Veterans – Patriotism – Page 95

In the enemy camp. What the future holds for Russia

The New Voice of Ukraine – Opinion

In the enemy camp. What the future holds for Russia

The New Voice of Ukraine – January 15, 2024

Putin claims that Russians are living better

Russia will become North Korea, and Putin will become Kim Jong-un

Regarding Russia and its near future, we must realize that the margin of economic and institutional stability of Russian statehood will remain strong. However, Russia will still undergo profound changes and transformations.

The political system in Russia will be in a state of latent turbulence. The ruling Kremlin elite will do its best to preserve the image of the collective Putin in the public mind. However, the Kremlin’s towers will be swaying in different directions as all participants prepare for the transition of power in post-Putin Russia. A step-by-step plan has been created on how and who to act.

In the Russian Federation, people’s trust in each other is low by world standards, which indicates tension in society, mass fears, and mutual alienation at the social level.

A similar situation will be observed in the regions, particularly in the national republics and autonomous districts. Centrifugal processes will accelerate, provoking a reaction from the central government. A striking example of a “watchdog” over certain national fringes is the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. This will provoke even greater confrontation.

The Kremlin’s towers will be swaying in different directions

These processes will be deepened and accelerated by the country’s difficult social and economic situation, which has wholly switched to war. Inflation, an increase in the discount rate, higher prices for food, fuel, housing, and utilities, significant import restrictions, and rising lending rates will also increase tensions. The social gap between large metropolitan areas and the regions will rapidly deepen. Forced mobilization and border closures will increase the shortage of skilled labor. At the same time, it is impossible not to note the steps the Russian Federation took to stabilize the financial and economic system, which resulted in a budget deficit of 0.7% of GDP.

Putting the economy on a war footing, coupled with the West’s toughened sanctions policy against exports to Russia, will undoubtedly lead to a deepening shortage of certain consumer goods, from imported cars and spare parts to gaskets and toothpaste. Gray imports, which the Russians use in their military-industrial complex, cannot cover the needs of a country of 110 million people for essential hygiene products or household appliances. This situation will undoubtedly strengthen China, which is already actively pursuing economic expansion in Russia. An example is the assembly of JAC cars under the Moskvich brand at the former Renaut plant. The well-known Russian Lada Kalina will suffer a similar fate of complete “Chineseization.”

The state of affairs in the Russian armed forces will also affect public sentiment. “Meat assaults” will remain a key tactic of Russian generals. This will affect the moral and psychological state of the personnel, and the growth of the death conveyor will further drive Russian society into alcoholic apathy. The return of demobilized soldiers from the front will lead to massive criminalization of the Russian hinterland, including yesterday’s convicts. Problems with army logistics will remain. Russian soldiers will continue to be massively underfunded and underprovisioned and will go into battle with outdated weapons.

Old and new special operations

Russia will not abandon the KGB’s usual practice of creating “sources of instability” in different parts of Europe and the world. The main areas of such work are the Balkans (Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Kazakhstan (northern regions of the country), Armenia, Moldova, the Baltic States, Niger, and Sudan. In the Baltics, the Russians will only “shake” the socio-political situation through their agents, playing the old card of “protecting the rights of Russian speakers.” They will provoke a direct armed conflict in Kosovo, using historical differences between Serbia and the former autonomous province of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In Kazakhstan, a scenario using proxy armed groups such as the “Donbas militia” of 2014 is possible. The main goal of such sabotage activities is to divert attention from Ukraine and create global chaos and the illusion that complete peace cannot be established without the participation of the Kremlin and Russia.

Putin’s Death and the Transition of Power

2024 is the year of the Russian presidential election. However, even Putin’s death or re-election for another term will not fundamentally change the strategic situation for Ukraine. But there are nuances.

Putin’s obvious re-election will show that the Kremlin’s policy remains unchanged. That is, the military and political leadership will continue to try to implement a strategy to restore the Russian Empire within the borders of the former Soviet Union.

At the same time, the order of the International Court of Justice in The Hague significantly restricts Putin’s international communications. It marginalizes not only him personally but the entire country. Consequently, Russia’s official representation in the international arena will primarily be purely formal. It will only be fully effective in some African and Asian countries. As a result, this factor will undoubtedly push Russia to the margins of the global political landscape, turning it into a third-world country. This status has already become a significant problem for Russian elites and those Russian citizens who are used to considering themselves “people of the world.” And now they will live in a new “North Korea” with a new “Kim Jong-un.”

Abbott’s war on migration has led to another tragedy in Texas

CNN – Opinion

Opinion: Abbott’s war on migration has led to another tragedy in Texas

Opinion by Alice Driver – January 16, 2024

Editor’s Note: Alice Driver is a writer who divides her time between Mexico and the US. Her latest book is “The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company.” Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and Oxford American. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.

On Friday, a woman and her two young children struggled to cross the Rio Grande’s unpredictable waters to get from Mexico to Eagle Pass, Texas. US Border Patrol agents tried to enter Shelby Park, which runs along the US side of the Rio Grande, to save the woman and her children. The agents reportedly reached out to Texas state officials about the emergency by phone but received no response.

Alice Driver - Luis_Garvan — Alice Driver – Luis_Garvan

Democratic US Rep. Henry Cuellar said in a statement late Saturday that US Border Patrol agents went to the park and asked to be allowed to render aid to the migrants, whom he identified as a mother and her two young children according to Mexican sources, but were denied entry.

“Texas Military Department soldiers stated they would not grant (the Border Patrol) access to the migrants — even in the event of an emergency,” Cuellar said, adding that Mexican officials recovered three bodies on Saturday.

Texas officials deny mishandling the crisis. “TMD (Texas Military Department) was contacted by Border Patrol at approximately 9:00 pm on Friday in reference to a migrant distress situation. TMD had a unit in the vicinity of the boat ramp and actively searched the river with lights and night vision goggles. No migrants were observed,” the agency said in a statement to a local ABC affiliate.

But Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman from Texas, suggested Gov. Greg Abbott bears direct responsibility for the tragedy. “Texas officials blocked US Border Patrol agents from doing their job and allowed two children to drown in the Rio Grande,” Castro said, an account confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security. “Governor Abbott’s inhumanity has no limit. Everyone who enables his cruelty has blood on their hands.”

To know that a young family is struggling to navigate cold, swift waters and to do nothing to prevent their deaths is cruel and evil.

But for Abbott it is more of the same: His policies take an unduly harsh line on immigration, even if it means putting the lives of innocent people at risk. The state of Texas should be held responsible for these deaths.

I’ve been an immigration writer for years, including at the Eagle Pass crossing, and I’ve seen heartless policies against people trying to enter the United States. Abbott’s are among the worst I’ve covered.

I’ve interviewed countless migrants very much like the woman who perished this weekend. If this mother and her two children had been saved, they might be applying for asylum and imagining a future together far from the harm and privation they likely experienced in their home country.

As The Atlantic explained in recent reporting, the mother and her children would face a backlog of asylum cases that grew to 1,009,625 in 2023, and they would wait an average of four years to get a hearing. Had they survived, I might be interviewing them today, as I have solicited the personal stories of hundreds of migrants along the US-Mexico border over the past decade.

The two children might be taking photos with the Polaroid camera that I carry around, and writing messages with the rainbow-colored markers I also keep at hand.

“What do you want me to write?” children often ask me, wide-eyed, when I tell them they can write or draw anything they want on their photos. They sometimes share messages like “I hope God grants me asylum” or “I hope I don’t get separated from my mom.” There is so much to learn from the stories of people fleeing war, famine, drought and the effects of climate change.

These are lessons, however, that appear to have been lost on Abbott. During his time in office, he has been on a warpath to criminalize and dehumanize migrants, spending more than $4.5 billion on Operation Lone Star since 2021, his ramped up effort to prevent border crossings, including by deploying floating razor wire barricades in the Rio Grande. And he has spent more than $100 million to send asylum seekers legally in the US to Democratic-run cities, usually without notice and without providing sufficient — if any — food or warm clothing for the journey.

Abbott’s policies seem not too dissimilar to the family separation initiative put into place by former President Donald Trump in that inflicting cruelty, pain and trauma appear to be tools to deter migration. Nevertheless, Operation Lone Star — like Trump’s family separation policies — appears to have had little effect on stemming migration. It would appear that the misery migrants have been fleeing for years is worse than even the cruel anti-immigration program that Abbott has devised.

On December 18, he signed into law SB 4, a measure that attempts to wrest the power the Constitution gives the federal government over immigration and put it in state hands. SB 4 made entering Texas illegally a state crime. Abbott’s efforts to criminalize migration have included stringingconcertina wire and erecting anti-climb barriers along the border and installing an $850,000 floating barrier made of buoys separated by saw blades along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass.

The Fifth Circuit Court ordered Texas to remove the floating barrier last year. In a recent radio interview, Abbott said — shockingly — of his policies: “The only thing that we are not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border — because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”

Abbott has made Eagle Pass a focus of his immigration enforcement policies. But he has done so without the support of local authorities. Mayor Rolando Salinas questioned why Abbott closed Shelby Park, which is public, without his permission. “That is not a decision that we agreed to,” Salinas said. “This is not something that we wanted. This is not something that we asked for as a city.”

The confrontation between the US Border Patrol and the Texas National Guard troops and Texas Military Department represents a looming power struggle between Abbott and the Biden administration — one in which federal officials must assert their authority.

Abbott’s policies prevented the federal government from exercising its constitutional power to save a mother and her two children. Luis Miranda, a DHS spokesperson, said, “The Texas governor’s policies are cruel, dangerous and inhumane, and Texas’s blatant disregard for federal authority over immigration poses grave risks.”

Even before the tragic deaths at Eagle Pass, the Biden administration appealed to the US Supreme Court about Texas blocking access to the border. Abbott’s power struggle with the Biden administration sets a dangerous precedent, one that shows wanton disregard for the lives of migrants.

By now, it should be clear to Abbott that ratcheting up cruelty is not a way to stem migration. Instead of militarizing the border, Texas and the federal government should instead invest in humane asylum policies that don’t heap tragedy upon people arriving to this country who have already experienced so much hardship and loss.

Democratic Governor Exposes GOP ‘Weakness’ In Trump’s Iowa Caucuses Win

HuffPost

Democratic Governor Exposes GOP ‘Weakness’ In Trump’s Iowa Caucuses Win

Ben Blanchet – January 16, 2024

Trump Emerges Victorious In Iowa

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) flagged one takeaway that could spell bad news for the GOP after Donald Trump’s comfortable victory in the Iowa caucuses on Monday.

Pritzker, in an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, noted that “almost half” of the Republican Party’s base showed up to vote against the former president. Trump, as of early Tuesday morning, received 51% of the vote.

“I mean, this is the most famous Republican. He’s the guy who, you know, basically built the modern Republican Party, the MAGA Republican Party that the Democrats are running against, and half the people in that party didn’t vote for Donald Trump,” he said.

The Illinois governor added that the results, which show an overwhelming win by the GOP front-runner who faces 91 felony charges over four criminal cases, were “telling.”

“It tells you the weakness of Donald Trump and also the opportunity for Democrats, ’cause in the end, look, if the base doesn’t turn out for Donald Trump in the general election enthusiastically, and Democrats turn out its base, this is all about independents, and independents don’t like Donald Trump,” said Pritzker, a Biden campaign surrogate.

“So, I think we’re in a pretty good place tonight to see what’s happening on the Republican side,” he said.

Pritzker, who has knocked Trump on a number of occasions, added that the race could be “over” if the former president wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“But the truth is all of these candidates are running as sort of mini-me Trump Republicans,” he said of the 2024 GOP presidential field.

“They all have exactly the position that you mentioned earlier, six-week ban on abortion, they want a national abortion ban, the Republican Party is standing against working families and Donald Trump is representative of, I think, everything that is wrong with the current environment in politics.”

After Iowa, Trump Is Back to Command the National Psyche. He Never Actually Left.

The New York Times

After Iowa, Trump Is Back to Command the National Psyche. He Never Actually Left.

Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie Haberman – January 16, 2024

Former President Donald Trump arrives in New York on Monday. Jan. 15, 2024, after winning the Iowa caucuses by 30 percentage points. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

DES MOINES, Iowa — There was a time, not so long ago, when those wearied and horrified by the presidency of Donald Trump could almost convince themselves that the man was gone.

He was ostensibly a movement leader in exile, simmering in Florida, his flailing election lies confined to private monologues and modest platforms. He was no longer appearing on Fox News, the most powerful media organ of the right. His screeds on Truth Social did not land with the force of their tweeted predecessors. Even as a declared presidential candidate for the past 14 months, Trump often ceded the campaign trail to his rivals (who mostly fought one another, instead of him), skipping debates and appearing only episodically at public engagements that were not matters of the courts.

But with his landslide victory in Iowa, codifying his double-fisted hold on wide swaths of the Republican electorate, two conclusions were inescapable by Tuesday morning.

Trump is back as the dominant figure in American political life — destined again to be ubiquitous, his entwined legal and electoral dramas set to shadow the nation’s consequential year.

He also never actually left.

After a White House term that often consumed the national psyche hour by hour — stirring his supporters and panicking his critics with each wayward post and norm-busting impulse, culminating in the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021 — some Trump-fatigued members of both parties and the political press seemed at times to be wishing him away, as if media oxygen alone had sustained him the last eight years.

Maybe he wouldn’t really run again, some imagined. Maybe, like a boxer, he’d punch himself out. Maybe the Republican Party, punished at the polls in several elections since his 2016 triumph, would find its way to someone else.

Instead, if Trump wins next week’s New Hampshire primary, a march to a third nomination is all but certain. His detractors own no earplugs effective enough to block that out.

“Very few Democrats — apart from the deeply paranoid or intuitive — would have told you in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection that Trump would be the Republican nominee again in 2024,” said David Axelrod, who was a top adviser to President Barack Obama. “Once again, his feral genius for shaping a story of victimhood and commanding his base was underestimated.”

Trump, of course, did not have to speak much to keep his base with him. And as a candidate over the past year, the more he talked about the 91 criminal charges against him, the more Republicans returned to him.

Democrats are keenly aware that for all the attention paid to Trump’s indictments and his voluntary visits to some of his civil trials, his plans for a new term and his incendiary statements are far less visible to the general public. Some in the media were reluctant to direct their audiences to Trump, especially shortly after he left office, for fear that it would only amplify his lies about his election loss. Privately, some on the left lament that Twitter’s suspension of Trump’s account — after the Jan. 6 attack — served only to remove him from view.

Since 2016, both Republican and Democratic leaders have often agreed that it helps Democrats to have Trump at the political fore. His failed reelection in 2020 became, in large part, a referendum on his rampaging tenure. The 2022 midterms, a disappointment for Republicans, came after a drumbeat of congressional hearings about Trump’s conduct on and around Jan. 6, a kind of rolling television series — with videos produced by a former television executive — dedicated to what House members called his crimes against democracy.

Axelrod noted that Trump, after a primary season in which his top-polling rivals have tiptoed around him, is preparing to face President Joe Biden, “an opponent far less reticent about attacking.”

Democrats are plainly hoping that Trump’s abundant legal peril will remind voters once more of the chaos that has often trailed him. Biden has signaled his plans to highlight Trump’s efforts to subvert his loss in the 2020 election, invoking the attack on the Capitol and Trump’s revisionist history of what happened.

But it is unclear whether Trump’s trial on federal charges stemming from his efforts to remain in power, which is currently scheduled to take place in March, will occur before Election Day as he challenges the validity of the indictment. And absent a trial, the Biden team’s ability to focus public attention on the events of Jan. 6 is far from assured.

Polling has captured the degree to which Trump has been speaking mostly to Republicans to date — and shaping their thinking about the violence that followed his 2020 loss. A recent Washington Post-University of Maryland survey showed that far fewer Republicans blame Trump for the Jan. 6 attack than did in 2021. More than two-thirds of Republicans said it was “time to move on.”

“The overwhelming majority of Americans are aware of Trump’s legal troubles, and a significant number say that a conviction would have some bearing on their vote,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist. “But absent the spectacle of a preelection trial and adjudication, it’s not clear that awareness is enough in an environment where the former president polls stronger than either of his previous elections.”

As a candidate in Iowa, Trump was often conspicuously outworked by his competitors. He showed little interest in changing or modulating. It did not come close to mattering, at least not in Iowa, and his court appearances often created their own sense of motion, despite having nothing to do with actual politicking.

And so Trump — who detests little more than being mocked, who delights in little more than doing the mocking — found on Monday an early-state validation that eluded him eight years ago, when he lost in Iowa (and insisted falsely that the caucuses were stolen from him).

But even back then, he seemed to grasp something that many others came to realize much later. In a 2016 speech in New Hampshire, just before his first primary win, he observed: “A lot of people have laughed at me over the years.

“Now,” he said, “they’re not laughing so much, I’ll tell you.”

The ‘old American Dream died,’ Realtor details salary needed to buy a home, afford a middle class life in 2024

Fox Business

The ‘old American Dream died,’ Realtor details salary needed to buy a home, afford a middle class life in 2024

Kira Mautone – January 15, 2024

Americans now need to make $120K a year to afford a typical middle-class life and qualify to purchase a home, one expert discusses.

“I think most of us in America would define the middle class as somebody who can work a 40-hour-a-week career and can have the income to purchase the average home in America,” Freddie Smith, an Orlando realtor and TikTok creator, told Fox News Digital.

The TikToker, whose videos explore millennial and Gen Z struggles to afford a home and the general cost of living in today’s economic climate, dissected the common factors of living a middle-class existence.

“A lot of us grew up middle class, and we watched what middle class was in the 80s and 90s as millennials. And nowadays, what has moved the goalpost more than anything is the housing market,” the relator said.

Home in Summerville listed for $765,000.

Smith explained how, just a few years ago, $60-$70K a year would have been sufficient to qualify for a home.

With the average cost of a house being around $400K-$420K in 2024, people’s salaries would need to be around $120K a year for people to even qualify, Smith explained.

The realtor highlights how this wage-to-housing gap has forced many people to rent for a longer period.

“Rent prices are taking up 30-40% of people’s income, making it harder for them to save for a house. So it’s this perpetual cycle that is keeping people out of the middle class,” he explains, noting this trend has been continuing at a rapid pace over the last few years.

Smith also explained how a $120K salary, even without children, becomes a far lower number when confronted with the crippling debt most Americans are facing today.

“Most people are carrying student loan debt, which is at an all-time high, and the average payment in the country is $500 a month for your college degree. [There are] some people I’m seeing in my comment section saying ‘$500, I wish, it was $1,200 a month for me’,” said Smith.

Credit card debt is also at a record high in America, and while Smith acknowledges that reckless spending could be a factor, he has learned from many Americans commenting on his posts that many are forced to use their cards for groceries because they ran out of money.

According to DQYDJ, the average American income in 2023 was roughly $69K a year, with only 18.8% percent of Americans reaching $100K or more a year. According to the same source, the top 10 percent of individual earnings started at $135,605 a year.

The middle class is in a segmented state, Smith argues, largely determined by how much debt one finds themselves in.

“If you are someone who bought a house before 2020 and you have it paid off or you have a 3% interest rate, you are not burdened by the housing costs like the 2024 adults are now,” the relator said, explaining how debt, especially college debt, housing costs and childcare are burdening millennials and Gen Zers starting their lives.

home with sold sign in front — A sign outside a home for sale in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. Home prices in the US climbed for a fifth month as buyers competed for deals in the least affordable market in decades.

“People are spending about $1,200 to $1,500 a month on daycare, and I’ve even heard it as much as $3,000-$4,000. So when you add in somebody who’s renting for $2,500, $2,000 for daycare, $1,000 for two college loans, just that alone, you need $100,000 as an income just for that,” said Smith.

For slightly older individuals who had a chance to pay off their debt and have grown-up children, $70K remains a comfortable middle-class wage to them.

“‘These millennials are whining. These Gen Zers just work harder.’ If you bought your house before and don’t have those other payments, that’s really the three-layered cake. Housing, college [debt] and daycare” explained Smith, highlighting these three factors greatly determine your middle-class placement.

As a result of high housing costs, many young people are choosing to stay at home with their families to save funds. Smith explains how he is seeing communal living go even further in Florida, where separate families are choosing to live under one roof.

“Many families [with] 3 or 4 adults and [say] five children, they all split a big house, and they all take care of each other. You can see that they have a lot of toys and they’re pooling their money,” Smith detailed.

A house is for sale in Arlington, Virginia, July 13, 2023.

The TikToker enumerates how millennials and older Gen Zers had a “difficult” hand dealt to them. Younger Gen Zers, however, have a lot of “opportunity” to “crush in today’s economy” if they plan carefully to avoid debt and make smart financial choices.

“The millennials, they’re the pinched generation where college essentially stopped working for most. The debt piled up, and the old American dream died, and we got left holding the bag,” he said.

The creator said that through posting on TikTok, he has learned a tremendous amount about the everyday struggles real Americans are facing through his comment section.

“People in America, real society, are sharing all this with me. And I’m learning at a rapid pace from all different individuals. It’s not just googling it, or asking 100 college students what they think. It’s thousands and thousands of people sharing what’s going on,” said Smith.

The realtor discussed how there is a “bigger conversation” around an evolving American Dream that we’re likely to see take place over the next few years.

“We’re basically redefining the American dream from top to bottom, like the way that we see work and work-life balance,” said the creator, explaining how the idea of owning a home might grow old alongside past generations.

“I don’t even know if millennials and Gen Zers want to follow that path of buying a house and living in it for 40 years and staying at the same job for 40 years. I don’t think creatively, work-life balance wise, is also what our long-term play is,” he said.

A Ukrainian floating drone that is devastating Russia’s Black Sea fleet can now fire missiles

Business Insider

A Ukrainian floating drone that is devastating Russia’s Black Sea fleet can now fire missiles

Tom Porter – January 15, 2024

Ukraine sends 'army of drones' to fight Russian troops Scroll back up to restore default view.

Ukraine has used sea drones to attack Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
It’s now able to fit them with missiles enabling them to fire at ships, it says.
Ukraine has had to improvise to offset Russia’s naval superiority.

Ukraine claims it has fitted the floating drones it is using to devastate Russia’s Black Sea fleet with missile launchers, making them even more deadly.

Ukraine’s intelligence service, the SBU, in early January released grainy video footage which it claimed showed its “Sea Baby” drones firing missiles at Russian vessels.

According to the Ukrainska Pravda, Russian ships had left a port near Sevastopol in occupied Crimea to sink the drones after an attack — but instead of seeking to outpace them, the drones turned back and fired missiles at the Russian vessels.

It’s unclear exactly when the incident took place, or what kind of rockets were used.

The SBU confirmed the authenticity of the video to Business Insider.

It’s not the only enhancement Ukraine has made to the devices, the report said, with the drones now fitted with up to 850 kilograms of explosives, flamethrowers, $300,000 worth of communications equipment, and material designed to evade radars.

Throughout its two-year-long battle to repel the Russian invasion, Ukraine has had to resort to improvisation and ingenuity to offset Russia’s military and manpower advantages.

One of its most striking successes in 2023 has been inflicting a series of devastating attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet, despite its navy being a fraction of the size of Russia’s.

The sea drones, or unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), it’s developed have been vital to the success of the attacks, with the remote-controlled devices used to surveil Russian naval bases and launch attacks on ships by being fitted with explosives.

The drones “have provided Ukraine’s nearly non-existent navy with an asymmetric capability to challenge Russia’s larger and more capable Black Sea Fleet,” Nicholas Johnson, a naval warfare expert with the RAND Corporation, told Business Insider.

“Ukraine’s employment of these small explosive vessels has imposed Russian losses and shown operational impacts on their ability to wage war.”

The drones are built using components that are readily available, are much cheaper than missiles, and don’t need a crew to operate them, notes security expert Wes O’Donnell.

They were invented by Ukrainian security services and used in an attack on the Kerch Strait bridge last July which seriously damaged it.

The drones were used for the first time ever in a naval attack in October 2022, when Ukraine attacked Russian naval vessels docked in Sevastopol, and according to the BBC have been used in around 13 attacks since.

Their capacity to strike Russia’s fleet in its own naval bases has challenged Russia’s dominance of the Black Sea, forcing it to move ships away from Sevastopol to evade attacks, said Johnson.

Vasyl Maliuk, who leads the SBU, told CNN last year that the drones are built without private sector involvement in a secret underground base and are continually being modified and improved on.

Johnson said that fitting the vessels with rocket launchers massively increased the type of targets they could attack.

“This modification would also allow USVs to hold a wider range of assets at risk, potentially including targets ashore, small boats, or even employing surface-to-air missiles to target aircraft,” he said. “By utilizing joint salvos of missiles from USVs in addition to aircraft and ground launchers, Ukraine could leverage multiple axis of attack further complicating Russia’s air defense picture.”

However, they come with some drawbacks. Interruptions to the camera feed can make them difficult to control, and they can go off course, with a drone found washed up ashore near Sevastopol in September 2022 and seized by Russia, reports say.

Johnson told BI that the vessels are vulnerable to air or boat attacks, and their signals can be scrambled by electronic-warfare units, meaning they can be cut off from their controllers.

And recent adaptations, such as fitting them with expensive missiles, mean they are no longer just a relatively cheap way of launching mass attacks on Russian ships, but would have to be used more carefully, he said.

“We are on the brink of an autocratic government, someone who is blatantly saying, If I’m president again, I’m going to be a dictator:” Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong fears for America’s future

Louder

“We are on the brink of an autocratic government, someone who is blatantly saying, If I’m president again, I’m going to be a dictator:” Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong fears for America’s future

Paul Brannigan – January 15, 2024

Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong has spoken about his fears for the direction American politics is taking, and warns that the prospect of an autocratic government in the US is “at our doorstep”.

Armstrong’s band will release their 14th studio album ‘SAVIORS’ on Friday, June 19, and, in a new interview with Vulture, the 51-year-old vocalist/guitarist talks about how the album’s first single, The American Dream Is Killing Me, released back in October last year, deals with the “overwhelming” anxieties that come with being “an over-stressed American”.

“Our politics are so divided and polarized right now,” says Armstrong. “We had an insurrection. We have homeless people in the street. We have so many issues, and they come onto your algorithm feed at such a pace. It just stresses you out, the anxiety of being an American and how it becomes so overwhelming.”

Reflecting on how his band’s new record shares some of the DNA of 2004’s American Idiot album, Armstrong notes, “I think it was easier to satirize George Bush because we didn’t have social media. It was before all the tech bros came in. Now you have these billionaires who would rather shoot a rocket into space than deal with the infrastructure we have here.”

Looking ahead, Armstrong admits that he is concerned by the current political landscape in America.

“We are on the brink of an autocratic government, or someone who is blatantly saying ‘If I’m president again, I’m going to be a dictator’,” he says. “What’s that Maya Angelou quote? When people tell you who they are, believe them. [Actually, ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time’] It’s this exaggeration that became what can actually happen. It’s based on a cult of personality. America is not supposed to be about the cult of personality; we’re supposed to be about a group of people who are making laws that would make the American people’s lives easier and affordable. Getting good jobs, getting good health care, protecting people from corporations taking advantage of them. I feel like we are completely lost on that, the real American ideal.

Canadians worry US democracy cannot survive Trump’s return to White House, poll finds

Reuters

Canadians worry US democracy cannot survive Trump’s return to White House, poll finds

Steve Scherer – January 15, 2024

Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigns, in Indianola

FILE PHOTO: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes a speech, in Vancouver — Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes a speech, in Vancouver

OTTAWA (Reuters) – About two-thirds of Canadians surveyed this month said American democracy cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump in the White House, and about half said the United States is on the way to becoming an authoritarian state, a poll released on Monday said.

The November U.S. election is likely to pit President Joe Biden against Trump, who is the clear frontrunner to win the Republican nomination as voting in the presidential primary race kicks off in Iowa on Monday.

Sixty-four percent of respondents in the Angus Reid Institute poll of 1,510 Canadians said they agreed with the statement: “U.S. democracy cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump.” Twenty-eight percent disagreed.

The Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill by Trump supporters seeking to block certification of Biden’s 2020 election win shocked many Canadians, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly blamed Trump for inciting the mob.

Trump has vowed if elected again to punish his political enemies, and he has drawn criticism for using increasingly authoritarian language.

Three times as many Canadians say a Biden victory would be better for Canada’s economy (53%) than a Trump win (18%), according to the poll which was seen exclusively by Reuters. The poll, taken between Jan. 9-11, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points

Forty-nine percent of people said the United States is on the way to becoming an authoritarian state and 71% of Canadians say the concept that the rule of law applies equally to everyone is weakening in the United States.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment

about the poll.

“What we’re seeing is people quite alarmed about the prospect of a return of Donald Trump,” said Shachi Kurl, president of Angus Reid Institute.

The polling is also “an indictment” of “how poorly Canadians now view the democratic institutions and the checks and balances that in the past people on both sides of the border took for granted,” she added.

American allies around the world and financial markets are watching the election with unease given the isolationism and the protectionist trade policies of Trump’s presidency. Because of their proximity and economic ties, Canadians have more at stake than most countries.

Two-thirds of Canada’s 40 million people live within 100 km (62 miles) of the U.S. border, and the trade relationship with the United States is of existential importance to Canada.

Three-quarters of all exports go to the southern neighbor, and half of its imports come from the United States, including 60% of all imported fresh vegetables.

“One can make the argument that there’s no country that would be more negatively affected by a Trump win than Canada,” said Kim Nossal, a professor of political studies at Queen’s University in Kingston and author of “Canada Alone: Navigating the Post-American World”.

In his first term, Trump forced the renegotiation of the North American trade pact and clashed with Trudeau, who he once called “very dishonest and weak”.

Trump’s “mercantilist view involves thinking of Canada and every other so-called friend of the United States as no friend at all, but just a bunch of free-riders sucking off the wealth of the United States,” Nossal said. “He is the ultimate protectionist.”

There is a provision in the new North American trade pact that requires it to be reviewed for renewal after six years, or during the next American president’s term in 2026.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Chicago scrambles to shelter migrants in dangerous cold as Texas’ governor refuses to stop drop-offs

CNN

Chicago scrambles to shelter migrants in dangerous cold as Texas’ governor refuses to stop drop-offs

Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN – January 15, 2024

Hoping to halt migrant drop-offs as extreme weather plagues Chicago, Illinois’ Democratic governor warned in a letter Friday to his GOP counterpart in Texas that sending migrants now to the Windy City could cost lives, adding to the already deadly toll of the migrant crisis.

“While action is pending at the federal level, I plead with you for mercy for the thousands of people who are powerless to speak for themselves,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker wrote. “Please, while winter is threatening vulnerable people’s lives, suspend your transports and do not send more people to our state.”

“Your callousness, sending buses and planes full of migrants in this weather, is now life-threatening to every one of the arrivals,” he continued. “Hundreds of children’s and families’ health and survival are at risk due to your actions.”

Instead, however, Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration has doubled down on its mission since 2022 to dispatch migrants north from Texas via bus and plane to cities led by Democrats, including Chicago, New York and Denver, to “provide support to our overrun and overwhelmed border communities,” his spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris told CNN Friday, noting, “Governor Pritzker was all too proud to call Illinois ’the most welcoming state in the nation’ until Governor Abbott began transporting migrants to Chicago.”

Chicago’s wind chill is forecast to plummet by Tuesday morning to 32 below zero – cold so extreme it could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as few as 10 minutes, according to CNN Weather. For those unaccustomed to such bone-chilling cold – including migrants who often arrive with only the clothes on their back – it can be a life-or-death challenge.

Chicago shelters lately have been so full, incoming migrants were kept at a designated “landing zone,” with minimal access to food and sanitation and only parked Chicago Transit Authority buses for temporary heat.

There had been about 140 migrants on those buses, Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Friday, down from a high of more than 300, though as of Sunday, there were no longer any migrants awaiting placement in shelters at the landing zone location, according to the city.

As to whether conditions at the landing zone were acceptable, Johnson said, “Look, that’s a good question, you know. It’s certainly not acceptable for the (Texas) governor to send people to the city of Chicago, but we’re meeting the moment.”

Over the last few weeks, mayors of New York, Chicago and Denver have been irked by “rogue buses” from Texas dropping off migrants by the thousands and tried in their own jurisdictions to slow the surge by enacting mandates and requirements for bus operators to coordinate arrivals under the threat of impound, fines and even jail time.

Leaders of several Chicago suburbs even voted his month to restrict buses from dropping off migrants without notice, while charter buses have dropped off migrants in New Jersey to evade rules aimed at curbing arrivals in New York City.

Meanwhile in New York, homeless migrants starting Tuesday will be subject to a new 11 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew at four respite centers managed by the city’s Emergency Management Department, a spokesperson for City Hall told CNN on Monday.

Migrants get food Friday outside Chicago's migrant landing zone. - Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images — Migrants get food Friday outside Chicago’s migrant landing zone. – Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images

In November, Chicago implemented a 60-day shelter stay policy based on migrants’ arrival dates so as not overcrowd the shelter system and to provide asylum-seekers services while they set up long-term housing. But due to the harsh weather, city officials suspended that limit and made some exceptions to the policy, Johnson said Friday.

‘Do his job and secure the border’

As for Abbott’s position, “instead of complaining about migrants sent from Texas, where we are also preparing to experience severe winter weather across the state, Governor Pritzker should call on his party leader to finally do his job and secure the border – something he continues refusing to do,” his spokesperson Mahaleris told CNN in the Friday statement.

“Until President Biden steps up and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue transporting migrants to sanctuary cities to help our local partners respond to this Biden-made crisis,” he added.

Chicago Transit Authority warming buses sit at the migrant landing zone during extreme, cold temperatures on Friday. - Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images — Chicago Transit Authority warming buses sit at the migrant landing zone during extreme, cold temperatures on Friday. – Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images

Over the weekend, the bodies of three migrants – a woman and two children – were recovered by Mexican authorities after they drowned in the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, very recently the epicenter of the migrant crisis and an area where state authorities have blocked the US Border Patrol from accessing miles of the US-Mexico divide, officials said.

Tensions have been high between state and federal officials as the White House and lawmakers challenge Abbott’s policies, including the use of razor wire along the border and a new law that makes entering Texas illegally a state crime.

The Biden administration on Friday complained to the US Supreme Court about the state blocking Border Patrol from a city park along the river and asked the high court to quickly intervene. The state on Saturday told the high court it was “working promptly” to ensure Border Patrol has access to a boat ramp at Shelby Park.

The White House called the recent migrant deaths “tragic” and characterized Abbott’s directives on the border as “political stunts,” Angelo Fernández Hernández, White House assistant press secretary said Sunday.

“While we continue to gather facts about the circumstances of these tragic deaths, one thing is clear: Gov. Abbott’s political stunts are cruel, inhumane, and dangerous. US Border Patrol must have access to the border to enforce our laws,” Fernández Hernández told CNN in a statement.

CNN’s Andy Rose, Rosa Flores, Gloria Pazmino, Whitney Wild and meteorologist Allison Chinchar contributed to this report.

Virginia county finds 4,000 misreported 2020 votes, shorting Biden

The Hill

Virginia county finds 4,000 misreported 2020 votes, shorting Biden

Julia Mueller – January 15, 2024

Election officials in Virginia’s Prince William County have acknowledged roughly 4,000 votes were misreported in former President Trump’s favor during the 2020 presidential election, when President Joe Biden went on to win the state.

A release from the county’s Office of Elections announced Trump incorrectly received 2,327 extra votes, while Biden was shorted 1,648 votes.

The U.S. Senate candidates for the state in both parties received too few votes, and a Republican House candidate who won his race was shorted just less than 300 votes.

“The reporting errors were presumably a consequence of the results tapes not being programmed to a format that was compatible with state reporting requirements. Attempts to correct this issue appear to have created errors,” said Eric Olsen, director of elections for the county.

The errors “did not consistently favor one party or candidate but were likely due to a lack of proper planning, a difficult election environment, and human error,” Olsen added.

Biden ultimately won Virginia by more than 450,000 votes, and the misreporting issues did not meet the 1 percent threshold to trigger a recount, according to the Prince William County office.

The insights about the misreported figures stem from a case involving the county’s former registrar, Michele White, who was charged in 2022 with corrupt conduct, making a false statement and neglect of duty relating to the 2020 election. Those charges have since been dropped, the Associated Press reports.

Olsen, in his statement, stressed that Virginians should have faith in the state’s election systems, and spotlighted that improvements have been made to correct the process for future contests.

“Mistakes are unfortunate but require diligence and innovation to correct. They do not reflect a purposeful attempt to undermine the integrity of the electoral process and the investigation into this matter ended with that conclusion.”