Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The willow is too close to the house.

I did not have this on my fuck 2024 bingo card.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Fight them, without becoming them!

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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Reader Interactions

173Comments

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I am completely perplexfuzzled by that photo. What, exactly, has Steve done to his head? It looks like he twisted it around, inside-out and upside-down, then gave it another twist to put his Big Whiskers at a 180° angle from where they should be.

    He’s probably very comfortable that way.

  7. 7.

    Bob In Portland

    It’s going to be a rough year for the Niners, I’m afraid.

    But it looks like it’s going to be a rougher year in Kiev, thanks to western capital.

  22. 22.

    Cervantes

    @Bob In Portland:

    Yes — recession, GDP down, currency falling.

    Not pleasant.

    Your point is something more than that?

    PS: Did you sort out what I meant by that “your own worst enemy” thing? Sorry for my (confusing) link error.

  24. 24.

    Schlemazel

    @Amir Khalid:
    The reason Боб в Портленде stops by to crap on threads is open to debate. Some think it has to do with his med levels. Others think he has family in danger of being sent to a labor camp, Me personally? I think he gets money from Putin. Its best to just ignore him as he really has nothing to say that is not straight Russian propaganda. We need to find a Ukrainian crank & let the two of them jack each other off somewhere else.

  25. 25.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I am completely perplexfuzzled by that photo. What, exactly, has Steve done to his head?

    Steve’s lying on his right side, sound asleep, with his feet stretched towards the edge of the platform. The angle of the light & his big Maine Coon ruff make his closed eyes ‘disappear’, and he’s sleeping on his right-side whiskers so we can’t see them. (Confused me at first look, too.)

  27. 27.

    khead

    Great pic. Glad he’s home – we would freak if ours took a walk. Close the window.

    Also, I’d like to thank the Seahawks for getting off their ass and covering the 4.5 after dicking around for most of the second half.

  31. 31.

    CaseyL

    Two whews!

    First, and most important, Steve is home, safe and sound. Thanks for scaring your Dad half to death, big guy. Don’t do that again.

    Second, whew to Seattle for pulling out the win in OT. I think the defense is still recovering from the San Diego Ordeal by Heat Stroke. They didn’t seem at all their usual sharp selves.

  35. 35.

    Schlemazel

    @Jeff Spender:
    Very nice, thanks! So, how are things going in your race? Whats the background, whats your chances & do you have an act blue page for donations?

  36. 36.

    Howard Beale IV

    @WaterGirl: All that needs to happen is for one of these militia whackjobs to brandish a firearm in the polling place and things will get very real very quickly.Once that his the news, it could cost Walker the election.

  41. 41.

    WaterGirl

    @Jeff Spender: Great letter! Are you the person who wrote it? Your nym here doesn’t match the name, but I am guessing you are one and the same?

    Edit: It appears that no one else is confused by the names, so it must be you. I second the comment above – don’t be shy about posting an ActBlue page if you have one. If you don’t have one, you should!

  43. 43.

    Jeff Spender

    @Schlemazel:

    Oh, things are going as well as I could hope in a district that has a conservative edge. There’s an independent in the race who’s pretty far right (Indy in name only) who I think could split the conservative vote, but enough for me to win?

    Hard to tell.

    And I don’t have an act blue account–I’m trying to do as much as I can with as little as possible. I’m pretty serious about the whole take money out of politics thing.

  45. 45.

    Tommy

    So happy he came home. So happy. I had a cat that didn’t come home and it was a very hard experience.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    From the article:

    He also happens to be a decent human being.

    Clearly not a Juicer.

    Oh, but wait:

    You’ll want to read the whole thing. After the sarcastic opening, Derke really began digging in:

    So maybe he is!

    ETA: @Jeff Spender: Good for you. Maybe you’ll get a negative rating from that group.

  48. 48.

    K488

    I’ve been off the computer all afternoon, so I didn’t see the thread announcing Steve’s return. I’m very happy to know he is back, and that’s a really sweet picture. Hope your blood pressure is returning to normal!

  50. 50.

    Bob In Portland

    @Amir Khalid: You must not have followed the link. It had nothing to do with national sovereignty. It has to do with what happens when your country is run by oligarchs and fascists. The country’s economy is collapsing, since it refused to pay its gas bill it will have no heating this winter. All with the encouragement of the US.

    I hope the fascists use their national sovereignty and their lustration and all the other wonderful things the fascists have brought to Ukraine. Can you use national sovereignty in furnaces? Perhaps you can eat it.

  51. 51.

    Wally Ballou

    Watching the Reds and Cards on ESPN, and I see Curt Schilling has finally come back to the broadcast booth after recovering from cancer.

    I’m glad he’s feeling better, but I kind of wish he’d go ahead and take the rest of the season off for the sake of the viewers his health.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @Jeff Spender: If you change your mind and you need some funds, please post a link here. It’s important to stand on principle, but that doesn’t mean you have to tie your hands behind your back, either.

    I would be proud to contribute to someone who wrote that letter.

    Edit: especially a Juicer!

  55. 55.

    Bob In Portland

    @Cervantes: No, I didn’t sort out your reference. The point of my post was merely that there are worse things than being a Niner fan, like freezing or starving to death thanks to the greed of oligarchs there and here. Enjoy. The folks here at BJ cheered on the fascist coup. Cheered on the fascists. Fell for all the lies churned out by our State Department. s

    Remember, before Congress ducked out of town they voted for a half billion dollars to train “moderate” men to kill women and children in a country that is no threat to us. So if you worry about sovereignty you may think about your own fucking country before you worry about Russia. But then, this is exactly what I’ve been saying for six months now. The US can finance and send in soldiers or bombers anywhere in the world and it’s business-as-usual. The citizens of Balloon Juice pretty much all accept that. So you might as well enjoy the results of America’s interference around the world. Enjoy the slaughter of Syrians. Enjoy the Ukrainians freezing to death. Enjoy all the destabilization around the world. All hail the Empire of Chaos.

  57. 57.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Bob In Portland: So your standard for what makes a bad government is the presence of “oligarchs and fascists,” eh? I hear there’s this country somewhere in the vicinity of Ukraine that’s had a bit of that problem too. Would you happen to know anything about that?

  58. 58.

    andy

    Here in Minnesota up in House district 6A we have a real winner running with an R behind his name. I have the sense that he ought to modify his outreach efforts:

    NASHWAUK, Minn. — An Iron Range candidate for the Minnesota House faces a civil trial in Itasca County this week after sawing his neighbor’s garage in half.

    Roger Weber, a Nashwauk Republican running for the District 6A seat, allegedly used a power saw to bisect the building, according to a lawsuit filed by Mark Besemann of Iron. Weber then removed half of the garage That he insists was built, decades ago, on property that he now owns.

    There is a picture.

    I got a feeling that his opponent (Carly Melin DFL) is gonna have an easy, and hilarious, race.

  63. 63.

    Cervantes

    @Bob In Portland:

    No, I didn’t sort out your reference.

    A pity. Here’s what I said about the Russ Bellant interview.

    As for the rest:

    The point of my post was merely that there are worse things than being a Niner fan, like freezing or starving to death thanks to the greed of oligarchs there and here. Enjoy. [1] The folks here at BJ cheered on the fascist coup. Cheered on the fascists. Fell for all the lies churned out by our State Department. s

    Remember, before Congress ducked out of town they voted for a half billion dollars to train “moderate” men to kill women and children in a country that is no threat to us. [2] So if you worry about sovereignty you may think about your own fucking country before you worry about Russia. But then, this is exactly what I’ve been saying for six months now. The US can finance and send in soldiers or bombers anywhere in the world and it’s business-as-usual. The citizens of Balloon Juice pretty much all accept that. So you might as well enjoy the results of America’s interference around the world. Enjoy the slaughter of Syrians. Enjoy the Ukrainians freezing to death. Enjoy all the destabilization around the world. All hail the Empire of Chaos.

    Re [1]: “The folks here” don’t all agree on everything.

    And re [2]: It’s a good point.

  64. 64.

    peej

    Such a lovely picture (and a lovely cat)! I let my 2 cats go outside to the fenced-in yard and I’ve not had any escapes. Patrick is timid and wouldn’t leave the yard and Gonzo is too old and fat and can’t jump to the top of the fence any more. However, they did have some excitement on Friday night when Gonzo caught a cicada (and then proceeded to bring it inside where they both scarfed it down).

  65. 65.

    Bob In Portland

    @FlipYrWhig: Flip, do you live in America? No need to worry about the oligarchs in Russia if you’re so satisfied with oligarchs here. At least Russia does send oligarchs to jail.

  66. 66.

    skerry

    The People’s Climate March was an astounding success! Estimated 400,000 in NYC marched. So many that they had to start diverting people off the route before the end because the permit was going to expire. We had planned for 200,000. Tremendous!

    Also, marches around the globe in Melbourne (30,000), Nepal, Papau New Guinea, Barcelona (2000), Rome, London (40,000), Paris (1,000), Berlin (4000), Rio (5000), Stockholm, Amsterdam, Toronto. A total of 168 “sister” marches. I don’t know the numbers for all the cities. Information is still coming in.

    Headlines on some of the major media. Top of the homepage for NY times. No mention on Sunday talk shows, Fox, CNN (shocking). Lots of foreign press coverage.

    The plan tomorrow is to “flood” Wall Street. I have have no idea how many will participate. This action is a off-shoot from Occupy. I won’t be there, but will be watching closely.

    The UN meets Tuesday to discuss and plan for the next big summit in Paris in 2015.

    Pictures can be found at peoplesclimate.com and on Flickr.

    Oh, and my daughter got a selfie with Al Gore. She was delighted. She marched with the student/youth section. They estimated over 50,000 students covering 10 blocks. We had anticipated 4 blocks. Just a delightful day.

    ETA: So glad Steve came home safely. We had a cat who left for a couple of days and I was a mess.

  70. 70.

    Schlemazel

    @FlipYrWhig:
    As if the blob from “portland” is going to display intellectual honesty or consistency? Blob has shown tine and again he is unable/unwilling to engage in actual debate. He comes here, shits out a large turd of 100% pure bullshit and waits for people to respond. When they do he has no answer except to crap out more bullshit & ignore all the evidence that he is wrong. He has never shown an ability to admit when he is wrong or to actually discuss any subject except the one he is stuck on and then not in honest debate.

    In short he has never shown any trait worthy of response.

  71. 71.

    Spirula

    @Tommy: If I remember correctly, some of these cats behaviors were shocking to there “owners”. A number of the “owners” found out their cat made regular visits to other human habitations where they were fed, petted, fawned on etc.. Any port, storm or not I guess.
    Then you hear stories of cats traveling hundred of miles back home after getting separated from their host family. Who knows what really goes through their minds.

  72. 72.

    rikyrah

    @skerry:

    The People’s Climate March was an astounding success! Estimated 400,000 in NYC marched. So many that they had to start diverting people off the route before the end because the permit was going to expire. We had planned for 200,000. Tremendous!

    The ignoring of this by the MSM doesn’t shock me.

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Schlemazel:

    So, how are things going in your race?

    Honestly, you libs throw the race card under the bus every chance you get.

    @Anne Laurie:
    @Cervantes:

    Thanks for trying. He still looks inside-out to me.

    and I’m usually so good at optical illusion puzzles

  74. 74.

    bemused

    @andy:

    Oh wow. This is news to me. Carly Mehlin is my rep and I hadn’t even heard of this Weber guy who sounds pretty unstable. He doesn’t have a chance but I don’t doubt there would still be a few nutty voters here on the Iron Range that find Weber’s behavior appealing, just sticking for his “rights” or some nonsense like that.

  75. 75.

    Comrade Mary

    I missed all the Steve-related excitement today. Good to see that’s he’s back and happy!

    Hey, Good Wife fans, season 6 starts tonight! That’s 9:30 PM on Canuck Global, Christ knows when on CBS after sprots.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Jeff Spender:

    Good for you. That candidate survey is the craziest I have ever seen. Who are the two individuals they are targeting as part of the ‘Homosexual Lobby’? “…especially… so and so” What does that mean?

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: I’m sure it’s beyond hard. I went through that once for 2 days and ti was beyond awful. Was it muddy whose kitty came back after weeks? Hoping for the same thing for you guys.

  85. 85.

    burnspbesq

    @Bob In Portland:

    At least Russia does send oligarchs to jail.

    On nonsensical trumped-up charges whose life exepectancy in a fair process would be measured in nanoseconds. The only real crime in Russia is pissing off Putin. See, e.g., Khodorkowsky and Lebedev.

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jeff Spender:

    Well, if your opponent(s) get a sudden surge of last-minute money from the Kochs, don’t be afraid to set up an Act Blue page and let us know. There’s no reason to tank your campaign on principle when your opponent(s) don’t have the same scruples.

  88. 88.

    Bob In Portland

    @Cervantes: There have been a few to comment here on the Ukrainian crisis who agreed with me, so you’re right. But those commenters have come and gone. One or two commented on the closed-mindedness of the core of posters here. I’ve commented on the ad hominems that some of the less keen minds here resort to if I post anything.

    Your [2] seems to be missed by most here. In fact, the normal defense for the fascist regime in Ukraine and the US’s part in the coup is to point out some kind of equivalent sin that was committed in Russia. The other day someone, I think Mnem, felt the need to link to a site that talked about fascists in Russia. Very good, but it doesn’t have anything to do with US tax dollars putting a fascist government into power in Kiev. It doesn’t have anything to do with the US torturing prisoners, it doesn’t anything to do with wars and coups sponsored by the US throughout our lifetime. Someone tried to use the same tactic in this thread.

    One again. I am not a fan of Putin any more than I’m a fan of any other head of state around the world. If you don’t understand about the history of fascism, and a lot of people here really don’t have a clue, then you don’t understand the importance of Bellant’s article. Does anyone here even remember the story about the fascists in GHW Bush’s campaign? If you don’t understand fascism, then when your mainstream media pooh-poohs, or doesn’t even mention the element of fascists in the Ukrainian government, the fascist militias and what they’ve done in eastern Ukraine, then you get out the pompoms. Maybe because you haven’t noticed that there’s an agenda that transcends political parties. Which means Obama really doesn’t get a say.

  89. 89.

    Suffern ACE

    @burnspbesq: still better than our performance of fining them for PR purposes and then not bothering to do anything about it. What good is our rule of law again?

  90. 90.

    Bob In Portland

    @burnspbesq: Again, the same thing. Russia sends oligarchs to jail. We had a giant worldwide economic crash in 2008 caused by fraudulent banking practices. Do you remember how many people went to jail for that? I don’t know the circumstances around any of the trials and you know only what you’ve been told.

    But I commend you for shedding a tear for the justice system in Russia.

  91. 91.

    PJ

    @skerry: I don’t understand (but of course I do) why this was hardly covered by the media – hundreds of thousands of people peacefully marching for action against global warming. I’m also curious why it was not mentioned here . . .

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bob In Portland:

    It doesn’t have anything to do with the US torturing prisoners, it doesn’t anything to do with wars and coups sponsored by the US throughout our lifetime.

    I’ll try one more time to get this particular point through your head, Bob: all of us here think that the US invading Iraq, torturing prisoners, and sponsoring coups were bad things.

    Because they were bad things when the US did them, we also think it’s a bad thing for Russia to do similar things like, say, engineer a fake “separatist movement” in Ukraine.

    You, on the other hand, seem to have decided that if the US did bad things, that means it’s okay for Russia to do bad things, too, which is a lesson you seem to have missed back in kindergarten.

  93. 93.

    Anne Laurie

    @PJ:

    I’m also curious why it was not mentioned here . . .

    It was, actually. Skerry was one of the few people who seem to have read it, and I’m very glad they added their info!

  94. 94.

    Bob In Portland

    Without comment:

    For now Mr. Saakashvili is writing a memoir, delivering “very well-paid” speeches, helping start up a Washington-based think tank and visiting old boosters like Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state. He said he was in the process of changing his tourist status here to a work visa and in the meantime is enjoying the bars and cafes of his adopted homeland. On his roof deck, with sweeping views of Manhattan, he has entertained David H. Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and is expecting Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, at the end of the month. Usually, a cousin mans the grill, along with the chef from Fabbrica, the neighboring Italian restaurant opposite a CVS. Like those chain drugstores, glassy high-rises and Eurocentric nightclubs, Mr. Saakashvili is evidence of Williamsburg’s steady transition to a playground for moneyed out-of-towners.

  95. 95.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’ll try one more time to get this particular point through your head, Bob: all of us here think that the US invading Iraq, torturing prisoners, and sponsoring coups were bad things.

    Because they were bad things when the US did them, we also think it’s a bad thing for Russia to do similar things like, say, engineer a fake “separatist movement” in Ukraine.

    So there is no separatist movement in east Ukraine?

    By the way, have you read Russ Bellant yet? Ah, didn’t think so.

  96. 96.

    PJ

    @Anne Laurie: Apologies, and sorry I missed it – I tend only to look at BJ on weekdays and sometimes Sunday nights. It just seemed like one of those things where I was getting dozens of emails about it but there was very little attention even in non-MSM.

  97. 97.

    A Humble Lurker

    @Bob In Portland:

    So if you worry about sovereignty you may think about your own fucking country before you worry about Russia Ukraine.

    And you could take your own advice.

    Actually, I’m kind of confused where you stand, because weren’t you the guy that said what Russia was doing in Ukraine was as bad as what America did in Iraq? I didn’t think you thought so badly of Russia.

  98. 98.

    muddy

    @WaterGirl: Yes, a couple of months ago Ailill went missing over a week. He runs his life around the can schedule, so it was very worrying. I had basically accepted tyhat he was gone. Someone here suggested I check with the neighbors to see if he got shut in a shed or barn. I went around to all of them to ask, but couldn’t go to the evil neighbor (because they got a trespass order against me for trying to help their dog). I think he was there but don’t know if it was deliberate or not. He lost a lot of weight, but he could stand to, so all was well. The other cat was really angry at him over it and wouldn’t be his friend for a long time.

    I hope your cat surprises you as much as AIlill did me, MomSense.

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bob In Portland:

    So there is no separatist movement in east Ukraine?

    Poor Bob only just found out that “NovoRussia” was created and sponsored by Russia, even though we’ve been pointing out for months that the “commanders” are all Russian citizens.

    There are separatists in California and Texas — does that mean that those states have separatist movements?

  101. 101.

    Cervantes

    @A Humble Lurker:

    So if you worry about sovereignty you may think about your own fucking country before you worry about Russia Ukraine.

    And you could take your own advice.

    You seem confused. He isn’t exactly ignoring what the US is doing (allegedly, in Ukraine).

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bob In Portland:

    I was already familiar with that history, actually, because I’ve done pretty extensive reading about the Holocaust. Nothing in that interview is all that surprising to anyone who read Robert Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts or has read anything by Christopher Browning. Using Eastern European guards for the concentration camps was a deliberate strategy by the Nazis. But I suppose I can see that it would be revelatory to someone who was ignorant of that history and thought that only German citizens participated in the Holocaust.

  107. 107.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: And who would that be? Feel free to continue your reading with information on the Nightingales and how they relate to today’s fascist movement in Ukraine.

    If you’ve read Bellant, and if you recognize the US’s seventy-year history of support of Ukrainian fascists, both in Ukraine and here in the US, and you have read about what happened in Odessa and in the east, and you are still preening your sanctimonious self about your moral superiority over Russia, then please ignore my posts. You sicken me. You are hopeless.

  109. 109.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    ObOpenThread: Moscow Times:

    Some 100 million tons of annual oil production — or about 20 percent Russia’s total oil output — is at risk because of sanctions related to the supply of Western technology and expertise to Russia, Vagit Alekperov, the head of Russia’s No. 2 oil company, said Friday.

    Executives at an international business forum in Sochi said in the long run, Russian oil companies can do without the Western technology banned by the latest sanctions imposed on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine.

    But at what cost? they asked.

    Earlier this month, the United States and European Union imposed sanctions on leading Russian energy companies, including Rosneft and LUKoil, preventing U.S. and EU firms from supporting their exploration or production activities in deep water, Arctic offshore or shale projects.

    About a quarter of Russia’s oil production currently comes from hard-to-recover reserves with the help of the fracking technology — where powerful, mostly U.S.-made pumps are employed to force oil out of the earth, Alekperov, chief of privately owned LUKoil, said at the International Investment Forum Sochi-2014.

    As conventional oil wells begin drying up, the importance of hard-to-reach deposits in Russia — a country that relies for 40 percent of its state budget on oil industry taxes — will only increase.

    Most of the automated control systems and communications equipment in the oil industry today come from the U.S. and Japan, Alekperov said, adding that these supplies are now at risk because of Western sanctions.

    A firm U.S. ally, Japan has so far imposed limited sanctions on Moscow, and the measures do not touch the oil industry. Tokyo said last week that it was preparing new measures to target the energy sector but has not yet implemented them.

    […]

    At the end of the 1980s, just before its collapse, the Soviet Union was pumping 625 million tons of oil per year, 100 million tons more than Russia produces today.

    […]

    It looks like Ukraine isn’t the only country in the region that risks having less fuel in the near future…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  111. 111.

    Cervantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    I was already familiar with that history, actually, because I’ve done pretty extensive reading about the Holocaust. Nothing in that interview is all that surprising to anyone who read Robert Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts or has read anything by Christopher Browning. Using Eastern European guards for the concentration camps was a deliberate strategy by the Nazis. But I suppose I can see that it would be revelatory to someone who was ignorant of that history and thought that only German citizens participated in the Holocaust.

    Just out of curiosity, I’ll ask: can you explain what Robert Kaplan wrote in Balkan Ghosts that relates to anything Russ Bellant said in the Nation interview? Same question re Chris Browning: what do you think he wrote in “anything” that relates to what Bellant said?

    Or to simplify: what is it you think Bellant said in the interview?

  113. 113.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    Why are people engaging with BiP? To the extent that he has a point, pointing out the work of Bellant (for example), he obscures it with squid clouds of conspiracy theory and a dogmatic over-reliance on pro-Russian propaganda. The signal to noise ratio is really not a bit viable.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I just thought it was ironic for the brazen pro-Russian apologist to start railing against “oligarchs.”

    It is.

  117. 117.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cervantes:

    I’m assuming we’re all talking about this interview in the Nation? A few snips:

    As World War II approached, they made an alliance with the Nazi powers. They formed several military formations, so that when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, they had several battalions that went into the main city at the time, where their base was, Lvov, or Lwow, it has a variety of spellings [Lviv today]. They went in, and there’s a documented history of them participating in the identification and rounding up Jews in that city, and assisting in executing several thousand citizens almost immediately. They were also involved in liquidating Polish group populations in other parts of Ukraine during the war.

    Without getting deeply involved in that whole history, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists to this day defend their wartime role. They were backers of forming the 14th Waffen SS Division, which was the all-Ukrainian division that became an armed element on behalf of the Germans, and under overall German control. They helped encourage its formation, and after the war, right at the end of the war, it was called the First Ukrainian division. They still glorify that history of that SS division, and they have a veterans organization that obviously doesn’t have too many of members left, but they formed a veterans division of that.

    (snip)

    The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1943 under German sponsorship organized a multinational force to fight on behalf of the retreating German army. After the battle of Stalingrad in ’43, the Germans felt a heightened need to get more allies, and so the Romanian Iron Guard, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and others with military formations in place to assist came together and formed the united front called the Committee of Subjugated Nations, and again worked on behalf of the German military. In 1946, they renamed it the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, or ABN. Stetsko was the leader of that until he died in 1986.

    (snip)

    There aren’t very many Americans who really even know that the Waffen SS was a multinational force. That’s been kind of kept out of the received history. Otherwise people would know that there were Ukrainian Nazis, Hungarian Nazis, Latvian Nazis, and they were all involved in the mass murder of their fellow citizens, if they were Jewish, or even if they were co-nationalists that were on the other side of the issue of the war. They were just mass murderers, across Eastern Europe. And that history, those facts, aren’t even well-known. A lot of people didn’t even know this phenomenon existed.

    Any other questions? I’m not quite sure why you think that other books about the Nazis in Eastern Europe during WWII are completely irrelevant to Bellant’s points about the Nazis in Eastern Europe during WWII — can you please explain exactly what makes the other books irrelevant?

  123. 123.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    The idea of fascists or other extreme right wingers in Eastern Europe anywhere in the world, who have ideas of their own and who aren’t robots of the CIA or the Bilderbergs or the Ford Foundation or the Queen of England, is a surprise to almost no one who thinks about it for a few minutes.

    FIFY.

    Some things are apparently harder to see, at least for our friend in Portlandia. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  124. 124.

    A Humble Lurker

    @Bob In Portland:
    Yes. The Czar will be most displeased with you.

    @Cervantes:
    I think it’s more productive to be informed and/or concerned about the bad things a country actually does, as opposed to what the propaganda of another country says that country is doing. For example, those idiots who say Mexico has people with Ebola. Now Mexico has lot’s of problems, but Ebola is not one of them. And if you spend all your time worrying about Mexico’s nonexistent Ebola, you won’t be able to focus on its real problems.

  125. 125.

    PurpleGirl

    Open threads are open threads until John Cole decides to restrict commenting on his blog. (And since John Cole is not a government official, he can restrict commenting on HIS blog and it is not against censorship.)

  127. 127.

    srv

    Surrender already:

    The Ukrainian leader, in a televised question and answer session with a group of Ukrainian journalists after returning from the United States, acknowledged that Ukrainian troops were still being killed but he said the death rate was ‘ten times fewer’ than before.

    “It’s not possible to win … purely by military means. The more Ukrainian army battalions or brigades are brought up, the more troops there are from the Russian Federation,” he said, adding that 60-65 percent of Ukraine’s military equipment on the front-line had been destroyed.

    We’ve got to have someone left to sell replacements, also, too.

  130. 130.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    Ukrainians who joined the SS to fight the Red Army were roughly as morally defective as Ukrainians who joined the Red Army to fight the Nazis. I don’t in any way excuse those that served an concentration camp guards but anyone who professes not to understand the justification for Ukrainians taking up arms against the Soviets is either being deliberately obtuse or is so fucking ignorant of history that what they say on the subject should be ignored.

  135. 135.

    Bob In Portland

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Of course, anything that disturbs you you should avoid. I’ll post links here unless I’m banned for some reason. Most of you here have proven that you don’t want to know. How many of you even read the Russian engineers’ report. I’m guessing no one because if anyone had they would have at least found something to throw in my face. But, no. So of course you ignore what disturbs you. You even ignore what may potentially disturb you.

  140. 140.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Bob In Portland: One can find a blogpost somewhere that supports anything. Why should we give any respect to the one you posted? What about it gives it any authority or reputation for veracity? Or, as I suspect, does it just support your preconceptions?

  143. 143.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: No one said the books were irrelevant. Bellant drew a seventy-year history of US connections to the fascists in Ukraine. He showed how the fascists were given positions in the coup government.

    Balkan Ghosts was published in 2005. What does it say about the Maidan Revolution? What does it say about the US’s aid to the Ukrainian fascists? What does it say about the Right Sektor?

    It was about the Balkans, which do not extend to Ukraine.

    If you think you impress me by acknowledging the existence of fascists in the Balkans, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. I haven’t been concerned about Ukraine other than a generalized concern for humankind. I am worried about the fascists here in the US. That is why I suggested some of you might watch “The Conformist”. You know, see what it’s like to go along in a fascist country. Then just maybe you’d see a little of yourself in there and maybe pay a little more attention to what your government is doing. But, really, you’re right. No point. Steelers win?

  145. 145.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    It’s also not a shock to find out that during the Cold War, the US decided to ally itself with fascist movements to try and “counter” Communism. It was, in retrospect, a stupid and morally bankrupt decision, but that’s what the decision was. Were you the one who pointed out that the US was financially supporting Franco throughout the 1970s, or was that someone else?

  147. 147.

    cckids

    @raven: Thanks for passing that on again. As I said earlier, my niece works there, they do good work. I’ve got a monthly allotment for them. The pictures of the Dane just ripped me up.

  148. 148.

    Aleta

    A cat question. Is there an internet site on how to take good care of a cat with FIV ? I’ve been searching without success (for something like “Tanya’s CRF site” for feline kidney failure) for advice on nutrition and how to try to keep the cat from developing other illnesses.

    A stray we found; my cousin took him in and is crazy about him. He’s a real cool cat, smart, funny. Now he’s taking an appetite stimulant because he had stopped eating, become very thin and weak. It’s working great and we’ve been giving him grain-free quality-protein canned food, and some kitten food, thinking lots of protein to rebuild his muscle. My cousin is also giving him cooked chicken and canned wild salmon, and in 2 weeks he’s dramatically better. But will this bring on kidney or liver problems? And how to help his immune system .. .supplements/herbs? The vet was not informative, and pessimistic because the cat was so wasted. But now his ribs and backbone have filled out and he’s in a great mood, and his “chemistry panel” is basically OK.

  150. 150.

    Bruce K

    Went to sleep with Steve’s fate uncertain; glad to see all is well (though I suspect Steve doesn’t see the owner/pet relationship quite the way Our Gracious Host does…)

  151. 151.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Aleta: You might try contacting the Goathouse and asking about their FIV regimen. I know they’ve placed a couple of FIV-positive cat recently, and the clipboards on those cats’ kennels had supplements/special care instructions, but I can’t recall just what they were. (They keep the FIVs isolated because it’s spread mostly by fighting, and with that many free-roaming cats, fights do happen.)

  152. 152.

    HeartlandLiberal

    @Amir Khalid: My grudge against the Ukraine is that ISPs in the country are hotbeds of spam and malware and botware. I blocked several more blocks of IPs in Ukraine on my web servers yesterday in the firewall, simply rejecting any and all traffic from them. Of course that is nothing compared to the QUARTER MILLION (a CIDR /4 for you fellow geeks) block in China I dropped in the blocklist a few moments later, after reviewing recent logs of activity trying to hack into the server.

  153. 153.

    Cervantes

    @A Humble Lurker:

    I think it’s more productive to be informed and/or concerned about the bad things a country actually does, as opposed to what the propaganda of another country says that country is doing.

    By itself, unexceptionable. The difficulty comes in when one assumes other people do not know this, and aren’t taking it into account in the same way one thinks one is. There is lots of propaganda and misinformation floating around — from all directions.

    Besides, you’re drifting now. Here’s what happened: (1) Someone said that if we are agitated by violations of sovereignty, e. g., by Russia, we should be even more agitated by violations of sovereignty perpetrated by the US, e. g., in the Middle East. (2) You responded that this someone “could take [his] own advice.” But seeing as how his own advice was that one should police the actions of one’s own government first, your response was, and remains, well, let’s just say disconnected.

    But like I said, never mind.

  154. 154.

    Cervantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    Were you the one who pointed out that the US was financially supporting Franco throughout the 1970s, or was that someone else?

    Franco died in 1975 so no one was supporting him “throughout the 1970s.”

    Here’s what happened: Someone was talking about the “difference between, say, Franco being a fascist and the CIA enabling Pinochet to take over Chile in a violent fascist coup.” He was arguing that we are less responsible for the mere existence of fascists abroad (Franco) than we are when we support them substantially (Pinochet). I responded that he needed a better comparison because we did, in fact, support Franco substantially (but throughout the Eisenhower years, not throughout the 1970s).

  155. 155.

    Cervantes

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    Aha, so it does just support your views. I asked why a reader should trust it. You offered nothing.

    It’s passing odd to object when someone suggests you read something that helps explain their argument.

    He did not claim the article deserves your trust. You can read it and trust it or not, for reasons you can articulate or not. For example, there is another Russian report now about what happened to MH 17. I’ve read it — but it’s not disinterested and so I have not discussed it as if it were.

  156. 156.

    Cervantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    Any other questions?

    Sure, here’s a question: How did you manage so artfully to avoid the subject Bellant is asked about in the Nation interview, and the point he makes in response? There are, after all, a number of clues as to his meaning. For example, in bold, there is the headline: “America’s Dirty Little Ukraine Secret.”

    Based on your reading, you think Bellant is there making Robert Kaplan’s point about the intractability of Balkan conflict? Or Christopher Browning’s point about (to use your word) “anything”? Please.

    If you really think that the interview was recommended to you because of the little bit of background it provides re WWII, I don’t think you should even bother reading it once, never mind again.

    I’m not quite sure why you think that other books about the Nazis in Eastern Europe during WWII are completely irrelevant to Bellant’s points about the Nazis in Eastern Europe during WWII — can you please explain exactly what makes the other books irrelevant?

    Oh, I’m thrilled to hear you’ve read about “Nazis in Eastern Europe during WWII.” That’s laudable — but it’s not why the Bellant interview was cited for you to read.

  159. 159.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cervantes:

    Oh, I’m thrilled to hear you’ve read about “Nazis in Eastern Europe during WWII.” That’s laudable — but it’s not why the Bellant interview was cited for you to read.

    The Bellant interview was cited to “prove” that the Maidan uprising of seven months ago was a neo-Nazi takeover of the legitimate government of Ukraine, which is what Bob has been claiming for months.

    My point is that the existence of influential Ukrainian neo-Nazis who fled to the US after WWII proves jack shit about the events of February 2014.

    If you would like to continue Bob’s argument that neo-Nazis are running Ukraine’s current government, please provide something more substantial than Russian propaganda and Bellant’s insinuations that because the US gave Ukrainian Nazis shelter and influence after WWII, that must mean that the current government of Ukraine is a neo-Nazi one.

  160. 160.

    Cervantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    The Bellant interview was cited to “prove” that the Maidan uprising of seven months ago was a neo-Nazi takeover of the legitimate government of Ukraine, which is what Bob has been claiming for months.

    Perhaps. Meanwhile, here’s where I came in.

    You continue:

    My point is that the existence of influential Ukrainian neo-Nazis who fled to the US after WWII proves jack shit about the events of February 2014.

    What I asked about was your assertion that, having read Kaplan and Browning, there was nothing new to you in the Bellant interview. It was a curious assertion.

    If you would like to continue Bob’s argument that neo-Nazis are running Ukraine’s current government, please provide something more substantial than Russian propaganda and Bellant’s insinuations that because the US gave Ukrainian Nazis shelter and influence after WWII, that must mean that the current government of Ukraine is a neo-Nazi one.

    People can forward their own arguments, thanks. But when you write about “Bellant’s insinuations that […] the current government of Ukraine is a neo-Nazi one,” can you show where you find these “insinuations”? Meawhile, here’s what Bellant actually said:

    The key organization in the coup that took place here recently was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN], or a specific branch of it known as the Banderas [OUN-B]. They’re the group behind the Svoboda party, which got a number of key positions in the new interim regime. The OUN goes back to the 1920s, when they split off from other groups, and, especially in the 1930s, began a campaign of assassinating and otherwise terrorizing people who didn’t agree with them. […] Obviously these people don’t hold monopoly power in Ukraine, but they stepped up and the United States has been behind the Svoboda party and these Ukrainian nationalists. In fact, the US connections to them go back to World War II, and the United States has had a longstanding tie to the OUN, through the intelligence agencies—initially military intelligence, later the CIA.

    If there’s something specific you don’t agree with, here or in the rest of the interview, I trust you’ll let me know.

  161. 161.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cervantes:

    Since you insist …

    The key organization in the coup that took place here recently was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN], or a specific branch of it known as the Banderas [OUN-B]. They’re the group behind the Svoboda party, which got a number of key positions in the new interim regime.

    The “number” of “key positions” that Svoboda got was three (3). I would like more proof that this was a disproportionate number.

    The OUN goes back to the 1920s, when they split off from other groups, and, especially in the 1930s, began a campaign of assassinating and otherwise terrorizing people who didn’t agree with them. […]

    I would like Bellant to show that OUN has not changed since the 1920s. It seems very illogical to claim that American and European political parties shift (as the Republican and Democratic parties have done here in the US) but that the positions of OUN have remained locked in amber since the 1920s.

    Obviously these people don’t hold monopoly power in Ukraine, but they stepped up and the United States has been behind the Svoboda party and these Ukrainian nationalists.

    Again, I would like some actual proof that the US has “been behind” Svoboda and other right-wing parties.

    In fact, the US connections to them go back to World War II, and the United States has had a longstanding tie to the OUN, through the intelligence agencies—initially military intelligence, later the CIA.

    While I find it perfectly plausible that the US maintained contacts with right-wing political parties in the Soviet Union and used them as informants, I would like some actual proof that the US has been supporting right-wing and neo-Nazi parties since after the start of Ukrainian independence.

    Again, Bellant has lots of information about Cold War operations, but I have not seen a lot of evidence that he’s up to date on events after independence. If you have articles or books by him talking about events of the past, say, 20 years, please present your evidence, because I don’t find a book written in 1988 to be convincing proof of events in 2014. YMMV, of course.

  162. 162.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: Okay, so now we know where your current position is. The US has been funding Ukrainian fascists from the end of WWII to approximately the end of the Cold War, both in the US and abroad, but since you see no proof of the US funding fascists since the collapse of the Soviet Union thus you presume that it hasn’t continued.

    I found it interesting that Michael Boci­urkiw, who has been involved with the OSCE investigation into the MH17 downing, had a former career writing for the pro-fascist Ukrainian Weekly (a publication for the community in US and Canada). The UW routinely wrote articles defending guys like John Demjanjuk, the former Nazi prison guard who was up for deportation for war crimes. Have you ever wondered why so many war criminals kept turning up in the US? They didn’t hitch hike here.

    I wish that Covert Action Information Bulletin was available online. At the collapse of the Soviet Union it ran multiple articles, one issue was essentially dedicated to it, explaining the various government programs and NGO programs to “spread democracy” throughout eastern Europe. Who are we talking about? Well, Paul Weyrich was involved in one. On the other side were, again, actual genuine fascists. Would it surprise you that Izbegovic in Bosnia and Tudjman in Croatia, the guys the US (aka NATO) backed in the breakup of Yugoslavia, were both Nazi collaborators in WWII? Saakashvili, the former President of Georgia who had a curious writeup in the New York Times yesterday, was a graduate of the National Endowment of Democracy, a State Department/CIA venture that trains “pro-western” politicians for political life in the post-Soviet world. When you consider that the US can outspend anyone to support the candidates to enact their agenda, that from the end of WWII many of those ten thousand war criminals and their children were being groomed to eventually go back to their homelands and institute a pro-fascist/pro-American policy you might understand Russia’s concern about Ukraine’s current government. When I see government programs that have extended from WWII which included the likes of Paul Weyrich entertaining the luminaries of the Ustachi, Arrow Cross and the OUN/B, I am disturbed.

    What do you think that the five billion that Vickie Nuland talked about was spent on?

    By the way, Covert Action Information Bulletin (later published as Covert Action Quarterly) had an interesting article on Z. Brzezinski’s plans for a north-south Unocal pipeline through Afghanistan back in the 90s, and how they were making nice with the various tribal groups in Afghanistan to get that done. Do you think that once the US had boots on the ground there that no one thought about that? There was also an article about PRISM, about twenty years before Snowden showed up. They also did a decent job covering the S&L scandal among other things.

  163. 163.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Bob In Portland: US Embassy:

    Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations. We’ve invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.
    Today there are senior officials in the Ukrainian government, in the business community, as well as in the opposition, civil society and religious community who believe in this democratic and European future for their country and they’ve been working hard to move their country and their president in the right direction.

    Among the things that US aid paid for was:

    THE TRILATERAL STATEMENT NOTED THE U .S. COMMITMENT OF A MINIMUM OF 175 MILLION USD IN COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION (NUNN -LUGAR) AID TO UKRAINE TO ASSIST DENUCLEARIZATION. AS OF THE END OF APRIL 1996 , THE U.S. HAD NOTIFIED CTR OBLIGATIONS FOR UKRAINE TOTA LING ALMOST 400 MILLION USD, PRIMARILY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF STRATEGIC NUCLEAR ARMS AND NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE.

    Your arguments would be more persuasive if you presented your own evidence rather than making others do your work for you. But it’s easier to yell “fascist!!”, I guess, huh.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  165. 165.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bob In Portland:

    Well, let’s be totally clear about my position, Bob — my position is that the United States was a fascist state well before Hitler came to power and that Hitler used the United States as his model for Nazi Germany. This is a pretty uncontroversial position these days, particularly since the Nazis explicitly said that they modeled the Nuremburg Laws on the US’s Jim Crow laws.

    So there was no sudden import of fascists and fascist ideals into the US. The reason Ukrainian and other Eastern European Nazis found a comfortable home in the US is because the US was itself a fascist state at the time, and continued that way until Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement.

    So what you see as OMG FASCIST INVASION! is what I see as more of the same, with a different accent. I also see major improvement since WWII, but since you seem blind to the fact that the US was a fascist state well before WWII, that’s why the events post-WWII are so startling to you.

  166. 166.

    Bob In Portland

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Sorry, old chap, but I can’t seem to locate any detailed breakdowns of US spending towards Ukraine Obviously, the CIA doesn’t share, but that doesn’t mean that other agencies aren’t giving time and effort to “spreading democracy”. This is the white bread wiki description of the National Endowment for Democracy. Lookie, lookie, Eliot Abrams! Didn’t he have something to do with supplying aid to the freedom fighters in Latin America during the Reagan Administration? Since the budget for NED is tucked away within the USAID budget, I guess I’ll have to try to poke around the internet to look inside that. No funny business over at USAID, right?

  167. 167.

    Bob In Portland

    “Since the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991, the United States supported the Ukrainians in the development of democratic institutions and skills in promoting civil society and a good form of government – all that is necessary to achieve the objectives of Ukraine’s European. We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals. ”

  168. 168.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: So your position is that the US is a fascist country and it ISN’T aiding fascists in Ukraine? Or that the US WAS a fascist country but hasn’t been since something?

    Or that the US is a fascist country, but it doesn’t support fascist movements elsewhere in the world? Or the US is a fascist country, and has supported fascists around the world, but since you haven’t seen anything in a government budget that says, “Total used to support fascists in Ukraine, 1991 to present” that you believe that that could not possibly be happening and you refuse to even entertain the possibility that the US, while being a fascist country or a formerly fascist country, has aided fascists in Ukraine since 1991 after aiding them since WWII. Or something.

    I’ve asked many times, why has the US had military in Afghanistan for almost fifteen years now? Any clue? Ever figure out why we attacked Iraq? How about Syria? Well, maybe Syria because a foreign country operating a worldwide network of torture facilities used Syria as one of their places to deposit people picked up off the streets around the world.

    Now would that be a fascist country, or a former fascist country, the one running the worldwide torture network? And who would that be?

  169. 169.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: But there was an importation of fascists into the US after WWII. That’s why I suggested you read Christopher Simpson’s BLOWBACK.

    I’m not sure of what you judge to be a “sudden importation” versus a gradual importation. And knowing that the US had plenty of folks on Wall Street who were fans of the Nazis or who worked with them (Brown Brothers Harriman, Prescott Bush, the Dulleses) and those folks showed up post-war in the State Department and CIA should raise some eyebrows, especially with the Treaty of Fort Hunt and other subsequent deals with Nazis and fascists, and our post-Soviet round of support for Nazis seeking political power overseas.

    The importation of fascists of the OUN/B into the US may have been sudden or gradual, I presume that they couldn’t get them all on the same boat, but it was real. It was public knowledge long before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    Now maybe the US imported and supported Ukrainian fascists and as Bellant pointed out, were well-integrated into the Republican Party by GHW Bush’s election in 1988. But that doesn’t prove that there is any connection between the US and the coup in Ukraine. No siree! And because we supported the OUN/B and let them give anti-Semitic anti-Russian broadcasts on Radio Free Europe, and the Svoboda Party is directly descended from the OUN/B, that doesn’t mean that we’d be supporting them now.

    Maybe it’s just that, yes, America is a fascist government, a fascist country, and it supports fascists all over the world, but at least we’re not Russia.

  170. 170.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bob In Portland:

    But there was an importation of fascists into the US after WWII.

    So what?

    The US was already a fascist country in 1945. Not only were we oppressing African-Americans with Jim Crow laws in the South, we had imprisoned thousands of US citizens in concentration camps based solely on their racial origins. We were still forcibly sterilizing “undesirables” until the 1970s. So why was it a big deal that we imported a few foreigners to stand alongside Bull Connor, George Wallace, and Strom Thurmond?

    I mean, I understand that you think it’s a big deal because you never realized that the US you grew up in was a fully fascist country until at least 1964, but quite a few African-Americans can tell you differently and explain to you exactly what’s different today (and, unfortunately, what the similarities still are).

  171. 171.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: There are consequences. The army/CIA imported fascists into the US not only to aid fascist movements overseas, but to change the character of the US. To create a body of Americans who are controlled by fear and hate, you know, like fascists.

    Now, if you are acknowledging that the US is a fascist state, why do you have a problem with the concept of the US promoting a fascist government (dragging behind the entrails of WWII) in order to project its power into Central Asia? Because the NY Times doesn’t say so? Because you haven’t noticed it? Because Obama is too nice to do it?

  172. 172.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: Actually, I knew before 1964. As a kid I got into trouble for drinking out of the wrong water fountain in Jackson, Mississippi.

    So, Mnem, you know that the US is and has been a fascist country for a long time. So you’ve accepted it?

    Or you just don’t want to be reminded of it?

Comments are closed.