🇷🇺🇺🇦 FORMER RUSSIAN SPY EXPLAINS THE WAR TOO HONESTLY
“We’re a thorn in their side. We’re changing the system in which they live very comfortably. Why would they need us?” - Andrey Bezrukov 🇷🇺
Former Russian spy Andrey Bezrukov just said the quiet part out loud: Ukraine is not the threat because it attacked Russia. Ukraine is the threat because it proves a different future is possible next door.
That is what Moscow fears most, not NATO slogans, not imaginary Nazis, not propaganda fantasies. A free Ukraine makes Russia’s prison of a system look exactly like what it is.
@NatalkaKyiv
Cuando pase el actual período presidencial estadounidense —marcado por un desafío constante a las instituciones y las leyes— vendrá un gran debate sobre los límites del poder ejecutivo. Siempre que quede espacio y voluntad para preservar una democracia que, aunque aún sostiene algunos contrapesos, luce cada vez más deteriorada.
This gets worse.
So not only did the US Navy fire two missiles and kill three Indian sailors they refused to rescue the 24 Indian crew despite saying they are on fire, the vessel is sinking and that they are an all Indian crew.
The Omanis rescued them.
“We are the only people in history expected to witness our own genocide—and then censor ourselves so we don’t hurt the feelings of those responsible.” — #SusanAbulhawa
The world is watching. History is being written in real time.
#Gaza#HumanRights#DontStopTalkingAboutPalestine
Ukrainian attack on Tolyattikauchuk plant in Samara region of Russia.
It produces synthetic rubber for the tire industry, rubber products, and high-octane fuel additives for the Russian military equipment.
🇷🇺 Idzie w rosji na grubo: "W związku z nieustannymi atakami terrorystycznym reżimu kijowskiego na nasze regiony, MSZ zwraca się do szeregu przyjaznych krajów z prośbą o dostarczenie paliwa na potrzeby państwowe. Mam nadzieję, że wyciągną pomocną dłoń, którą my zawsze wyciągaliśmy jako pierwsi" - Zacharowa.
She is lying. Brazenly. Israel has forced over a million people (a million!) from their homes, razed entire neighborhoods to the ground, told Christian villagers to not let Shia villagers stay in their villages, and killed multiple first-responders in double tap strikes.
.@JamesTalarico: There's been a lot of talk in this race about what it means to be a real man.
Recently on the campaign trail I told the story of my adoptive dad, Mark Talarico. Every Saturday morning, he would mow our lawn, and then without anyone asking him to, he would go next door and mow our neighbor's lawn because she was a widow. My dad never talked about it — he just did it, because that's what a man does.
A man takes responsibility, upholds his commitments to his family and his neighbors, and does what's right, even when no one is watching.
Here's what real men don't do. They don't lie and cheat their way through life, sell their soul to the highest bidder, or steal from other people in order to enrich themselves. Real men serve others. Weak men serve themselves.
I welcome this debate about what it means to be a man, and I don't think Ken Paxton or Ted Cruz are in a position to tell anybody what a real man is.
Can’t wait for some tech asshole to christsplain to the pope that it’s perfectly ok for Christian’s to profit off mass murder - and that Christ was a a good capitalist .
Of yeah - that was just on Paltrows podcast -
To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:
Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.
You won’t.
You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster. Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out.
That is not who we are.
My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock. I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count.
For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.
I no longer believe that.
Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.
And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts.
That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena.
Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.
Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.
Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next?
We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.
So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.
You won’t.
The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.
That is the only definition that matters.
Similares imágenes a las de la segunda guerra mundial cuando alemanes se retiraban a toda prisa de los países que ocupaban. Y después vendrá la desesperación como cuando corrían hacia el oeste para entregarse a cualquier aliado occidental en vez de al ejército sovietico
Ukrainians forces have hit all of the land routes out of Crimea to Russian forces in the Kherson region, forces in the area are falling into chaos running out of crucial supplies where logistical convoys queue up in Crimea and are starting to be targeted.
Trump is once again talking about Kharg Island and saying we can take it "at a time of our choosing."
He's not wrong. We can get troops on that island.
But he's not telling you what happens next.
Kharg Island is 16 miles off the Iranian coast. Iran has every square foot of it registered for artillery and rocket fire. They've spent the last three months laying anti-personnel mines on the beaches, pre-deploying shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, and moving IRGC troops into hardened positions. They know we might be coming.
Every one of our ships in our assault force is 47 seconds from an Iranian anti-ship cruise missile. Every Marine on that island is within rocket artillery range of a coastline that runs 1,500 miles. We can't suppress that effectively even if we used all of our forces
I flew CH-53E helicopters in Desert Storm, and I know what it means to put troops in a fixed position on a small island with no room to maneuver and no friendly territory within reach. The military term for that is a kill box. The political term is leverage. The human term is a body bag.
The analysts are being careful in how they are framing it. Ryan Brobst and Cameron McMillan of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is about as hawkish as think tanks get, wrote in March that a seizure and occupation "is more likely to expand and extend the war than it is to deliver any sort of decisive victory." Former CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel said troops on the island would be "very vulnerable" and would require massive logistical backup. Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute put it more plainly: "I think the Iranians can probably sit back and attack Americans on Kharg Island, and casualties will mount up."
That's the politically correct version.
Here's what they're not saying out loud: Iran has FPV drones. The same camera-equipped drones being used by the millions in Ukraine. If our troops land on that island, Iranian drone footage of American casualties will be on every screen in the world within hours. Trump will own every frame of it.
Iraq bombed Kharg Island for four straight years during the Iran-Iraq War. From 1982 to 1986, but they never put a single soldier on it. They couldn't. The Iranians rebuilt and kept exporting oil. That's the historical record on what "taking Kharg" actually means.
And here's the part that makes even less sense: seizing the island doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg is 300 miles from the strait. The Iranians mine the strait from their southern coastline. You'd have to suppress 1,500 miles of Iranian coast to fix that problem. Kharg is just a political symbol, not a solution.
We can bomb it into rubble. We've already struck over 90 targets there. Trump can destroy every oil facility on that island from the air, permanently. That's a real option with real consequences for Iran's economy and real consequences for global oil markets.
But putting Americans on the ground 16 miles from the Iranian coast, surrounded by water, within range of everything Iran has left?
That's not a strategic or tactical military operation. That's just a sacrifice of American lives.
Are you OK with that?
Buttigieg: We didn't know it, but we've all been trusting our lives to the restraint of whoever the president might be. And now we have a president who is completely unrestrained. And so the only answer to that is a functioning Congress.
It turns out we do not have a functioning Congress. The House of Representatives is not representative. One of the most important organs of our democracy is not democratic.
They say, "Oh, no. We're not manipulating the map to disempower black people. We're manipulating the map to disempower Democrats who happen to be black people.”
So, the time has come to make it impossible to manipulate the map for any reason and just have fair maps.
Reporting from the historic city of Tyre for @TheNationalNews. We saw clear damage at one of the archaeological sites, where wreckage was scattered among ancient Roman ruins and a column had been broken by an Israeli strike on Sunday. The attack targeted, and completely obliterated, a heritage house just a few metres away.
The area is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, which legally protects landmarks or areas legally because of their “outstanding value to humanity.”