Thursday, August 29, 2024

The Arlington National Cemetary Visit: one rant

Warning: this post does not at all mean to diminish the grief and suffering of #GoldStar families, wounded veterans, or people serving in the military.

RantWoman does not presume to know what is helpful for different situations, but does always offer prayers, listening, and as much forthrightness as conversations can handle.

See, RantWoman has LOTS of objections to shipping people off to forever wars. RantWoman is sensitive to a range of views including the idea that sending people off to war helps defend our country, our Constution, and our civil rights. Sometimes thus RantWoman is called to offer pointed opinions.

RantWoman needs to find a suitable Youtube clip under which to unleash even more strong views in connection with the third anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. In the meantime, RantWoman includes links to a number of Youtube offerings that present a range of perspectives



RantWoman just needs to pop off

One of the conditions of release in all of #FelonDon 's court cases is commit no new crimes while under court supervision.. I kind of wish someone would investigate enough to file formal charges against candidate and staff. Then when #FelonDon gets arraigned on the superseding #J6 indictment in DC the judge could at least order him to wear an ankle bracelet. Not a great look of course but that's the point

#DementiaDon is treating the #GoldStar families just like he treated everyone at the Capitol riot: get them into trouble and then leave them in the dust. This time though it's the candidate's turn.


Don't just Pop Off DO SOMETHING


Fact Check the hell out of anything #CadetBoneSpuurs says about military casualties.

Point out as many times as we can, as many ways as we can that #POTUS45 is responsible for the bad deal rthat lead to the Taliban takeover AND the deaths of US troops.

And if one REALLY wants to go all in on the #StableGenius and world affairs, point out how many times worse the lives of Afghan women are after the pullout.




Video clips which say what needs to be said better than RantWoman can



Anderson Cooper: "He is the most susceptible to flattery of any world leader I have known and every country in the world knows it."
Worth the listen on multiple counts


First episode of the Ken Harbaugh show with Bobby Jones
Very in-depth presentation of traditions
Frank reference to "freak-out" when #TFG had to visit Afghanistan
#DonTheCon GRIFTING
mention comment to #GoldStar father JOHN KELLY, his CHIEF OF STAFF.
"We have standards (such as the Geneva Convention)




I would not necessarily try to fact check this grieving mother, but it is heartbreaking to memoryhole the Donald's role in all this.

Also note the vastly disproportionate number of Afghans killed    
And never mind how to nonor people killed in forever wars I disapprove of in the first place.

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

First-Ever DNC Panel on Palestinian Rights: We Need to “Restore the Soul...

#DNC2024

Democracy Now consistently does a great job about letting people speak in their own words.

Check their channel for more really solid videos.

RantWoman is collecting other protest observations on her other blog.

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

SPEECHES: 'Who’s going to tell him?’: Michelle Obama slams Trump’s remarks on ‘Bla...

RantWoman is picking a few faves from #DNC2024.

RantWoman had to watch on YouTube because of another obligation while the speeches were live.

Oh well.





Barack Obama




Jasmine Crockett

Monday, August 19, 2024

'Noose tightens' on Putin as Kursk resupply bridges destroyed | Col. Hamish DeBretton Gordon



Use of nukes not a thing despite Putin's promises. (Do Russia's nukes work?)

Soldiers getting encircled and will be difficult to resupply.

Russian civilians being evacuated eastward from Kursk.

Discussion of whether Britain needs permission from US to use British resources to attack Russia.

First invasion of Russian territory since WWII. Also symbolic value because of a WWII battle with Nazis

Saturday, August 17, 2024

"We just might lose" Russian Propagandist accidently speak the truth | Break the Fake

This episode of Break the Fake has it all:
--snark
--comical disinformation
--oil pipelines
--military supply lines
--peppery rhetorical exchanges on a news how.

By the way, about Belarus, "Nothing says friendship quite like hand medown missles"

Readers may notice that the big bad world of #DEI just has not hit Russian state TV yet.

Sunday, August 11, 2024

'We The People!' Justin Pearson's sermon at the NABJ


Anyone who needs a timeline cleanse after anything to do with the EX President at the same event will, hopefully, enjoy this!

Thursday, August 8, 2024

VERY harsh words to JD Vance for His Bogus Attacks on Tim Walz


The comment RantWoman posted
1. THANK YOU for the rant.

2. After "Hang Mike Pence," I think ANYONE willing to be VP for #DementiaDon probably has a few screws loose.

3. Not necessarily knowing the details of #ShadyVance service in Iraq, I am inclined to think that if he wants a medal for six months of writing press releases, he should get in line behind #CadetBoneSpurs and that guy's "personal Vietnam" avoiding STD's

4. Admittedly a bit of a tangent, perhaps this is all a plot to make some of the peacenik left parse out a bunch of aspects of military service including disruption of families, families of enlisted men that qualify for food stamps in some areas, and a BUNCH of other quality of life and veteran support issues that planners for the Iraq engagement were way too eager to ignore going in.




The comment RantWoman posted
Thank you for the clip about Gov. Walz service and training. So #FelonDon and co. STILL cower about ANY effort to contain weapons of war on our streets. Expect more on this topic over the electoral campaign. And if you are going to play #CadetBoneSpurs comments to Walz after the George Floyd protests, PLEASE also play Walz's comments about the whole state grieving. MN had TWO outrageous killings of innocent Black men in five years, George Floyd of course and before that Fernando Castille, a LEGAL GUN OWNER shot during a traffic stop in 2016. And PLEASE also report on changes made after George Floyd in the way police in MN are trained in de-escalation and other measures to reduce the odds of police encounters going badly. PLEASE tell the whole story. Don't just quack out whatever nonsense #ShadyVance is spewing.


Clips of really on-point handling of protestors!


interesting aside about Walz being anti Iraq war.
Back and forth about carrying a weapon of war vs actually being in combat
I love it when the anchors on this channel argue!
And as for Mark MIlley's claim that no one outside the Beltway cares about the Hatch Act, Walz retired because he was advised that while he was running for office, he was in danger of violating the Hatch Act.




Chuck Todd at the end, with analysis of possible impact on the campaign



And one final digression about the "happy warrior" language: probably not language I would use, but the other day the "blind prayer warriors" I hang with on Zoom once a week were UNITED across some views about hoping people can work TOGETHER.

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

New Weapons. New impacts Russian Military Base Devastation Revealed in New Images!

There is no shortage of footage about destruction and the machinery of destruction in Russia's war on Ukraine.

RantWoman may in fact have posted too much herself, especially from this commentator. RantWoman appreciates learning that his military experience involved staffing ICBM's in America's heartland.

What draws RantWoman's attention in this post, though, is his vehemence about the opinions expressed by some of the political prisoners released and flown out of Russia in the most recent multinational prisoner exchange.

RantWoman has not kept meticulous track of exactly who all the released figures are besides the US citizens and green card holder. Commentary here, though, speaks about different political views expressed by some of the released Russian prisoners.

RantWoman did not catch the name of the person saying that ordinary people are hurting because of international sanctions on Russia. Therefore, the West should repeal sanctions and just accept a ceasefire and leave Russia in place. That unquestionably is a pro-Kremlin position. OF COURSE ordinary people are suffering under the sanctions regime. That is nothing unusual. Some ordinary Russians also feel it is there patriotic duty to send their sons off to war. There is patriotic duty, and there is having no alternative: plenty of ordinary people are upset by the war but feel powerless because of endless crackdowns on all forms of dissent. 

This commentator seems, to RantWoman, a little glib about the necessity of violence in this case. Ukraine has a right to self-defense. Russia needs to GO HOME and to get the troops home while they are still alive, not fed into Russia's military meat grinder. And unfortunately, when Russia goes home, there will be SO MUCH healing needed that it is hard even to have a vision of all that needs to occur.

The second figure RantWoman remembers is Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician from Bashkortostan, one of the "brown people regions where Putin continues to forcibly conscript people. Yashin at least is considerably more categorical about the war needing to end and Russia bearing responsibility. 

So, the interesting questions: who will these two former prisoners find to talk to in the West and will either of them consider returning to Russia? 

And will RantWoman ever get around to digesting some of the "Russia is about to collapse / Putin is this, Putin is that" content out there to consider....


Monday, August 5, 2024

Golden Rule Project comes to Seattle Events August 5-9 Making Waves: the Rebirth of the Golden Rule

 Check Out

Veterans For Peace Golden Rule Project

The Golden Rule is a project of Veterans For Peace. We aim to advance Veterans For Peace opposition to nuclear weapons and war, and to do so in a dramatic fashion.

We have recovered and restored the original peace ship, the Golden Rule, that set sail in 1958 to stop nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands, and which inspired the many peace makers and peace ships that followed.

The reborn Golden Rule is sailing once more, to show that nuclear abolition is possible, and that bravery and tenacity can overcome militarism.

 

For many ways to support this project, check out the link above.


Seattle activities (Check the link above for other 2024 locations) 
Welcome the Golden Rule to Seattle
—Monday August 5 at 3:00 pm at Lake Union Center for Wooden Boats
—–The Raging Grannies, Veterans For Peace and others
— Sun 8/4 Protest against Boeing Military Air Show in Lake Washington (ashore only)
— Sat 8/3- Sun 8/4 Hiroshima Commemoration, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (ashore only)

— Tues 8/6 at 7 pm, Hiroshima Commemoration, Greenlake in Seattle (ashore only)
 
— Fri 8/9 at 6 pm, University Friends Meeting
Flyer for Aug 9 – Click HERE

——- Social Hall, 4001 9th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105




View or Download the movie 

Making Waves: Rebirth of the Golden Rule from Caneyhead Pictures on Vimeo.

Saturday, August 3, 2024

Justice Thomas pays homage to Rasputin????

RantWoman, long ago, while finishing grad school had a weekly column over the summer in the campus newspaper. That was the summer Justice Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court and RantWoman remembers writing that there was no question that it mattered that he is the right color of conservative.

RantWoman now has a considerably more nuanced view of Justice Thomas and his career.

RantWoman started this post doing standard issue collection of links about the Justice and the vociferous concerns about all the gifts, gratuities and less than transparently reported contributions Justice Thomas has received from Leonard Leo and company.

Please enjoy as many of the links as you feel like, BUT don't miss RantWoman's further comments below the links.







RantWoman idly wonders, aside from the obligations to report large gifts, what led Justice Thomas to visit the palace where religious mystic Grigory Rasputin was finally killed.

RantWoman is not enough of an internet historian to go look up what if anything about the visit to this particular palace appealed to judicial patron and Nazi fascinated billionaire Leonard Leo, but a girl is allowed to wonder.


And for weird grins: 
The song has one historical inaccuracy: Rasputin was killed in what was then known as Saitnt Petersburg, not in Moscow.
No, there is not the slightest bit of irony linking this song. There's Rasputin the religious mystic. There is an aura of general lust and bawdiness hanging around Justice Thomas. Sure, Congressional committees are coming at SCOTUS with hearings and subpoenas, not poison and bullets. But good disco music somehow helps about SKANDALY, to use the Russian transliteration for SCANDALS.

See other people can please work on all the disclosure issues. RantWoman would be just fine with some kind of "what I did on my fancy yacht trip" article

What was the draw about the Yussopov palace? Was it something about Rasputing and the 1917 revolution? Was it something in connection with the 900-day siege of Leningrad or  Leonard Leo's fascination with Nazi topics? 

What were the travel logistics?

Who, which post-Soviet billionaires, did the justice get to hang out with? What was distinctively Russian and what more fit into a vibe of nearly lawless lucha libre among the global billionaire glitterati?

Enquiring minds...

Thursday, August 1, 2024

Ships instead of pipelines: Arctic Shortcut | What If the Middle East blows up?

For readers who want to come up for air from the "fever swamps" of UUS electoral politics, RantWoman presents:

--Climate change, the melting of the Arctic polar ice cap, and matters of environmental preservation

--Did anyone say de-carbonization? Not here, but....

--shipping routes, political / military instability and RISK, and paths to inflation

There. Now don't you feel better?

Now, Seriously, please enjoy the video.