“Crazy” US Media Coverage is a Bigger Threat to Ukraine than Russian Invasion, Ukraine Parliament Member Says mtracey.substack.com/p/crazy-us-med…
Ukraine parliamentarian -- a member of Zelensky's party who otherwise has negative views toward Russia -- tells me it will take $10 billion to stabilize Ukraine after the "panic" caused by the US Government and media
Someone's going to have to explain what incentive these Ukraine officials could possibly have to falsely deny that an invasion is imminent. Safeguarding the economy? What could be a bigger economic catastrophe than the government being toppled and the country being occupied?
Does it strike you as odd that this perspective -- a sitting member of Ukraine's national legislature insisting "everything is fine" -- is almost completely omitted from US media coverage? And instead we hear constantly from anonymous US "officials" doing Tom Clancy fan fiction?
Ironically -- if one believes Putin's goal is to destabilize/weaken the Ukrainian state, the US appears suspiciously intent to deliver him that outcome on a silver platter
On and on we go
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Good chat, thanks as always for those who joined. Had to cut it off so Aaron can make preparations for his Super Bowl party, he's a huge Cincinnati Bengals fan
The significance of the episode where the Ukraine president called an emergency press conference to rebuke the US Government and media for stoking a war "panic" has been sorely under-appreciated. Whatever the US is doing at the moment, it's the opposite of "de-escalation"
For years during Russiagate I argued that hysteria-peddlers were ignoring that domestic political frenzies inevitably affect the conduct of foreign policy -- and in the case of Russia relations that was potentially disastrous. Today, as predicted, we see the fruits of that frenzy
A concession worker at Barclays Center last night was loudly barking at people that she "CANNOT" serve anyone who isn't masked (i.e. refusing service) even though arena policy doesn't require masks, and even though her own cloth mask was dangling below her nose and half her mouth
Note: it's not the worker's fault that the relevant policies are muddled. The arena, which already has a vax mandate per NYC law, "strongly recommends" masks, but doesn't expressly require them. And corporate officials are paranoid about having to potentially cancel more events
Still, it was interesting to observe an unusually vivid example of someone aggressively using mask-wearing as a point of moral leverage against others, meanwhile the manner in which they were personally mask-wearing had zero conceivable benefit
Alito couldn't have been more clear: he wasn't making any kind of "anti-vax" point, he was establishing that OSHA has never before imposed a regulation on workers that inflicts some risk of adverse health effects, however remote. But of course gets smeared as "anti-vax" anyway
Ironically, Alito expressly foresaw that he would be (deliberately) misunderstood in exactly this manner
Alito: "These vaccines and every other vaccine of which I'm aware, and many other medications, have benefits and they also have risks... some people who are vaccinated and some people who take medication that is highly beneficial will suffer adverse consequences"
Public schools were closed for at least 440,000 students in New Jersey as of today. That's over a third of the entire state's student population, and I probably under-counted. Definitely what you would have expected a full year into mass vaccination
Newark, Jersey City, Irvington, Elizabeth, Paterson, Bayonne, Union City, Hackensack, East Orange, New Brunswick, Hamilton, Camden, Trenton are among the larger districts closed. Some affluent districts too, but it's not hard to infer which students are mostly affected by this
Oh and by the way New Jersey public schools have received $4.3 billion in COVID funding from the federal government
Rutgers announced today that fully-vaxxed and now compulsorily "boosted" students are barred from returning to their dorms til at least January 29, and classes are remote again / events cancelled. But at least the students were wished "a very happy and healthy new year" via email
Reaction from Rutgers subreddit
It's one thing to have limited sympathy for students attending "elite" private schools, but students going to state schools (often the only plausible option for them financially) are straightforwardly sympathy-deserving for all this ridiculousness