian Army, with their latest generation armor. The structure of the division would theoretically render it more resistant to the kind of rampant grift that affected BTGs. This thing was fearful, designed to punch through enemy lines and wreak havoc in the enemy’s rear. And that’s exactly what 4 GTD tried to do just this past weekend.
The first contact with Myrhorod was March 9, with Ukrainian forces repelling the attack. It was the first sighting of Russia’s most modern tanks on the Ukrainian battlefield. At least three abandoned T80Us are seen abandoned in this video.
The tweet says “more abandoned ...” which means Ukraine captured or destroyed even more of them. Over the next two days, Ukrainian forces hacked away at the division, forcing its retreat back toward the direction it came. In just two days, the division lost around 50 of its tanks. It was easy to track because 4th GTD was the only unit in the entire Russian Army to have T80Us. And to add insult to Russia’s injury, most of these were abandoned, not destroyed. Of the 46 T-80Us in Oryx’s database of visually verified Russian equipment losses, 38 were captured, and only four seemed destroyed in combat. (The rest were abandoned and destroyed by locals.) Other T-80 variants in the Oryx database show similar rates of captured-to-destroyed.
Regardless, the division had lost around 50 of its tanks out of 228, so things got quiet for the 4th GTD. From all indications, they set up shop in Trostyanets, where their howitzer and rocket artillery could pummel Sumy. And so it was until this weekend, when Ukrainian forces swept into town, essentially wiping the division off the face of the map.
I wrote about the attack on Saturday, still not quite understanding how monumental the victory was. Initial reports said “dozens” of Russian vehicles had been captured or destroyed, but you always account for a little hyperbole in these matters. Well, visual confirmation has been streaming out over the last few days, and it’s … voluminous.
In all, Oryx has documented 77 destroyed T-80 variants, which is a third of the entire divisions. And remember, these are just visually confirmed losses. That’s the baseline number. And on top of that, dozens of Russians surrendered.
Reports state that the remnants of Russia’s forces in the region have retreated to the other side of their border. Likely, they’ll try and salvage what survived, and “reconstitute” the unit, either by reinforcing it with conscripts and remnants of other shattered units, or raw conscripts. Either way, the divisions most effective days are behind it. As a result, Russia has lost one of its most capable units, with its most modern equipment. Furthermore, it lost a base of attack to rain death and misery from above on Sumy. And it opened roads from Sumy to Poltava to its south, breaking the siege of that city, allowing it to be resupplied.
Russia Is Not Flying the Friendly Skies. Wanna' Get Away?
The Sukhoi Su-34 was supposed to change the Russian air force. The twin-engine, twin-seat, supersonic fighter-bomber—a highly-evolved variant of the Su-27 air-superiority fighter—promised to usher in a new era of high-tech, precision bombing.
Instead, the Su-34s have flown into Ukraine lugging the same old dumb bombs. A lack of precision-guided munitions—not to mention Russian doctrine that conceives of aircraft essentially as flying artillery—forces the $50-million warplanes to fly low through the thickest Ukrainian air-defenses in order to have any chance of delivering their bombs with any degree of accuracy.
As a result, Su-34s are falling from the sky in numbers that must be startling for air force commanders. Their newest planes are suffering the same fate as their oldest planes.
I Don't Think David Letterman Came Up With This Top Ten List.
TOP TEN SIGNS YOUR ATTEMPT TO CONQUER/DESTROY YOUR SMALL NEIGHBORING COUNTRY IS NOT GOING SO GREAT:
1. Your general in charge of production and supply of tanks just killed himself. (When it was revealed that you can't really replace the hundreds of tanks the Ukes blew up or your guys abandoned, because your brass have stolen everything of value from the stock of replacements. Oops!)
2. You just publicly gave up on roughly 90% of your declared 'goals' in this invasion.
3. You just pulled several wrecked battalion groups back to Russia to 'restore' them, but it's not clear you really have the troops or equipment with which to 'restore' them.
4. Your Nazi puppet-regime in Belarus has been pledging to join in on your invasion for 3 weeks now, but still hasn't done anything, and it looks like half their troops would probably refuse, and, oh, lots of Belarussian 'partisans' keep blowing up the train-tracks you'd use.
5. You just lost the town of Irpin, west of Kyiv, which means your last hope of ever mounting an actual assault on Kyiv just evaporated, and also means those 5 or 8K troops you pretty much abandoned in the woods to the NW of Kyiv are one big step closer to getting exterminated. Ouch!
6. You keep losing towns to the east of Kyiv as well, and losing lots of troops and equipment in the process.
7. Stuff like this keeps happening to your convoys.
8. You took another general and assigned him to production of fake videos designed to scare your soldiers out of surrendering to the Ukies --cuz you know that's what lots of them will be doing in the coming days.
9. The Ukies are getting ready to re-take Kherson City in the South, which will put a stake through the heart of your dream of a 'land bridge' across the whole southern tier.
10. A whole bunch of fancy high-tech weapons are just now getting to the Ukes in the next few days --including British Star-Streak surface-to-air missiles, those Switchblade killer drones, maybe --finally-- some S-300 SAMS, and possibly a few surprises.
Add #11 to the List. Your Soldiers Don't Want to Be There
Video has gone viral of apparently angry Russian soldiers complaining that they were ill-equipped and ordered to go into a region of Ukraine with no clear planning from Moscow.
The clip shows the troops in a military vehicle describing how they were members of the armed forces from Donbas, the eastern Ukrainian region at the center of a conflict with Kyiv-backed forces since 2014.
During the one minute 40-second video, the troops outline how they were heading to the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine.
Several of them interrupt each other during the video, which is filled with expletives and refers to the 119th Division, 4th battalion and 1st and 2nd companies.
One said they were "ordinary workers," another said "we're kids" and that "they took us at 18 years old."
Each outburst vents anger, fear and uncertainty at what will befall them as they spoke of their colleagues who had already been killed or taken as prisoners of war.
"What are we doing here?" said one, "the Russian Defense Ministry has no idea about us, or what we're doing here." Another said that Moscow was "sending us with rifles against Grads [multiple launch rocket systems] artillery, mortars. We're asking you to spread this."
I'm Not a Big Fan of Bottled Water, But In This Case I Would Make an Exception
Ukraine warned its negotiators not to eat, drink or even touch anything as they headed into talks with Russia in Istanbul on Tuesday, following allegations that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and others may have been poisoned during previous talks.
“I advise anyone going for negotiations with Russia not to eat or drink anything, preferably avoid touching surfaces,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in an interview on national television channel, Ukrayina 24.
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I Don't Know How Much Money It Will Raise, But There Are Plenty of Ultra-Rich Who Aren't Paying Even a Reasonable Amount
A new minimum tax under a proposal in US President Joe Biden's budget plan aims to capture more of the wealth created by the soaring stock market of the last few years.
It targets the roughly 20,000 taxpayers in the US worth more than $100m (£76m).
Investor Warren Buffett, Tesla boss Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be among those affected.
Under the proposal, America's 0.01% richest would face a minimum 20% tax on income. Crucially, it changes rules on calculating income to include gains from stocks, even if they were not sold by the investor being taxed.
"This approach means that the very wealthiest Americans pay taxes as they go, just like everyone else, and eliminates the inefficient sheltering of income for decades or generations," the White House said.
The White House said more than half the $360bn raised from the measure over 10 years would come from the country's roughly 700 billionaires.
"Eventually they run out of other people's money and then they come for you," Tesla boss and world's richest man Elon Musk wrote on Twitter last year about a similar proposal.
Under Mr Biden's proposal, Mr Musk - a father of seven who boasts a net worth of more than $280bn - would have to pay $50bn more in taxes over 10 years than under the current system, according to analysis by Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California-Berkeley.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would face an extra $35bn bill, while Warren Buffett would be on the hook for $26bn.
"This is big," Prof Zucman, who has studied billionaire wealth and helped design a wealth tax proposal for left-wing Senator Elizabeth Warren, wrote on Twitter.
Mr Biden's budget also calls for raising the income tax rate on households earning over $400,000 from 37% to 39.6% and increasing the tax on companies to 28%, partially reversing cuts made under the Trump administration.
He would also make other reforms to the system for taxing the gains in value from stocks and property, which would apply beyond the richest Americans.
Together the reforms and others in the budget would help reduce the deficit by $1tn over the next decade, according to the White House.
For the 2022 financial year, the annual deficit is projected at more than $1.2tn. Overall debt passed $30tn last month.
Fellow Democrat Joe Manchin, of West Virginia - one of the key of members of Mr Biden's party who has blocked his wider agenda - last year said that a similar proposal from Senator Ron Wyden was too complicated and he didn't "like the connotation that we're targeting different people".
America's 400 richest families have more wealth than all 10 million of the country's black families combined, according to a 2020 analysis by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
I Am a Big Believer in Academic Freedom, Even for a Tool Like This.
Several students at the University of Montreal in Quebec, Canada, created a petition calling for a professor's removal after he made statements online in support of Russia and the invasion of Ukraine.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion continues, two students launched a petition recently against Michael Jabara Carley, a history professor at the school, stating that he was pushing Russian propaganda onto students.
Twitter posts by Carley since the start of the invasion on February 24 led to the creation of the petition. While Carley's Twitter and Facebook accounts have allegedly been deleted, a screenshot of one of his tweets taken by the Montreal Gazette says: "If #US #NATO do not alter policy, Russia's only guarantee of security is the disappearance of fascist Ukraine. Already Ukr borders are changing before our eyes."
The Gazette states that before his account was deleted, Carley appeared openly pro-Kremlin, retweeting posts from Russian outlets, including the Russian Embassy in Canada. He also was quoted by Radio-Canada as having said that "Donbass and Mariupol are being cleaned of Ukrainian Nazis" and "Russian troops fight 'fascists' in Ukraine."
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Did He Bring a Food Taster?
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has appeared at peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey.
He was seen talking to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is mediating in the talks in Istanbul.
Reports surfaced hours earlier that Mr Abramovich and two Ukrainian negotiators had shown poisoning symptoms after talks in early March.
Mr Abramovich is known to have spent weeks in a mediation role, flying between Moscow and Kyiv.
The Chelsea football club owner was said to have suffered sore eyes and peeling skin, but had now recovered, reports say.
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Next Time You Visit Jackie Robinson Stadium, Remember This.
In 2014, the mayor of Los Angeles made a bold promise: to end veteran homelessness in this city by the end of 2015. He didn't.
There are, by latest count, still more than 3,600 homeless veterans here, down just a few hundred in five years There are more homeless vets in Los Angeles than anywhere else in the country.
Meanwhile, abutting beautiful Brentwood in the affluent west of the city lie 388 acres managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Much of it was gifted to the nation in 1888 on one condition: that a home for disabled soldiers "be thereon so located, established, constructed and permanently maintained." This land, say advocates, could and should be the solution.
But today just a few hundred veterans live on this land, which is about half the size of New York's Central Park. Many of them are in a nursing home run by the state of California. The federal government leases 10 acres to UCLA for a baseball field, the home of the Bruins. Vets do get free tickets to games. And, in apparent violation of an act of Congress, another chunk is leased to an energy company that drills for oil here.
Another 22 acres are leased to Brentwood School. The exclusive private school has built an athletics track, tennis courts and a swimming pool, which, according to its architect, was "conceived as a theater for swimmers."
"It's really kind of disgusting to see," said Rob Reynolds, an Iraq War veteran who says he spent time on the streets around here, waiting for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
And after the '71 earthquake, the VA started leasing plots of land to entities that had nothing to do with veterans. Tenants have included kids' soccer clubs, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and a movie studio that stored sets here. It remains unclear where a lot of the rental income went.
The full story.
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Long Overdue
Numerous members of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee expressed support during a virtual meeting on Monday for a draft proposal that would dramatically remake the party's 2024 presidential nominating process, signaling that the committee could pass the measure when it meets again in April.
The draft proposal would end the Democratic Party's current nominating process structure -- where the Iowa caucuses go first, followed by primaries in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- and instead implement a process that would prioritize more diverse battleground states that choose to hold primaries, not caucuses. The new structure would require states to apply to hold early nominating contests and the rules committee would select "no more than five states to be allowed to hold the first determining stage in their presidential nominating process."
If passed, the proposal would represent the most serious threat to Iowa's first-in-the-nation status, given the largely White state is no longer a battleground and is legally required to hold caucuses.
These Are the People With an Outsized Role in Nominating Presidential Candidates.
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They've Had It With Molasses Merrick
Members of the House select committee investigating last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol expressed frustration Monday over an apparently inattentive and slow-moving Justice Department, with one lawmaker telling Attorney General Merrick Garland in a speech: “Do your job.”
Members complained of a lack of support from the Justice Department and were annoyed that criminal contempt of Congress charges have not yet been filed against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for failure to comply with a subpoena from the committee.
The backlog is likely to grow with the expected recommendation by the House panel to bring criminal contempt of Congress charges against Donald Trump’s former trade adviser Peters Navarro and ally Dan Scavino.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in remarks before the committee Monday: “The Department of Justice has a duty to act [on contempt recommendations] .... Without enforcement of congressional subpoenas, there is no oversight, and without oversight, no accountability — for the former president or any other president, past, present or future.”
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) said flatly: “Attorney General Garland: Do your job — so we can do ours.”
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Speaking of Jobs
Job openings hovered at a near-record level in February, little changed from the previous month, continuing a trend that Federal Reserve officials see as a driver of inflation.
There were 11.3 million available jobs last month, matching January's figure and just below December's record of 11.4 million, the Labor Department said Tuesday.
The number of Americans quitting their jobs was also historically high, at 4.4 million, up from 4.3 million in January. More than 4.5 million people quit in November, the most on records dating back two decades. Many people are taking advantage of numerous opportunities to switch jobs, often for higher pay. The vast majority of those quitting do so to take another position.
Tuesday’s report is separate from the government’s monthly employment report, which in February showed that employers added a robust 678,000 jobs.
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↓ 0.5% Cases, two-week change
↓ 27.9% Deaths, two-week change
982,836 Total confirmed deaths
New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 |
| Mar 24 | 27,235 | 732 |
| Mar 23 | 27,134 | 753 |
| Mar 22 | 27,545 | 787 |
| Mar 21 | 28,657 | 861 |
| Mar 20 | 27,786 | 901 |
| Mar 19 | 27,747 | 909 |
| Mar 18 | 28,274 | 972 |
| Mar 17 | 29,317 | 1,035 |
| Mar 16 | 30,040 | 1,052 |
| Mar 15 | 30,934 | 1,107 |
| Mar 14 | 32,458 | 1,186 |
| Mar 13 | 34,113 | 1,187 |
| Mar 12 | 34,253 | 1,210 |
| Mar 11 | 34,805 | 1,198 |
| Mar 10 | 35,269 | 1,197 |
| Mar 9 | 37,146 | 1,179 |
| Mar 8 | 37,879 | 1,161 |
| Mar 7 | 40,433 | 1,208 |
| Mar 6 | 42,204 | 1,259 |
| Mar 5 | 43,665 | 1,281 |
| Mar 4 | 45,555 | 1,319 |
| Mar 3 | 49,888 | 1,413 |
| Mar 2 | 53,016 | 1,558 |
| Mar 1 | 56,253 | 1,674 |
| Feb 28 | 68,480 | 1,832 |
| Feb 27 | 62,556 | 1,686 |
| Feb 26 | 66,053 | 1,719 |
| Feb 25 | 69,203 | 1,751 |
| Feb 24 | 72,111 | 1,720 |
| Feb 23 | 75,208 | 1,674 |
| Feb 22 | 79,539 | 1,602 |
| Feb 21 | 78,306 | 1,872 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 76.9% | 65.5% | 44.8% |
| % of Population 5+ | 81.7% | 69.6% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 86.5% | 73.9% | 46.4% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.3% | 75.4% | 48.2% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 89.0% | 67.2% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday March 22)
There was some rain in the Nor Cal. A little more in the ten-day.
| Percent of Average for this Date | 2 Weeks ago | 3 Weeks ago | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 79% (62% of full season average) | 84% (61%) | 87% (60%) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 69% (54%) | 74% (53%) | 76% (51%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 65% (51%) | 71% (51%) | 70% (48%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 46% | 55% (52%) | 59% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 55% | 59% (64%) | 58% (66%) |
| Snow Water Content - South | 52% | 60% (66%) | 54% (63%) |
The Last Time Daily Deaths Were Below 700 was August of Last Year
However, new daily cases seem to have plateaued.
COVID Fatigue is Not a Strategy for Dealing With BA.2
Time to Roll Up Your Sleeve Again, If You Are Old Enough to Remember Watching All in the Family
U.S. regulators on Tuesday authorized another COVID-19 booster for people age 50 and older, a step to offer extra protection for the most vulnerable in case the coronavirus rebounds.
The Food and Drug Administration's decision opens a fourth dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to that age group at least four months after their previous booster.
Until now, the FDA had cleared fourth doses only for people 12 and older who have severely weakened immune systems. The agency said this especially fragile group also can get an additional booster, a fifth shot.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Anyone Happy to Know He's Out of Jail? Certainly not the ChowChildren.
A 70-year-old man imprisoned for the 1976 kidnapping of a bus full of children has been approved for parole, according to spokesperson Joe Orlando of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
Frederick Newhall Woods, 70, was one of three men who kidnapped 26 children and their bus driver in Chowchilla, a small city in Northern California's Madera County, more than 45 years ago.
All 27 captives were taken to Livermore, more than 100 milies away, placed into a moving truck and buried alive in a quarry owned by Woods' father. The kidnappers then demanded $5 million ransom while the victims were underground in what was the largest mass kidnapping in US history, a scheme apparently inspired by a plot point in the movie "Dirty Harry."
After 16 hours underground, the driver and the children dug themselves out and escaped as the kidnappers were asleep.
Woods and his co-conspirators, Richard and James Schoenfeld, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and were each given 27 life sentences without the possibility of parole. However, an appeals court overturned the sentence and ruled that they should have the chance for parole.
Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012, and James Schoenfeld was released in 2015. Woods is the last of the three still in prison.
CBS Got Rid of Dan Rather, But They are Hiring Mick the Hack
CBS has hired former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney as a contributor in a move that should be unbelievable, but somehow isn’t. Mulvaney is a piece of work, with a record of shamelessly defending some of Trump’s worst moments. But CBS is the real issue here for looking around and, out of every expert whose input they could have paid for, going with Mulvaney.
Mulvaney, a former member of Congress from South Carolina, served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget and acting chief of staff for Trump. Perhaps his most astonishing—and most relevant to the events of early 2022—moment came in the latter role as Trump’s extortion of Ukraine for personal political advantage was coming to light.
Trump had held up nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while he pressured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then newly elected, to help Trump smear now-President Joe Biden. The Trump administration tried to cover up what Trump had done, but Mulvaney came out and said that of course Trump had done exactly that.
“Did [President Trump] also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely—no question about that. That’s it, and that’s why we held up the money,” Mulvaney told reporters. “What happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation, and that is absolutely appropriate.” (“The corruption related to the DNC server” was a conspiracy theory about the 2016 elections.)
Pressed by reporters on whether he was describing a political quid pro quo that Trump had previously denied, Mulvaney said, “I have news for everybody: Get over it,” because, “There is going to be political influence in foreign policy.”
Coal Joe's Corruption
The New York Times has done a deep dive on how Sen. Joe Manchin got rich off of the coal business, and in a nutshell: Holy crap, is Joe Manchin corrupt.
If you pay attention to Manchin, you might know that he gets around $500,000 a year in income from his own personal coal company. Maybe you know that Manchin’s coal company has one customer to which it provides waste coal—coal that burns extra dirty—that customer being the only power plant left in West Virginia burning the waste coal at an expensive loss. But it gets worse.
If You Don't Subscribe to the Times, You Can Read Details Here
Previous Guy Will Probably Blame Rose Mary Woods (RIP)
White House records handed over to the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot show a gap of seven hours and 37 minutes in former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, phone log, The Washington Post and CBS News reported Tuesday.
The House of Representatives committee is investigating whether Trump used back channels, borrowed phones or disposable “burner phones” to communicate during the time the Capitol was attacked by his aggrieved supporters, the news outlets reported.
Documents obtained by the outlets show no White House notation of calls to or from Trump from 11:17 a.m. until 6:54 p.m. on Jan. 6. The attack began unfolding about 1 p.m. that day, when protesters stirred by Trump’s false claims of election fraud broke through the outer police barrier around the Capitol.
The 11 pages of records sent to the committee by the National Archives show that Trump was active on the phone in the morning and evening that day. He spoke with former White House strategist Steve Bannon twice, and also spoke with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, among others.
Trump also participated in phone calls that day that have been widely reported, but do not appear in the logs. One is a call to former Vice President Mike Pence in late morning, before Trump headed to the rally at the Ellipse at noon.
Bingo!
I Don't Have Any Friends That Hang Around With Nazis
Here's How to Get a Five-Month Paid Vacation
Silent body camera footage released earlier this year showed a Florida police officer choking his female colleague after she pulled him away from a Black man’s arrest. Recently released audio shows what the cop had said to the suspect and what likely caused the junior officer to intervene.
Sunrise police were responding to a call about a man accused of attacking people outside a convenience store in November. Officers handcuffed a 25-year-old man and tried to get him into a police vehicle. Sgt. Christopher Pullease then arrived on the scene, taking an aggressive lead on the arrest and pointing a Mace canister at him while cursing at the man.
“Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me! You wanna fucking play fucking games? You’re playing with the wrong motherfucker,” Pullease tells the handcuffed man entering the police cruiser, according to the audio initially obtained by Miami TV station WSVN and published March 23.
“Do what you gotta do, man,” the suspect responds. “You gonna Mace me? Mace me.”
According to Pullease’s body camera footage, the sergeant then leans into the vehicle to get closer to the handcuffed man.
“Look at me, motherfucker. You wanna play fucking games? You wanna be disrespectful with my fucking officers?” Pullease shouts. “I will remove your fucking soul from your fucking body.”
It was at that point when the 28-year-old female officer intervenes by grabbing the back of Pullease’s belt to pull him out of the car, as shown in body camera footage belonging to another officer on the scene. The junior cop, who has about two years of experience on the force, appears to be trying to deescalate Pullease’s confrontation with the suspect.
The sergeant then turns around and grabs her by the throat, backing her up against a patrol car.
“What the fuck? Don’t ever fucking touch me again,” the sergeant screams at her. “Get the fuck off me.”
Pullease then tells the junior officer that he’ll “fucking see you in about five minutes.” The sergeant briefly goes to his police vehicle before coming back and demanding all officers on the scene “turn off their fucking cameras.” The footage ends at that point.
Sunrise police suspended Pullease, who has been with the department for over 21 years, in November with pay after launching an internal investigation into his behavior. The Broward County State Attorney’s Office launched a criminal probe into the sergeant in January. Yarborough said that the department is working with State Attorney Harold Pryor’s office and has paused its internal investigation due to the criminal allegations.
Here's What's Really Happening: QOP Lawmaker are Dressing Up Like Human Beings, and It's Raining Lies Like Cats and Dogs.
A Nebraska state lawmaker apologized on Monday after he publicly cited a persistent but debunked rumor alleging that schools are placing litter boxes in school bathrooms to accommodate children who self-identify as cats.
Sen. Bruce Bostelman, a conservative Republican, repeated the false claim during a public, televised debate on a bill intended to help school children who have behavioral problems. His comments quickly went viral, with one Twitter video garnering more than 300,000 views as of Monday afternoon, and drew an onslaught of online criticism and ridicule.
Bostelman initially said he was “shocked” when he heard stories that children were dressing as cats and dogs while at school, with claims that schools were accommodating them with litter boxes.
“They meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion,” Bostelman said during legislative debate. “And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?”
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
One Smalls Man Can Make a Difference
When former Amazon worker Chris Smalls organised a small protest outside a massive Amazon warehouse in New York two years ago, he didn't intend to pick a years-long fight with one of the world's largest companies. He just wanted his team to be able to do their jobs safely.
"When the pandemic came, employees underneath me were getting sick," he says. "I realised that something was wrong."
Amazon fired him, citing quarantine violations. But his concerns caught the world's attention - an early sign of a much bigger labour battle brewing at the e-commerce giant.
In the following months, as its business surged thanks to the pandemic, Amazon faced accusations around the world that it neglected staff welfare - claims it denied.
In the US, the company now faces its most serious labour unrest in decades.
After walkouts and protests across the country, workers at three warehouses in New York and Alabama are deciding whether to join a labour union - which would be a first for Amazon in the US.
Mr Smalls is one of the leaders in the fight.
He says he's embracing a role the shopping giant set out in a leaked memo from 2020, which described Mr Smalls as "not smart or articulate" and argued that if he became "the face of the entire union/organising movement" it would help to undermine it.
Mr Smalls, who worked at Amazon for more than four years, starting as an entry-level worker before getting promoted, said he was blindsided by the memo, which some saw as racist, though Amazon told reporters at the time the author wasn't aware Mr Smalls was black.
"My whole life changed in one minute," the father-of-two says. "From there, I started to pretty much try to make them eat their words."
For 11 months, the 33-year-old and his team have staked out a spot opposite his former workplace, the JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, intercepting staff on their way home to make the case that they need a union to fight for them in negotiations with the e-commerce giant.
His team are seeking higher pay, longer breaks, more paid time off and paid medical leave, among other changes. They want to convince workers that a union will be a more effective way to raise complaints over rules like one that requires staff to work unscheduled overtime shifts.
What Do You Say to a Doofus in Your Press Conference?
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Invasions Have Consequences
I Wonder If They Have Tools on Board. What If Phi Had a Hammer? Would They Hammer in the Morning?
The UK has seized its first superyacht in British waters as part of sanctions against Russia.
The £38m yacht, named Phi, is owned by an unnamed Russian businessman.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the individual was not currently sanctioned but had "close connections" to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The 58.5m (192ft) Phi was first identified as being potentially Russian-owned on 13 March but its ownership is "deliberately well hidden", the government said.
It added that the company the ship is registered to is based in the Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis but it carried Maltese flags to hide its origins.
Odesa Takes Small Steps Toward Normal. The Odesa Steps.
Amid the whining air raid sirens, the checkpoints, neighbourhood patrols, and enduring fears of Russian attacks - from the sea, air, or land - the historic and cosmopolitan Ukrainian resort city of Odesa is gently trying to reconnect with its famously relaxed holiday spirit, as if embracing it were a form of defiance against the Kremlin.
"Music is life. When music is silenced, anything can happen. Music is a way of protecting our minds," said Olexandr Proletarskyi, a music critic, sitting on a bar stool in a dark cellar venue near the city centre.
But the recent reopening of clubs, beach restaurants, and nail salons across Odesa is not simply an expression of defiance, or an economic necessity. It also reflects growing local confidence in the course of the war against Russia, at least here on the Black Sea coast.
"The city is coming alive, I feel. I think the fear is going away a bit. People believe in our army, which is protecting us, and feel comfortable, feel safe. I don't think the Russian army is winning," said Alexander Hodosevich, a drummer for an instrumental psychedelic band, sitting with a group of friends after finishing an hour-long set at the More Music club.
The venue has just reopened, staging live (and live-streamed) concerts in the late afternoons, to give audiences enough time to get home before curfew.
If Putin Attacks Odesa, It Might Look Like This
It's 11 am. Do You Know Where Your Soldiers Are?
Russia reduces military activity:
Russia announced two steps to de-escalate the conflict, including a "drastic reduction in military activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions," and also the possibility of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.
The United States is already observing these movements underway, with Russian forces beginning to withdraw from the surrounding areas around Kyiv and focusing on gains in the south and east, according to two US officials.
The US assesses Russia will cover their retreat with air and artillery bombardment of the capital, one of the officials said. US officials caution that Russia could always reverse again if the battle conditions allow.
The US views this as a longer-term move as Russia comes to grips with failure to advance in the north.
Evacuation corridors: Local officials are working to evacuate people living in towns suffering heavy Russian shelling despite the failure of fighting parties to formally agree a humanitarian corridor, the regional governor of Luhansk in Ukraine’s far east said. Thirty people had been moved out of Rubizhne on Tuesday morning, as well as people from other nearby towns, Gov. Serhii Haidai said.
The Ukrainian government said residents of Mariupol, Melitopol and Enerhodar are once again able to reach the city of Zaporizhzhia, which remains in Ukrainian hands and has become the key transit point for people looking to escape fighting in the southeast. This comes after Ukraine said Monday that no corridors would function over fears of possible "provocations" by Russian forces.
Ukraine counterattacks: Military officials say Ukraine has launched counteroffensives against Russian forces in the Kyiv region as well as in the south of the country. Russian forces have been struggling to hold their front line northwest of the city of Kherson, and Ukrainian officials say the military has also pushed Russian troops back around 31 miles (50 kilometers) in fighting near the city of Kryvyi Rih.
He Who is 4th, Shall Later Be Last, For the Times, They are A'Changin'
Russia’s 4th Guards Tank Division (GTD) was considered one of it’s “elite” units, headquartered near Moscow.
The division's units participated in the First Chechen War of 1994-1996, and personnel took part in peacekeeping operations in South Ossetia during 1997, in Kosovo in 1998 to 2002, later participating in the Second Chechen War of 1999-2009. During this period, it was one of the Russian Army's "constant readiness" divisions, with at least 80% manpower and 100% equipment holdings at all times.
In other words, this unit was kept at maximum readiness, unlike other army units pilfered and plundered for dachas and vodka. It 2008, it had 12,000 soldiers, 320 tanks, armored personnel carriers, 130 howitzer artillery, and 12 GRAD rocket artillery. In 2012, Russia did away with the divisions as its main maneuver unit, replaced with Battalion Tactical Groups, in large part, because of the great grift opportunities they offered. (They have proven woefully inadequate for their task.) Still, for whatever reason, Russia rebuilt the division in 2015, outfitting it with 228 battle tanks, 300 armored personnel carriers, 90 artillery guns, and 19 MLRS GRAD rocket artillery.
This was one of the best funded and equipped units in the entire Russian Army, with their latest generation armor. The structure of the division would theoretically render it more resistant to the kind of rampant grift that affected BTGs. This thing was fearful, designed to punch through enemy lines and wreak havoc in the enemy’s rear. And that’s exactly what 4 GTD tried to do just this past weekend.
The first contact with Myrhorod was March 9, with Ukrainian forces repelling the attack. It was the first sighting of Russia’s most modern tanks on the Ukrainian battlefield. At least three abandoned T80Us are seen abandoned in this video.
The tweet says “more abandoned ...” which means Ukraine captured or destroyed even more of them. Over the next two days, Ukrainian forces hacked away at the division, forcing its retreat back toward the direction it came. In just two days, the division lost around 50 of its tanks. It was easy to track because 4th GTD was the only unit in the entire Russian Army to have T80Us. And to add insult to Russia’s injury, most of these were abandoned, not destroyed. Of the 46 T-80Us in Oryx’s database of visually verified Russian equipment losses, 38 were captured, and only four seemed destroyed in combat. (The rest were abandoned and destroyed by locals.) Other T-80 variants in the Oryx database show similar rates of captured-to-destroyed.
Regardless, the division had lost around 50 of its tanks out of 228, so things got quiet for the 4th GTD. From all indications, they set up shop in Trostyanets, where their howitzer and rocket artillery could pummel Sumy. And so it was until this weekend, when Ukrainian forces swept into town, essentially wiping the division off the face of the map.
I wrote about the attack on Saturday, still not quite understanding how monumental the victory was. Initial reports said “dozens” of Russian vehicles had been captured or destroyed, but you always account for a little hyperbole in these matters. Well, visual confirmation has been streaming out over the last few days, and it’s … voluminous.
In all, Oryx has documented 77 destroyed T-80 variants, which is a third of the entire divisions. And remember, these are just visually confirmed losses. That’s the baseline number. And on top of that, dozens of Russians surrendered.
Reports state that the remnants of Russia’s forces in the region have retreated to the other side of their border. Likely, they’ll try and salvage what survived, and “reconstitute” the unit, either by reinforcing it with conscripts and remnants of other shattered units, or raw conscripts. Either way, the divisions most effective days are behind it. As a result, Russia has lost one of its most capable units, with its most modern equipment. Furthermore, it lost a base of attack to rain death and misery from above on Sumy. And it opened roads from Sumy to Poltava to its south, breaking the siege of that city, allowing it to be resupplied.
Russia Is Not Flying the Friendly Skies. Wanna' Get Away?
The Sukhoi Su-34 was supposed to change the Russian air force. The twin-engine, twin-seat, supersonic fighter-bomber—a highly-evolved variant of the Su-27 air-superiority fighter—promised to usher in a new era of high-tech, precision bombing.
Instead, the Su-34s have flown into Ukraine lugging the same old dumb bombs. A lack of precision-guided munitions—not to mention Russian doctrine that conceives of aircraft essentially as flying artillery—forces the $50-million warplanes to fly low through the thickest Ukrainian air-defenses in order to have any chance of delivering their bombs with any degree of accuracy.
As a result, Su-34s are falling from the sky in numbers that must be startling for air force commanders. Their newest planes are suffering the same fate as their oldest planes.
I Don't Think David Letterman Came Up With This Top Ten List.
TOP TEN SIGNS YOUR ATTEMPT TO CONQUER/DESTROY YOUR SMALL NEIGHBORING COUNTRY IS NOT GOING SO GREAT:
1. Your general in charge of production and supply of tanks just killed himself. (When it was revealed that you can't really replace the hundreds of tanks the Ukes blew up or your guys abandoned, because your brass have stolen everything of value from the stock of replacements. Oops!)
2. You just publicly gave up on roughly 90% of your declared 'goals' in this invasion.
3. You just pulled several wrecked battalion groups back to Russia to 'restore' them, but it's not clear you really have the troops or equipment with which to 'restore' them.
4. Your Nazi puppet-regime in Belarus has been pledging to join in on your invasion for 3 weeks now, but still hasn't done anything, and it looks like half their troops would probably refuse, and, oh, lots of Belarussian 'partisans' keep blowing up the train-tracks you'd use.
5. You just lost the town of Irpin, west of Kyiv, which means your last hope of ever mounting an actual assault on Kyiv just evaporated, and also means those 5 or 8K troops you pretty much abandoned in the woods to the NW of Kyiv are one big step closer to getting exterminated. Ouch!
6. You keep losing towns to the east of Kyiv as well, and losing lots of troops and equipment in the process.
7. Stuff like this keeps happening to your convoys.
8. You took another general and assigned him to production of fake videos designed to scare your soldiers out of surrendering to the Ukies --cuz you know that's what lots of them will be doing in the coming days.
9. The Ukies are getting ready to re-take Kherson City in the South, which will put a stake through the heart of your dream of a 'land bridge' across the whole southern tier.
10. A whole bunch of fancy high-tech weapons are just now getting to the Ukes in the next few days --including British Star-Streak surface-to-air missiles, those Switchblade killer drones, maybe --finally-- some S-300 SAMS, and possibly a few surprises.
Add #11 to the List. Your Soldiers Don't Want to Be There
Video has gone viral of apparently angry Russian soldiers complaining that they were ill-equipped and ordered to go into a region of Ukraine with no clear planning from Moscow.
The clip shows the troops in a military vehicle describing how they were members of the armed forces from Donbas, the eastern Ukrainian region at the center of a conflict with Kyiv-backed forces since 2014.
During the one minute 40-second video, the troops outline how they were heading to the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine.
Several of them interrupt each other during the video, which is filled with expletives and refers to the 119th Division, 4th battalion and 1st and 2nd companies.
One said they were "ordinary workers," another said "we're kids" and that "they took us at 18 years old."
Each outburst vents anger, fear and uncertainty at what will befall them as they spoke of their colleagues who had already been killed or taken as prisoners of war.
"What are we doing here?" said one, "the Russian Defense Ministry has no idea about us, or what we're doing here." Another said that Moscow was "sending us with rifles against Grads [multiple launch rocket systems] artillery, mortars. We're asking you to spread this."
I'm Not a Big Fan of Bottled Water, But In This Case I Would Make an Exception
Ukraine warned its negotiators not to eat, drink or even touch anything as they headed into talks with Russia in Istanbul on Tuesday, following allegations that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and others may have been poisoned during previous talks.
“I advise anyone going for negotiations with Russia not to eat or drink anything, preferably avoid touching surfaces,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in an interview on national television channel, Ukrayina 24.
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I Don't Know How Much Money It Will Raise, But There Are Plenty of Ultra-Rich Who Aren't Paying Even a Reasonable Amount
A new minimum tax under a proposal in US President Joe Biden's budget plan aims to capture more of the wealth created by the soaring stock market of the last few years.
It targets the roughly 20,000 taxpayers in the US worth more than $100m (£76m).
Investor Warren Buffett, Tesla boss Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be among those affected.
Under the proposal, America's 0.01% richest would face a minimum 20% tax on income. Crucially, it changes rules on calculating income to include gains from stocks, even if they were not sold by the investor being taxed.
"This approach means that the very wealthiest Americans pay taxes as they go, just like everyone else, and eliminates the inefficient sheltering of income for decades or generations," the White House said.
The White House said more than half the $360bn raised from the measure over 10 years would come from the country's roughly 700 billionaires.
"Eventually they run out of other people's money and then they come for you," Tesla boss and world's richest man Elon Musk wrote on Twitter last year about a similar proposal.
Under Mr Biden's proposal, Mr Musk - a father of seven who boasts a net worth of more than $280bn - would have to pay $50bn more in taxes over 10 years than under the current system, according to analysis by Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California-Berkeley.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would face an extra $35bn bill, while Warren Buffett would be on the hook for $26bn.
"This is big," Prof Zucman, who has studied billionaire wealth and helped design a wealth tax proposal for left-wing Senator Elizabeth Warren, wrote on Twitter.
Mr Biden's budget also calls for raising the income tax rate on households earning over $400,000 from 37% to 39.6% and increasing the tax on companies to 28%, partially reversing cuts made under the Trump administration.
He would also make other reforms to the system for taxing the gains in value from stocks and property, which would apply beyond the richest Americans.
Together the reforms and others in the budget would help reduce the deficit by $1tn over the next decade, according to the White House.
For the 2022 financial year, the annual deficit is projected at more than $1.2tn. Overall debt passed $30tn last month.
Fellow Democrat Joe Manchin, of West Virginia - one of the key of members of Mr Biden's party who has blocked his wider agenda - last year said that a similar proposal from Senator Ron Wyden was too complicated and he didn't "like the connotation that we're targeting different people".
America's 400 richest families have more wealth than all 10 million of the country's black families combined, according to a 2020 analysis by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
I Am a Big Believer in Academic Freedom, Even for a Tool Like This.
Several students at the University of Montreal in Quebec, Canada, created a petition calling for a professor's removal after he made statements online in support of Russia and the invasion of Ukraine.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion continues, two students launched a petition recently against Michael Jabara Carley, a history professor at the school, stating that he was pushing Russian propaganda onto students.
Twitter posts by Carley since the start of the invasion on February 24 led to the creation of the petition. While Carley's Twitter and Facebook accounts have allegedly been deleted, a screenshot of one of his tweets taken by the Montreal Gazette says: "If #US #NATO do not alter policy, Russia's only guarantee of security is the disappearance of fascist Ukraine. Already Ukr borders are changing before our eyes."
The Gazette states that before his account was deleted, Carley appeared openly pro-Kremlin, retweeting posts from Russian outlets, including the Russian Embassy in Canada. He also was quoted by Radio-Canada as having said that "Donbass and Mariupol are being cleaned of Ukrainian Nazis" and "Russian troops fight 'fascists' in Ukraine."
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Did He Bring a Food Taster?
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has appeared at peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey.
He was seen talking to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is mediating in the talks in Istanbul.
Reports surfaced hours earlier that Mr Abramovich and two Ukrainian negotiators had shown poisoning symptoms after talks in early March.
Mr Abramovich is known to have spent weeks in a mediation role, flying between Moscow and Kyiv.
The Chelsea football club owner was said to have suffered sore eyes and peeling skin, but had now recovered, reports say.
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Next Time You Visit Jackie Robinson Stadium, Remember This.
In 2014, the mayor of Los Angeles made a bold promise: to end veteran homelessness in this city by the end of 2015. He didn't.
There are, by latest count, still more than 3,600 homeless veterans here, down just a few hundred in five years There are more homeless vets in Los Angeles than anywhere else in the country.
Meanwhile, abutting beautiful Brentwood in the affluent west of the city lie 388 acres managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Much of it was gifted to the nation in 1888 on one condition: that a home for disabled soldiers "be thereon so located, established, constructed and permanently maintained." This land, say advocates, could and should be the solution.
But today just a few hundred veterans live on this land, which is about half the size of New York's Central Park. Many of them are in a nursing home run by the state of California. The federal government leases 10 acres to UCLA for a baseball field, the home of the Bruins. Vets do get free tickets to games. And, in apparent violation of an act of Congress, another chunk is leased to an energy company that drills for oil here.
Another 22 acres are leased to Brentwood School. The exclusive private school has built an athletics track, tennis courts and a swimming pool, which, according to its architect, was "conceived as a theater for swimmers."
"It's really kind of disgusting to see," said Rob Reynolds, an Iraq War veteran who says he spent time on the streets around here, waiting for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
And after the '71 earthquake, the VA started leasing plots of land to entities that had nothing to do with veterans. Tenants have included kids' soccer clubs, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and a movie studio that stored sets here. It remains unclear where a lot of the rental income went.
The full story.
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Long Overdue
Numerous members of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee expressed support during a virtual meeting on Monday for a draft proposal that would dramatically remake the party's 2024 presidential nominating process, signaling that the committee could pass the measure when it meets again in April.
The draft proposal would end the Democratic Party's current nominating process structure -- where the Iowa caucuses go first, followed by primaries in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- and instead implement a process that would prioritize more diverse battleground states that choose to hold primaries, not caucuses. The new structure would require states to apply to hold early nominating contests and the rules committee would select "no more than five states to be allowed to hold the first determining stage in their presidential nominating process."
If passed, the proposal would represent the most serious threat to Iowa's first-in-the-nation status, given the largely White state is no longer a battleground and is legally required to hold caucuses.
These Are the People With an Outsized Role in Nominating Presidential Candidates.
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They've Had It With Molasses Merrick
Members of the House select committee investigating last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol expressed frustration Monday over an apparently inattentive and slow-moving Justice Department, with one lawmaker telling Attorney General Merrick Garland in a speech: “Do your job.”
Members complained of a lack of support from the Justice Department and were annoyed that criminal contempt of Congress charges have not yet been filed against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for failure to comply with a subpoena from the committee.
The backlog is likely to grow with the expected recommendation by the House panel to bring criminal contempt of Congress charges against Donald Trump’s former trade adviser Peters Navarro and ally Dan Scavino.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in remarks before the committee Monday: “The Department of Justice has a duty to act [on contempt recommendations] .... Without enforcement of congressional subpoenas, there is no oversight, and without oversight, no accountability — for the former president or any other president, past, present or future.”
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) said flatly: “Attorney General Garland: Do your job — so we can do ours.”
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Speaking of Jobs
Job openings hovered at a near-record level in February, little changed from the previous month, continuing a trend that Federal Reserve officials see as a driver of inflation.
There were 11.3 million available jobs last month, matching January's figure and just below December's record of 11.4 million, the Labor Department said Tuesday.
The number of Americans quitting their jobs was also historically high, at 4.4 million, up from 4.3 million in January. More than 4.5 million people quit in November, the most on records dating back two decades. Many people are taking advantage of numerous opportunities to switch jobs, often for higher pay. The vast majority of those quitting do so to take another position.
Tuesday’s report is separate from the government’s monthly employment report, which in February showed that employers added a robust 678,000 jobs.
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