(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Three quick housekeeping notes. First, Rosie is very much improved. Her appetite is completely back and she’s back to normal levels of activity. She goes back for a check in with the oncology vet in three weeks and I’ll take her to see her regular vet at the end of next week to get a post-chemo baseline exam. Thank you for all the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.
Second, while I’m starting to recover for the sleep deprivation and what it does to the rest of my system, I’m still fried. I’m just going to cover the basics tonight.
Third, in comments on Monday night someone pivoted off of my assessment of the effects of Musk as an insider threat and his well financed subversion combined with what Russia, the PRC, the DPRK, Iran, Israel, the Saudis, etc are doing to interfere in domestic US politics in general and in regard to the ongoing election in specific to just trash Biden overall. It wasn’t offensive or anything and it didn’t violate the comment policy, which is why I left it up. No one needs to go back, find it, and pile on, but I want to make clear that my issues are with President Biden and his natsec team, which includes his senior domestic natsec appointees or holdovers – Garland, Wray, and Mayorkas – in dealing with these threats, mismanaging US responses to Russia’s genocidal re-invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war. Domestically, in terms of overall domestic policy, I think President Biden and his team have exceeded expectations given they had to deal with Manchin and Sinema and the other four or five Democratic senators hiding behind them in the Senate (cough Coons cough), the loss of the House in the 2022 midterms, and the FedSoc neo-Confederates that McConnell and Leo used Trump to pack onto the Federal appellate courts and the Supreme Court. A lot of this is because the news media has decided not to cover the domestic successes. From The New Yorker:
Among Joe Biden’s afflictions and miseries, his wormwood and gall, there are the insults (about his diminished capacities), and then there are the compliments unpaid (about his achievements). We are exposed to more of the first, but it seems that to him the second are more painful. In his first interview after he withdrew as the Democratic Presidential nominee, Biden—wounded, proud, self-pitying, defiant—said, by way of defending his record, “No one thought we could get done, including some of my own people, what we got done. One of the problems is, we knew all the things we did were going to take a little time to work their way through. So now people are realizing, ‘Oh, that highway. Oh, that . . .’ ” He trailed off for a moment and then recovered. “The biggest mistake we made, we didn’t put up signs saying ‘Joe Did It.’ ” He ended this with a bitter chuckle. Biden isn’t wrong. Objectively, and improbably, he has passed more new domestic programs than any Democratic President since Lyndon Johnson—maybe even since Franklin Roosevelt.
Domestically this has been one of THE most successful administration’s ever. It has done great things for a broad, wide, and deep swathe of Americans. You don’t have to agree with me, but I want to make it clear that my disappointments and frustrations are with the natsec, defense, and foreign policy side of the house, not the domestic.
I’ll leave that there.
Russia attacked civilian targets in Kharkiv with glide bombs within the past two hours:
Kharkiv’s mayor has reported that rescuers are working to get a child from beneath the rubble of a building following a Russian glide bomb attack. pic.twitter.com/QDwuij307Q
— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) October 30, 2024
Russia strikes Kharkiv’s densely populated Saltivka with a KAB glide bomb. Bloodthirsty terrorists hit a 9-story residential building in the evening, right when people were home. Rescuers are working to save those trapped under the rubble. pic.twitter.com/bbUfYtKXoL
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) October 30, 2024
Russia struck a nine-story building in Kharkiv with a guided aerial bomb.
Tragically, there are casualties, including children, and more people may still be trapped under the rubble. All necessary emergency services are on site.
Partners see what happens every day. In these… pic.twitter.com/iVLJ6x5K4R
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 30, 2024
Russia struck a nine-story building in Kharkiv with a guided aerial bomb.
Tragically, there are casualties, including children, and more people may still be trapped under the rubble. All necessary emergency services are on site.
Partners see what happens every day. In these circumstances, every delayed decision on their part means dozens or even hundreds more Russian bombs used against Ukraine. Their decisions are the lives of our people. That is why we must stop Russia together — and do so with all possible force.
More on this after the jump.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
