Day: October 21, 2023

How much did the US & EU sink into this campaign?!

Ms. Cat

Tusk Gets His Chance to Bring Poland Back From the ‘Dark Side’

Law & Justice turned Poland into a rogue state on a par with Viktor Orban’s Hungary. The Polish government clashed with the EU over rule of law, control of the media and funding, all while weaponizing LGBTQ issues and women’s rights. Support for Ukraine brought Warsaw into line with its main EU partners, but even there the mood has soured after Warsaw imposed restrictions on Ukrainian grain and suggested it might stop weapons shipments.

Highest voter turnout, huh?! “Civil society organizations” 🧐 AKA front organizations?!

Related:

USAID Announces Central Europe Program

US Calls Out Poland for Pre-Election Moves Against Opposition

Hours after President Andrzej Duda approved the creation of a special parliamentary panel to investigate Russia’s meddling in Poland between 2007 and 2022, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US shares the concerns “expressed by many observers” that the panel “could be used to block the candidacy of opposition politicians without due process.”

Lift off: Use of high-altitude platforms gain traction in US Army

Ms. Cat

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has for years experimented with high-altitude balloons and long-endurance, fixed-wing, solar-powered platforms capable of operating in the stratosphere. Now the service is pursuing prototyping efforts that could lead to programs of record, including one able to deploy launched effects.

Lift off: Use of high-altitude platforms gain traction in US Army

Related:

What The U.S. Army Plans For High-Altitude Balloons, Solar Aircraft

SMDC’s Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence actively works across the Pentagon to find high-altitude platforms, payloads and command-and-control capabilities for the service. This includes small, tactical balloons for payloads such as extended-range communications up to large, stratospheric balloons, according to a command fact sheet. In April 2022, for example, U.S. Army soldiers launched a Thunderhead High-Altitude Balloon System during exercise Balikatan 22 in the Philippines.*

*Flynn for balloons. Guess there is a different standard for the US gov?

Good and Evil in an Age of Memes

Ms. Cat

There is a surreal feeling of living through a stream of atrocities in this Age of Memes. Pictorial blips of absurdity amongst the bomb blasts and rubble of cities. Sometimes I wonder if people I know in Gaza have seen the latest meme that labeled them all terrorists? I sincerely hope they haven’t. Have they seen my posts attempting to humanize them? And that’s when I feel pathetic. A feeble voice with no agency. As if a meme could stop the siege or the barrage of bombs that have been incessant for over a week now. I can’t lift the blockade to let food and medicine in. I can’t make Israel turn on the taps and let the water flow. So, like others I share memes

Good and Evil in an Age of Memes

The Maidan Massacre, Censorship & Ukraine: Interview with Ivan Katchanovski

Ms. Cat
Genocide Joe and Porky Poroshenko.

By Natylie Baldwin, Consortium News, 10/20/23

Canadian-Ukrainian professor Ivan Katchanovski’s investigation of the Maidan massacre in Kiev in February 2014 found an organized mass killing of both protesters and the police, with the goal of delegitimizing the Yanukovych government and its forces and seizing power in Ukraine, as he wrote for Consortium News in an in-depth article in 2019. (On Wednesday three policemenwere sentenced for the massacre, one was acquitted and one was released for time served. The official investigation ignored Katchanovski’s academic research.)

The Maidan Massacre, Censorship & Ukraine: My Interview with Ivan Katchanovski

AP erases Israeli pledge to attack Gaza like ‘Axis Power’ as officials threaten Palestinians with ‘Dresden’ doctrine

Ms. Cat

As Israeli officials proudly compare their bombardment of the Gaza Strip to the Allied firebombing of Dresden, the Associated Press has quietly removed a section noting US alarm over the historical comparison.

AP erases Israeli pledge to attack Gaza like ‘Axis Power’ as officials threaten Palestinians with ‘Dresden’ doctrine

Related:

Gaza awaits aid from Egypt as Israel readies troops for ground assault

The seeds of this crisis were planted by the Gilad Schalit deal – opinion

‘I will never vote Biden’: Some Muslim Americans in a key swing state feel betrayed by the president

Ms. Cat

Muslim and Arab-Americans say their support was critical to Biden’s win in Michigan. Some warn they won’t back him again over his blanket support for Israel.

‘I will never vote Biden’: Some Muslim Americans in a key swing state feel betrayed by the president

Biden’s going to lose, but it’s not going to matter if he gets us nuked before the election!