Is Putin’s Next Target the Baltic States? By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/02/24/is-putins-next-target-the-baltic-states-n1561480

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sent a wave of unease across Eastern Europe, especially in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. The three Baltic States joined NATO in 2004, but that might not matter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has out-guessed and outmaneuvered U.S. President Joe Biden and the rest of NATO since the crisis began.

Indeed, the question asked during the Ukraine crisis is the same one that would be asked if Putin invaded one of the Baltic states: Would NATO risk world war, and possibly nuclear war, to save Lithuania?

The Baltic states aren’t so sure.

Associated Press:

Along with Poland, also a NATO member, the small Baltic countries have been among the loudest advocates for powerful sanctions against Moscow and NATO reinforcements on the alliance’s eastern flank.

Baltic government leaders in recent weeks have shuttled to European capitals, warning that the West must make Russian President Vladimir Putin pay for attacking Ukraine, or else his tanks will keep rolling toward other parts of the former Soviet empire.

Russian Forces Capture Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, Airport Outside Kyiv By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ukrainian-officials-warn-of-fighting-in-chernobyl-exclusion-zone/

Russian forces captured the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after battles in the nuclear exclusion zone on Thursday evening local time, Ukrainian officials said.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s office of the president, confirmed that the reactor was in Russian hands, according to Reuters.

Ukrainian officials warned earlier that damage to nuclear storage facilities could send “radioactive dust” across Europe.

“Russian occupation forces are trying to seize the” Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Twitter post. “Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated….This is a declaration of war against the whole of Europe.”

The Chernobyl reactor was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, when the core of the reactor melted down. Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of the Interior, wrote on Facebook that Russian forces had moved to Chernobyl from Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbor.

Russian Government Cracks Down on Widespread Anti-War Protests By Isaac Schorr

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/russian-government-cracks-down-on-widespread-anti-war-protests/

The Russian Government is cracking down on its own citizens in cities across the country as protesters take to the streets to register their opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Despite Putin’s efforts to convince his populace that the Ukrainian Government was prosecuting a genocide against Russian-speakers in the country’s easternmost region, many Russians are showing up in the streets to register their discontent with the already bloody conflict.

Numerous videos circulating on social media show large crowds gathering in Russian cities — including Moscow and St. Petersburg.The Russian government has responded by instructing its people to “refrain from unsanctioned protests” and warning that those who violate that order will be “arrested & brought to responsibility.” It’s citing the coronavirus pandemic as its justification for the crackdown.

DeSantis Declares Florida ‘Citadel of Freedom,’ Touts Opposition to CRT, Covid Restrictions in CPAC Speech By Caroline Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/desantis-declares-florida-citadel-of-freedom-touts-opposition-to-crt-covid-restrictions-in-cpac-speech/

Florida Governor Ron Desantis declared his state a “citadel of freedom” primed to push back against the left’s embrace of critical race theory in K-12 curricula, illegal immigration, and Covid restrictions.

Speaking at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference, DeSantis noted that Florida tourism and transplant rates have been off the charts, especially during the pandemic when so many progressive states saw net population outflows. Some of Florida’s guests have included those Democratic politicians that regularly criticize the state’s leadership, he noted.

While the state’s record has been  a leader on all manner of culture war issues, he claimed, the main attraction for prospective residents and visitors was that “we refused to let this state descend into some kind of Faucian dystopia where people’s freedoms are curtailed and their livelihoods are destroyed.”

Florida rejected the “biomedical security state” and the temptation to defer to “health bureaucrats” during the apex of the Covid crisis, even when that approach was politically unpopular at first.

“My job is to stand up and protect the freedoms and the jobs of the people I represent and if that puts me in political jeopardy then so be it,” he said as the audience erupted into applause.

“I believe that if Florida had not led the way, this country could look like Canada and Australia,” he said noting the seemingly authoritarian downslide of those liberal societies over the last two years.

DeSantis spoke as President Biden was addressing the nation on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. He did not mention the situation in Ukraine during his speech.

An Open Letter to Critics of Michele Tafoya Kendall Qualls

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/02/24/an_open_letter_to_critics_of_mi

To MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross, Joy Reid, and the crew at “The View,” I am standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my friend and new co-chair of my gubernatorial campaign, Michele Tafoya. Not only is Michele right to criticize critical race theory (CRT) and promote the idea that skin color shouldn’t matter, but she’s also encouraging us toward achieving Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.

I know you are familiar with his famous 1963 Lincoln Memorial speech. Based on your comments, it seems you have forgotten its objective. Let me remind you of a few key points. The Rev. King said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

Critical race theory flies in the face of these words and the principles for which Martin Luther King was martyred. CRT is a leftist agenda shrouded in harmless-sounding words – equity, inclusion, and culturally responsive teaching among others – to hide its radical intent. It has been injected into government, corporations, and yes, as Michele Tafoya said, even our schools. Critics of CRT are not just white Americans but also a growing of number black Americans, just like me, who recognize its harmful and divisive intent.

Before you dismiss me with some lame slur and try to de-legitimize me as an inauthentic voice of the black community, take a moment to learn my story. As a boy, I lived in poverty in the gang-infested housing projects of Harlem in the late 1960s. From there, I was uprooted to a trailer park in Oklahoma. I’ve witnessed the demise of my siblings, my mother, and countless other African Americans to the cruel world of government-sanctioned poverty of the inner cities.

Biden throws Putin into Xi’s briar patch US has pushed Putin into an alliance with China that could rank as America’s biggest strategic blunder of the century By David P. Goldman

https://asiatimes.com/2022/02/biden-throws-putin-into-xis-briar-patch/

This is the sort of move that gives “Pyrrhic victory” a bad name.

Washington has backed Putin into a corner, forcing him to take drastic measures to protect Russian minorities in Ukraine. That in turn forced Europe’s leaders into Washington’s camp, and within 48 hours, the European discourse has shifted away from economic cooperation with Russia to a possible boycott of Russian gas.

Putin will sell the gas to China, which last month proposed to construct a pipeline that would increase Russia’s deliveries tenfold. More importantly, Russia’s considerable scientific and engineering resources—by some measure on par with those of the United States—will be put in the service of China’s high-tech industry.

Washington maneuvered Russia into the crisis. Putin was willing to negotiate the status of the Russophone districts of Eastern Ukraine under the 2015 Minsk protocols brokered by the French and Germans, and signed by Ukraine, Germany, France, Russia and representatives of Luhansk and Donetsk, the rebel provinces.

The Ukraine government—with American instigation—abandoned an agreement that would have guaranteed the rights of the Russian minority within a sovereign Ukraine, as Steve Bryen reported in these pages on February 21.

Washington and London, Bryen emphasized, “think a Minsk-based deal would lead to the ‘Finlandization’ of Ukraine. Behind the scenes, it is quite clear, by omission and commission, that Washington has let the Ukrainians believe that Minsk II is off the table – although the US was never a party to Minsk II.”

The Ukraine debacle showcases Joe Biden’s many failures Thanks to his energy policy, the US is helping to fund Russia’s military adventurism Roger Kimball

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/ukraine-debacle-showcases-joe-biden-failures/

Snap quiz: who was president when Vladimir Putin gobbled up Crimea?

If you said Barack Obama, go to the head of the class.

What countries did Putin invade while Donald Trump was president?

If you said “None,” you get to stay at the head of the class.

This is a harder one: who was president when Putin once again violated Ukraine’s borders, sending in Russian troops to two breakaway regions in Eastern Ukraine?

I say that this is harder because the obvious answer — “Joe Biden” — is not really, or not wholly, correct.

Joe Biden is an empty shell. On good days, he looks like a mannequin. Really, though, he is a puppet, a creature controlled by others. I have called those others “The Committee.” I am not more specific because I do not know for sure who has seats at that table. Anyway, if you said “Joe Biden” in response to the question, you get full points only if you added an asterisk next to his name.

To appreciate what we are up against, ponder Joe Biden’s performance at this roundtable about Ukraine. A reporter asks, “Do you think you may have underestimated Putin?” Biden smirks, looks vacantly about the room, and then picks at his teeth. Answer came there none. The president of the United States, ladies and gentlemen. It is an unnerving exhibition.

The Bitty Bug Transgender Circus A miniature, knitted prosthetic penis arrives to save your female toddler from being misgendered. Thom Nickels

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/bitty-bug-transgender-circus-and-womens-sports-thom-nickels/

It seems that the transgender revolution sweeping the globe has finally caught the eye of merchandisers.

Consider the Bitty Bug Soft Packer, a custom made prosthetic for your (gender ambiguous) toddler. Vaguely reminiscent of a knitted glove, the Bitty Bug is actually a miniature knitted penis that parents can pin to their female child’s underwear to give a life-like impression of the male gender. The crocheted device is manufactured by Stitchbug Studio for just $6 a pair and guarantees that your biological female child will never be mistaken as female. Bitty Bug penises come in a variety of colors like pink, hummus, brown, black, white, blue, and purple. There are also a variety of sizes: 1 inch, 1.5 inches, 2 inches, and 2.5 inches.

 Daily Mail.com reported,

The controversial £4.20 item is available in multiple colors and was even advertised on the company’s website using a photo of a teddy bear with a bulge protruding from his children’s underpants. Similar adult ‘packers’ have become popular in the trans community to help reduce gender dysphoria and anxiety, however this range were noticeably smaller than usual.

At first glance, the Bitty Bug Packer looks like unhinged satire, but it as real as UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, aka Will Thomas, a tall transgender woman with big hands and feet who regularly crushes biological female competitors while making many of them feel uncomfortable in the shower.

Hundreds of U.S. Truckers Kick Off ‘People’s Convoy’ in California Demanding an End to the COVID National Emergency By Debra Heine

tps://amgreatness.com/2022/02/23/hundreds-of-u-s-truckers-kick-off-peoples-convoy-in-california-demanding-an-end-to-the-covid-national-emergency/

Inspired by the “Freedom Convoy” in Canada, American truckers have organized their own nationwide “Convoy to DC” in protest of the Biden regime’s authoritarian COVID policies.

Truckers gathered in San Bernardino County, California, Wednesday, to launch their “People’s Convoy” cross country road trip to Washington D.C. to demand an end to the declaration of national emergency concerning the COVID-19 pandemic, and the restoration of our Constitution.

Hundreds of vehicles assembled at the Adelanto Stadium parking lot for a rally ahead of the group’s eastward trek on Interstate 40 to Kingman, Arizona for the Convoy’s first stop.

The convoy plans to take a southern route through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, before veering northeast through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, arriving in the D.C. area on March 5

A Decade of Deceit and Division: What Trayvon Wrought By Jack Cashill

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/02/a_decade_of_deceit_and_division_what_trayvon_wrought.html

Although he certainly did not intend to, the drugged and despondent 17-year-old who wandered through a failing Florida subdivision on a rainy February night ten years ago Saturday launched a new phase in the American civil rights movement.

This was to be the Jacobin phase, the phase in which traditional civil rights standards such as equality before the law and innocent until proven guilty yielded to mob rule and race-based outcomes.

Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin would not live to see this transition.  The 28-year-old man who shot and killed Trayvon, George Zimmerman, has lived in the shadows of Jacobin justice every day of the last ten years, always with an eye out for assassins like the one who nearly killed him in 2015.

On February 26, 2012, Trayvon had reason to be despondent.  His school had suspended him for the third time that school year.  His mother, Sybrina Fulton, had kicked him out of the house.  His father, Tracy Martin, had abandoned the stepmother who helped raise Trayvon for a new girlfriend, Brandy Green.  And, most immediately, “Diamond,” the 16-year-old who had stolen his heart, was playing him for a fool.

Exiled to Green’s townhouse in Sanford, 250 miles from his Miami home, Trayvon texted and called throughout that last day looking for reassurance from Diamond.  He didn’t get it.  Instead, she taunted him with tales of her “clubbing” adventures the night before.  In his final texts that rainy Sunday, Trayvon’s desperation showed through: “wat up with u man how u feel bout me cuz u not say cuz bout to hung up ur ass.”

For George, meanwhile, it was just another Sunday.  About 7 P.M. that evening, he headed out to Target to buy lunch meat for a week’s worth of sandwiches.  While taking night classes in law enforcement, he worked during the day as a forensic review analyst at a fraud detection company.