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#1

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by The Brain - Today at 12:15:28 AM

Ivy Ken

The Barbie movie wasn't real FFS. Plus George Washington University isn't Ivy League.

#2

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by viper37 - May 02, 2024, 11:29:09 PM

The Russian push seems to have begun.

Russia is [color=var(--accent-foreground-rest)]advancing along multiple parts of the eastern frontline in [color=var(--accent-foreground-rest)]Ukraine[/color] but local defenders are so far holding against the [color=var(--accent-foreground-rest)]Kremlin[/color]'s bigger and better-equipped forces, Ukrainian military officials say.[/font][/size][/color]

As a [color=var(--accent-foreground-rest)]recently-passed $61 billion (£49bn) US weapons package arrives in stages in Ukraine following six months of delay, Russian forces are looking to capitalise on a current manpower and artillery advantage to take further territory before the foreign aid diminishes their edge. It comes after [color=var(--accent-foreground-rest)]Ukrainian military chief Oleksandr Srysky[/color] admitted over the weekend that "the situation on the frontline has worsened".[/font][/size][/color]

Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesperson for Ukrainian strategic command in the east of the country, said on Thursday that Russian forces have amassed tens of thousands of troops in recent weeks in the eastern region of Donetsk, as part of a bid to push in twp areas, including [color=var(--accent-foreground-rest)]the city of Chasiv Yar and the town of Ocheretyne.[/font][/size][/color]

Mr Voloshyn said on national television: "The enemy is trying to seize the strategic initiative and breach our defence.
"The enemy is actively attacking along the entire front line, and in several directions they have achieved certain tactical advances. The situation is changing dynamically."

Ukraine's difficulties have been deepening for months as the military waited for vital new military aid from the US.

Russian forces [color=var(--accent-foreground-rest)]took the city of Avdiivka in Donetsk in mid-February after a decade of fighting in that area. Since then, they have taken 11 towns to the north and northwest of the city, according to Ukrainian war tracker DeepState.[/font][/size][/color]

Ukrainian soldiers and analysts warned then that the advances were probable given poor primary defensive fortifications; they warn now that similar issues could lead to further Russian gains nearby, though they say more is being done to remedy the problem.
In Chasiv Yar, a small city with a prewar population of 12,000, roughly 50 miles north of Avdiivka, Russian forces are dropping more than 30 powerful glide bombs a day, according to a spokesperson for the 26th Artillery Brigade deployed in the city. They have also amassed more than 25,000 soldiers for an attack on the city, which sits on high ground and is a natural launching point for further attacks in Donetsk.
Both sides are currently battling for control over two villages downhill of the city's flanks, with Russian troops so far unable to enter Chasiv Yar.
But while they took nearly a year to advance less than four miles from nearby Bakhmut to the edge of Chasiv Yar, they pushed nearly five miles in the last fortnight to capture the village of Ocheretyne nearby.

Tatarigami, a Ukrainian war tracker with close ties to the military, warns that Russian forces may now look to launch a "multi-echelon double-pincer move" from Chasiv Yar in the north of Donetsk and Ocheretyne further south to encircle the Ukrainian troops fighting in that bulge in the frontline.

[...]

Link

#3

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by viper37 - May 02, 2024, 10:14:28 PM

Yeah, if those patriots show up in Ukraine - and soon - that'd be grand.

Are they still useful against drones and Russia's hypersonic missiles or does Ukraine need something more advanced?  There has to be a reason why Israel needs something more sophisticated too, I suppose.

#4

Off the Record / Re: Scandinavian Thread

Last post by viper37 - May 02, 2024, 10:08:18 PM

Now please help us nag the others to kick in their 2%. 

Already done.


Denmark is 1.4 and rising.

#5

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by viper37 - May 02, 2024, 10:02:58 PM

PP doesn't have enough maturity or judgment to realize he just has to fight his natural inclinations, pretend to be Prime Ministerial, and the election is his.

Going against the Speaker is mutiny.

It's something to be expected from the leader of the NDP, it's disgraceful, to say the least, when coming from the right.

He should step down and resign from office.  Let the party find someone calm headed who can lead his troops.

I don't think a member of the house should be allowed back in the Chamber until they retracts their words.

#6

Off the Record / Re: Scandinavian Thread

Last post by Admiral Yi - May 02, 2024, 09:53:20 PM

 

Now please help us nag the others to kick in their 2%. 

[Republicans go all-in on U.S. campus protests as potential election winnerHearings, ads, public confrontations — all aimed at electing Trump]

#7

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Jacob - May 02, 2024, 06:10:57 PM

Republicans go all-in on U.S. campus protests as potential election winner
Hearings, ads, public confrontations — all aimed at electing Trump

Alexander Panetta

It doesn't take a college degree to figure out Republicans see the protests sweeping U.S. college campuses as a winning election-year issue for them.

There's proof enough in their plans for a half-dozen congressional hearings, new campaign ads and choreographed confrontations with student protesters.

Republican lawmakers are posting videos of themselves being heckled, creating ads tailored to swing-state voters and scheduling events aimed at ensuring the issue remains top of mind for months.

As he announced a succession of hearings, House Speaker Mike Johnson described his cause as countering the scourge of campus antisemitism.

"We have to act," he said. When a journalist questioned why this stated commitment to fighting antisemitism seemed to exclude hearings into far-right groups like the Nazis holding public marches, he replied: "This is not partisan at all."

The hearings start next week.

Republicans have convened the mayor and police chief of Washington, D.C., for a grilling into their reported refusal to clear out an encampment that began in a square at George Washington University and has grown to clog the adjacent street several blocks from the White House.

The following week, college administrators from California and Michigan are being summoned to a hearing into their handling of these events.

There will be more hearings — into whether colleges have violated civil rights law, whether that makes them ineligible for federal funding and whether foreign students arrested at these protests will be deported.

A group of Republicans used George Washington University as an eardrum-rattling backdrop to discuss this. As they held a press conference on a tent-filled H Street, those lawmakers were greeted with noisy chants of "Hands off D.C." and "Trump lost."

'Kiss your federal funding goodbye'

A crowd of students gathered around the lawmakers. That included one far-right lawmaker, Rep. Lauren Boebert, who cursed as she tried pulling a Palestinian flag down from a statue of George Washington, now covered in a keffiyeh and spray-painted with graffiti.

"Kiss your federal funding goodbye," she said, warning the college administration to clear out the dozens of tents.

A professor at George Washington University who supports the protesters expressed doubt that those lawmakers were motivated by sincere concerns about student welfare.

"I'm cynical," said Ivy Ken, who teaches sociology. "So I think they were just using it as a stage, and I think the only photo ops they got were a lot of peaceful students singing and, you know, being clear about their demands."

What the students want is multifaceted. Demands range from colleges withdrawing investments from Israeli companies and U.S. companies that supply the Israeli military to a ceasefire in Gaza to the end of the state of Israel.

While Republicans revel in this fight, it's more awkward for Democrats.

The way in which it's divided the party is evident in the contrasting reactions on Capitol Hill: some Democrats applauded police for moving in to clear out the Columbia University protest, while others condemned it.

The White House has apparently sided with the former, not the latter. In his most extensive comments on the issue on Thursday, President Joe Biden appeared to endorse law enforcement breaking up some of the encampments.

But he's being pulled in two directions by his party.

A revealing statement from College Democrats of America zigs and zags carefully through the issue — calling the protests "heroic" but also condemning some of their rhetoric, then reiterating support for the president but criticizing his Mideast policy.

How the issue divides Democrats

That intra-party debate was illustrated in a moment of disagreement on the Thursday morning show of the liberal network MSNBC.

As the hosts took in scenes of police clearing out the encampment at UCLA, Rev. Al Sharpton fretted that liberals appear hypocritical here, picking and choosing when to enforce public order laws based on their politics.

"How do the Democrats — how do all of us on that side — say Jan. 6 was wrong, if you can have the same pictures going on, on college campuses?" Sharpton said, referring to the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol.

"You lose the moral high ground."

Co-host Mika Brzezinski recoiled at the comparison to an attack on American democracy: "Good lord, don't make a parallel with Jan. 6."

To be fair, Republicans also face accusations of hypocrisy on this issue. Some of the same people, notably Donald Trump, who condone pardoning the Jan. 6 convicts want the full force of the law applied to college protesters.

Trump, Republicans try to equate campus protests to Jan. 6 riot, Charlottesville rally

There are similar divisions over an antisemitism bill in Congress. The bill would define certain anti-Israel statements as antisemitic for the purposes of withdrawing federal funding to schools under civil rights law.

More than half of Democrats voted for it, as it passed the House of Representatives. But 70 didn't, and some viewed the vote as a silly stunt designed to divide their party.

Even a House Democrat who voted to pass the bill grumbled to the website Axios that it was a load of legislative garbage that will never get through the Senate.

Predicting the political fallout

One well-known right-wing strategist says this is precisely what he hopes for here: to continue cracking the left, just as Vietnam-related unrest did in 1968.

"It will move public opinion in our direction," writes Christopher Rufo, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute best known for almost single-handedly building opposition to critical race theory.

He predicted that these protests will never generate public sympathy like the Black Lives Matter ones in 2020, and said Republicans should let them continue.

Two pollsters contacted by CBC News said it's hard to make a solid prediction about how this issue might unfold in November.

One concurred that it's different from Black Lives Matter, or even Vietnam and apartheid, in the sense that the protests have divided American campuses themselves. But, said Tim Malloy at Quinnipiac, it's still too early to offer a definitive statement.

Another pollster pointed to a potpourri of knowns and unknowns. For starters, said Patrick Murray, director of the polling centre at Monmouth University in New Jersey, the Gaza war is a very low priority for most voters. On the other hand, he said, scenes of instability at home could undercut one of Biden's central messages — that his presidency means calm, compared to the chaos of Donald Trump.

It's also worth noting, Murray said, that the school year is ending, and we don't know what campuses will look like this fall, closer to the election.

"There is no data that can predict outcomes — especially six months ahead of the election," said Murray.

Here's another detail so essential to modern American politics that neither pollster bothered mentioning it: presidential elections are usually so close that even the smallest twitch in voter behaviour is enough to swing the outcome in key states.

So what is the sociology professor, Ken, hearing from her students back on campus? It's mixed news for Biden.

"They say they'll hold their nose and vote for him. But I would guess a lot of people won't even go to the polls, won't even bother to vote. Because, what choice is this? Two old white guys."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gop-college-encampment-strategy-1.7191884

#8

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by OttoVonBismarck - May 02, 2024, 06:08:37 PM

A lot of American universities live in States that actually forbid divestment for Israel as a matter of state law, fwiw. I don't imagine it applied to private colleges like Columbia, but it does apply to some of the big state schools which have had protests.

The state legislatures in these states are all but certainly unmoved to alter these laws.

#9

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Oexmelin - May 02, 2024, 05:55:11 PM

I can only speak for the current protests I have encountered - but they all came at the end of a long series of measures and attenpts to engage with university admin through letters, asking to meet, petitions,  re: divestments and official condemnation by university leadership. 

#10

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Valmy - May 02, 2024, 04:42:40 PM

Seizing control of a building is not really a "peaceful" protest. Having said that the small army of cops being sent in in many of these situations strikes me as bad optics.