Who's Bombing Whom in Ukraine?

Apartment building in Mariupol, ca. 2019.

We should certainly have learned during the last two-plus years of Covid drama and deception that things are not always what our unified press would have us think. 

Now we are asked to believe the reverberating story of unmitigated Russian aggression against an innocent and helpless Ukraine. Little to no background information appears in the mainstream media about the history of this conflict, about Ukraine's war against the separatists in the eastern part of their country who want to rejoin Russia (or at least get to speak their language and live a normal life), or President Zelensky's tactics since gaining office in a landslide three years ago.

Meanwhile, Zelensky issues impassioned pleas to the West for more arms and ever-tougher sanctions against their attacker.

Into this vacuum, the ever insightful and straight-talking Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano has released his take on the conflict. It's long, fascinating, and fully footnoted. You can read it here. You'll be glad you did. 

Allow me to provide a few highlights from the essay. First, Vigano provides a link to Zelensky's campaign spot when running for President of Ukraine. It shows his machine-gun (literally) approach to anyone in his government who was allied with a "corrupt" Russia. The fact that Zelensky was an actor and comedian cannot soften the horror of this ad: Campaign spot.

Apparently, his campaign strategy worked. In 2019 Zelensky won the presidency and promptly got to work. The Archbishop's essay tells us:

He [Zelensky] liquidated the ministers of the old guard, first of all the powerful Minister of the Interior, [Arsen] Avakov. He rudely retired the president of the Constitutional Court who was acting as a check on his laws. He closed seven opposition TV channels. He arrested and accused of treason Viktor Medvedcuk, a pro-Russian sympathizer but above all the leader of the Platform of Opposition – For Life party, the second party of the Ukrainian Parliament after his Servant of the People party. He is also placing on trial for treason former President Poroshenko, who was suspicious of everyone except for those who got along with the Russians or their friends. The mayor of Kiev, the popular former world boxing champion Vitaly Klitchko, has already been subjected to several searches and seizures. In short, Zelenskyy seems to want to make a clean sweep of anyone who is not aligned with his politics (here).

Zelensky is a member of the mighty World Economic Forum (crafters of The Great Reset) and has admitted that one of his heroes is Justin Trudeau of Canada. (If you followed Mr.Trudeau's approach to "caring" for his population during the last two years, this will tell you a lot.) And last year, "on February 4, 2021, the Ukrainian president shut down seven television stations, including ZIK, Newsone and 112 Ukraine, all guilty of not supporting his government." They were accused of being "under malign Russian influence."

Vigano also discusses the Nazi organizations in Ukraine. Any country can be home to such extreme groups, but in Ukraine they are recognized by the government and tasked with assisting in military operations. This includes employing the brutal Azov Battalion, an extreme nationalist group that the U.S. Senate suspended our help in training, until the CIA overruled that decision and brought them to our own shores to learn to become even more effective at crushing their opposition.

The press has been reporting here in the U.S. that the Russians have been bombing Ukrainian cities mercilessly since February. Maybe that's true. But what are we to make of footage shot by French journalist Anne-Laure Bonnell back in 2017 in the Donbass region of Ukraine showing the grim remnants of residences bombed by the Ukrainian government, of families huddled underground, of grieving parents of murdered children? They are indistinguishable from today's images of blackened apartment buildings that the Russians are supposed to have incinerated. Watch the 2017 video here (in French).

 And in a recent report from the ground, Ms. Bonnell attests pointedly that the destruction she was witnessing in Donbass was at the hand of the Ukrainian army rather than the Russian army. Watch here (in French).

So this war is very complex, and as in many wars, looks can be deceiving. Someone once said that in war, the first casualty is always the truth. May God help and comfort all the innocent people caught in the middle of this one, and bring the truth forward.

 

The Accidentally-on-Purpose Broken Supply Chain

Sec. of Transportation Pete Buttigieg*

This morning a couple of news stories pulled together for me what might underlie our growing supply shortages. One story described the chaos in a California port city, where shipping containers, now being unloaded from ships on a 24-hour schedule thanks to the resourceful Biden Administration's plan. They were then being parked on residential streets after being emptied since the trucking company had no more room on its lot for the empty containers.

The article from Breitbart quoted Pete Buttigieg, who's just getting back to work after a long paternity leave. Two things our Secretary of Transportation said raised crimson flags for me, as he tried to explain why things were such a gosh-darn tangle right now:

"There are so many pieces to the supply chain, and most of them are in private hands." Pause. The only word missing from that sentence is unfortunately, but it is implied. Would shipping and delivery work a lot better if the government ran it? Maybe Pete and his colleagues are angling to solve our supply chain woes by the sure remedy of sovietizing the complex business of getting product to market. 

He continued: "The Administration can act as an honest broker, and that's what we're doing . . . . There are $17 billion in port improvements in the President's infrastructure bill, and they're urgently needed."

Bingo. So pass that (grotesquely inflated) infrastructure bill if you want to see this supply situation get any better! is what he's saying. I see Pete has this nailed down.

Then I looked at a Fox News story that gave us man-on-the-street reactions, from a Costco parking lot, to half-empty grocery shelves and distinctly higher prices that these shoppers were seeing. One was a man who ran a grocery store himself. Unable to get product delivered to his store (he felt the supplies are going primarily to the very large retailers), he was buying cartfuls of groceries in an effort to stock his own store's shelves, while having to raise his prices 10 to 20 percent.

If the small merchant was not run out of business by a prolonged Covid lockdown, he now struggles with an embarrassingly small inventory and sharply higher prices for his customers; not to mention being understaffed due to the mad labor shortage. This is not a prescription for success in the retail world.

So if any of us suspected that the lockdowns unfairly targeted small businesses (I do), the current supply chain fiasco is dealing them another mighty blow. Debacles at this level are almost never accidental--to wit, the Afghanistan withdrawal. 

Of course, none of these things are really a problem if we just, as the Administration advises us, lower our expectations. But how low do we have to go, Joe? I'm sure he is going to show us.

Update 10-21-2021: We must spread the credit where due for today's shipping troubles. The World Bank and IHS Markit, in their ranking for efficiency of more than 300 ports around the globe, put the L.A. and Long Beach ports near the bottom. Also, California's Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) has been credited with throwing that state's trucking operations into tumult since 2020. Port operations, of course, rely heavily on the truckers who take the products away, making room for more unloading.   

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*Photo credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri

 

 

 

Please Wear a Mask in the Living Room

Legendary Okefenokee Swamp

My husband and I just came back from a brief getaway to the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. I've always wanted to see that legendary wetland. We had reservations for the night at a charming bed and breakfast nearby but were surprised, when we arrived, to be greeted by the proprietor in a mask. His wife soon joined us, also in a mask. Oh yeah, I remembered, we're not in Florida any more.

Our hosts seemed a little nervous as they welcomed us to their B&B, and at the end of a brief tour of the home, the husband mentioned that when we use the common areas, that is, the living room (the only room in the inn with a television, by the way), we will need to wear a mask. "Oh," I laughed, "we'll be in our room. Once you read the scientific reports on masks, you won't want to wear one again." He chuckled in a puzzled way but asked no questions. 

We carried in our slight luggage wondering how intelligent, competent people at this point can still think that wearing cloth masks makes any difference in the battle against the virus. We ran into this delusion again when we visited the main visitors center at the swamp, which is run primarily by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife folks. Feds, that is. Here again we had to don the useless face gear to explore their exhibits, look around the little gift shop, and book a boat tour of the swamp.

We enjoyed getting to know the blackwater swamp, though, and the small neighboring town of Folkston. (Supper in the local fried chicken diner gave us a good meal and a comfortable feeling of life in a smaller place, where everyone who walked in greeted people they knew and entered into animated conversations about shared interests and enterprises.) 

By Georgia's famous Folkston Funnel tracks

Then there were the long freight trains that sang to us in our bed, not too loudly, as they rolled through the dark town. 

We headed home to the Sunshine State the next day and were again grateful for living here, where rules and regulations involve more common sense than in most of the country, especially when it comes to the virus.

There's no doubt that many people everywhere are still afraid of the virus and will follow disproven protocols "just to be safe," as they tell me. When will all of this pretending finally end, and people be able to look reality in the eye and say what's true about the virus and what measures work and which absolutely do not? We continue to wait, taking some comfort in such things as the magnificent and timeless Okefenokee Swamp and the dutiful trains that continue to run through Folkston, Georgia, taking things where they need to go.

Shhh! The FBI Report Came Out

While the Taliban's dizzying advance upon Kabul dominated the news last weekend, the FBI quietly released the results of their investigation into the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. They were largely hunting for evidence that this had been a planned, coordinated attack on the Capital by far-right groups, with the goal of overturning the 2020 election results or otherwise taking control of the U.S. Government. 

 What did they discover? The FBI "at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated" and found "no evidence that [President Trump] or people directly around him were involved."

To quote the Reuters report:

"Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases," said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. "Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages."

So much for the loud cries of Insurrection! and Domestic Terrorism! that have been flung by authorities, politicians, and rank and file liberals at all those who were peacefully present near the Capitol on that date or anyone who questioned the validity of the highly questionable election results that put Joe Biden in office. 

This report will be a blow to Democrats, for whom characterizing that event as an unprecedented act of terrorism by Trump supporters was key to painting their opposition as a dangerous force that must be put down by any means necessary. After the event, this alleged crisis justified erecting fencing and posting a large military force outside the Capitol building to protect it from the imaginary mob to come, as well as deplatforming and censoring conservative voices on the Internet--including former President Trump himself--that mentioned election fraud or any number of topics that got stamped as "misinformation." After all, this was war. The nation was at stake! 

William Moloney, writing for The Hill, provided an insightful analysis of the impact of the FBI report. He raises a question about the many Americans arrested in connection with January 6, still waiting for a trial. Why is that? Is the prosecution uncomfortable with what would come out at a trial, such as evidence of culpability but not on the part of defendants?

If such evidence does indeed emerge and make clear the events of that day, in contrast to the broadcast narrative, I wonder how much news coverage it will get. Probably no more than the FBI report got, a mere whisper beneath the booming cannons of the latest calamity.

Covid: Prevent It or Treat It?

Update 8/27/2021: A study just released in Israel demonstrates the huge advantage people have who have recovered from Covid versus those who have been vaccinated, in terms of resisting new infection. This is another argument for putting energy into properly treating Covid patients rather than trying to inoculate everyone. Study details are here. 

New waves of fear are sweeping the country over the rising number of positive Covid tests. (Note that I did not say "cases" since that word has in the past always meant actual sick people and still should.)

These rising numbers have propelled a variety of governors, medical professionals, and our own family members to urge us to, for heaven's sake, get the shot. Putting the vaccine into the arms of every citizen is our only hope! they cry.

But is it? An article today in the Epoch Times reveals that in Israel more than half of current Covid hospital patients were fully vaccinated. Indeed, Israel has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world (around 78 percent), but is suffering mightily in this latest wave.

And here in Florida, the data graphs from our own Department of Health seem to give the lie to the "more vaccinating, less Covid" mantra (see those graphs here and go to "Weekly Florida Covid-19 Data").

It is also instructive to look at Florida's Covid mortality numbers. These show a roughly 6-month pattern in the virus fatality spikes. For the current spike, many will point to the arrival of the Delta variant for explanation. I wonder.*

 But let's suppose the Delta variant is driving more infection, which in turn is sending more people to the hospitals and even to their deaths. It's an established fact that viruses mutate. How many variants of Covid-19 will we be faced with? How can we possibly keep up with the vaccine development needed for the variants to come? 

On the other hand, we could focus on treatment. Instead of trying to inject a controversial serum into everyone's arm, even those who are unwilling, we could use known therapies to treat patients with Covid. Most of these proven approaches have been forcefully repressed (hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin) to the point that doctors do not dare prescribe them for fear of losing their jobs. Aggressive vitamin mixtures have also seen good results. However, since these do not appear in the CDC's official protocol for treating in-hospital Covid patients, they are not being used. This defies all medical sense and even simple logic, but we have seen such unexplainable behavior a lot during the course of this pandemic.

My advice: Know what your choices are should you fall ill with this virus, and stand your ground. Here is a revealing account of one woman's effort to get her husband effective treatment for what a hospital labeled "Covid pneumonia," and how she succeeded--to the hospital staff's great surprise.

And there are resources and more information at: America's Frontline Doctors. 

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*Note: Florida is making available monoclonal antibody treatments for people at high risk who have contracted Covid or been exposed to it. More info here.