U.K. Wants to House Ukraine Refugees in Russian Oligarch Mansions British housing minister Michael Gove has come up with a novel idea for posh Russian oligarch mansions sequestered under sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I want to explore an option which would allow us to use the homes and properties of sanctioned individuals for as long as they are sanctioned for humanitarian and other purposes,”Gove told BBC Sunday, marking the first time such a scheme has been introduced. “There is quite a high legal bar to cross and we’re not talking about permanent confiscation but we are saying, ‘you’re sanctioned, you’re supporting Putin, this home is here, you have no right to use or profit from it’ and ... if we can use it in order to help others let's do that.” It is unclear exactly what has to happen to put the ingenious plan in place. https://www.thedailybeast.com/uk-wants-to-house-ukraine-refugees-in-russian-oligarch-mansions
I heard the other day that Putin has had his top intelligence dude arrested for providing bad intelligence and/or talking to reporters. I could never see Putin admitting a wrong or blaming himself but he would blame much on someone else. He may use this tactic in slowly backing off and keeping the port cities and Eastern Ukraine?
Kremlin To State Media: Show More Tucker Carlson In the battle for hearts and minds, the Russian government has some advice to its state media outlets: show more Tucker Carlson. “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” advises the 12-page document written in Russian. It sums up Carlson’s position: “Russia is only protecting its interests and security.” The memo includes a quote from Carlson: “And how would the US behave if such a situation developed in neighboring Mexico or Canada?” reports Mother Jones. The report came from Russia’s Department of Information and Telecommunications Support, which is part of the Russian security apparatus. Carlson has taken to his show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, to side with the Kremlin in the information war. Carlson claimed on March 9th that the bogus report from the Kremlin that the United States set up biowarfare labs in Ukraine is “totally and completely true.” Tucker Carlson even attacked his coworker, national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, for debunking the conspiracy theory. Carlson took to the air to attack Griffin in all but name: “You know that the Pentagon talking points you saw reported as fact on television today — and last night — were an utter lie. Did the reporters who repeated those talking points verbatim know that they were a lie? Maybe they did. On the other hand, how would they know? They didn’t bother to do any reporting whatsoever… They got a text from some Biden administration flack and they just read it on the air like it was true. You shouldn’t be surprised because that’s what they do. And it’s possible that they’re afraid not to do that. They know if they stray from the script the White House has written for them, they’ll be denounced from the briefing room as tools of Putin,” Carlson has also suggested that U.S. government officials wanted a war to occur between Russia and Ukraine after emergency powers enacted during Covid had come to an end. Carlson claimed the war allowed the U.S. government to shift focus and further “grab more power.” Tucker even claimed that the United States and the West encouraged the war with their support for admitting Ukraine into NATO. While it is easy for many to dismiss Tucker Carlson as a right-wing pundit, he remains one of the most influential commentators in the American right and even beyond that demographic. Reports show that the viewership of other media outlets like MSNBC and CNN are in decline, with Fox News ascending. During the second quarter of 2020, Tucker Carlson Tonight garnered an average audience of 4.33 million viewers, the largest for any program in the history of cable news. Fox makes up 56% of the total prime-time audience in cable news and 55% during the day. Alarmingly, Tucker Carlson’s brand of skepticism towards Washington is attracting many Democrats. According to the party-line data, gathered in the month of October, Tucker Carlson is the number-one watched host among Democrats in the key 25-54 age demographic – across all networks. For that month, Carlson pulled in an average of 101,000 Democrats in the demographic. The Rachel Maddow Show and The Five tied for second – each pulling in 88,000 demographic viewers that identify as Democrats, reports Mediate. Many Democrats may take the support of their party members in only consuming liberal media for granted. It appears many Democrats are tuning into Tucker, giving Fox News's champion a listen. It appears that one of America’s most prolific media personalities has captured the attention of the Kremlin. They look at Carlson and see an ally in peddling their narrative of a peaceful war in Ukraine. Not only will this trickle down into Carlson’s base, Republicans dissatisfied with Trump losing the 2020 election and the current leader in Washington, but also risks changing the opinions of many Democrats who could be pivotal voters in 2022 and 2024. https://themountain.news/news/kremlin-to-state-media-show-more-tucker-carlson
A group of Republican senators are holding up aid to Ukraine because they are unhappy about vaccine mandates and other grievances of privileged white males. A former Trump aide cried Russia is victim of "cancel culture", which is now being repeated on Russian state TV. Franklin Graham declared Putin a miracle for Christians. Ukrainian Christians might disagree.
As bad as the news appears on USA tv, these analysts think Russia is losing: https://newlinesmag.com/argument/putins-worsening-problems/
Russia already knows they either deescalate or go to war against NATO & US and its my opinion they probably think its inevitable with the atrocities commented they have zero options but to strike first as they know they would not do well in an all out war against NATO & US. Besides we've already been in a proxy war with them and they play their card of threat, which has worked. This is why we have stayed out militarily in the fight, he would launch nukes first.
Francis Fukuyama: Russia does not begin to have a large enough military to occupy Ukraine and bring Ukraine to a point where they’d make that kind of concession. This is a country with a population of over 40 million, and Putin has already committed the vast bulk of his military. It’s extremely costly for the Russians to keep up this kind of siege. Every single day, they lose a large number of armored vehicles, men, supplies. The morale in the Russian army appears to be extremely low. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/14/putin-could-lose-ukraine-fukuyama-optimistic/
Fukuyama also relates it to world wide politics: Sargent: You write that Russia’s invasion has already done huge damage to the world’s right-wing authoritarian populists. Can you expand on that? Fukuyama: A moral clarity has been imposed on populist politics. Many of these populists, including Donald Trump, have been able to pretend they’re really tribunes of the people, that they’re channeling a democratic urge. But they’re also flirting with an open kind of authoritarianism. That authoritarianism has now been translated into horrible slaughter, where everybody can see that kind of politics leads to military aggression, the loss of innocent lives, and so forth. That’s the reason every one of them — except for Trump, evidently — has been trying to backtrack from the support they gave Putin.
The admirable and brilliant standout conservative Candace Owens is appalled at how badly Russians are being treated. And Black Lives Matter isn't standing up for Russia! Why? Russian lives matter, she yelled. The best way to save Russian lives is for Russia to get out of Ukraine but Ukraine had a Pride parade so...
This morning the price on a barrel of oil had dropped another 5% and it was $103. Last week it was at $138. I’m wondering if we will see as sharp a drop at the pump as we all have seen it rise. I’m in DC this week. Going to try and get a message to my buddy Joe.
