Thank you for the scale of embezzlement

Straight into Ukraine Updates. In a post from noon yesterday Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed the biolabs conspiracy that Russia is pushing. No, Ukraine isn’t creating bioweapons. No US run labs in Ukraine aren’t either. There had been Soviet bioweapon labs in Ukraine that the US has been helping to safely shut down. There are also biosafety labs, which are typical for medical and biological work in universities and hospitals. There are likely several of these in or near every US city. Russian propaganda is still pushing this idea and, as usual, with no regard for the truth. And Fox News and QAnon believers are lapping it up, though the latter are inserting their usual bit about pedophile rings they are claiming are headquartered in Joe Biden’s Black Sea villa (hint: fact checkers assure us Biden doesn’t own any villas in Ukraine). Sumner quoted Julia Ioffe discussing Russian shelling of cities:

The Russians have done this before—in Syria. “The idea is to weaken the civilians to make those living under the opposition areas feel life is hell,” he said. “By targeting bakeries, schools, and hospitals, you make people lose all hope.”

Sumner added:

A reminder that Russia’s bombing of civilian sites is not generated from simple carelessness, and the frequent strikes against hospitals, schools, and basic infrastructure are not accidental. This is a systematic approach that Russia has used before. They are deliberately trying to create as much physical discomfort and emotional pain as they can manage.

In a noon update Sumner wrote that the Russians thought the war would go so quickly that soldiers brought dress uniforms to wear in Independence Square in Kyiv. Two weeks later Kyiv is still in Ukrainian hands.

Russia did have a backup plan. It would simply switch to what it did best: Brutally crushing civilian areas. Attacks on schools, homes, hospitals are anything but accidental. That is the plan. Putin may not get to go on a Hitler-in-Paris review of Kyiv, but he’s just fine being king of the bloody ash heap. After all, he’s done it before. ... This is a war on the whole concept of civilization, one that we’ve turned a blind eye to for far too long. Woe to everyone should Ukraine fall.

Visegrád24 tweeted:

Great trolling from the Head of the Ukrainian Anti-corruption Agency. He sent a letter to the Russian Defence Minister thanking him for scale of embezzlement plaguing the Russian Army. Turns out that much of the money Putin allocated to the Russian Army has simply been stolen.

Sumner titled a post from late afternoon yesterday “Panem et circenses et bellum.” I recognize it as Latin, but had to start up Google Translate. It said it means “bread and circuses and war.” We’re all complaining about the price of gas at the pump. But what will really matter is the availability of wheat. Over the last decade Russia has been the top exporter of wheat and Ukraine was fifth. Russian wheat will be locked behind embargoes for a while. And Ukrainians may not be able to harvest the current crop or plant the next one because they’re so caught up in defending their country. There could be famines that could cause waves of unrest. In this post is a good illustration of the situation by a Greek cartoonist. Paula Chertok tweeted an exchange between Jake Tapper of CNN and Wes Clark:

CNN: What does Russia gain by bombing hospitals? CLARK: It's a terror campaign against a civilian population. Intimidates medical personnel. Keeps wounded ppl from going to hospital. Runs out int'l aid orgs who might be in those hospitals. It's pure terror. Absolutely a war crime

An early evening update by Kos of Kos featured a map. I had discussed maps of Ukraine showing the Russian occupied area and the Russian occupied roads. This is somewhere in between. Kos again discussed that Russia has stretched itself too thin by attacking on so many fronts. That has allowed Ukraine to fight Russia to a standstill. Kos quoted Samuel Ramani, adding this is a tactic not an accident:

Russia has bombed more than 280 educational facilities in Ukraine.

Then Kos wrote:

Just imagine if Russia had used those hundreds of missiles and thousands of artillery shells to hit, you know, military targets. Who knows? They might be further along their mission! But Russia only knows how to subjugate via terror.

In an update from this morning Kos again reviewed Russia’s situation. People have been saying Russia will learn from its mistakes and fix them. Kos wrote that’s not possible. There are two problems: (1) Russia’s forces are too spread out. It can’t do a large-scale assault to take a city – for any one city there would be too few Russians against too many Ukrainians. (2) Russia’s supply lines are too insecure. The only way to fix the first problem is to regroup the army into one front. That means ceding territory back to Ukraine as well as other difficulties. Won’t happen. And the only way to fix the second problem is to fix the first. In a post from noon today Sumner discussed the several Russian generals who have been killed. Why are they on the front lines? Is it so they could be on display when Kyiv fell (which hasn’t happened)? Is it morale – promising a quick victory and having to deal with that not happening? Is this the loss of invaluable knowledge and leadership or are they just corrupt jackasses ordered to the front when the money went to dachas instead of tanks? These deaths are a sign of an unhealthy military. A report that might be significant or might be nothing – Sumner quoted Joanna Szostek who quoted Maxim Alyukov. First is Alyukov:

Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion.

And Szostek added:

Wow. Wow. This is significant. Signs that Russian state propagandists are actually turning against the war.

I had written about the Russian attack and takeover of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Geoff Brumfiel of NPR reported was far closer to being catastrophic than had earlier been reported. The report has photos and videos. Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that back on January 27, before the Ukraine invasion began, Putin went to a St. Petersburg cemetery to honor the defenders of the city. St. Petersburg – Leningrad at the time – was under siege by the Nazis for 872 days, ending on January 27, 1944. Perhaps more than a million people died in the siege. Putin’s mother lived through the siege. His father was part of the battalion that worked to keep a narrow supply route open. His brother died in the siege (Putin was born in 1952 – I had to looked it up). One would think such a person would be sensitive to those under siege and prevent sieges from happening. But Putin is trying to do to Ukraine what the Nazis did to his mother and brother and his father worked to prevent. Worse, Putin is claiming he’s doing it to root out Nazis in a place where there are none. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included some late night commentary.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, most of the world thought that they were just gonna roll their tanks in and have the whole country in a few days. But as it turns out, the Ukraine resistance has been so effective that after two weeks the Russians have barely captured any of the cities that they've been attacking. And considering that the Russian army is eight times the size of Ukraine's, this has been humiliating for Russia. It's like Godzilla getting his ass whupped by the Geico gecko. —Trevor Noah Republican senator Susan Collins met yesterday with President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson for 90 minutes. “After meeting with her, I don’t think she's qualified for the position,” said Judge Jackson. —Seth Meyers

With that we switch to other news: David Neiwert of Kos discussed a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. There is a decline in the number of hate groups. That’s usually seen as good news. But ... Wrote Neiwert:

However, the primary reason for the declines is disturbing: Analysts have found that the impetus to organize or join hate groups has mostly declined because extremist belief systems, rhetoric, and organizing have become mainstream within the Republican right. Why join the KKK when you can just join the GOP?

Congress averted a government shutdown – the Treasury would have run out of money tonight. In addition, they actually passed a budget for the year, which should have happened six months ago. A laugh for today. Daily Kos is reviving the Koscars. They had been dormant so long I didn’t know they existed. As with the Oscars, there are nominees in several categories. Unlike the Oscars they are doing one category at a time. At the moment the category is snark and sarcasm. One of the nominees was written back in 2010 and is by Jeff Lieber who is describing a massive windspill:

You see, I live in Southern California... just north of the Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm... and this morning a gang of lipstick lesbians lost control of their motorcycles and CRASHED into one of the turbines and now... THERE IS (WHOOOSH) F---ING WIND (WHOOOSH) EVERYWHERE!!!! ... How in God's name (TUMBLEWEED BLOWS BY) are we going to breathe with all this air in the air? ... But the worse part... I now find out that some asshole in the GREEN MOVEMENT allowed these WIND FARMS to be built right near SOLAR FARMS and so (WHOOOSH) what is going to happen when all this extra wind somehow manages to DESTROY THE SOLAR FARM and (WHOOOSH) next thing we know... we're dealing with THE F---ING SUN SPILLING ALL OVER THE DESERT! WHY DIDN'T WE LISTEN TO THE REPUBLICANS AND STICK WITH A SAFE ENERGY SOURCE LIKE OIL!?!?!

Reducing hate as a measure of church health

Pastor Jeremy Smith of the blog Hacking Christianity asks whether a church should be engaged in challenging hate groups. Details in my brother blog.

There really is a gay agenda

I spent a good chunk of today in a recording studio with my community handbell ensemble. It went pretty well. We have another session at the end of May with the CD likely ready by September. It will make a great Christmas gift, even though there will be only a little bit of Christmas music on it.



The American Family Association is annoyed that the Southern Poverty Law Center won't back down from their declaration of the AFA as a hate group for the vile things they say about gay people. So the AFA has come up with a "Bigotry Map" showing all the organizations across America that promote the homosexual agenda, atheism, humanism, and are in other ways anti-Christian. Yeah, there is a lot of confusion about the difference between not believing in a god and actively working to stir up hate and discrimination against Christians.



Think Progress discusses the ways in which the GOP is chipping away at abortion rights by throwing up all sorts of restrictions. The consequence is that poor women face additional costs and frequently by the time they can raise the money the pregnancy has passed the gestation limits. The only women who are stopped from getting an abortion are poor women, which puts us back to the question of how is America better when it forces only its poor women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term?



Randy Berry has been appointed by the US State Department to be a special envoy to promote LGBT rights around the world. An important step.



The Ethics and Religious Liberty Comission of the Southern Baptist Convention released its Legislative Agenda for 2015. Brandon Robertson of Pantheos looked at the item on same-sex marriage. He sees that it isn't really about fidelity to the Bible (actually, a strange interpretation of it), it's really about discrimination.



Rev. John Pavlovitz has done some careful observation of gay people in his congregation and has determined there really is a Gay Agenda. Yup. He feels it is his responsibility to warn us. He has found that gay people want to: work, buy stuff, eat, go to church and worship God (or not), have families, create, and to have the full complement of human emotions. That's the evil Christians are up against.



Terrence Heath does a weekly Wingnut in Review in his personal blog. It can be tough to wade through all the nonsense conservatives spew in a week, though I suppose somebody has to do it. This week's edition has a bit of fun. The Conservative Political Action Conference is going on now and organizers invited anyone to use Twitter to ask questions of any of the speakers. Liberals jumped at the opportunity to ask questions that probably won't be addressed by anyone at CPAC. Such as: While Ben Carson was bashing people who need gov't aid, why didn't anyone question his past need of gov't aid? The list of aid he received is long.



A couple weeks ago a train derailed in West Virginia. Somewhere around 570,000 gallons of crude oil caught fire and exploded. Similar accidents over the last year prompted Obama to start talking about tanker car upgrades, including thicker tank walls, electronic breaks, and devices o prevent crumpling and rollover. Yes, these upgrades would cost the oil companies billions of dollars. So they are contributing heavily to members of Congress to prevent any of these safety measures from taking effect. Which means the West Virginia Bomb Train was brought to us by the GOP. The group Forest Ethics has created a map of potential bomb train blast zones. There are two such routes through Michigan, one through Detroit and one through Flint, though my home and my parents' home are both outside the 1 mile impact zone.

A false equivalency

I wrote a post about Tony Perkins, head of Family Research Council, accusing the SPLC of encouraging and enabling the shooter at the FRC because the SPLC had labeled the FRC as a hate group. But I didn't go looking for a response from the SPLC. It's here, and it’s a good one. A couple excerpts:

Perkins’ accusation is outrageous. The SPLC has listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people — not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage. The FRC and its allies on the religious right are saying, in effect, that offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic society is tantamount to suggesting that the objects of criticism should be the targets of criminal violence.

And…

Perkins and his allies, seeing an opportunity to score points, are using the attack on their offices to pose a false equivalency between the SPLC’s criticisms of the FRC and the FRC’s criticisms of LGBT people. The FRC routinely pushes out demonizing claims that gay people are child molesters and worse — claims that are provably false. It should stop the demonization and affirm the dignity of all people.

It's all because I'm labeled has hateful

I went north on a two-day jaunt to hear the Bay View Week of Handbells perform one of my arrangements, this one of a piece by Maurice Ravel. The 100 ringers did a fine job. It was cool to meet a few of the ringers before the concert (still a few familiar faces from when I used to take part in the Week several years ago). And way cool to listen to ringers come up to me and tell me how much they liked the piece.

On to today's topic.

A couple days ago a gay man went to the headquarters of the Family Research Council, pulled out a gun, and started shooting. Fortunately, the only one injured was a security guard, and I hear his wound was in the arm.

41 gay advocacy groups have condemned the shooting. "We reject and condemn such violence."

The FRC has been labeled by the SPLC as a hate group for demonizing gay people and using material known to be false (such as distorting research over the objections of the researcher) to do so.

Tony Perkins, head of FRC, is claiming that the shooter attacked his organization because of the SPLC label. Gay groups aren't buying it. Here's a long list of things that Tony Perkins has said and any of those are much more inflammatory than anything the SPLC could say. An example:

The truth is that we cannot redefine marriage without opening the door to all manner of moral and social evil.

They are intolerant. They are hateful. They are vile. They are spiteful...pawns of the enemy.

Hate continues to rise

The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued a new report on the hate groups in America. The number of extremist groups is at a record level. The biggest rise is in the number of armed militias that see the federal government as the enemy. The biggest reasons for the increase in the number of groups and in their size are Obama being elected president and the long-term effects of the economic crash.

There are also 11 anti-gay groups added to the list. Not all anti-gay groups are designated as hate groups. Those that get the tag (1) use lies or claims to science that has been proven false in their propaganda, and (2) attack or malign (even if just verbally) an entire class of people.

Demonize and discredit

The second anonymous writer responded again through email. I may have to come up with a descriptive phrase as a name. He replied to my posting about the increase in hate groups and has interesting and important points, which I'll summarize:

* The report talked about the number of groups, but is group membership growing? Is it growing faster or slower than the national population as a whole? The report doesn't say.

* Is it fair to list each chapter of such organizations as the Klan as a separate hate group?

* Anecdotes of recent activity (such as arresting a man at a Dearborn mosque with a trunk load of explosives) do not provide evidence of whether such incidents are increasing.

Yes, some of these groups spout scary words. But the SPLC report doesn't tell the whole story.

Another person replied directly to my blog. He essentially said the sole purpose of the SPLC is to raise money. To keep the bucks rolling in the level of threat has to increase. Odd, gays say the same thing about many anti-gay groups. He added the term hate group is meaningless, so much so the FBI doesn't use the term. The original is attached to the posting, link above.

I won't agree the term hate group is meaningless. The SPLC defined it quite well in the articles I've seen about it. I just took a look at the SPLC website and didn't find it, though the definition might be in one of their publications. The definition is something like this: A hate group is an organization that uses false or misleading information to demonize a particular class of people.

As a gay man I am quite aware of the many organizations that use false information to demonize gays. I'm pleased that an outside group (meaning non-gay) is able to make the case that several anti-gay organizations fit the definition of a hate group. We can't do it ourselves because those claims would simply be dismissed. When the SPLC designations came out many gay blogs noted the various anti-gay groups mentioned did not refute what the SPLC said. They only tried to discredit the SPLC.

The author of that comment to my blog is not anonymous -- his name is included in the comment. I don't know him. His name provided a link to his own blog. I am not at all surprised that every post on the main page, going back to last August, is a criticism of SPLC.

As I said, I don't know this writer. I have no way to judge the veracity of his claims. I do know that a lot of people who work to demonize me also work to discredit the SPLC.

The hate is growing

According to the quarterly report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the country has topped 1000, up 7.5% in the last year and up 66% since 2000. 35 of these groups are in Michigan. There are three broad categories of groups:

* General hate groups that target race (Klan, neo-Nazi, white nationalist, neo-Confederalist, black separatists), ethnicity, sexual minorities, and immigrants. It also includes those who deny the Holocaust.

* Patriot groups who see the federal government as their enemy based on conspiracy theories. This category has grown the fastest.

* Nativist Extremist groups that go beyond advocating for tough immigration laws to harassing suspected immigrants.

A lot of the ideas of these groups have been pulled into the mainstream (want to guess by who?). In the past that has reduced the number of these groups and their level of violence. That hasn't happened this time. The violence level has increased.

Do we really need to explain the difference between hate and love?

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) got its start tracking violent White Supremacist groups. Alas, it has had to branch out to both tracking hate groups of all sorts and making sure the rest of the country knows they are hate groups. As expected, a few anti-gay and "pro-marriage" groups also made the list, some only recently added.

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is miffed that these Christian groups are included. Predictably, they claim that Christian bashing needs to stop. Strangely, they don't say which groups are unfairly labeled.

One would think that a Christian group, one that believes in a bible in which the primary emphasis is on "God is love," would take stock of what they are doing when someone labels them a hate group. The SPLC is clear that there labeling is not because of a disagreement about homosexuality. It is because these groups are "subjecting gays and lesbians to campaigns of personal vilification."

Loving your enemy is hard. I get that. Over eight years I wasn't able to figure out how to love Bush. Even so, there is still a long way between having a disagreement or not being able to love and vilification. And that's what brings about the label of hate and my claim they are not Christian.