H.C.R. made a little mistake in today’s article.
The fighting of Pickett’s charge was on July 3 1863 and not July 2. July 3 was the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg and the victory of the union at Pickett’s charge pushed back the confederation troops and they had to retreat south after suffering major losses.

Posted by lostnfound74 on 2/28/2022 9:42:00 PM (view original):
Lol keep working on it. This guy is a looney

pot meet kettle

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

March 1, 2022 (Tuesday)

In Ukraine, Russian troops escalated their bombing of cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Mariupol, in what Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky called a campaign of terror to break the will of the Ukrainians. Tonight (in U.S. time), airborne troops assaulted Kharviv, which is a city of about 1.5 million, and a forty-mile-long convoy of tanks and trucks is within 17 miles of Kyiv, although a shortage of gas means they’ll move very slowly.

About 660,000 refugees have fled the country.

But the war is not going well for Putin, either, as international sanctions are devastating the Russian economy and the invasion is going far more slowly than he had apparently hoped. The ruble has plummeted in value, and the Kremlin is trying to stave off a crisis in the stock market by refusing to open it. Both Exxon and the shipping giant Maersk have announced they are joining BP in cutting ties to Russia, Apple has announced it will not sell products in Russia, and the Swiss-based company building Nord Stream 2 today said it was considering filing for insolvency.

Ukraine’s military claimed it today destroyed a large Russian military convoy of up to 800 vehicles, and Ukrainian authorities claim to have stopped a plot to assassinate Zelensky and to have executed the assassins. The death toll for Russian troops will further undermine Putin’s military push. Russians are leaving dead soldiers where they lie, likely to avoid the spectacle of body bags coming home. It appears at least some of the invaders had no idea they were going to Ukraine, and some have allegedly been knocking holes in their vehicles’ gas tanks to enable them to stay out of the fight. Morale is low.

Associated Press correspondent Francesca Ebel reports from Russia: “Life in Russia is deteriorating extremely rapidly. So many of my friends are packing up & leaving the country. Their cards are blocking. Huge lines for ATMs etc. Rumours that borders will close soon. ‘What have we done? How did we not stop him earlier?’ said a friend to me y[ester]day.” The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, agreed. “Something has definitely shifted here in the last two days.”

According to the BBC, a local government body in Moscow's Gagarinsky District called the war a “disaster” that is impoverishing the country, and demanded the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine. Another, similar, body said the invasion was "insane" and "unjustified" and warned, "Our economy is going to hell."

Putin clearly did not expect the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the U.S. and other allies and partners around the world, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and others, to work together to stand against his aggression. Even traditionally neutral Switzerland is on board. The insistence of the U.S. on exposing Putin’s moves ahead of time, building a united opposition, and warning of false flag operations to justify an invasion meant that the anti-authoritarian world is working together now to stop the Russian advance. Today, Taiwan announced it sent more than 27 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine, claiming its own membership in the "democratic camp" in the international community.

This extraordinary international cooperation is a tribute to President Joe Biden, who has made defense of democracy at home and abroad the centerpiece of his presidency. Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and State Department officials have been calling, meeting, listening, and building alliances with allies since they took office, and by last Thanksgiving they were making a concerted push to bring the world together in anticipation of Putin’s aggression.

Their early warnings have rehabilitated the image of U.S. intelligence, badly damaged during the Trump years, when the president and his loyalists attacked U.S. intelligence and accepted the word of autocrats, including Putin.

It has also been a diplomatic triumph, but in his State of the Union address tonight, Biden quite correctly put it second to the “fearlessness,…courage,…and determination” of the Ukrainians who are resisting the Russian troops.

The theme of Biden’s speech tonight was unity. He worked to bring Americans from all political persuasions into a vision of the country we could all share, focusing on the measures—lower prescription drug costs, background checks for gun ownership, access to abortion, voting rights, immigration, civil rights, corporate taxation—that polls show enjoy enormous popular support.

“Last year COVID-19 kept us apart,” he began, addressing a vaccinated, boosted, and audience that was largely maskless, since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently eased mask recommendations according to risk level. “This year we are finally together again.”

Tonight, we meet as Democrats, Republicans and Independents. But most importantly as Americans. With a duty to one another, to the American people, to the Constitution. And with an unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny.” He urged people to “stop seeing each other as enemies, and start seeing each other for who we really are: Fellow Americans.”

Biden outlined the ways in which his administration has “helped working people—and left no one behind.” The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan helped us to fight Covid-19 and rebuilt the economy after the devastation of the pandemic. It helped the nation gain more than 6.5 million new jobs last year, more jobs created in one year than in any other time in our history.

The economy grew at an astonishing rate in Biden’s first year: 5.7%, the strongest growth in 40 years. Forty years of tax cuts, initiated in the belief that freeing up private capital would enable the wealthy to invest efficiently in the economy, have led to “weaker economic growth, lower wages, bigger deficits, and the widest gap between those at the top and everyone else in nearly a century,” Biden pointed out.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris believe instead that both the economy and the country do best when the government invests in ordinary people. The administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will rebuild America, creating well-paying jobs. The administration has also brought home military contracts, using tax dollars to provide Americans good jobs and to bring manufacturing back home. Biden called on Congress to pass the Bipartisan Innovation Act, which invests in innovation and will spark additional investment in new technologies like electric vehicles.

Biden not only outlined the ways in which he plans to nurture his vision of government, he took on Republican criticisms.

Biden said he plans to combat the inflation that has plagued the recovery by cutting the cost of prescription drugs and letting Medicare negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs the way the VA already does. He called for cutting energy and child care costs. He called for avoiding supply chain issues by strengthening domestic manufacturing. He spoke up against the price gouging that has characterized the pandemic years, and he called for corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share of taxes through a minimum 15% tax rate for corporations.

Biden also undercut Republican accusations that Democrats want to “defund” the police by countering that we need to fund the police at even higher rates, an idea he talked about on the campaign trail when he urged better funding for social services to relieve law enforcement from the community policing issues for which they are currently ill prepared. At the same time, he noted that his Department of Justice has “required body cameras, banned chokeholds, and restricted no-knock warrants for its officers.”

To those complaining about the effect of this spending on the deficit—this has the name of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) all over it—Biden noted that by the end of the year, “the deficit will be down to less than half what it was before I took office.” He is, he said, “the only president ever to cut the deficit by more than one trillion dollars in a single year.”

Biden offered a “Unity Agenda for the Nation.” He outlined “[f]our big things we can do together”: beat the opioid epidemic, make the way we address mental health equal to the way we address physical health, support our veterans, and end cancer as we know it.

Biden’s speech listed items that are very popular but that are nonetheless highly unlikely to pass the Senate, where Republicans use the filibuster to stop any programs that support Biden’s ideology of government. The speech subtly reminded listeners that it is Republican members of Congress who are standing between these popular programs and the American people.

Since the attack on Ukraine made the line between democracies and autocracies crystal clear, Republicans have tried desperately to backpedal their previous coziness with Putin (in 2018, eight Republican lawmakers spent July 4 in Moscow, for example) and to declare their solidarity with Ukraine. Whether that sudden shift toward democracy would affect their approach to U.S. politics has been unclear. Tonight’s speech had some clues: Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said they wouldn’t attend because they didn’t have time to waste getting covid tests, and Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) actually turned their back on Biden’s cabinet members when they came in, then heckled the president as he spoke.

“In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security,” Biden said. And Americans “will meet the test. To protect freedom and liberty, to expand fairness and opportunity. We will save democracy.”

78% of voters polled by CBS said they approved of Biden’s speech.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

March 2, 2022 (Wednesday)


In the midst of all the news stories that have taken the headlines, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has continued its work. Today, in a lawsuit, it told a judge that the committee “has a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
The filing also said that a “review of the materials may reveal that the president and members of his campaign engaged in common law fraud in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.” One of the emails it released to support the filing indicated that Trump legal advisor John Eastman knew those delaying the electoral count were breaking the law.
The January 6th committee is investigating the events of January 6, 2021, to see what changes in the law, if any, should be in place to make sure what happened on January 6 cannot happen again. It cannot charge anyone with a crime, although it can make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, which the department will then consider. Today’s statement makes it seem likely that the committee will be making such a referral.
Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal told MSNBC: "This is as deadly serious as it gets, seditious conspiracy."
The filing was in a case over whether Eastman, the author of the memo outlining how then–vice president Mike Pence could use his role in the counting of electoral votes to overturn the election, can refuse to turn over about 11,000 pages of emails and documents to the committee. Eastman wants to withhold them, saying they are covered by attorney-client privilege. But he has not been able to establish that Trump was his client, and, further, attorney-client privilege cannot be invoked to cover a crime.
Also today, in a case concerning whether the Oath Keepers, who stormed the Capitol on January 6, engaged in seditious conspiracy, Joshua James of Alabama pleaded guilty. According to CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane, who is following all the January 6 cases, James agreed that he tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power and that Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes had a “plan” for accomplishing that disruption. In the plea deal, James said that “Rhodes instructed James &..conspirators to be prepared, if called upon, to report to the White House grounds to secure the perimeter & use lethal force if necessary against anyone who tried to remove President Trump."
Meanwhile, the Russian attack on Ukraine continues to escalate. Today, United States ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield confirmed that Russia has used cluster munitions and vacuum bombs, which are prohibited under the Geneva Conventions establishing limits to deadly weapons, in Ukraine.
A million refugees have now crossed the border to get out of Ukraine. People are also fleeing Russia as its economy collapses and Russian president Vladimir Putin persists in turning the country into a global outcast. Russian-American journalist Julia Ioffe wrote: “Friend after friend fleeing Russia. Five today alone. The best and the brightest, the journalists who were telling people the truth about their country—gone. Emigres, like the white Russians of a century ago. Putin is destroying two countries at once.” Russian authorities have started to crack down and refuse to let people leave.
In both the U.S. and Russia in the last several years, anti-democratic leaders have sought to impose their will on voters, and the similarities between those impulses make them unlikely to be independent of each other.
On July 27, 2016, even before the Republican National Committee changed the party’s platform to weaken the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its struggle to fight off Russia’s 2014 invasion, U.S. News & World Report senior politics writer David Catanese noted that senior security officials were deeply concerned about then-candidate Trump’s ties to Russia.
July 27 was the day Trump referred at a news conference to his opponent and then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s emails that were not turned over for public disclosure from her private server and said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” (We know now that Russian hackers did, in fact, begin to target her accounts on or around that day.)
Former secretary of defense Leon Panetta, who served under nine presidents, told Catanese that Trump was "a threat to national security,” not only because of his call for help from Russia, but because of his suggestion that he would abandon the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if he were elected and, as Catanese put it, “his coziness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
Former National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon also expressed concern over the hack of the Democratic National Committee by Russian operatives, and said that such an attack mirrored similar attacks in Estonia, Georgia, and, most prominently, Ukraine. He called on officials to confront Russian leaders publicly.
Cybersecurity expert Alan Silberberg told Catanese that Trump looked like an ally of Putin. "The Twitter trail, if you dig into it over the last year, the Russian media is mirroring him, putting out the same tweets at almost the same time," Silberberg said.
"You get the sense that people think it's a joke,” Panetta said. “The fact is what he has said has already represented a threat to our national security."
Putin’s attempt to destroy democracy in Ukraine militarily has invited a reexamination of the cyberattacks, disinformation, division, attacks on opponents, and installation of puppet leaders he used to gain control of Ukraine before finally turning to bombs. This reexamination, in turn, has led journalists to note that those same techniques have poisoned politics in countries other than Ukraine.
Over the weekend, British investigative journalist Carol Cadwalladr warned that we are 8 years into “The first Great Information War,” a war sparked by Putin’s fury at the removal of his puppet Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 from the presidency of Ukraine. Putin set out to warp reality to confuse both Ukrainians & the world. The “meddling” we saw in the 2016 election was not an attempt to elect Trump simply so he would end the sanctions former president Barack Obama had imposed on Russia in 2014 after it invaded Ukraine. It was an attempt to destabilize democracy. “And it's absolutely crucial that we now understand that Putin's attack on Ukraine & the West was a JOINT attack on both,” she wrote.
Today in The Guardian, political and cultural observer Rebecca Solnit wrote a piece titled “It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network.”

"
The filing was in a case over whether Eastman, the author of the memo outlining how then–vice president Mike Pence could use his role in the counting of electoral votes to overturn the election, can refuse to turn over about 11,000 pages of emails and documents to the committee. Eastman wants to withhold them, saying they are covered by attorney-client privilege. But he has not been able to establish that Trump was his client, and, further, attorney-client privilege cannot be invoked to cover a crime.

Also today, in a case concerning whether the Oath Keepers, who stormed the Capitol on January 6, engaged in seditious conspiracy, Joshua James of Alabama pleaded guilty. According to CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane, who is following all the January 6 cases, James agreed that he tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power and that Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes had a “plan” for accomplishing that disruption. In the plea deal, James said that “Rhodes instructed James &..conspirators to be prepared, if called upon, to report to the White House grounds to secure the perimeter & use lethal force if necessary against anyone who tried to remove President Trump."

"

one wonders where we would be with all this right now if somehow the trespassers had got down into the basement and cornered pence

would they have quailed or would they have backed up their big talk

Ask Ray Epps

You mean THIS guy:

An event calendar for a talk by Oath Keepers’ founder Stewart Rhodes described Epps as “Oath Keepers Arizona Chapter…State Chapter President: Ray Epps.”

Epps is “the former president of the largest chapter of far-right anti-government militia group the Oath Keepers.”

He's some guy who couldn't ranch well enough so he turned his "spread" into a wedding venue place.
Lives in Queen Creek (SE of Phoenix), AZ. Mid 60's.
Claims he's NEVER been an informant for anybody, including the FBI.

I see you've never been to informant school. First rule of informant school: deny you're an informant if asked.

Ignore his words and look at actions. Has he been arrested? Been treated like the other 1/6 rioters? If not, why not? Questions have been begged.

What if, and I know this is a WILD theory, Epps is working with the FBI AFTER the riot.

Because he's a leader, he probably has info that they want, and agreed to cooperate after talking to them.

I know it's crazy to jump to the very obvious conclusion that aligns with all of the evidence, but I didn't go to conspiracy theory school.

If he was an informant it would be about what he knows of planning and recruitment for Jan 6 and the chain of information he and his group were getting.
And any knowledge of money going into the planning and where it came from.

Posted by Jetson21 on 3/3/2022 12:21:00 PM (view original):
If he was an informant it would be about what he knows of planning and recruitment for Jan 6 and the chain of information he and his group were getting.
And any knowledge of money going into the planning and where it came from.

Tell yourself that. Don't look to the Whitmer case for evidence of contrary practices...we wouldn't want you to doubt your holy faith in the official narrative!

Posted by Guitarguy567 on 3/4/2022 11:08:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Jetson21 on 3/3/2022 12:21:00 PM (view original):
If he was an informant it would be about what he knows of planning and recruitment for Jan 6 and the chain of information he and his group were getting.
And any knowledge of money going into the planning and where it came from.

Tell yourself that. Don't look to the Whitmer case for evidence of contrary practices...we wouldn't want you to doubt your holy faith in the official narrative!

If you keep reading me you are only going to get more cynical about people who are different then you.
You also suffer reading comprehension problems because you are agendizing ( I made that word up ) what you are reading.

The comment I made was my neutral analysis of what type of informant he would be if he was an informant. Nothing more and nothing less.

We have another guy who also reads with an agenda in mind.
The 2 if you should hold hands and sing hymns together.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

March 3. 2022 (Thursday)

As Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its second week, the lines are clear.

This morning—in America’s time—Russian president Vladimir Putin called French president Emmanuel Macron and talked for an hour and a half. Putin warned that he aimed to take “full control” of Ukraine by diplomatic or military means. He said that he was “prepared to go all the way.”

Tonight, Russian troops shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power complex in southeast Ukraine. A fire broke out at the plant but, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, did not affect essential equipment. What the attack did do, though, was sow fear of nuclear meltdown, giving Putin a psychological win in his war.

Standing against Putin and his vision of freedom to act as he wishes against sovereign countries are countries around the world that are exerting financial pressure on Russia, cutting it off from the rest of the world. It is a new moment in global history, one in which businesses and economic pressure are being enlisted to protect democracy, rather than undermine it.

That economic pressure in the form of sanctions is working not just on large financial transactions, but also on things like simple maintenance of airplanes. Airplane manufacturers Boeing and Airbus have suspended the shipping of parts, maintenance, and technical support for the Russian airplane fleet. Russia is huge. Downing the whole airplane fleet though economic pressure will severely affect the ability of goods and people to move throughout the country.

The Biden administration increased pressure on 8 more oligarchs close to Putin, along with their families, and restricted the visas of 19 oligarchs and 47 members of their families in hopes that that pressure would lead them to undermine the president. The sanctioned Russians include Yevgeny Prigozhin and his wife, daughter, and son. In addition to being close to Putin, Prigozhin is the owner of the Wagner Group, an infamous paramilitary organization that has been accused of war crimes. Prigozhin is also wanted by the FBI for his role in attacking the 2016 U.S. election.

Concerns that Putin might continue to invade sovereign nations have led countries to turn to European democracies for protection. Moldova has officially applied for membership in the European Union. “We want to live in peace, prosperity, be part of the free world,” said Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu. “While some decisions take time, others must be made quickly and decisively, and taking advantage of the opportunities that come with a changing world.”

The U.S., and other countries that belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, are supporting Ukraine from outside its borders. For NATO to take on the fight against Putin’s armies directly in Ukraine runs the risk of uniting the currently demoralized Russian people behind their leader, and enables him to start a war against NATO, which would engulf all of Europe.

Tonight, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham crossed that line when, on Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity’s television show, he called for someone to assassinate Putin. He then repeated his comment on Twitter. This was an astonishing propaganda coup for Putin, enabling him to argue that he is indeed in a war with America, rather than engaging in an unprovoked attack on neighboring Ukraine. This is exactly what the Biden administration has gone out of its way to avoid.

It was an astonishing moment…and also an interesting one. It undermines the position of the U.S. and our partners and allies, but in whose service? After initially opposing Trump’s reach for the presidency, Graham threw in his lot utterly with the former president, who has many possible reasons both to undermine Biden and to keep Putin in power. Perhaps Graham’s comment was intended to help Trump. Or perhaps Graham might have simply made a colossally stupid mistake. Whatever the case, the enormous implications of his statement make it one that would be a mistake to ignore.

Graham was not the only one to bolster Putin’s position today. Tucker Carlson tonight told his audience that indeed he was wrong in his earlier defense of the Russian president but then continued to stoke the same racist and sexist fires he has fed all along, blaming his misreading of the situation on Vice President Kamala Harris.

Today the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian media outlets, as well as some of those involved with them, that worked to “spread Russian disinformation and influence perceptions as a part of their invasion of Ukraine.”

Closer to home, a federal court in the Southern District of New York charged John Hanick with violating U.S. sanctions and making false statements concerning his years of work for sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev. Malofeyev was key to destabilizing Ukraine in order to support a Russian takeover. Hanick worked for him from 2013 until at least 2017, establishing TV networks in Russia, Bulgaria, and Greece to spread destabilizing messages.

Hanick was one of the founding producers of the Fox News Channel. He became an admirer of Putin because of the Russian leader’s anti-LGBTQ stance and his belief that Putin was a devout Christian. Apparently, he turned that enthusiasm into an attempt to undermine democracy in favor of Putin’s authoritarianism.

Yesterday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a new interagency law enforcement task force, KleptoCapture, dedicated to enforcing sanctions, export restrictions, and economic countermeasures the U.S. and its allies and partners have imposed to respond to Russian aggression. In a statement, about the Hanick indictment, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damien Williams said, “The indictment unsealed today shows this office’s commitment to the enforcement of laws intended to hamstring those who would use their wealth to undermine fundamental democratic processes.”