Putin

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News/Politics 3-3-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The Bear seems to be waking from hibernation.

From TheWallStJournal  “The American and Russian presidents spoke on the phone for 90 minutes on Saturday after Russia’s parliament voted unanimously to deploy troops in Ukraine, defying warnings from Western leaders not to intervene.

In his conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin , U.S. President Barack Obama expressed “his deep concern over Russia’s clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Mr. Obama urged Russia to de-escalate tensions by withdrawing its forces back to bases in Crimea and to refrain from any interference elsewhere in Ukraine.”

Or what?

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2. Chess and marbles.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers Sunday said the naivete of President Obama‘s national security advisers about Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s motivations is allowing Russia to outmaneuver the U.S. in Ukraine and other hot spots around the globe.

“Putin is playing chess and we’re playing marbles,” Rogers, R-Mich., said on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.”

“As you move down the list in Syria and the Ukraine and other areas,” he said, “they’ve been running circles around us.”

Quick! Somebody hit the Reset Button again. 🙄

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3. Mission accomplished.

From TheTelegraph   “Ukraine: Putin’s Crimea aim is to make the West look weak”

“This is tragic for Ukraine, for the near-abroad and for Nato not because it is   taking us by surprise but because we have expected it for so long and seen   it before and yet remain incapable of acting. This is the salami-tactics   that Yes, Prime Minister joked about decades ago. Slice by slice, Russia is   invading Ukraine and weakening the alliance that has kept the peace in   Europe for almost 70 years. 

It is a textbook KGB-led operation: the agent provocateur, followed by a   self-organised militia, then Russian military protection to defend ‘their’    people. The tactic was used to good effect throughout the Soviet period in   Communist coups. It’s what brought down the government of Afghanistan and   caused 30 years of war. And again it is unlikely to be resisted.”

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4. Meanwhile Ukraine officials are calling up reservists.

From TheJerusalemPost   “Ukraine mobilized on Sunday for war and called up its reserves, after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to invade in the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

Ukraine’s security council ordered the general staff to immediately put all armed forces on highest alert, the council’s secretary Andriy Parubiy announced. The Defense Ministry was ordered to conduct the call-up, potentially of all men up to 40 in a country that still has universal male conscription.

Russian forces who have already bloodlessly seized Crimea – an isolated Black Sea peninsula where most of the population are ethnic Russian and Moscow has a naval base – tried to disarm the small Ukrainian contingents there on Sunday. Some Ukrainian commanders refused to give up weapons and bases were surrounded.”

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5. Here’s some good news.

From FoxNews  “Former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner, a central figure in the IRS scandal, will appear before Congress on Wednesday after refusing to testify last year on the matter, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., claimed Sunday — though Lerner’s attorney and Issa may still be at odds over the timing.

Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told “Fox News Sunday” that Lerner’s lawyers have indicated she will testify before his committee, after saying last week that she would not.

“It’s going to be a good, fact-finding hearing,” he said.”

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6. Yesterday Donna posted a link to a piece titled “If Daniel Three Were Written Today …”

Here’s a similar kinda piece, from Allen West. “The Book of Judges: Scary biblical parallels for America today”

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News/Politics 3-30-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread, feel free to share.

Here’s a few from me.

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Atheists lose another one.

From TheNYPost

“A New York judge has tossed out a lawsuit seeking to stop the display of a cross-shaped steel beam found among the World Trade Center’s wreckage.

Federal judge Deborah Batts on Friday rejected the arguments of a national atheists’ group.

American Atheists had sued the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s operators in 2011 on constitutional grounds.”

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More NY news, this is not as good. Also from TheNYPost

“New York’s big government — with its hands deep in taxpayers’ pockets and regulations controlling everyone’s lives — has made the Empire State the worst in the nation for personal liberty, a new study shows.”

“The university found New York’s government slams citizens from every angle — from huge taxes to tight controls on business to myriad rules on all kinds of fun.

“New York has, by a wide margin, the highest taxes in the country,” the report found.”

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Poor airports. Apparently nobody has explained to them that laws don’t apply to the Obama Admin.

From YahooNews

“Airport operators are mounting a legal challenge to the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to cut funding for 149 air traffic control towers, accusing the agency of violating federal law meant to ensure major changes at airports do not erode safety.

Several airports are now asking a federal court to halt the plan and compel the FAA to more carefully study the potential safety impact, said Carl Olson, director of the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, Ill. He warned that without a more cautious approach, lives will be put at risk by cuts that he contends are arbitrary and the result of reckless political brinkmanship in Washington.

“I think everybody’s going to realize what the industry knows, and that is there is a razor thin margin of error in aviation and any diminishment of safety is going to have an immediate and cascading effect,” Olson said in an interview Friday. “And all the talk to the contrary won’t change that fact.”

Hey it was either this or less vacations. Guess which one they picked? 🙄

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You can take the Dictator out of the KGB, but you can’t take the KGB out of the Dictator.

From TheWashingtonTimes

“Governments and rights organizations are decrying raids by Russian  authorities on more than 2,000 international and domestic advocacy groups, what  observers say is an unprecedented campaign to silence critics of the  Kremlin.

In the past couple of weeks, the Russian  Prosecutor General’s Office has conducted surprise inspections at hundreds  of locations, including the offices of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International  and Transparency International.

In addition, Russian groups that receive money from foreign donors have been  targeted, as have religious groups, environmental advocates, and cultural  exchange and education programs.”

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Ah yes, the oh so tolerant left. I’m sure the faculty agrees. 🙄

From NationalReview

“Ben Carson, the noted pediatric neurosurgeon, has become the target of a petition by Johns Hopkins students who want him removed as the medical school’s commencement speaker this spring.

Dr. Carson became a media sensation in January when he questioned Obamacare and progressive taxation in a speech to the National Prayer Breakfast as President Obama sat just a few feet away from him.

With his new prominence, Carson has apparently also riled some liberals, including these Johns Hopkins students. Last Tuesday, he told Sean Hannity of Fox News that “marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition.””

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And we’ll finish up with a stunningly honest admission of how they really feel, for a change.

From TheWeeklyStandard

“Florida legislators considering a bill to require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion were shocked during a committee hearing this week when a Planned Parenthood official endorsed a right to post-birth abortion.

Alisa LaPolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified that her organization believes the decision to kill an infant who survives a failed abortion should be left up to the woman seeking an abortion and her abortion doctor.

“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow.”

Not shockingly this is the same group of affiliates Michelle Obama’s aide left to take a CEO position in. I posted that story on Thursday from LifeNews

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