“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.”
–Jesus (Matthew 23:15)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.”
–Jesus (Matthew 23:15)
April 7th is National Girl Me Too Day.
“This is how a weak and sick person behaves - psychiatrists will be able to explain his behaviour better. American citizens should be ashamed of their president.”
–How the entire free world describes Donald Trump How Russia describes Joe Biden
On July 1, 1968, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America, and dozens of other countries entered into the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NPT categorizes countries as either “nuclear-weapon States” or “non-nuclear-weapon States.” The five “nuclear-weapon States” are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China, all of which had successfully exploded a nuclear device before 1967. (The Russian Federation formally agreed in 1992 to exercise the rights and fulfill the obligations of the former U.S.S.R. under the NPT.)
Under the NPT, non-nuclear-weapon States agree never to acquire nuclear weapons, and the nuclear-weapon States in exchange agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament aimed at the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals. To this day, the NPT remains the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of nuclear disarmament. As of today, 191 (out of 193) States have agreed to the NPT; more countries have ratified it than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement in the world.
Not all countries agreed to be subject to the NPT’s limitations immediately, however. Ukraine, for example, did not join the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon State until 1994, when the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation gave Ukraine ample security assurances, formalized in the “Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.” In exchange for Ukraine promising to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory and remain a non-nuclear-weapon State, the other countries–including Russia–explicitly promised (among other things):
Russia is still a party to the 1994 Memorandum. Too bad it refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of any international court, or it might have been in trouble for blatantly violating it when it invaded the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
Or, y'know, right now.
Image credit: Corbis/Getty Images
Since 1956, the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary has evaluated all federal judicial nominees, rating them Well Qualified, Qualified, or Not Qualified based on “the qualities of integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament.” The ABA has long been recognized as a neutral, non-political body, and its ratings have typically received widespread bipartisan support as objective. (Not always: for example, in 2017 Trump ended the ABA’s role in evaluating his judicial nominees, preferring to follow recommendations from the conservative Federalist Society.)
The ABA has evaluated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, and “has given her a unanimous rating of Well Qualified.”
In 1998, the Group of Seven–the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy–added Russia to the G7, transforming into the G8. But when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed the Crimean Peninsula, the other members of the G8 expelled it, transforming the group back into the G7. Russia responded by downplaying the significance of the G7: “All the economic and financial questions are decided in G20.”
Now that Russia has again invaded Ukraine, the Group of Twenty is contemplating its expulsion. (China opposes the move.) Russia’s response is, again, to downplay any significance:
March 31 is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. Trans Day of Visibility is an annual awareness day celebrated around the world. The day is dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of transgender and gender nonconforming people while raising awareness of the work that still needs to be done to achieve trans justice.
YouTube removed some video content posted on the account of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) from its platform because it was in violation of its "election integrity policy," a spokesperson told The Washington Examiner on Thursday.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said in a Twitter post on Thursday that YouTube had removed all the video footage from two days of the four-day conference, which occurred from Feb. 24-27. He said that the removed content included speeches made by former President Donald Trump and multiple GOP senators and House members, among others.
The videos that YouTube removed were flagged for “misinformation.”
“Our policies apply to everyone, regardless of the uploader’s political views, and while we do allow content that provides additional context such as countervailing views, the content we removed from this channel was footage that did not provide sufficient context.”
The conservatives whose misinformation (a.k.a. lying) was removed promptly denounced YouTube for “censorship.” Of course.
Anonymous Russian Troll sez:
Some Azov Battalion Neo Nazi soldiers shot some russian prisoners of war in cold blood so they can continue the Russia and Ukraine conflict as to validate their fascist only the strong survive ideology. Those warmongering idiotic monsters! A video recording got released of it today. Ukraine Soldiers Shooting Russian Prisoners Of War is all over on youtube.
The only news organization to report this is Russia’s state-controlled network, RT (f.k.a. “Russia Today”). A few other sites have reposted RT’s article word for word, including, “The videos are so extremely graphic that RT is unable to share them.” So far, neither the videos nor any related stories have (yet) appeared on any reputable news organization.
No independent source has verified any of the videos. To the contrary, a number of experts have pointed out some glaring discrepancies indicating–though not proving–that they are probably fake, including but not limited to:
And then there’s this: Anonymous has published a leaked document dated March 21, 2022–a few days before the videos materialized online–in which Russia’s Deputy Minister of Defense, Dmitry Bulgakov, issued this order:
Here is the order in its original Russian: