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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 9:53:20 GMT -8
I tried to buy bread at the Indian grocery. They had naan.
Ukraine People Need Something to Cheer For
For some people in Ukraine, football has become a welcome distraction from the endless air raid sirens, Russian missile attacks and other harsh realities of war.
And while interest in the 2022 World Cup might be more muted than usual, committed fans are looking forward to the tournament.
Volodymyr Maklyakov, a 26-year-old Manchester City fan originally from Kharkiv but now living in western Ukraine, says that although he has not felt “any great emotions” in the build-up to the big event, he will do all he can to watch the games.
Doing so could prove difficult since Russia has targeted Ukraine’s energy facilities in recent months, resulting in power shortages and blackouts.
Maklyakov would have supported his beloved Ukrainian national team had they not narrowly missed out on qualification after losing to Wales in a playoff game.
Instead, like many Ukrainian football fans this World Cup, he will be cheering for Poland and England in gratitude for their support during the war.
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Poland has welcomed about 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees and provided almost $3bn in aid.
The United Kingdom has provided Ukraine with nearly $4bn in military aid. It has also been a strong diplomatic ally.
What About the US Team? Wasn't HIMARS Enough?
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 9:54:54 GMT -8
A Death Sentence for Protest
A court in Tehran has issued the first death sentence to a person involved in Iran’s ongoing protests and handed out prison terms to several others.
The Iranian judiciary said late on Sunday that an unnamed individual has been sentenced to execution for “setting fire to a government centre, disturbing public order and collusion for committing crimes against national security” in addition to “moharebeh” (waging war against God) and “corruption on Earth”.
Five more unnamed people, who authorities described as “rioters” – a word the government uses to describe the ongoing protests and those participating in them – were handed between five and 10 years in prison on national security-related charges.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 9:58:00 GMT -8
I Wonder What They Would Have Had to Pay for a Night in the Lincoln Bedroom.
During Donald Trump’s presidency, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, China and Malaysia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at the Trump International Hotel in Washington at the same time they were trying to influence U.S. foreign policy, according to investigative findings released Monday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Hotel receipts obtained by the Oversight Committee show that the then-prime minister of Malaysia and his delegation spent $259,724 at the hotel during a one-week stay in September 2017, including a $10,000 room and $1,500 “Personal Trainer” for embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak, and $9,229 for “Coffee Break.” At the time, Razak was unsuccessfully lobbying the Trump administration to drop an investigation into a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund he had co-founded.
The Saudi Ministry of Defense spent $85,961 during a one-week stay in March 2018, including renting several $10,500 suites, according to the Oversight Committee findings. The Saudi revenues for the Trump hotel came during a period when Saudi Arabia and the UAE were lobbying the Trump administration to support them during their blockade against economic rival Qatar.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 9:59:14 GMT -8
Hey Jeff: I'll Try to Fight Division for a Billion
Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently said he plans to give away the “majority” of his fortune.
Bezos’ comments were made in an interview with CNN on Saturday, when he said he plans to use his wealth to fight climate change and to support societal “unifiers.” Bezos is worth about $124 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
In a conversation with CNN, Bezos offered few specifics of his plans, instead focusing on a vision to give generously to individuals who work to fight “division” in American politics and public life. No timeline or specific dollar amount was given.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:03:05 GMT -8
You Know Those Annoying TV Commercials About Mayhem? That's What the Freedom Caucus Has Planned for the House. Mayhem!
Over on the House side of Capitol Hill, the OG Freedom Caucus maniacs are plotting against Kevin McCarthy, even while votes are still being counted and we don’t know which party will have the majority.
Republicans are set to have a razor-thin majority when the dust settles, giving the maniacs an opening to either oust McCarthy or force him to bend to their will. Leadership elections are supposed to be held Tuesday, and just like in the Senate, the maniacs are trying to postpone that vote until the real election is decided. One Republican, anonymous of course, told Politico that if McCarthy doesn’t agree to delay, they’re going to nominate Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) for speaker to demonstrate that McCarthy can’t get 218 votes.
They’ve got a raft of power-grabbing rules reforms they want McCarthy to agree to, all of which would restrain his power and increase the chaos in the House. The number one thing they want is to restore the motion to vacate the chair—the procedure they used to force then-Speaker John Boehner to resign back in 2015. After that debacle, the House voted on a new rule to allow only the leadership of the opposition party to call what is basically a vote of no confidence in the Speaker. The maniacs want to open it up again to any member who has a grievance.
There are dozens of other proposals from them addressing their long lists of grievances, many of which would make trying to do things like fund the government and avoid shutdowns much, much harder. All of them would effectively neuter the Speaker, giving the maniacs veto power over pretty much anything, and most of which exist in a vacuum of unreality, oblivious to the existence of the Senate. Biggs, the former Freedom Caucus chair they’re pushing to oppose McCarthy, is holding a forum Monday to discuss all these rule changes, featuring former Trump chief of staff and coup co-conspirator Mark Meadows.
These guys have always lived in a bizarre bubble in which the only thing that mattered was the House and how they could use it as a cudgel for whatever havoc they were trying to wreak to destroy the Democrats. If they had ever put as much time and effort into actually governing policy proposals as they had plots to control the House, they might have actually achieved something like repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Cheer Up Kevin. You Finally Might Get to Hold the Gavel
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:08:22 GMT -8
What's Next For Urkraine? Mykolaiv finally gets a break from tube artillery. Russia can still strike the city with its dwindling stock of cruise missiles and Iranian drones, but for the most part, the city will be able to start rebuilding in earnest. Kherson is clearly in range of Russian artillery, but Ukraine can keep its counter-battery operation at full alert. My guess is that Russia will mostly move on, like we’ve seen in Sumy and Chernihiv. The fact that Kherson hasn’t been shelled during its liberation celebrations seems significant. Telegram sources have reported massive number of retreating Russian forces moving through Melitipol, likely headed toward other fronts. Ukraine has designs on Melitopol of course. Russian Telegram has been claiming a buildup of Ukrainian forces in that direction for the last two months. There’s the Svatove direction, up north. If Ukraine takes the town, then pushes to Starobilsk (a straight shot), that entire northeastern swatch of red territory would be liberated in one fell swoop. We’d be back near the original February 24 borders in that direction. And then there’s the battle for Bakhmut and the strong Russian push toward Pavlivka. Ukrainian defenders likely desperately need to be rotated out. But even more importantly, there will be a lot of newly freed up artillery to help in these directions, including HIMARS/MLRS assets and the latest 500 Excalibur shells announced by the Pentagon this week. Russia’s winter isn’t going to be an easy one. Ukraine, on the other hand, just sewed up its Southern flank and can now plot its next move, on its own terms. Meanwhile the Sanctions Continue to Bite
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:09:43 GMT -8
The Media Get Their Panties in a Bunch Over Concessions. Here's the Right Answer:
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:12:49 GMT -8
How the Kids Made Us Old Folks Irrelevant (Sort of)
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:15:31 GMT -8
Does God's Endorsement Matter More Than Other Endoresements?
Ron DeSantis has a messiah complex. Will it do him in?
The battle of outsize egos between the Florida governor and Donald Trump could ruin them both long before Election Day 2024.
DeSantis made a solid bid to be America’s redeemer in chief in a video his wife posted Nov. 4 on Twitter. “And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter,” the narrator says over an image of DeSantis among adoring fans.
God is mentioned 10 times in less than two minutes in the clip, prompting Mike Allen of Axios to publish a parody in his publication’s trademarked “smart brevity” format:
Breaking: God apparently endorsed Ron DeSantis (R) for reelection, according to the Florida governor’s new ad.
· Why it matters: It would be the first time God officially endorsed a statewide candidate.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:16:53 GMT -8
You Bought Him. You Own Him.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:18:46 GMT -8
This Is Hardly a Surprise
“While in office, President Donald J. Trump repeatedly told John F. Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, that he wanted a number of his perceived political enemies to be investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Kelly said.
Mr. Kelly, who was chief of staff from July 2017 through the end of 2018, said in response to questions from The New York Times that Mr. Trump’s demands were part of a broader pattern of him trying to use the Justice Department and his authority as president against people who had been critical of him, including seeking to revoke the security clearances of former top intelligence officials.”
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:21:10 GMT -8
This Rising Tide Will Not Lift All Boats
Climate models have greatly underestimated the ice loss from northern Greenland, warns the Technical University of Denmark. Greenland's glaciers have been shedding ice at record speed; this is no surprise since the Arctic is warming four to seven times faster than the rest of the planet.
The study, published in Nature, indicates that sea level rise will be significantly higher than thought. The revelations suggest that civilization is unprepared to deal with the coastal destruction that rising seas will unleash on Earth's coastlines.
By 2100, the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream will contribute six times as much to the rising sea level as previous models suggested, adding between 13,5 to 15,5 mm, according to the new study. This is equivalent to the entire Greenland ice sheet's contribution in the past 50 years. The research was carried out by researchers from Denmark, the United States, France, and Germany
That 0.61-inch of additional sea-level rise may not sound like much to worry about, but that comes on top of other new findings, such as Zombie Ice which occupies most of Greenland's margin, will contribute a minimum increase of ten inches. Increasing heatwaves, rainfall intensity, and frequency, which have stunned glacier scientists, are not factored into existing climate models.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:25:15 GMT -8
Crypto and Tom Brady? It Was Never Going to End Well
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried lost his entire $16 billion fortune in just a few days after his company filed chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, but he’s not the only high-profile investor who may lose money amid FTX’s downturn.
As interest in crypto and crypto exchanges exploded in recent years, more high profile individuals like professional athletes and other entertainment personalities joined financial institutions in investing in FTX.
One of those athletes is Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady.
Just a few months after winning his seventh Super Bowl in 2021, Brady and his then-wife Gisele Bündchen were each given equity stake in FTX, in addition to receiving some crypto. Brady served as an ambassador for the company and Bündchen was FTX’s Environmental & Social Initiatives Advisor. The two also starred in several TV commercials for FTX.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time in the crypto-world and Sam and the revolutionary FTX team continue to open my eyes to the endless possibilities,” Brady said in 2021. “This particular opportunity showed us the importance of educating people about the power of crypto while simultaneously giving back to our communities and planet. We have the chance to create something really special here, and I can’t wait to see what we’re able to do together.”
It’s not clear how much equity Brady and Bündchen received in 2021, but FTX raised capital at a $32 billion valuation a few months after the announcement of the deal.
How Can a Billion Dollars Just Vanish? Probably It Was Stolen.
At least $1 billion in FTX customers' funds have vanished from the collapsed crypto exchange, Reuters has reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The exchange's founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried quietly transferred $10 billion of customer funds from FTX to its sister trading company Alameda Research, and now a big chunk of that total is missing, the report said.
One of the sources, who Reuters said held a senior position at FTX until this week, estimated about $1.7 billion is missing. The other, also briefed on the exchange's finances by top staff, gave a range of $1 billion to $2 billion.
FTX users have scrambled to get their money off of FTX via alternative assets after the exchange froze withdrawals before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 14, 2022 10:30:08 GMT -8
Georgia on My Mind
Maybe the Georgia runoff isn’t that important anymore? Those making that assumption are making an important mistake.
Take the Senate’s power-sharing agreement, for example. As a practical matter, Democrats have a functioning majority in the Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris can break ties, but their majority is the result of a compromise deal that was negotiated — slowly — by party leaders early last year.
This agreement gives the parties equal membership in committees, and creates procedural dynamics that make it more difficult to advance bills and nominations to the floor. Why is a majority “always better at 51,” as Biden put it? Because with 51 seats, the power-sharing agreement goes away, and Democrats can govern in the Senate as a proper majority party.
Plus We Are Running the Risk of Herschel Lie-Walker in the Senate
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