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Saturday, June 04, 2022

4: Abortion, Ukraine, Inflation

Wonking Out: How Low Must Inflation Go? , the politics of inflation are dominated by concerns about gasoline and food prices — precisely the prices over which policymakers in general, and the president in particular, have the least influence. ...... underlying inflation is running at something like 3.5 to 4 percent. ........ By 1984, and for the rest of the 1980s, the Fed felt comfortable about inflation because it was running at around only 4 percent .....

during Ronald Reagan’s second term, America’s underlying inflation rate was roughly what it is now

........ in 2010 Olivier Blanchard, then the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, made the case for an inflation target as high as 4 percent. I made similar arguments to the European Central Bank a bit later. ........ right now we face a different question: How much are we prepared to pay to get back to 2 percent? ........ if the Fed were to apply the standards that prevailed in the 1980s, it would consider the current rate of inflation acceptable and declare victory. Instead, it’s putting a squeeze on credit markets and risking at least a mild recession to get us down to 2 percent from 4 percent. Why? It’s not because there’s a compelling economic case. ......... They fear that if they ease off at, say, 3 percent inflation, markets and the public will wonder whether they will eventually accept 4 percent, then 5 percent and so on. ...... What we’re seeing instead is monetary policy driven by softer, vaguer concerns about credibility. We live in peculiar times.

I Created the F.B.I.’s Active Shooter Program. The Officers in Uvalde Did Not Follow Their Training. Last Monday, the F.B.I. designated 61 shootings in 2021 as active shooter attacks, up from 40 in 2020 and 30 in 2019. We aren’t preventing the shootings ..........

the 78 minutes that the police in Uvalde waited before confronting the gunman at Robb Elementary

........... In the first few years after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, the F.B.I. spent more than $30 million to send agents to police departments around the country. The goal was to train local officers how to handle active shooters so they would know how to go after a shooter with confidence and neutralize the threat. ......... In the past two years, the Uvalde school district has hosted at least two active shooter trainings .......... Current protocol and best practices say officers must persistently pursue efforts to neutralize a shooter when a shooting is underway. This is true even if only one officer is present. This is without question the right approach. .......... We need to understand why that protocol was not followed in Uvalde. ........ Last year, active shooters killed 103 people and injured 140 others in 30 states. Five of those attacks were in Texas. Most of our more than 800,000 law enforcement officers in the United States are in small departments. ......... After Sandy Hook the federal government adopted the run, hide, fight model, which instructs students and teachers to run first if they can, then hide if they must and, finally, fight to survive.



The Coming Rage of the Money Hawks

Inflation in the United States has probably peaked.

......... there is a substantial group of economic commentators who always believe the Fed is printing too much money. They believed this during the depths of the Great Depression; they believed this in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.

No One Can Hide From This Weapon in the War in Ukraine All wars have their iconic weapons, from the AK-47 to the I.E.D. In Ukraine, it’s the drone. ........ Drone operators are the new snipers, even though they are often miles from the battlefield. ........ the video, which was shared on Twitter late last month by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian government. ......... In Ukraine, drones have brought international audiences right up to the front lines, documenting the destruction of cities and capturing footage of attacks against Russian ships and tanks, men and matériel. This mix of off-the-shelf drones and their larger military-grade brethren has experts watching the conflict closely and pondering what it means for future wars. .......... In Ukraine, winning and holding international support is as critical to the war effort as battlefield victories, which makes information operations vital. “These machines — in conjunction with social media and the internet — give a virtual panopticon of the conflict” ........... Drones are attractive to armies because they deliver one of the most costly and complex aspects of warfare — aerial operations — on the cheap. ........ Unmanned aerial vehicles have been used in Ukraine to surveil enemy troops and attack them with small explosives or in kamikaze attacks. They’ve been used to document the vast destruction that Russian artillery has inflicted on cities like Mariupol. They’ve captured what is said to be the execution of civilians. A drone may have been used to distract the Russian flagship Moskva while two missiles screamed in to sink it. ............. A wide range of drones has helped the Ukrainian Army punch above its weight on the battlefield, and the footage of attacks against ships and troops, tanks and helicopters has given Ukraine an easily shareable stream of videos for the global information war. ............... Drones carry their own moral hazards ....... “What a video surveillance can reveal is that a target was hit or not hit,” Dr. Kaag said. “What it can never reveal is the legitimacy of that particular target.” ............. drone operators are also vulnerable to the moral injury and post-traumatic stress that can affect troops on the ground. ............. It’s easy to cheer the destruction of yet another Russian tank and forget that the crew members being incinerated in the dramatic explosion are someone’s sons, possibly conscripted into a conflict beyond their control. ............... Misinformation is its own currency in war. .......... for a short time, the United States was essentially the world’s lone drone superpower. ........... rebels in Yemen launching attacks against Saudi infrastructure. ....... the clash between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, where Azerbaijani drones destroyed hundreds of Armenian tanks, munitions and armored vehicles. ......... a crowdfunding campaign by the Ukrainian government that solicited donations of commercial drones and sought people with skills to fly them. ........ Drone warfare is pushing human pilots to the side. Some next-generation military drones rely on artificial intelligence to circle over an area, pick out enemy units and destroy them. In the coming years, drone technology will improve, and the cost of drones will decline. As they do,

the frightening truth is that troops and civilians in future conflicts will find fewer and fewer places to hide from the gaze of both man and machine

.



MATH 101: How to Get Better Introductions The best way to get that introduction? The forwardable email.





What Roe Did The question of abortion rights will re-enter the realm of electoral politics in a way it hasn’t for 50 years. ...... she argues for a “dignitarian feminism.” Bachiochi embraces women’s gains in professional and civic life but holds that techno-pharmacological birth control, the sexual revolution and the legalization of abortion have created a sexual and family culture that has ultimately been devastating to women’s well-being. ........ the post-Roe playbook for some Republicans: tighter abortion restrictions combined with a robust slate of family policies — some of which would be even bolder than the Biden administration’s proposals to date. ......... why the “gender revolution” has stalled; her belief that market logic has come to dominate our understandings of family, parenting, sex and feminism; her critique of modern “hookup” culture; and her pro-family economic agenda ........ whether it’s realistic to encourage the use of natural fertility regulation over hormonal contraception, how abortion relates to single motherhood and poverty, whether stricter abortion laws might benefit or hurt poor women, what role the law should play in teaching moral behavior, whether progressives have become too “Lockean” in their understanding of bodily autonomy, whether the sexual revolution gave people too much choice

6 Takeaways About Haiti’s Reparations to France How did the modern world’s most successful slave revolt give birth to a desperately poor nation? ......... A failed state. An aid trap. A land seemingly cursed by nature and human nature alike. When the world looks at Haiti, one of the poorest nations on the planet, sympathy for its endless suffering is often overshadowed by scolding and sermonizing about corruption and mismanagement. ........

Haitians overthrew their notoriously brutal French slave masters and declared independence in 1804 — the modern world’s first nation born of a slave revolt.

......... two decades later, when French warships returned to a people who had paid for their freedom with blood, issuing an ultimatum: Pay again, in staggering amounts of cold hard cash, or prepare for war. .......... For generations, the descendants of enslaved people paid the descendants of their former slave masters, with money that could have been used to build schools, roads, clinics or a vibrant economy. ...........

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Heard, Depp

OPEC Plus agrees to a bigger increase in oil supply. But prices keep rising.
The Amber Heard Verdict Was a Travesty. Others Will Follow. The confounding part isn’t that the jury sided with him over her; this is the country that elected Donald Trump, where the convicted domestic abuser Chris Brown is still a major pop star, and where a man in Indiana recently won a local Republican primary while in jail awaiting trial on charges of murdering his wife. The explosion of defiant, desperate feminist energy that was #MeToo has now been smothered by an even fiercer reaction. #MeToo was a movement of women telling their stories. Now that Heard has been destroyed for identifying as a survivor, other women will think twice. ........ After the verdict was announced, the official Twitter account of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee tweeted out a GIF of Depp as the pirate Jack Sparrow, looking dashing and determined. If there’s one thing they hate more than decadent Hollywood elites, it’s mouthy women. ........ Depp’s friend Marilyn Manson is already suing the actress Evan Rachel Wood, one of a number of women who have alleged sadistic abuse at his hands. He won’t be the last. ........ One of the statements in her Washington Post essay that was deemed defamatory was, “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” The trial that she lost proved her point.



When Elon Musk Dreams, His Employees Have Nightmares with Twitter’s stock falling well below his offer price, Mr. Musk appears to be reneging on a deal that has made even Wall Street grow skeptical. ........ The way that he has managed and marketed his businesses from Tesla’s early days reveals a dysfunction behind the automaker’s veneer of technofuturism and past stock market successes.

Often announcing new features without consultation with his team, he forces his employees to bridge the enormous gap between technological reality and his dreams. This disconnect fosters a negligent and sometimes cruel workplace, to disastrous effect.

......... His ability to repeatedly sell such science fiction fantasies to a credulous public is the foundation for a vast empire and fortune. ......... His presence brought no real manufacturing expertise to bear, just the overbearing pressure of a boss whose public shaming was punctuated by declarations like “I can be on my own private island with naked supermodels, drinking mai tais — but I’m not.” .......... the trauma of working for Mr. Musk. Surviving 10 years of the grind at Tesla is a rare achievement, and it is common for talent to be squeezed dry or pushed out before the end of the company’s four-year stock vesting period. .......... This grim environment is all the more pronounced for women and racial minorities. ......... Black workers were tasked with menial physical labor in parts of the factory nicknamed “the plantation,” where they were subjected to racist slurs and graffiti. Female workers have sued, alleging a pervasive culture of sexual harassment and groping by supervisors. Mr. Musk was indifferent, emailing workers who experienced abuse that “it is important to be thick-skinned.” .......... Mr. Musk’s interest lies in supervising entrepreneurial projects that result in flashy new components. In more prosaic areas of the business like manufacturing, service and sales, he tends to get involved only in order to put out the fires that regularly threaten the company’s immediate future .......... When the success of the company is tied to one man’s whims, you get bizarre phenomena like managers deciding whether or not to take issues to Mr. Musk based on the shade of blond of his wife’s hair that day (with platinum shades being correlated with better moods). ......... After the collapses of Theranos and WeWork — companies with similarly confident founders who insisted that they would achieve their soaring ambitions if given more time and money — Mr. Musk’s reliance on hype is especially jarring. ........ Tesla does make cars, and SpaceX does land rockets. But as a number of old promises like fully self-driving cars appear to be more aspirational and less plausible, the distinction between him and those fallen heroes is starting to lose its meaning. His long list of unfulfilled commitments — a fully solar-powered electric vehicle charging network, a fully automated manufacturing system, an autonomous minibus and even a rocket-powered flying car — wildly exceed his achievements. ......... Ultimately Mr. Musk’s goals for Twitter, as they are for Tesla, are not about making the right decisions for his companies or the people who make them possible. They are about playing to the crowd and burnishing the legend that keeps fresh bodies and minds moving through the businesses that chew them up and spit them out. Now if Twitter falls into his control, Mr. Musk will have seized the means of making the product he has always cared about most: his own myth making........ that he was going to vote Republican since Democrats who were “(mostly) the kindness party” are now the party of “division & hate.” That was preceded by a more paranoid one that posited that “political attacks on me will escalate dramatically in coming months” and another saying that the “dirty tricks attacks will be next-level,” leaving out the pertinent fact that next-level is, in fact, a G.O.P. specialty.

Elon Musk, Chaos Monkey “The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress,” he tweeted. “Don’t think people want to hear about the last two.” ....... His ability to articulate the emotional challenges of high-level innovation is why it’s always been so interesting to interview Musk. ......... Musk, through Tesla, has single-handedly pushed the electric vehicle sector into the mainstream and, with SpaceX, has moved space tech into a new age with reusable rockets. .......... Many top entrepreneurs genuinely respect Musk’s tech chops. ....... Twitter has dropped by about 25 percent since he reached agreement on a deal ....... Tesla shares undergirding the acquisition have hit the skids amid the deal talks, falling to nearly $700 this week from about $1,000 when Twitter accepted Musk's offer.

I Thought Putin Invaded Only Ukraine. I Was Wrong.
Live Updates: As War Rages Into Its 100th Day, Russia Now Controls a Fifth of Ukraine
‘The Elon That We’re Seeing Today Is Not the Same One We Saw a Couple Years Ago’
African Union Head Has Plea for Putin: Release Ukraine’s Grain.
Gov. Greg Abbott Has a Lot of Nerve
Billionaire Candidates and Their Wild Promises
The Actual Malice of the Johnny Depp Trial In this post-#MeToo moment, misogyny and celebrity go hand in hand.
Is It Better to Cook With Coconut Oil or Olive Oil?
The Ascension of Cauliflower Food companies are capitalizing on the low-carb, gluten-free trend by using vegetables like cauliflower to replace flour, rice and other simple carbs.
The Good News in Georgia That’s Bad News for Trump
How Jack Welch Revolutionized the American Economy David Gelles’s “The Man Who Broke Capitalism” examines the impact of one of the country’s most powerful chief executives.
Biden to Travel to Saudi Arabia, Ending Its ‘Pariah’ Status As a candidate, President Biden vowed to punish the kingdom for the brutal assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. But now he wants to rebuild relations as he seeks to lower gas prices and isolate Russia.
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Elon Musk's Irresponsible Economy Comment: "Super Bad Feeling"

Elon Musk started believing his own hpye, the image created by him and his rabid fans on Twitter, an echo chamber that just might mirror Putin's TV shows across Russia. Capitalism can be its own autocracy. I am on record for being for a wealth tax.

Musk's Twitter move would have been good if his motive were right, but now we know it wasn't.

Should Elon Musk Be Owning All Of Twitter?
Musk's 44 Billion Dollar Give To Foolish Fascism

Maybe he should hang out with Peter Thiel less often. He might end up leaning less right. Stop texting.

Musk's "super bad feeling" about the economy is him trying to blame the market for the tumbling shares of both Tesla and Twitter. There seems to be nowhere to go but down. Musk fears the Tesla shares might go further down, with the Twitter deal albatross around his neck, and so he is trying to prepare the market. I don't think it is going to work.

I am neither bullish nor bearish on the economy. On those matters I let Paul Krugman talk.

From: Paramendra Kumar Bhagat
Date: Tue, May 31, 2022 at 9:11 AM
Subject: Paul, you are my favorite part of the New York Times, my favorite newspaper
To: krugman-newsletter@nytimes.com

Hello Paul. I was just reading this https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/opinion/inflation-prices-stagflation.html and for the first time, I noticed this email address at the bottom and figured, hey why not write to him? I could help balance out the hate mail he gets. It could not hurt!

The only thing I disagree with you on is Bitcoin. It is exotic to me how you are missing out. This is like missing out on the Internet in 1995. My thoughts on Bitcoin are here: www.paramendra.xyz It would be a coup for me if I could "convert" you. Bitcoin is biblical. The Age Of Abundance that has been promised in the scriptures is upon us. Bitcoin is the best thing to come out of the 2008 crisis.

Your arguments tend to be so lucid, I am often tempted into thinking, if only Marjorie Taylor Greene could subscribe to this newsletter, American politics would see a tectonic shift for the better. :) But we both know that is not in the cards. The mental blocks are real. It is not your writing that is lacking.

I wish NYT also featured a right-wing Paul to balance things out, the column clearly labeled right-wing, something like A Voice From The Right. You succeed so fully in your writings, sometimes you make me feel like I am in an echo chamber. :)

I was a fan of your column before you won the Nobel. You are the only NYT columnist who shows in my email. If I see your column anywhere, I read it.

In fact, my respect for the Nobel people went up after you won. Even a columnist can win the Prize. How Ivory Tower can it be?

NYT should emphasize the psychology of some of the right-wing phenomena. But then it does. Only last week I read the transcript of the Ezra Klein Show. The guest argued people are lonely. And then they fall for all that hate.

Sangham Sharanam Gachhami. (I go to the community.) As the Buddhists say. "Whenever two or more of you gather in my name, there I will be." That is a promise in the Bible. One-third of Americans live alone. That is blasphemous.

I subscribe to the NYT online for $1 a week. Probably the best bargain I ever got. Except for when there was no paywall. :) Come to think of it, crypto can solve the paywall problem. Super micropayments are the way.

What I admire most about you is your earnest desire to reach out to ordinary people with your complex topics explained as simply and clearly as possible. I wonder how many rewrites that might take.

Check me out on Mirror https://mirror.xyz/0x065e533120b87e5b4F5bfBF0802EB6428c237487 and see if you don't want to start creating Writing NFTs yourself. When you mint your first Writing NFT, you are converted. And I will take a victory lap. :)

Have a good day.

--
www.paramendra.xyz
www.paramendra.com



Before he makes his off the cuff science fiction announcements, perhaps Elon Musk should hold a convo with his top engineers.



With his Twitter antics Musk has managed to kill two birds with one stone. Both Tesla and Twitter seem to be going down.



Musk had been giving the impression there was a time not long ago when he was hanging on to the Tesla rocketship barely by the fingernails. And now he is saying he can walk and chew gum at the same time? Already people thought he spent all day on Twitter. And then he threatened to buy Twitter and become CEO. Tesla also had been facing some bad news of its own.



Elon. Renounce Trump. Repent. There are plenty of Republicans to choose from. Well, maybe not that plenty. But still, you get my point. Trump is fascist. Look at January 6.

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Tuesday, May 31, 2022

News Flash: Barack Obama Follows Me On Twitter

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Monday, May 30, 2022

Putin's War On Ukraine Is A War On The World

Putin's nuclear threats are a threat on cities like Moscow. There is a need for a global initiative to impose a no first use policy on all nuclear powers. Coddling Putin will not get us there. Making nucleat threats has to be outlawed. Putin is an outlaw.

The nuclear threat might or might not be. But the threat on food security is already in plain sight. This is Putin's doing. This world hunger is on Putin.



White People Fearful of Being ‘Replaced’ I would encourage Tucker Carlson at Fox News to invite a dozen or so chiefs from what remain of our Native American tribes to discuss what they think about the “great replacement” in America. ........ Many whites feel inordinately entitled and feel threatened by nonwhites. Republican leaders need to step up to the task of calling out their constituents and colleagues on “replacement theory.” Call it what it is: racism, antisemitism, prejudice, ignorance. ....... “The one thing America makes best is more Americans.”

Putin’s World Order Would Be Devastating for Africa Moscow is already deeply involved in destabilizing wars. ....... On March 2, member states of the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution that strongly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The resolution, which was supported by 141 member states, affirmed that “any attempt aimed at the … disruption of the territorial integrity of a State … or at its political independence is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.” The resolution was an affirmation of the legal guardrails and norms that have guided international relations since the conclusion of World War II and the ratification of the United Nations Charter in 1945. ............. 17 African countries abstained, with another eight choosing to not participate. One country even voted against the resolution, Eritrea, a totalitarian dictatorship. ....... Putin is attempting to undermine the global order that has guided international relations for the better part of the last century. Building on Russia’s previous annexation of Crimea and parts of northern Georgia as well as its prior occupation of Ukraine’s Donbas region, Putin is taking a sledgehammer to the foundation of the once stable post-World War II order. ........... At stake are established notions of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the independence of member states, which suddenly become more temporal, arbitrary, and open to violent contestation. ...... Kenya’s permanent representative to the United Nations: ambassador Martin Kimani, who warned Putin and the Russian military to respect its border with Ukraine, using Africa’s own colonial past to highlight the dangers of stoking the “embers of dead empires.” ........... There are currently some 100 contested borders on the continent, most of them stemming from arbitrarily drawn colonial boundaries. ........ Established during the postcolonial independence period, many African states were born out of a commitment to self-determination. Ironically, this is the central issue being contested today by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ......... If the lesson from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is that might makes right, then Africa’s political geography could be perpetually in dispute. In other words, if the overlapping security guarantees provided by both the U.N. and AU charters can be violated with impunity, then what is to stop African leaders who envy Putin’s aggressive brand of authoritarianism from following suit? ............. Already, we see this happening in some parts of Africa. The volatile African Great Lakes region stands out for the fragility of its borders. The eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, has become a target for exploitation by authoritarian leaders in neighboring Rwanda and Uganda. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, officially in power since 2000, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986, have routinely marched their troops and proxies as well as directed their allied rebel groups to seize Congolese territory, loot natural resources, and kill citizens with alarming impunity. ......... Disregarding borders is particularly precarious in the Great Lakes region because it carries with it the potential to reignite one of the most cataclysmic conflicts in recent history. ........... Moscow has played a destabilizing role in Africa. Recent years have illuminated a “new scramble for Africa” as external actors seek to aggressively plant their politics, governance, and economic flags across the continent. Russia has been at the forefront of this predatory behavior by repeatedly propping up isolated and authoritarian leaders—most notably in Libya, Central African Republic, Mali, and Sudan—to advance Moscow’s patently anti-democratic influence. ............. Through the deployment of shadowy and unaccountable mercenary groups, polarizing disinformation campaigns, election interference, and arms-for-resource deals, Russia has gained influence while fostering instability and the increased human rights abuses that ultimately result from it. ............. Russia has also fomented—both covertly and overtly—and been quick to support the many unconstitutional seizures of power recently witnessed in Africa. The spate of coups and increasing instances of African leaders scrapping term limits, for example, better suit Moscow’s vision of remaking the international order in its autocratic mold. .......... most of the 16 ongoing internal conflicts on the continent have deep roots in authoritarian forms of governance.

None of Africa’s established democracies, in contrast, are in conflict.

More authoritarianism, then, can be expected to yield more conflict. ................ Tolerance for predatory interstate behavior globally, moreover, will embolden elevated forms of repression domestically in African states. After all, if the enshrined principles of self-determination and popular participation are not respected in a high-profile instance, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, then what international actors can be compelled to penalize the intimidation or jailing of opposition leaders, the shuttering of independent media outlets, and the brazen rigging of elections in Africa? Growing autocracy would do a grave injustice to the 75 percent of Africans who regularly state that democracy is their preferred form of government. The inevitable repression that will result from an unfettered international order would also lead to a spike in refugee flows and internally displaced populations. ................... As Africans grapple with the more present and disastrous aftershocks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is important to recognize the threat this form of authoritarian expansion will have on the continent if it is normalized. History shows us that impunity is contagious. And apathy in the face of imminent threat is foolhardy. The clear threats emanating from Putin’s worldview defy the principles that are central to an international order that both the U.N. and AU helped foster.



How Putin’s War Caused a Global Food Crisis A “perfect storm” in agriculture is contributing to a global economic unwinding.

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Elon Musk's Cyber Stalking AOC

Elon Musk tweeted at AOC for a public comment made by AOC. It was not even directed at anybody. It was a general comment made about social media in general.

You could argue the social media tries too hard through their algorithms to take people away from the first five commandments.

Musk said, don't hit on me, I am shy. AOC deleted her tweet.

Musk is a 300-pound gorilla (literally) who had a chilling effect on the conversation. He made a hugely sexist remark to drive away someone from the conversation. What he said had a silencing effect.

This is wrong. He is trying too hard to be a right wing gadfly.

This is the kind of racism that his car factories are in trouble for.

AOC is the progressive star. She is the next generation of leadership. She is America's own Greta Thunberg, only older.



AOC is a public official. She is a Congresswoman. She is an elected person. She represents We The People. She made a legitimate criticism. An appropriate response would have been a legitimate or a lame defense of social media. But what Elon Musk did was racist and sexist.

Granted Elon Musk is a complex picture. He has taken a heroic stand for Ukraine, and done heroic things for Ukraine, and I admire that.

But he is not a package deal I have to accept. I have and will praise his good work. But I will also criticize his bad behavior. This was bad behavior.

On thate note, how about a wealth tax? I call it forking. Beyong a billion, your net worth forks. You keep the voting power in your company. We The People take the money and solve drinking water and housing. And the planet.



Regret, apologize, and get a fresh start, Elon.

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Tuesday, May 24, 2022

News: May 24

Kissinger says Ukraine should concede territory to Russia to end war suggesting a position that a vast majority of Ukrainians are against as the war enters its fourth month. ........ Kissinger urged the United States and the West to not seek an embarrassing defeat for Russia in Ukraine, warning it could worsen Europe’s long-term stability. ......... After saying that Western countries should remember Russia’s importance to Europe and not get swept up “in the mood of the moment,” Kissinger also pushed for the West to force Ukraine into accepting negotiations with a “status quo ante,” which means the previous state of affairs. ........ “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. ......... “Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.” ........ restoring a situation in which Russia formally controlled Crimea and informally controlled Ukraine’s two easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has emphasized that part of his conditions for entering peace talks with Russia would include a restoration of preinvasion borders. ............ Much of Ukraine agrees with Zelensky on not giving up land in exchange for peace. ........... 82 percent of Ukrainians are not prepared to give up any of Ukraine’s land, even if it means the war will drag on. .......... a recent editorial from the New York Times’s editorial board that argued Ukraine would have to make “painful territorial decisions” to achieve peace. .......... The editorial was met with backlash, including from Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, who said that “any concession to Russia is not a path to peace, but a war postponed for several years.” ........ Kissinger, a longtime advocate of a realpolitik approach that has nations putting their practical aims in front of morals and principles, urged European leaders to not lose sight of Russia’s place in Europe and risk the country forming a permanent alliance with China. .......... “I hope the Ukrainians will match the heroism they have shown with wisdom”



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