Ray Torres is the director of the short film

Beyond Credit Unions

The film is available for groups to show. Contact Ray at 215 753 9022

Flyer

Also: Press Release

I kinda like this as an anthem for the left these days.

Brief history of PRAWN

• Network groups, organizations, and individuals to stop the repression caused by "never ending wars" at home and abroad, by the US corporate military state
• Support organizations having common ground
• Educate and activate the general public

• East Timor & Indonesia Networks (ETAN)
  
• Delco Waging Peace
  
• Granny Peace Brigade - Philadelphia
• Otherjones - A blog by Deena Stryker
  
• Media Tank  
• Philly Against War
• Northeast Philly for Peace & Justice
  
• Philadelphia Veterans For Peace
• Wounds of War
• Northwest Greens
• Progressive Democracy of South Jersey (PDSJ)
• UFPJ-Delaware Valley Network
• UPenn - FASWI
• Delaware Valley Veterans for America

National Organizations

• United For Peace & Justice (UFPJ)
• World Can't Wait
• ACLU's Blog of Rights

   Events 

 The Israeli-Hamas War

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Climate March NYC 17Sep

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Climate March PA 15Sep

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Anniversary Bombing of Nagasaki

Moms for Liberty counter-demo

Rally to call for end of F-35

Rally to observe 1st Anniversary of invasion of Ukraine

Rally to observe 2nd Anniversary of Nuclear Ban Treaty

2nd Anniversary of attack on Capitol

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March For Our Lives gun safety demo

Pro-Choice Rally by Democrats

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Support Ukraine Rally 8Apr22
Support Ukraine Rally 6Mar22

Alternative Demo

Various peace proposals and planned actions

Weekly anti-Ukraie War protest

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Midsection archive

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Anniversary Bombing of Nagasaki

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Moms for Liberty counter-demo

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Rally to call for end of F-35

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Rally to observe 1st Annivesary of invasion of Ukraine

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Rally to observe 2nd Anniversary of Nuclear Ban Treaty

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2nd Anniversary of attack on Capitol

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Pre-Election round-up

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AFL-CIO parade & Housing rally

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Anti-Nuclear War 16Jul

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Pro-Choice march 24Jun2022

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Poor People's Campaign Washington DC

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March For Our Lives gun safety demo

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Pro-Choice Rally by Democrats

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Poor People's March

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Supporting Ukraine

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Pro-Ukrainian Rally

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No War with Russia Rally

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Poor People's Campaign

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Pro-Palestinian Demonstration

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March for Palestinians

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Protesting Israel's attack on Palestine

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Info, articles, etc.

Nazis pondering just who the bad guys are. Is the Republican movement of the past decade turning totalitarian? Is that what’s behind the idea that sex for recreation is bad?

This is pretty pathetic. The House just barely managed to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, on their second try, with a majority of just one vote. Only 13 senators care enough about his getting to trial to sign a letter demanding such a trial.

The more-or-less complete collapse of the Hunter Biden story and any possible guilt on the part of Joe Biden has been a tremendous shock to mainstream media news organizations. “The real story is that the ludicrous Republican impeachment investigation has now been exposed as a Russian intelligence op.” Mainstream media reporters “seem unable to change gears.”

Another Russian A-50 shot down! They’re the equivalent of our AWACs planes and are extremely valuable to the Russian military.
Zelenskyy tells how he briefed the US Senate on Ukraine’s military situation. Senator Schumer says that Republican senators are fully onboard with helping Ukraine. Representatives from the House? Not so much. Biden says “the Speaker gave the House a two-week vacation.” Unfortunately, the average person has no idea that the blame is so concentrated. Our blogger proposes constant, explicit repetition until they are aware! As I’ve said elsewhere, democracy can’t work unless citizens are fully informed.
Britain and Denmark step up to assist.
Russia launches drones and missiles against Odesa.
Details on the downing of the A-50. Forbes gets an “attaboy” from our blogger for how they described the politics of the situation.
Also, the Wall St. Journal: “It’s in the U.S., however, that Putin’s wager appears to be paying off, at least for now, as Moscow has successfully inserted itself into America’s culture wars.” They add that Taiwan is feeling very nervous about how reliable the US is.
The Christian Science Monitor reports on how urgent the situation is..
Mariupol shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Woo hoo! Wayne LaPierre busted for frivolously frittering away millions of dollars of NRA money on “private flights, vacations and other lavish perks.”

The younger George Bush had his “Kennedy moment” on 9-11. He failed that moment, just as surely as Trump failed the moment in 2020 when the nation realized that a deadly pandemic was here. When people say that Covid was a “plandemic,” they’re just covering up the fact that Trump utterly bungled the national response. A better man would have come out of the crisis with people feeling a renewed respect for his abilities.

Human-caused climate change can very easily cause quick and disastrous results. The ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland are melting. We could see serious sea level rise from that.

The fact that the drive for Biden’s impeachment was based on Russian disinformation seems to have sent many reporters into shock. An entire year of reporting was based on a lie and the earnest belief that “Russia, Russia, Russia” was a hoax has stunned many reporters into making excuses.

The “shell hunger” on Ukrainian front lines is getting very serious! Ukraine now has hundreds of 155mm howitzers, but nowhere near enough shells for them and 1,200 miles of front line to defend.
Mid-March, shell hunger will be critical, late-March, it’ll be catastrophic. Air defense is also hurting.
Note: “[Speaker] Johnson voted repeatedly against aid for Ukraine before he became House speaker last year.” Blogger discusses complications.
Two years on and alliance is still al together. Russia getting aid from Iran and North Korea.
Iran might provide Russia with ballistic missiles.
NATO nations pitching in what they can. F-116s due to arrive this summer.
Two air-defense systems taken out.
A town that I believe is in the vicinity of Belgorod, Russia (North of Ukraine’s Eastern edge) and how it really could use a missile strike.
Russian reporter gets Starlink terminal.
Russia seriously discusses annexing Moldava.

House Democrats are preparing Ukraine aid petition that will force the Ukraine aid bill onto the House floor.

Just saw some wild, hysterical claims on Twitter/X that said Biden was ignoring the Supreme Court on giving relief on Student Loan Debt. I immediately suspected such claims were wrong, checked and sure enough, Biden is remaining within the letter of the Court's guidance.

Okay, so Republicans used information from Russian source as the foundational basis for their case against President Biden. Question: How much did they know?

The Fox News liberal blows the Alexander Smirnov case to bits. She has no patience with the defenders of Representatives James Comer and Jim Jordan who built their whole case around Smirnov.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer tries desperately to pretend that the anti-Biden case, built pretty much entirely on the word of a Russian asset, hasn't collapsed completely.

Good! The jury in the Sandy Hook case has decided to take $1.5 billion from Alex Jones. The explicit goal is to drive him out of business.

Reason #6,483 why I have very little use for mainstream media when it comes to politics. How can democracy function effectively if we're getting prettified, sanitized pictures of people in authority? If the "new Speaker of the House: Mike Johnson, an insurrectionist anti-gay right-wing extremist Trump proxy" but he isn't described accurately by the media, what $%#@ing good is the media! 

On Twitter/X, I got very used to seeing "Biden Crime Family" and "Most corrupt president ever." Oops! Seems pretty much all of the evidence for these assertions were taken directly from a Russian agent!

Many connections between Hunter Biden case and Russian subversion ops.
It’s the 10-year anniversary of the invasion of Crimea by Russia. They call it the Day of Remembrance of the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred.
Sweden sends weapons to Ukraine
Russians were heavily involved in manufacturing story about Hunter Biden. The informant Alexander Smirnov “has reported numerous contacts with Russian Official 1.” Smirnov is “actively peddling new lies.” The blogger Marcy “emptywheel” Wheeler has more details. Our blogger goes into the role of Rudy Giuliani in this. The firing of General Zakuzhny appears to have been provoked by thousands of Russian-planted social media posts.
Theory of subversion explained. Russians have been using subversion against the West for quite some time. Mike Flynn played a role in this. Elon Musk appears to be connected as well.

Joe Biden’s unpopular? You wouldn’t know that from his small-dollar donations! In fact, his money advantage over Donald Trump is enormous as Trump is spending more than he’s taking in.

New Pew poll says support for Ukraine is very widely felt. Amazing how a very small minority can hold up aiding them!
Do we simply send money over there? Of course not, the great majority of the money gets spent here. When we say we’ve allocated a million dollars to Ukraine, that means we bought $900k of weapons from US sources and the rest will go into Ukrainian salaries and into aiding civilians.

Liz Cheney talks about “Putin wing of the Republican Party,” which unfortunately, has been growing since February 2022. The good news is that the American public hasn’t really moved at all. Even 69% of Republican citizens still support Ukraine.

Should Democrats replace Biden with someone younger? Nah. Terrible idea.

Navalny’s murder appears to have encouraged Germany to supply TAURUS missiles to Ukraine.
Affirmative! A Russian defeat in Ukraine may be bad, but a Russian victory would be vastly worse!
Woo hoo! Six Russian jets downed in three days!
Zelenskyy says: “Today, the Conference on Ukraine’s Economic Growth and Recovery has started in Japan. This is our intergovernmental work at the level of governments.” and that Ukraine is having lots of trouble with Poland.
Canada sends more than 800 drones to Ukraine. They express solidarity in other ways as well.
If the House ever passes Ukraine aid, the Biden Administration plans to send ATACMS missiles.

The Russian pilot who switched sides and flew his helicopter to Ukraine last year has been found riddled with bullets in Spain.

Russians launching probing attacks, knowing that Ukrainians are running short on ammunition.
Pictures: “Ukrainian cities before and after ‘liberation.’”

Aww! Trump got the very bottom slot on all 45 Presidents! Bummer for his fans.

But Donald Trump isn’t alone! Melania Trump also gets last place! Or she would if First Ladies were ranked.

As scientists have stressed over and over, human-caused climate change is far more complicated than the planet just getting warmer. The movie “The Day after Tomorrow” takes an overly dramatic view of what would happen if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation were to be shut down, but there’s a lot of truth to it.

Summary of news about war in Ukraine.

Whuuh?!?! These guys suggested former Lieutenant-General Mike Flynn for the Rhode Island Hall of Fame. Not at all surprisingly, upon hearing the idea, nine members resigned. Y’see, if the organizers had just waited until Flynn has passed away and then maybe 10 or 15 years beyond that, then perhaps members could have said that everything he did prior to 2016 was fine. But no, as long as he’s still alive, it’s WAY to early to grant any honors!

What I find interesting about this piece is that Senator Manchin expressed an interest in Senator Romney being his running mate for a presidential run. The very next day, Manchin said “I will not be seeking a third-party run. I will not be involved in a presidential run.” My suspicion is that Romney called up Manchin and gave him an earful about how the 2024 campaign is a binary choice, we can choose democracy or fascism, Biden or Trump. Being in a third party means you're being a spoiler who will increase Trump's chances.

An extremely large part of the crisis in Gaza is the unhealthy water. Rainwater is mixing with sewage water and contaminated water has too much salt in it. This is due to the continuous bombing and shelling of water facilities. “Although each person needs about 3 liters a day of drinking water, and needs four times that for hygiene and other purposes, entire families are getting only 3 liters a day...”

A larger-than-expected crowd gathers to lay flowers for Alexei Navalny
Can Biden do anything meaningful while the House is on break? No. The House is gaveled in and right out again once a day, so it’s technically never on break. No recess appointments, etc.
Ukraine, France & Germany reaffirm their alliance and reach a series of understandings.
Spain and Germany send ammunition and equipment.
Ukrainian forces in Avdiivka ordered to fall back in order to prevent being encircled.
Russians using guided bombs in Avdiivka. Positions that have been held for nine years are falling.
Ukraine requesting any and all assistance from everyone who can help.
Navalny’s wife Yulia speaks at Munich Security Conference.
Biden mourns Navalny’s death. Back in June 2021, Biden warned of “Devastating” consequences fo Russia if Navalny died in prison.
Tucker Carlson says that every leader kills opponents to maintain power, so the death of Navalny is no big deal.

In reaction to his being fined $364 million, Trump declares "I helped New York City during its worst of times…” Huh. Really? Is that a reference to his allegedly helping out at Ground Zero on 9-11? Because if he had been anywhere in the vicinity, he was a known person and there were hundreds of cameras there, so we’d know of at least a few dozen photos of him being there.

I like this piece on the whole "Dark Brandon" thing because it shows that the way to deal with bad speech is better speech.

"Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny dies in prison" 
Very sad to hear this. Putin must be happy, having gotten rid of a political rival.

Representative Greene spread some really wild pieces of disinformation about vaccines. Unfortunately about 1k children died who were not vaccinated due to that disinformation.

Due to lack of artillery ammunition, Avdiivka is getting increasingly encircled.
The House is taking a two-week break that ends on February 28^th. How many of the 12 spending bills (Due March 1 & 8) are done? Not really clear that ANY of them are done!
Ukraine bombarded with 26 cruise and ballistic missiles. A North Korea KN-23 missile hits a forest and burns a 40-meter radius of trees.
Mourning a medic from Germany.
Ukraine is hurting badly at Avdiivka from their lack of artillery ammunition. Troops pull back so they won’t get encircled. Russia continuously replenishing troops.
Russian city (Biysk) North of Western edge of Mongolia consisting of military and scientific facilities suffers large explosion.
Republican Intelligence Committee Chair works to try and renew FISA by pointing out that FISA enabled agents to learn of Russian anti-satellite platform.
The bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus is trying to cobble together a solution. Unfortunately, it scales back aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. Can they get their bill to the floor of the House? Ehh, we’ll see. Representative Greene threatens to get Speaker Johnson tossed out if the bill passes.

Upon being compared to an appeasing isolationist from the 1930s, Representative Greene doesn’t really convince us that she’s not acting to appease Vladimir Putin.

Greene apparently doesn’t like people highlighting these obvious and historically accurate comparisons…

True The Vote: "The 2020 election was RIGGED!"

Courts: "Okay, show us your evidence."

TTV: "Oh...ah...er...um...well, you see..."

Inna Yermolovych meets her husband near the front for Valentine’s Day.
Woo hoo! Ukraine adds another submarine to Russia’s fleet! It used to be a large landing ship. It was impacted by five MAGURA V5 drones.
Zelenskyy announces that an international drone coalition has grown from three members to seven.
Also, international partners have started up a de-mining coalition. Still other coalitions.

Lifting Ukraine has a deep dive on a Ukrainian female bodybuilder who is also rescuing stray animals in Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops in Avdiivka pushed back due to lack of supplies.
Huh! Interesting. “Putin says he’d rather have Biden as President than Trump. ‘He’s more experienced, he’s predictable, he’s an old-school politician.’”

Amusingly, Elon Musk himself recently opined that “Amazing that some people still think the news is real (laughing emoji).” Meanwhile, a person on Twitter/X who has1.5 million followers, featured a video that “in his tweet, of the five large [Russian] surface vessels shown, four of them have already been sunk."

And oh yeah, House Republicans managed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. And yes, this clearly counted as “political theater” or “performative.”

But it’s also fundamentally an abuse of power.

Very interesting! The ability of Republicans to govern (just about every bill that has reached the President’s desk has been carried by Democratic votes) is very much an issue!

Also

Suozzi bashed Republicans for killing the border deal in the home stretch of the race, which also suggests it's good politics for Dems to be associated with wanting to make a deal

I 100% endorse the blogger's ideas for peace between Russia and Ukraine. Also, the "domino effect" that was needlessly feared during the Vietnam War is a very real problem in this case.

Good! Dutch government halts exports of F-35 parts to Israel due to excessive Palestinian casualties. F-35s are very “hungry” for constant maintenance.

Very interesting, a professor speaks of Putin’s genocidal mythology. Putin advocates the false notion of “artificial nations” that justifies liquidating them. “If there are people who say that Ukraine is real, they must be destroyed.”

All of Putin’s utterances about the period finds interesting, beginning in the ninth century AD, are wrong.

Speaker Johnson immediately announced the $95 billion bipartisan Senate-passed foreign aid bill DOA. House Minority Leader Jeffries is determined to get the bill through, but it would be tough. Only way is though a discharge petition, which is a long shot.
Zelenskyy thanks the Senate and encourages the House.
Another heart-warming “Why we Fight” video.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) puts out an assessment. Beginning of 2023, Russia had about 360k men. A year later, they have 470k men. They’re better-organized these days. Russian unis are rotated out of the line when they’ve taken 30% casualties. With no major attacks taking place, they launch smaller attacks that wear down Ukrainian infantry. Victory depends on Ukraine’s international partners.
The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service has also weighed in. 

3. The Russian military industry has significantly increased its production in response to the prolonged war against Ukraine

5. The militarisation of Russian society is ongoing at all levels

“LTG (ret) Kellogg has lost his damn mind!” Kellogg is an adviser to Trump and advocates big changes in NATO.
More on Hunter Biden and Republicans investigating him. “Expect to see selectively edited leaks to overly credulous reporters over the next few days.”
Russian disinformation on the internet.
Russians making progress in Avdiivka.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell acts as the grown-up in the room by getting the Senate to pass aid for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel without anything for the border. He recommends that Speaker Johnson do the same. Johnson doesn’t appear to want to.

"Michigan’s right-to-work repeal takes effect"
"Right-to-work" was always a scam. It just means that the union delivers benefits for everyone, but no one has to pay to support the union. But the free benefits aren't as good as paid benefits would be because the union can't afford as much for its members. Bravo for Michigan!

Speaker Johnson is getting pressured by pro-Ukrainian left-wingers as well as by pro-Russian, pro-Trump right-wingers.

Ukraine has taken 30k vintage Maxim water-cooled machine guns out of storage and has turned them into anti-aircraft guns for use against Russian drones.
A school in Moscow is opened up to study a “global war with the collective West,” sorta like, y’know, a World War perhaps!
After Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1991, it relied upon the West to keep Russia from invading it. Clinton admits that.
Changes to the General Staff.
Estonia is building bunkers along its border with Russia. Other Baltic nations have their own approaches.
NATO Secretary General strongly disagrees with Trump’s characterization of NATO as a protection racket.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán suggests that Ukraine act as a “buffer zone” between Russia and the West. Historical note: both the invasions of 1812 and 1941 came via Poland and Belarus. The British invaded Crimea in 1854, but that never got very far. So Ukraine has never served as an invasion route.
Some detail on Russia obtaining SpaceX-Starlink internet terminals. Evidence is that they were obtained in UAE and activated there. Terminals are then used close to front line so as to be difficult to distinguish from Ukrainian terminals.
Russians have constructed a 30km stretch of 2100 rail cars as a defensive line in Donetsk.
Russian foreign policy analyst examines Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson. Interesting to see how Putin regards his place in Russian history. Poland and the Baltic states are very much on his agenda.

Senator “Coach” Tuberville shares his deep thoughts on peace between Ukraine and Russia.
National Security Memorandum 20 was just put out. Hopefully, it will put a bit of pressure on Israel to ease up on Palestinians. We’ll see.
Shahed drones attack Kharkiv. A gas station was hit and spread a fire that burned 14 houses and rendered 50 people homeless. Several people, including a newborn, burned alive.
New directions for the army under the new Commander in Chief, General Syrsky.
Russians apparently using the SpaceX’s Starlink satellites for internet. Elon Musk should lose his security clearance over this!
Ukrainian soldier starved nearly to death in Russian POW camp.
Russia getting its money’s worth by promoting Republicans.

Russian Telegram channels reported that the interview with Carlson and Carlson himself was not to Putin's liking, and the interview itself was considered a failure.

More on the Carlson-Putin interview.
Huh. I wasn’t aware that Putin was two hours late to the interview.

Why did Vladimir Putin agree to be interviewed by Tucker Carlson? Because 

Real journalists ask hard questions of powerful people. They push back when misleading or false information is proffered. Putin wanted none of that.

Two responses from Missouri legislators to a woman being raped and therefore impregnated: 1. No, she can’t get an abortion, but 2. hey, we’ll castrate or apply the death penalty to the rapist! Erm, okay. As if that will make bearing an unwanted child okay.

The NY Times did a whole set of stories on the finding of Special Counsel Robert Hur. They made a series of deliberate choices that appear to reflect a serious partisan bias. There were other choices available.

"Who Really Won the 2020 Election? Measuring the Effect of Mail-in Ballot Fraud in the Trump-Biden Race for the White House"
So there are two problems here. First, that people are allegedly sending in mail-in ballots in states where they are no longer permanent residents. This is really only a problem if they are voting both via those ballots and voting in their new states. In order to demonstrate that was a problem, you'd have to show that was happening. Second, points 2 through 4 all depend on a voter not having access to the household mail, upon a relative getting and filling out and signing their ballot and voting for a different candidate than the voter wanted. I'm sure that happened in a couple of cases, but the fact that handwriting is required on a mail-in ballot means the fraudulent voter has a fairly complicated job that has to involve at least one other conspirator. All of which makes it sound really unlikely that mail-in ballot fraud was at all significant.

Is it true that President Biden “inherited record job growth?” The American Rescue Plan “created problems for this economy?” No, Republicans have no credible complaints to make about the economy, so they apparently feel they have to lie about it. In Trump’s fourth year, we lost a quarter of a million jobs!

Ukraine’s need for artillery ammunition is getting increasingly serious. US aid is still frozen (Thanks, House Republicans!) and European aid is not enough. Europe able to get more aid to Ukraine “early next month.”
Finland, Lithuania and Norway re stepping up,
Ukrainians returned from Russian captivity receive children's paintings with words of support.
A fond look back at the former equivalent to our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Zaluzhny.
Russian snipers starts massive fire in Kharkiv. Odesa and Kherson also hit.
Status on Ukrainians training to fly F-16s.
"A Russian Il-76 transport aircraft crashed in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast" did not contain any Ukrainian prisoners.

Representative AOC talks about how the US is finally taking the climate seriously. It’s always worth going into the fact that a quarter-million jobs have already been created with clean energy investments. She argues that immigration is a big economic plus for the US and that if we shut down he border, we’ll, among other things, leave our elderly without caregivers.

Farewell to SU-25 pilot Vladyslav Rykov, who flew 385 missions.
Another prisoner exchange! Over 100 Ukrainian troops freed to go back home!
Zelenskyy fires General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, but they apparently remain on good terms. General Syrsky is his replacement. Blogger talks about why one general took over while another did not.
An American retired officer goes over Zaluzhnyi’s tasks and achievements over the past two years. The Atlantic also weighs in. The dismissal of Major General George McClellan by President Lincoln in the Civil War is brought up as a comparison with what Zelenskyy did.
A look at General Oleksandr Syrsky.
No one really knows how many Ukrainians died at Mariupol in 2022.
Big fire in Moscow. Another oil refinery in Russia burns. Gas pipeline explodes.

"Today’s Teacup Tempest, Courtesy of Special Counsel Robert Hur"
Yeah, this sounds to me like a prosecutor who really should have stayed in his lane and shouldn’t have been trying to dabble in areas that he had no expertise in. Bottom line: Biden did not demonstrate any criminal intent. There was no intention to try and hold onto documents that he should not have had.

Further comments on the gratuitous criticisms that Special Counsel Hur makes of Biden. There appears to be some evidence that Biden was a bit sloppy.

"Ky. House committee votes to make fluoride ‘optional’ in tap water"
Wow! I recall as a young'un that we had fluoride in our toothpaste and that only whacked-out conspiracy theorists objected to putting fluoride in our drinking water. I guess now we'll be reverting back to using leeches and engaging in blood-letting, etc.

The International Court of Justice has instructed Israel on how to avoid committing genocide against Palestinians. Israel appears to be refusing those instructions, especially by targeting hospitals. Israel is also pumping seawater into tunnels "which experts warn could render Gaza uninhabitable for 100 years by contaminating underground fresh water." So is the United Nations Security Council going to enforce the rulings of the ICJ?

"GOP rejects the best border offer they’ve ever seen, will ever get"
Yep! This was the best chance that Republicans had in decades to get a lot of stuff they allegedly wanted for resolving the border problem. This chance won’t come again for quite a while, even if Trump wins in November.

Very cool! Senate Majority Leader Schumer puts forward the Ukraine and other aid bill without any mention of the US border with Mexico and the bill advances! Ukraine might get aid after all!

Update (24 Apr):  Took quite a while for Ukraine aid to pass (it'll take until late June, early July to get the supplies there), but border provisions were not part of the deal.

Massive Russian missile attack on Ukrainian residential housing and civilian infrastructure. Public transportation in Kyiv affected. Every province is hit.
Ukrainian missiles fly directly above Russian anti-missile batteries “adding insult to injury”.
Hmm. Massive explosion in Russia,1300 miles from Ukraine border

Rachel Bitecofer, the "poll whisperer," has a new book out. Democrats need a new strategy that hits the other guys hard! Most people aren’t caught up on the details of politics, so Democrats have to adopt simple, straightforward messages.

Julia Davis: “Meanwhile in Russia: Kremlin-controlled state TV promoted Tucker Carlson's interview with Putin and derided his critics” YouTube video. 

After meeting wit several VIPs, Zelenskyy initiates the Unmanned Systems Forces, a branch of the military that includes land, air and sea drones.
Foreign diplomats are thoroughly disgusted and disillusioned by the House holding Biden’s foreign policy up. “I don’t know if in the coming years people will be looking at the United States as a model for democracy,” a second Arab diplomat warned.
There wasn’t much concern in the Republican Party in February 2022 about the far-right fringe. It’s a bit late for them to be concerned now. Russia is, of course, delighted with how things have turned out.
Europe is very deeply concerned about Trump being president again. Authoritarian leaders are on the rise, in part aided by Trump’s presidency. “A reelected Trump would be completely unchained from the old, pro-democracy Republican establishment.”
Our blogger: “As of now, and for the foreseeable future, the ability of the US to provide aid to its allies and partners, is at a dead stop.” and “If you’re watching this mess from Beijing you’ve got to be thrilled.”

Wow! Currently, Category 5 is the strongest hurricane. Scientists propose adding a Category 6!

Woo hoo! The Appeals Court reached a very, well sound and sensible decision on presidential immunity. No, the president does not have any more immunities after he leaves office than he did before he became president!

Three Ukrainian families successfully escap Russian-occupied area.
Top House Republicans declare the Ukraine aid bill (it also addresses immigration and other national security concerns) DOA. Senate Minority Leader McConnell wants his member to vote for the bill, but won’t press the issue, meaning no problem if someone votes no.
The Freedom Caucus opposes even the Speaker-supported Israel aid bill.
Zelenskyy tours he front and is generally pleased.
20 millions tons of cargo has made its way out to customers around the region.
Europe is very concerned about the ability of the US to keep its commitments. This is, of course, very bad news for Taiwan.
Russia might very well be able to take Avdiivka due to Ukraine’s lack of artillery shells. Other Russian attacks.
Netherlands delivers six F-16s.
US on track to produce 70 to 80 thousand 155mm artillery shells per month.
Finland steps up with more shells.
Hungary’s Orbán fails to kep his word to provide votes for Sweden’s membership in NATO.
Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer Viktor Labin attempts to outmaneuver Western sanctions.
Busting a number myths about how Ukraine has fought the war.
For democracies to succeed against dictatorships, the cheap and easy way won’t work.

President Biden asked for military aid to Ukraine back in October. Ukraine’s ammunition shortages are getting so bad that they might lose their first city since Bakhmut was lost.

Senator JD Vance appears to hold a deeply problematic view of how jury trials work. Kentucky’s 2020 vote for president was roughly two-to-one in favor of the Republican candidate. Kentucky has two Republican Senators and out of six Representatives, they have a single Democrat. Suppose a wealthy white fellow was on trial in Kentucky and was acquitted. Would it be appropriate to suspect the jury of being biased? Or would we need to examine other factors first, such as, he might really be innocent, perhaps the prosecution did a poor job, perhaps evidence wasn’t properly presented. For Vance to say what he does here is a real problem.

Florida Governor DeSantis seems to have an awfully peculiar definition of "freedom." He applies it in a really weird way to the growing of cultivated meat so that, in his definition, it means shutting down the cultivated meat industry.

Update (22 May):  Seems DeSantis also has a pretty weird definition of "Freedom Summer," which back during the Civil Rights struggle of 1964 meant a  "voting registration drive in Mississippi that helped to spur the passage of the Voting Rights Act." DeSantis uses the term to mean restricting the colors that a bridge can display as part of an anti-gay initiative. 

An honest appraisal of the proposal that Trump clearly approves of would call it the "Death to the Human Race" initiative. Essentially, he'd permit the burning of fossil fuels to grow completely unchecked.