Biden Days IN MINNESOTA’S TWIN CITIES!

Feelings

Feelings. So many feelings lately. They can be challenging for someone with an accounting background.

Fear. I’m afraid to visit Minneapolis or St Paul due to the crime.

Embarrassment. When Vice President Kamala Harris is asked to speak before an audience.

Frustration. Why won’t they return the extra tax money the state collected?

Admiration. Watching the resistance by the Ukrainians to more powerful forces of evil.

Jealousy. Could we trade President Biden for President Zelenskyy?

Pete Marcaccini, Oakdale

“REPORTED IN THE ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS sent to us by Mark Waldeland!”

Why Is Crooked Joe Biden Playing Games ON THE PUTIN FASCIST WAR FRONT?

WSJ Columnist Zeroes in on Why the Biden Response to the Ukraine War Is a Mess

by Matt Vespa at Townhall:

Posted: Mar 17, 2022

If we’re going to do sanctions, let’s do it. Let’s take a hammer to Russia’s oil and gas. Let’s target the oligarchs that support and fund the Russian war machine. It’s time to go gung-ho against the Russians. It will hurt us too. The oil imports are going to accelerate the speed at which gas prices rise. They’ve been rising since Joe Biden took a hammer to the Keystone Pipeline in the early days of his failed presidency. We’re not going to go to war with Russia over this, though World War III is increasingly becoming the bipartisan consensus here which is frightening. Yet, if you’re wondering why the US response still seems slow and paralyzed by analysis despite a tranche of sanctions, then you’ll be shocked (not really) to find out that Biden is slow-walking something because he doesn’t want to make Europe mad. It’s Obama 2.0. Obama’s Syrian policy was like Han Solo frozen in carbonite. It laid out two things that were simply not going to happen. With Russia in the region, Bashar al-Assad was not going anywhere. Russia and Assad were buddies. So, we just dithered. Even when Assad used chemical weapons and crossed that ‘red line,’ Obama did nothing, preferring to wallow in the quicksand of multilateralism.

That’s what’s happening here. Joe needs the green light from Old Europe which is reportedly causing friction between the White House and Congress. A recent op-ed by The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel dissects the Biden approach as the world deals with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s a Potemkin village. If the narrative Biden is trying to portray is an America that is back and leading the free world on delivering the response to this Ukraine war, it’s a Potemkin village at its core. How can it be when we’re leading from 45 rows behind? As Strassel noted, on the sanctions front, the European Union has done more than we have. On preferred trading status, Biden wants Congress to hold off. Congress is ignoring Biden which could set up a showdown. Also, the sanctions on Russian oil imports don’t go into effect until late June. Why is there a months-long delay? Oh, here comes that M-word (via WSJ) [emphasis mine]:

The administration refused to impose sanctions in the lead-up to Mr. Putin’s invasion, naively trusting diplomacy. Yet even after Russian tanks rolled—and despite having months to prepare—the response has been slow, timid, hostage to feel-good “multilateralism” and unwilling to attack the real engine of the Russian economy: energy. Even the president’s own party is losing patience with his inadequate sanctions.

Consider that Treasury announcement. In late February Mr. Biden grandly announced sanctions targeting Russian banks. Yet … Treasury quietly clarified that the sanctions won’t apply to the banks’ energy transactions until June 24—meaning Wall Street can continue to trade in Russian oil and gas. “The energy sector of the Russian Federation economy itself is not subject to comprehensive sanctions,” explained Treasury’s website, a scandalous caveat the media largely ignored.

Sen. Rob Portman on Tuesday asked Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland to justify the decision to give the Russian energy sector a pass for four months. She explained that working “multilaterally” remained the top priority, so “we did agree to a phase-in” at the behest of energy-dependent “European allies.”

Mr. Biden … belatedly announced a ban on Russian oil and gas—but only because congressional Democrats and Republicans were uniting to pass legislation forcing his hand. Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi supported the ban and reportedly refused to agree to a White House demand to drop it. The Biden team scrambled to get ahead of Congress by announcing the embargo itself.

The White House has also demanded congressional Democrats stand down on a bipartisan bill that would suspend Russia’s preferential trading status with the U.S.—again, seemingly in order to discuss it to death with Europe. The good news is that lawmakers in both parties said late this week that they remain undeterred and may pass the trade restriction next week—potentially forcing Mr. Biden’s hand again.

The White House is nonetheless getting its way when it comes to blocking a Republican bill from Sen. Jim Risch that would impose real sanctions on Russia’s oil, gas, mining and mineral sectors. It targets oligarchs. It would create a lend-lease program to ensure Ukraine will continue to get necessary military resources. Crucially, it provides for “secondary sanctions” against global institutions that finance the Russian economy. As Mr. Risch notes, these secondary sanctions would “force the world’s financial institutions to make a choice between Russia and Western markets” and finally “isolate” the Russian economy.

The White House is resisting all this for the same reason it resisted the Russian oil embargo. Truly punishing sanctions against Russia’s energy sector are still anathema to Old Europe allies who want to continue importing Russian oil. The administration also fears that seriously targeting Russian energy would further drive up gasoline prices, hurting Mr. Biden domestically.

Biden is presiding over divided fronts at home and abroad in Russia. Poland was ready to deliver MiG fighters to Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said they had the green light. They don’t. Biden is putting the kibosh on that, which only adds to the ongoing narrative that this administration is a chicken with its head cut off. America looks adrift and wholly unreliable to provide the leadership necessary for this crisis. Poland’s bold announcement on the fighter jets was a secondary protocol move. They know the US under Biden is a flaky partner. We’re not doing some things because of…Europe. I get the Democrats’ incessant need to ‘not look like Bush’ but this is absurd. Europe and the Ukrainians are leading the world right now, not us. It may never be that way under this president and how his people operate. 

DEM BIDEN’S TOO IGNORANT TO UNDERSTAND TRUTH. BY HABIT, He Loves Money, So HE SWIPES UNCLE SAM’S CASH TO SUPPORT CHINA!?

Biden’s inflation nation

President needs to own up to the mess he’s created!

QUESTION OF THE DAY

What are you doing differently as a result of rising gas prices?

Question of the DayPAYING THE HIGHER PRICESSWITCHING FROM PREMIUM TO REGULARCUTTING DOWN ON DRIVINGJUST STAYING HOMEI DON’T BUY GASOLINE
View results

President Joe Biden speaks at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference, Friday, March 11, 2022, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) more >

By Editorial Board – The Washington Times – Tuesday, March 15, 2022

OPINION:

On Tuesday, the Labor Department reported prices paid to U.S. producers rose at an annual rate of 10% in February on higher costs of goods, further highlighting record-setting inflation.

It was the biggest increase in the producer price index since 2009, with energy costs accounting for two-thirds of the rise. Under the Biden administration, the Consumer Price Index surged by 7.5% compared to last year, exceeding economists’ expectations and marking the largest annual increase in 40 years.

President Biden has laughably dubbed these higher costs “the Putin price hikes.” Last month, his administration blamed COVID-19 for surging prices. Before that, it was “corporate greed.” Last summer, inflation was a good thing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declared because it meant Americans were buying more goods. In spring of 2021, the Biden administration promised us inflation was merely “transitory,” and before that, denied rising costs were happening at all.

In March of 2021, Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to former President Barack Obama, blasted Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package as the “least responsible” economic policy in 40 years. Mr. Summers warned there was chance inflation would accelerate, with the U.S. possibly facing stagflation, or economic stagnation. 

His concerns were ignored — and are still being ignored — by a White House and a Democratic Party who insist government spending does not lead to higher prices at the grocery store or at the gas pump. Mr. Biden continues to promote his Build Back Better agenda, lying that his nearly $2 trillion spending spree will “lower inflationary pressures on the economy.” On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, maintained the charade, by alleging federal spending is “reducing the national debt” and is “not inflationary.”

---

Stench King SOVIET PUTIN Seeks Cobras To Forever Sting Ukrainians!

March 14, 2022 | Fox News

Russia’s Putin looks to import Syrian mercenaries to do the ‘dirty tricks’ against Ukraine’s population

Putin launches recruitment operation of Syrian armed forces

Ben Evansky

Fox News

Benjamin Weinthal Research Fellow

As Russia’s war machine grinds into the third week of its brutal invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has launched a recruiting operation in the Syrian Arab Republic in an effort to attract reinforcements for his armed forces.

Commentators believe the announcement is in part due to Russia’s poor planning of the war, which has led to many Russian soldiers being killed.  Last week a U.S official told CBS News the number of Russian deaths could be between 5,000 and 6,000.

Putin and his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, recently declared that as many as 16,000 combatants from the Middle East will enter the Ukrainian war on the side of Russia. The promised pay, according to news reports and anti-Assad organizations, is around $3,000 per month.

“It appears that Russia has opened 14 mercenary recruitment centers in Syria in territories controlled by the regime of Bashar al-Assad (Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor),” Theodore Karasik, a fellow on Russian and Middle Eastern Affairs at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, told Fox News Digital. “After a short training, the mercenaries will be transported to Russia through the Khmeimim Air Base by two Tu-134 (up to 80 passengers) and Tu-154 (up to 180 passengers) aircraft to the Chkalovsky Air Base, Moscow region.”

Karasik added that “We need to be aware that there is an information war ongoing regarding the recruitment of fighters by multiple parties to this conflict. There is some evidence that these fighters will enter into the battle space in greater numbers in the coming weeks.” The battle space, he continued, “is being prepared for partisan warfare and taking lessons learned from Grozny and Syria are going to be important for all actors. Recruitment drives are robust and supported by state actors.”

Grozny saw intensive urban warfare conducted by Russian forces during the initial stages of the First Chechen War in 1994-95 and the Second Chechen War in 1999-2000, with some military observers claiming they are now doing the same with Ukraine.

Karasik said the recruiting effort is about applying Syrian fighters’ capacity in another theater because of the experience they acquired in the long civil war. “I think it’s a mixed picture because of the multiple groups [in Syria] and how they’ve split and come back together again,” he said. “So really, it’s about the quality of the recruits, and what we need to look at next is who are they really sending? Who is signing up for this? How do they guarantee the quality of the fighters?”

Brig. Gen. Ahmad Rahal, who resigned in protest from the Syrian military in 2012 over the policies of President Bashar Assad and joined the opposition Free Syria Army, told Fox News Digital that the Russians will use the Syrian and other mercenaries to carry out the “dirty tasks” of fighting in the cities, which will lead to more civilian deaths and it will help them avoid being blamed for the war crimes.

“The Russian army is besieging most of the Ukrainian cities, and now it is taking the appropriate fighting arrangement around the cities, and the next stage will be military operations by storming the cities, and these mercenaries coming from Syria from Assad’s army and Assad’s mercenaries will perform a large part of those tasks,” Rahal said.

He added, “As a military observer, it is clear that the Russian army had to change its military plans. At first the Russians wanted a classic war, a war of armies, and the task assigned to the Russian army was a lightning and quick operation that President Putin called a ‘special operation’ through which the Ukrainian army would be crushed and then the leadership would collapse political in the capital Kyiv, but this did not happen.”

The brigadier general noted that, “It is clear that the Ukrainian military leadership was a good reader of the military reality and the great difference between the capabilities of the Russian army and the capabilities of the Ukrainian army, so the Ukrainian leadership succeeded in dragging the Russian army into a war of resistance around cities, a guerrilla war, a war of ambushes, and later a street war if the Russian army stormed the Ukrainian cities.”

Rahal said his information about the forces coming to fight in Ukraine included the following units: the 4th Division, commanded by Assad’s brother; the Syrian army’s special forces; the republican guard; the 25th division; the Russian backed 5th Corps; and “the Palestinian Al-Quds Brigade, which is fighting with the Assad army (their nationalities are Palestinian and Syrian); and the National Defense Forces militias (Syrian mercenaries who have been fighting alongside the army since the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011).”

The Assad regime has been engulfed in war since 2011, when the Syrian dictator launched a violent crackdown on citizens seeking democracy. Russian forces intervened in 2015 to crush the revolt. The Syrian civil war has resulted in over 500,000 deaths.

Retired Col. Richard Kemp, who commanded British troops in Afghanistan, told Fox News Digital, “It’s not clear how many Syrians or other fighters from the Middle East are likely to answer Russia’s call. They will have to be paid significant amounts to volunteer to do so. There is no doubt that among them will be Islamic State jihadists who might be looking to stay in Russia or even travel on from there to Western Europe. They are likely to be disappointed if that is their aim, unless Putin is looking to help some of them infiltrate westwards.”

Kemp noted that “Middle Eastern fighters will be used to a completely different form of conflict than they will find in Ukraine. They are unlikely to be a match for well-armed and organized Ukrainian forces, but Putin will be happy to throw them away as cannon fodder.”

Rahal concluded with this warning: “As a Syrian general, I refuse to push the Syrians into that war that Putin declared against the peaceful people of Ukraine. Putin wants to achieve political and personal goals at the expense of the Ukrainian people, and this is what Putin did before here in Syria.”

Ben Evansky reports for Fox News on the United Nations and international affairs. Benjamin Weinthal is a research fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @BenWeinthal. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Americans May Discover Their Outdoors Again!

March 17, 2022

Food Shortages Soon Come – What To Do?

By Anony Mee at American Thinker:

A concatenation of events is dropping on us like an imploding building and there’s not much we can do to stop it. However, we can mitigate some of the potential damage through our individual efforts and need to get started now.

But first, one bit of good news. H. Douglas Lightfoot and Gerald Ratzer have published a paper, “The Sun Versus CO2 as the Cause of Climate Change Projected to 2050,” that thrashes the IPCC’s global warming model.

However, the paper also kicks off this food shortage discussion. The authors say the earth “is now in the early stages of cooling that might be similar to the Dalton Minimum and last for three or four decades. Average temperatures can drop by up to 1.5 degrees C and increase the rate of crop failures that have already started. It won’t be easy to maintain the benefits of the recent warm phase of the Sun during the upcoming solar minimum.” That’s 2.7 degrees F, and significant.

Lightfoot and Ratzer confirm that we’ve already entered the Modern Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) and that negative impacts on crops are already occurring. We’ve seen harvest shortfalls in a variety of crops around the world over the past couple of seasons. Coupled with these shortfalls, a few countries have limited or halted exports of staple products, mostly grains and legumes.

For two years and continuing until today, there have been interruptions in commodities for sale. A number of factors contribute to this stuttering availability of commercial goods. Labor shortages in picking, packing, processing, and transportation led to gaps on some grocery shelves. Delayed imports of raw materials for canning, bottling, and bagging due to shutdowns in countries of origin will likely continue, especially now that China is locking down whole cities again.

Because of recent crop failures and lackluster harvests, many regional grocery warehouses, which usually have about 18 months’ worth of packaged and frozen food in stock, are practically empty according to a friend whose family owns a large chain of stores. Low stocks of livestock feed and hay due to drought are reducing meat, poultry, milk, and egg production in some areas.

Monica Showalter’s excellent article the other day—Biden is about to get caught flat-footed on another crisis: Ukraine war–generated global food shortages— examines the impact that Russia’s war on Ukraine is having and is expected to have on global grain and fertilizer availability, as well as food production.

Besides the drought hitting the mid-plains and potentially causing the abandonment of this year’s winter wheat (that’s for flour) crop, the La Niña system is expected to bring above-average rains to the eastern and southeastern parts of the US, potentially delaying planting and harvest. If California continues to value a practically nonexistent smelt over its people, there will be little water for the Sacramento-area rice farmers. They’ve already pulled down avocado and almond orchards due to restricted water allocations elsewhere in the state.

Farmers are being hit hard by shortages and skyrocketing inflation, just like the rest of us. Anhydrous ammonia, used to fertilize most grain and many row crops, has had a massive jump in price from $487 per ton in 2020, to $746 in 2021, to a record-breaking $1,492 per ton the first week of February this year. Demand for fertilizer is expected to grow, but high prices in Europe for natural gas (from which the fertilizer is made) caused a slowdown in manufacturing last winter.

Agriculture production runs on a very tight margin, with producers taking all the risk for seed, livestock, machinery, and labor, along with weather, with no guarantee of success or profit at the end of the year. Some farmers and ranchers, faced with such increased costs, as well as insupportable costs for fuel and repair parts to run farm machinery, are looking elsewhere.

“The whole article is just a nonsensical as you think….”

MARCH 16, 2022 BY STEVEN HAYWARD at Power Line:

TODAY IN WOKERY: WHITEBOARDS AND “WHITENESS” IN PHYSICS

Just when you think wokery can’t get any more stupid, you come across an online journal called Physical Review Physical Education Research (PRPER). It is somehow affiliated with the American Physical Society, supposedly a serious scientific organization. The website describes PRPER as “a fully open access journal that is sponsored jointly by APS, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the APS Forum on Education, and the APS Group on Physics Education Research.”

You have to wonder about about APR when you find this most recent offering from PRPER:

Observing whiteness in introductory physics: A case study

Amy D. Robertson and W. Tali Hairston

Abstract

Within whiteness, the organization of social life is in terms of a center and margins that are based on dominance, control, and a transcendent figure that is consistently and structurally ascribed value over and above other figures. In this paper, we synthesize literature from Critical Whiteness Studies and Critical Race Theory to articulate analytic markers for whiteness, and use the markers to identify and analyze whiteness as it shows up in an introductory physics classroom interaction. We name mechanisms that facilitate the reproduction of whiteness in this local context, including a particular representation of energy, physics values, whiteboards, gendered social norms, and the structure of schooling. In naming whiteness and offering a set of analytic markers, our aim is to provide instructors and researchers with a tool for identifying whiteness in their own contexts. Alongside our discussion, which imagines new possibilities for physics teaching and learning, we hope our work contributes to Critical Whiteness Studies’ goal of dismantling whiteness.

Yes, the whole article is just a nonsensical as you think, and thus entirely typical of radical “scholarship” in the academic identity politics hothouses today. But this one is especially absurd because of its focus on . . . whiteboards. Don’t believe me? From the complete article:

Paired with other mechanisms of control (like the use of whiteboards and the structure of schooling), it organizes activity around itself, makes it possible for a single person to maintain control (and makes natural ways to keep others from gaining control), centralizes the credit in the person with the most access to it, and suggests discursive frames that make this seem normal (he understands it, he was the closest to it). . .

Entangled with the above is the use of whiteboards as a primary pedagogical tool. Though whiteboards have been shown to have a number of affordances when they are used as a collaborative tool that all members have access to, in this episode, they also play a role in reconstituting whiteness as social organization. In particular, whiteboards display written information for public consumption; they draw attention to themselves and in this case support the centering of an abstract representation and the person standing next to it, presenting. They collaborate with white organizational culture, where ideas and experiences gain value (become more central) when written down.

Somehow I think the authors are missing the potential to argue that blackboards represent racist exploitation or something.

It turns out if you read a little further on the PRPER website you discover that it is a “pay-to-play” journal. In other words, it is a vanity press for mediocre academics:

PRPER authors pay an article publication charge (APC) (current APS APCs) to make accepted manuscripts available under a CC-BY (4.0 International) license. In keeping with APS’s community orientation, this is the most permissive license available and permits anyone to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work with proper attribution.

If you click through to the fee schedule, it suggests the authors—or their institution (Seattle Pacific University)—paid $2,100 to publish this article.

This explains how such a ridiculous article could see “publication,” since no self-respecting academic journal—even a leftist one—would ever publish something this bad. One wonders how the APS allowed themselves to conned into allowing this journal to claim an affiliation with them.

“Cannon-Grant was reportedly arrested at her spacious new home last week”. ….Modern America in action?…

BLM Activist and Hubby Face Federal Fraud Charges After Using Nonprofit Donations on Lavish Lifestyle

By Debra Heine at American Greatness:

March 16, 2022

A Boston-based BLM activist and her husband are accused of bilking taxpayers and liberal donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to use on vacations, restaurants, and trips to the nail salon.

The pair reportedly went on the spending spree using unemployment benefits, and donation funds of the non-profit organization “Violence in Boston.”

Media darling Monica Cannon-Grant, 41, and her husband, Clark Grant, 38, of Taunton, Massachusetts, “were charged in an 18-count indictment with wire fraud, conspiracy, and making false statements to a mortgage lending business,” the Daily Mail reported. Cannon-Grant is also accused of mail fraud.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0Zndfc2tlbGV0b25fbG9hZGluZ18xMzM5OCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJjdGEiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19ob3Jpem9uX3R3ZWV0X2VtYmVkXzk1NTUiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaHRlIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190b3BpY19waXZvdHNfZW1iZWRfMTM1NDUiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoidG9waWNfcGl2b3QiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjo0fSwidGZ3X2V4cGVyaW1lbnRzX2Nvb2tpZV9leHBpcmF0aW9uIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6MTIwOTYwMCwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1504099829005303811&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Famgreatness.com%2F2022%2F03%2F16%2Fblm-activist-and-hubby-face-federal-fraud-charges-after-using-nonprofit-donations-on-lavish-lifestyle%2F&sessionId=39173e985cd5b6af957130fcb7fac006136501d9&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2582c61%3A1645036219416&width=500px

The activist is the founder and CEO of Violence in Boston, which was founded in 2017. The nonprofit saw a surge in donations after lifelong criminal George Floyd was killed in police custody in Minnesota three years later.

Cannon-Grant was reportedly arrested at her spacious new home last week. She and her husband appeared in a federal court on Monday. Judge Judith Dein released the activist on her own recognizance, and allowed her to continue working for Violence in Boston with the caveat that she not be involved in its finances

The couple used the money to pay for “personal expenses including, hotels, car rentals, auto repairs, restaurant meals, nail salons and personal travel,” according to the indictment.

She is accused of spending much of the $1 million raised by her nonprofit Violence in Boston on herself. The nonprofit’s mission is to “improve the quality of life and life outcomes of individuals from underserved communities,” its website states.

Her salary jumped from $25,000 in 2020 to $170,000 in 2021, the Daily Mail reported. Flush with cash, she bought a $450,000 five-bed house in Taunton, Massachusetts, last year.

Cannon-Grant and her husband are said to have misappropriated grants intended for their charity, including a $6,000 check given to them by Suffolk District Attorney’s office in June 2019, intended to be spent on a retreat for young men feared to be at risk of falling into crime.

Instead, Cannon-Grant and Grant treated themselves to meals at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Shake Shack, and a three-night trip to Maryland that included a $1,200 hotel stay, it is claimed.

Cannon-Grant is also said to have used some of the cash on multiple trips to a Boston nail salon, as well as car rentals, groceries and trips to Walmart.

The $6,000 retreat was supposed ‘to give these young men exposure to communities outside of the violence riddled neighborhoods that they navigate daily’ and give them exposure to activities focused on community-building and coping techniques,’ according to her grant proposal.

Another alleged incident in 2017 saw $3,000 of a $10,000 donation for needy children spent on paying the couple’s rent arrears, it is claimed.

Cannon-Grant and her husband also fraudulently applied for $100,000 federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits that they knew they were not eligible to receive because they had other sources of income at the time, it is alleged.

They also lied to a mortgage lender by saying Violence in Boston’s assets were their own to help pay for mortgage fees and closing costs, prosecutors said.

Cannon-Grant has denied all the allegations.

The vile race hustler was named a Bostonian of the Year by the Boston Globe, and Best Social Justice Advocate by Boston Magazine in 2020. She was given the Summer Urban Program (SUP) award in 2021 for “working tirelessly for the Boston community.” And the Boston Celtics lauded her on Twitter for “spearheading initiatives to prevent violence.”

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0Zndfc2tlbGV0b25fbG9hZGluZ18xMzM5OCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJjdGEiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19ob3Jpem9uX3R3ZWV0X2VtYmVkXzk1NTUiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaHRlIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190b3BpY19waXZvdHNfZW1iZWRfMTM1NDUiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoidG9waWNfcGl2b3QiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjo0fSwidGZ3X2V4cGVyaW1lbnRzX2Nvb2tpZV9leHBpcmF0aW9uIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6MTIwOTYwMCwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1277693748152094720&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Famgreatness.com%2F2022%2F03%2F16%2Fblm-activist-and-hubby-face-federal-fraud-charges-after-using-nonprofit-donations-on-lavish-lifestyle%2F&sessionId=39173e985cd5b6af957130fcb7fac006136501d9&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2582c61%3A1645036219416&width=500px

Black Lives Matter has also faced intense criticism and ridicule over its lack of financial transparency.

BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors stepped down as executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network last year, after she was caught spending $26,000 on “meetings” at a luxurious beachside resort in Malibu, California, and approximately $3 million on four different luxury homes across the country.

Is There Trouble IN “CHINA CITY”?

Xi Jinping is in trouble

JUDE BLANCHETTE Mar 16, 2022 at HotAir:

Regardless of whether Beijing had advance warning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s decision to issue a statement last month outlining a “no limits” partnership with Moscow was arguably the single biggest foreign policy blunder of his nearly ten years in power. Russian President Vladimir Putin will receive the overwhelming share of the blowback for his unprovoked assault on Ukraine, but Xi’s public declaration, coupled with Beijing’s continued diplomatic support for Moscow, has undermined China’s reputation and provoked renewed concerns over its global ambitions. Indeed, the intensifying war in Ukraine has already prompted calls for Taiwan to improve its defense capabilities and has given security partnerships such as NATO, the Quad, and AUKUS a renewed sense of purpose.

Xi’s ill-advised support for Moscow on the eve of Russia’s disastrous military campaign is not his first major foreign policy misstep. His decision to retaliate against EU officials last March in response to sanctions over human rights abuses in Xinjiang cost Beijing a long-coveted investment deal with Europe. His threats toward Taiwan are driving Washington and Taipei closer together and forcing other regional powers, such as Australia and Japan, to declare their own compelling interest in Taiwan’s security. And the Chinese military’s 2020 clash with the Indian army in the Galwan Valley galvanized hard-line opinion in New Delhi. These mounting failures highlight an increasingly evident trend: the more powerful Xi becomes and the more direct authority he exerts over Beijing’s foreign policy, the more adverse the outcomes are for China’s long-term strategic interests. After decades of relatively nimble and effective maneuvering by the post-Mao leadership, Xi has wrenched foreign policy in a new direction—one defined by a greater tolerance for friction with the United States, Europe, and neighboring powers and characterized by little internal debate or external input. What is taking shape is less China’s foreign policy than Xi’s.

“Former President Donald Trump Said”…

Trump: I thought Putin was negotiating over Ukraine

JAZZ SHAW Mar 16, 2022

 Share  Tweet  

AP Photo/John Raoux

On Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump gave an interview to the Washington Examiner, much of which was focused on the current situation in Ukraine and the erratic behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Over the course of the interview, Trump avowed that the accusations of him being soft on Putin were “a bad rap.” He sought to remind people that he had imposed some of the largest sanctions on Putin that had ever been put in place. (Before the current time, of course.) He also noted that he had closed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and it was Joe Biden who opened up development on the project after taking office. (Germany has since shut it down entirely.) But one of the more interesting parts of the interview revealed Trump’s admission that he had misread Putin in the days leading up to the invasion. He believed that Putin was just engaging in some hardball negotiations and wouldn’t actually move into the country. And he admitted he felt “surprised” when it happened.

Former President Donald Trump said in an interview that he is “surprised” Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine and further cracked down on freedom inside Russia, explaining that he believed the strongman’s threats were a negotiating tactic.

“I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,” Trump told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday evening during a wide-ranging telephone interview from Mar-a-Lago, his private social club and political headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida. “I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.”

“I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,” Trump added. “And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”

As far as the accusations coming from both sides of the aisle that Trump was too chummy with Putin, he cast those aside as well. He said that he was tough on Putin (again citing the sanctions) but that he “got along with him,” just as he did with most foreign leaders.

Trump seems to be giving an honest assessment here. If he was “surprised” when Putin went ahead with the invasion, he was hardly alone. I’ve noted here previously that Putin kept many of us guessing right up until he crossed the border. Biden turned out to be correct in the end, having said all along that the intelligence indicated the invasion was imminent. But Trump has been out of office for a while now and he doesn’t get daily intelligence briefings anymore.

So why would he have assumed Putin’s troop buildup was part of a negotiating tactic? Well, we’re talking about the guy who wrote The Art of the Deal. Sometimes we all share a tendency to project our own impulses onto others. I’m guessing that a lifelong negotiator would look at Putin’s actions in that light. And if Russia had somehow had most of their demands met, it might have turned out to be nothing more than that.

The other interesting comment from the interview that caught my attention was Trump’s observation that Putin has “very much changed.” It’s not the first time we’ve heard this theory. Others have speculated that Putin may have lost some of his grasp on reality over the course of his pandemic isolation. And Trump spent a lot of time talking to and dealing with Putin over his four years in office. He’s probably in a good position to judge a dramatic shift in Vladimir Putin’s actions. And that’s a frightening proposition for the entire world. Russia has a lot of nukes but Putin used to be enough of a tactician to know he couldn’t risk a first strike. I’m not quite so sure that’s true anymore.

So will Donald Trump be looking to get his old office back in 2024? He’s still not saying definitely one way or the other. But if he does, that’s one thing I won’t find myself being “surprised” over. He seems to miss the job.

Congress’ Miss Loony Tunes OF THE PAST TWENTY YEARS!

 MARCH 16, 2022 BY STEVEN HAYWARD at Power Line:

DEEP THOUGHTS FROM THE SPEAKER

I have a new theory about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She is self-consciously trying to help out hapless Veep Kamala by comparison. If you set the bar low enough. . .  How else to explain yesterday’s rambling comments about Ukraine (only 1:48 long, but it seems luch longer):

And who can forget this weird Nancy moment in Biden’s State of the Union address: