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State-level Republicans are going all in on extreme anti-trans, anti-abortion laws

Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country are taking up anti-trans and anti-abortion bills at a shocking rate, as lawmakers seize on an enforcement mechanism first tested by Texas’s SB 8.
Multiple states — including Florida, Idaho, and Texas — have enacted, or hope to enact, new and draconian restrictions, including banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy (functionally equivalent to an outright ban on abortion), or banning gender-affirming health care for transgender children.
Such legislation is part of an existing trend — just last year, the US passed at least 106 abortion restrictions, making it <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/10/first-time-ever-us-states-enacted-more-100-abortion-restrictions-single-year">the single worst year for reproductive health care access</a> in the country’s history — but one that’s growing. In states like Missouri, lawmakers are pushing the envelope with legislation <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/08/missouri-abortion-ban-texas-supreme-court/">intended to expand abortion restrictions</a> even outside of the state.
Legislation regarding transgender youth, in particular, has also increased. In April 2021, Republican lawmakers in Arkansas <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/politics/arkansas-transgender-health-care-veto-override/index.html">passed</a> Act 626, becoming the first state to outlaw gender-affirming treatment for trans youth (the bill is currently being <a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-blocks-arkansas-ban-gender-affirming-care-trans-youth-moving-forward">blocked</a> by a federal court order). Other states have since followed suit: A month later, Tennessee lawmakers passed a slew of anti-trans bills, including <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/tennessee-governor-oks-transgender-youth-treatment-ban-rcna985">the state’s own ban</a> on gender-affirming treatment for trans minors. And this year, Alabama is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/alabama-bill-seeks-ban-hormone-treatments-trans-youth-rcna18512">pushing one of the most extreme anti-trans health care laws</a> to date with legislation that would jail doctors who provide health care treatment or perform gender-affirming procedures to trans minors.
“There has been an explosion of these bills,” Cathryn Oakley, who tracks legislation for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/alabama-transgender-medical-care-ban-texas-abbott-arkansas-idaho-teenagers-puberty-blockers-hormone-therapy/?utm_source=pocket_mylist">told</a> Mother Jones. She said that out of more than 130 anti-trans bills introduced in the country this year, at least 38 would deny trans children access to gender-affirming health care.
Part of the explanation could lie in an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. Though the constitutionality of many new state-level restrictions may be questionable at best, the 6-3 conservative bench <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/1/22811837/supreme-court-roe-wade-abortion-doomed-jackson-womens-health-dobbs-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts">may prove more receptive</a> to Republican arguments.
There’s also an overtly political component, however. Out of power on a federal level and hoping to reclaim control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans have signaled that they view legislation targeting trans children as <a href="https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1499061949362888704?s=20&t=rtGCpIDYFdLEOMlEjIY9aQ">good politics for them</a>.
Those factors mean that such bills are continuing to gain ground in Republican-controlled states, and <a href="https://twitter.com/byKateSmith/status/1502015734871904264?s=20&t=gEypeTi5wZGV1fhTxbyF5w">continuing to grow</a> in scope — despite the harm they may pose to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/extreme-antiabortion-laws-are-unconstitutional-that-doesnt-make-them-less-dangerous/2019/05/17/2c7ece80-78d9-11e9-bd25-c989555e7766_story.html">people who can get pregnant</a> and to <a href="https://www.vox.com/22970762/texas-trans-investigation-child-abuse-abbott">trans people</a>.
<h3>Anti-abortion and anti-trans laws are getting more extreme</h3>
The success of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/31/22650303/supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-jackson-roe-wade-greg-abbott">Texas’s SB 8</a> has introduced an entirely new wave of anti-abortion legislative tactics in the US, which in some cases has also been extended to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/22/texas-abortion-law-vigilante-loophole-supreme-court/">anti-trans measures</a>.
SB 8, which was signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last year, not only bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy but also deputizes citizens to enforce it, allowing any person to bring a civil lawsuit against an entity who “aid or abets” in an abortion procedure for damages of at least $10,000. The law is facing multiple legal challenges, but it’s currently in effect and appears <a href="https://19thnews.org/2022/03/senate-bill-8-texas-abortion-ban-remains-enforced-supreme-court/">likely to stay that way</a>.
Since then, Republicans in other states are using a similar enforcement mechanism to underpin even more draconian measures. Idaho lawmakers, copying Texas’s abortion ban, are pushing a bill that not only bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy but uses a similar bounty-style component that would <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/idaho-texas-abortion-ban-rapists_n_6232b8bae4b046c938d6ac96">allow family members of rapists to sue</a> medical providers who perform an abortion on the rapist’s victim. Lawmakers in Missouri have also followed the Texas model for a proposed anti-abortion bill, adding a dangerous provision that would force pregnant individuals to carry ectopic pregnancies to full term, which health professionals have made clear <a href="https://www.today.com/parents/moms/ectopic-pregnancies-missouri-bill-rcna19683">are 100 percent fatal</a> if left untreated.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
NEW
A bill in Missouri makes illegal to get an abortion if the patient has an ectopic pregnancy.
Facts about ectopic pregnancies: 
- They’re are not viable. Full stop. 
- They’re the 1 cause of death for 1st trimester patients.
Here’s the proposed law:<a href="https://t.co/0SlpVG20Wt">https://t.co/0SlpVG20Wt</a> <a href="https://t.co/CKTluxsrep">pic.twitter.com/CKTluxsrep</a>
— Kate Smith (@byKateSmith) <a href="https://twitter.com/byKateSmith/status/1502015734871904264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2022</a></blockquote>
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The argument for these anti-abortion laws hinges on the belief that a fetus should be considered a functioning human because its heartbeat can be heard on ultrasound (Texas’s SB 8 bill is also referred to as “the heartbeat law” by its proponents). But this claim has been repeatedly debunked by medical professionals, who explain the term “fetal heartbeat” is <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/02/1033727679/fetal-heartbeat-isnt-a-medical-term-but-its-still-used-in-laws-on-abortion">misleading</a>. Any activity captured in an early gestation ultrasound is “actually electrical activity, and the sound that you ‘hear’ is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine,” not a human heartbeat.
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<figcaption>Protesters in New York participate in a rally organized by RiseUp4AbortionRights to oppose the growing erosion of abortion rights on International Women’s Day on March 8, 2022.</figcaption>
<cite>Wendy P. Romero/Long Visual Press/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite></figure>
With the upcoming Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, expected to be handed down <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/politics/supreme-court-mississippi-abortion-law.html?searchResultPosition=1">by June or July</a>, the right to an abortion <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/1/22811837/supreme-court-roe-wade-abortion-doomed-jackson-womens-health-dobbs-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts">could be eliminated entirely</a> at the federal level — likely only increasing the proliferation of harsh state-level restrictions.
The accelerating extremism behind Republican anti-abortion laws is equally on display when it comes to legislation targeting trans people, and particularly trans children.
There are <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/01/20/2022-anti-trans-legislation/6571819001/">literally hundreds</a> of anti-trans bills currently in the works across at a state level, but a handful of these laws have grabbed national attention due to their severity.
Among the most extreme is Alabama’s anti-trans bill, which has two notable components. First, it criminalizes doctors who provide hormone treatments and other gender-affirming care to trans teens, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Second, the bill requires teachers and staff to out transgender students whose trans identities are not already known to their parents. The bill has already passed the Alabama Senate and is expected to be approved by the House.
In Texas, parents of trans children are in danger of being <a href="https://www.vox.com/22970762/texas-trans-investigation-child-abuse-abbott">investigated</a> for “child abuse” following an order by Abbott, which criminalizes parents who allow their kids to receive gender-affirming treatment. The policy is currently on hold after a <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/11/transgender-texas-court-hearing/">district court injunction</a>, but it represents yet another new tactic for anti-trans lawmakers.
Specifically, Texas’s anti-trans policy is unusual since it was not passed through state legislation but enacted based on a non-binding opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton, as a way to circumvent the governor’s lack of authority to put out such an order.
Republicans pushing new anti-trans measures often claim parents and health care professionals are “pressuring” young children into undergoing gender-affirming surgery which they argue could cause irreparable harm to the child, like infertility.
Advocates and doctors, however, say the reality is different. <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789423">Research</a> shows providing accessible gender-affirming health care to trans youth have an overall positive effect on young people, reducing the likelihood of depression and suicide among transgender youth.
And Texas’s new policy is poised to cause very real harm to trans children. Claudio, the parent of a trans teen in Texas, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22970762/texas-trans-investigation-child-abuse-abbott">told Vox’s Nicole Narea pseudonymously</a> that prior to coming out, “my child was suicidal. My child was hospitalized in a mental hospital because of suicidal ideation. And the moment they told us that they were transgender was the moment that they started getting better. A lot of the time, you don’t get to choose. Your kids are who they are.”
<h3>The endgame to these laws may be political for Republicans</h3>
Strict abortion restrictions in the US are part of a decades-old ideological project by the right, and anti-trans laws are nothing new either. In addition to a conservative Supreme Court majority apparently friendly to such restrictions, though, political expediency is giving the current surge of lawmaking additional traction.
As Katelyn Burns, a MSNBC columnist who has previously written for Vox, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/texas-anti-trans-child-protective-services-greg-abbott-ken-paxton.html">explained to Slate</a> this month, “we are seeing institutional pushback against this order because I think a lot of people see this what it really is: posturing for a primary campaign that Abbott is facing against a much more conservative candidate.” (Abbott <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/02/texas-primary-2022-results/">won his primary</a> by a comfortable margin this month.)
Abbott strategist Dave Carney also admitted as much to reporters earlier this month, describing Texas’s policy of investigating the parents of trans children for “child abuse” as a “a 75-80% winner,” <a href="https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1499061949362888704?s=20&t=YG9r-qLLG6teLWcKyJh1SQ">according to a tweet by Texas Tribune reporter Patrick Svitek</a>.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Carney on Abbott's transgender care investigation order: "That is a 75-80% winner. ... That is a winning issue. Texans have common sense."
"This is why the Democrats across the country are out of touch."
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) <a href="https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1499061949362888704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2022</a></blockquote>
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“That is a winning issue,” Carney reportedly said. “Texans have common sense. This is why the Democrats across the country are out of touch.”
Similar considerations may also be playing into legislation in other states. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are both <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/2024-hopefuls-desantis-noem-and-pompeo-audition-at-cpac-yet-trump-reigns-supreme">widely thought to have future presidential aspirations</a> — particularly if the 2024 Republican field doesn’t include former President Donald Trump — and their states have advanced harsh new legislation this year.
In Florida, DeSantis is expected to sign a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/03/florida-abortion-ban-desantis-00014102">ban on all abortions after 15 weeks</a>, which recently passed the state legislature. South Dakota lawmakers have also advanced a Noem-backed bill <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/south-dakota-lawmakers-pass-restrictive-abortion-pill-laws-under-dispute-in-federal-court">sharply limiting access to abortion pills</a> in the state (though it’s currently <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/south-dakota-lawmakers-pass-restrictive-abortion-pill-laws-under-dispute-in-federal-court">tied up in court</a>), and Noem last month signed a bill <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transgender-athletes-female-sports-teams-south-dakota-kristi-noem/">banning transgender girls from participating in high school and college sports</a> that align with their gender identity.
The political weight behind such measures is relatively new: As recently as 1984, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opinion/abortion-evangelicals-conservatives.html?partner=slack&smid=sl-share">data suggests</a>, a person’s political affiliation was not closely tied to their position on abortion. But by 2020, the gap between pro-choice Democrats and anti-abortion Republicans had widened tremendously, reaching a 59 point-difference among “strong partisans, the group most likely to vote in primary elections.”
There is also evidence that racial attitudes have become closely intertwined with a person’s position on issues like welfare, gun control, immigration, and even abortion, which may explain why recent laws resonate with GOP base voters. Such identity politics, Republicans hope, could be a winning strategy to take back power in 2022.
It’s unclear, however, whether that will translate to general election contests, despite Carney’s claim. Such policies may play well with Republican primary electorates — as Abbott apparently calculated ahead of his gubernatorial primary earlier this month — but polling suggests Texas-style attempts to limit access to gender-affirming health care are sharply unpopular overall.
In <a href="https://19thnews.org/2022/03/republicans-split-blocking-gender-affirming-care-trans-youth-poll/">one poll</a> conducted last month by Data for Progress, 63 percent of all voters — and even 46 percent of Republicans — said they supported leaving decisions about health care “to children who identify as transgender, their parents, and their doctor” rather than the state.
Support for the right to an abortion is also high — <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/cnn-poll-abortion-roe-v-wade/index.html">according to a CNN-SSRS poll from January</a>, 69 percent of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade.
So far, those numbers don’t appear to be impacting Republican fervor for new anti-trans and anti-abortion restrictions — but it raises the possibility that increasingly extreme Republican lawmakers could face a backlash rather than a political boost.
In the meantime, though, such measures are causing real harm. “It I don’t know how much risk we’re going to be willing to take, so at some point, we might decide to cut our losses and pick up and leave,” Claudio, the Texas parent of a trans teen, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22970762/texas-trans-investigation-child-abuse-abbott">told Vox</a>. “Persecution scares you extra.”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/3/20/22987539/anti-trans-anti-abortion-laws-texas-florida-idaho">https://www.vox.com/2022/3/20/22987539/anti-trans-anti-abortion-laws-texas-florida-idaho</a>

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Chris Hedges: Waltzing To Armageddon

The Dr. Strangeloves, like zombies rising from the mass graves they created around the globe, are once again stoking new campaigns of industrial mass slaughter.
The Cold War, from 1945 to 1989, was a wild Bacchanalia for arms manufacturers, the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the diplomats who played one country off another on the world’s chess board, and the global corporations able to loot and pillage by equating predatory capitalism with freedom. In the name of national security, the Cold Warriors, many of them self-identified liberals, demonized labor, independent media, human rights organizations, and those who opposed the permanent war economy and the militarization of American society as soft on communism. 
That is why they have resurrected it.
The decision to spurn the possibility of peaceful coexistence with Russia at the end of the Cold War is one of the most egregious crimes of the late 20th century. The danger of provoking Russia was universally understood with the collapse of the Soviet Union, including by political elites as diverse as Henry Kissinger and George F. Kennan, who called the expansion of NATO into Central Europe “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” 
This provocation, a violation of a promise not to expand NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, has seen Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia inducted into the Western military alliance.
This betrayal was compounded by a decision to station NATO troops, including thousands of U.S. troops, in Eastern Europe, another violation of an agreement made by Washington with Moscow. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, perhaps a cynical goal of the Western alliance, has now solidified an expanding and resurgent NATO and a rampant, uncontrollable militarism. The masters of war may be ecstatic, but the potential consequences, including a global conflagration, are terrifying. 
Peace has been sacrificed for U.S. global hegemony. It has been sacrificed for the billions in profits made by the arms industry. Peace could have seen state resources invested in people rather than systems of control. It could have allowed us to address the climate emergency. But we cry peace, peace, and there is no peace. Nations frantically rearm, threatening nuclear war. They prepare for the worst, ensuring that the worst will happen. 
So, what if the Amazon is reaching its final tipping point where trees will soon begin to die off en masse? So what if land ice and ice shelves are melting from below at a much faster rate than predicted? So what if temperatures soar, monster hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastate the earth? In the face of the gravest existential crisis to beset the human species, and most other species, the ruling elites stoke a conflict that is driving up the price of oil and turbocharging the fossil fuel extraction industry. It is collective madness.
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The march towards protracted conflict with Russia and China will backfire. The desperate effort to counter the steady loss of economic dominance by the U.S. will not be offset by military dominance. If Russia and China can create an alternative global financial system, one that does not use the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, it will signal the collapse of the American empire. The dollar will plummet in value. Treasury bonds, used to fund America’s massive debt, will become largely worthless. The financial sanctions used to cripple Russia will be, I expect, the mechanism that slays Americans, if not immolation in thermonuclear war.
Washington plans to turn Ukraine into Chechnya or the old Afghanistan, when the Carter administration, under the influence of the Svengali-like National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, equipped and armed the radical jihadists that would morph into the Taliban and al Qaeda in the fight against the Soviets. It will not be good for Russia. It will not be good for the United States. It will not be good for Ukraine, as making Russia bleed will require rivers of Ukrainian blood.
<h3>Pandora’s Box of Evils</h3>
The decision to destroy the Russian economy, to turn the Ukrainian war into a quagmire for Russia and topple the regime of Vladimir Putin will open a Pandora’s box of evils. Massive social engineering — look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya or Vietnam — has its own centrifugal force. It destroys those who play God.
The Ukrainian war has silenced the last vestiges of the Left. Nearly everyone has giddily signed on for the great crusade against the latest embodiment of evil, Vladimir Putin, who, like all our enemies, has become the new Hitler.
The United States will give $13.6 billion in military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, with the Biden administration authorizing an additional $200 million in military assistance. The 5,000-strong EU rapid deployment force, the recruitment of all Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, into NATO, the reconfiguration of former Soviet bloc militaries to NATO weapons and technology have all been fast tracked.
Germany, for the first time since World War II, is massively rearming. It has lifted its ban on exporting weapons. Its new military budget is twice the amount of the old budget, with promises to raise the budget to more than 2 percent of GDP, which would move its military from the seventh largest in the world to the third, behind China and the United States.
NATO battlegroups are being doubled in size in the Baltic states to more than 6,000 troops. Battlegroups will be sent to Romania and Slovakia. Washington will double the number of U.S. troops stationed in Poland to 9,000. Sweden and Finland are considering dropping their neutral status to integrate with NATO.
This is a recipe for global war. History, as well as all the conflicts I covered as a war correspondent, have demonstrated that when military posturing begins, it often takes little to set the funeral pyre alight. One mistake. One overreach. One military gamble too many. One too many provocations. One act of desperation. 
Russia’s threat to attack weapons convoys to Ukraine from the West; its air strike on a military base in western Ukraine, 12 miles from the Polish border, which is a staging area for foreign mercenaries; the statement by Polish President Andrzej Duda that the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical weapons, by Russia against Ukraine, would be a “game-changer” that could force NATO to rethink its decision to refrain from direct military intervention — all are ominous developments pushing the alliance closer to open warfare with Russia.
Once military forces are deployed, even if they are supposedly in a defensive posture, the bear trap is set. It takes very little to trigger the spring. The vast military bureaucracy, bound to alliances and international commitments, along with detailed plans and timetables, when it starts to roll forward, becomes unstoppable. It is propelled not by logic but by action and reaction, as Europe learned in two world wars.
<h3>Staggering Hypocrisy</h3>
The moral hypocrisy of the United States is staggering. The crimes Russia is carrying out in Ukraine are more than matched by the crimes committed by Washington in the Middle East over the last two decades, including the act of preemptive war, which under post-Nuremberg laws is a criminal act of aggression. Only rarely is this hypocrisy exposed as when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations <a href="https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-02-22/h_08183c11271a7a2c04568df751b0e731">Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the body</a>: 
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" readability="8">
“We’ve seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weaponry into Ukraine, which has no place on the battlefield. That includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs which are banned under the Geneva Convention.”
</blockquote>
Hours later, the official transcript of her remark was amended to tack on the words <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/10/headlines/us_amends_un_ambassadors_condemnation_of_russias_use_of_cluster_bombs">“if they are directed against civilians.”</a>This is because the U.S., which like Russia never ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions treaty, regularly uses cluster munitions. It used them in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Iraq. It has provided them to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. Russia has yet to come close to the tally of civilian deaths from cluster munitions delivered by the U.S. military.
The Dr. Strangeloves, like zombies rising from the mass graves they created around the globe, are once again stoking new campaigns of industrial mass slaughter. No diplomacy. No attempt to address the legitimate grievances of our adversaries. No check on rampant militarism. No capacity to see the world from another perspective. No ability to comprehend reality outside the confines of the binary rubric of good and evil. No understanding of the debacles they orchestrated for decades. No capacity for pity or remorse.
Elliott Abrams worked in the Reagan administration when I was reporting from Central America. He covered up atrocities and massacres committed by the military regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and by the U.S.-backed Contra forces fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He viciously attacked reporters and human rights groups as communists or fifth columnists, calling us “un-American” and “unpatriotic.” He was convicted for lying to Congress about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. During the administration of George W. Bush, he lobbied for the invasion of Iraq and tried to orchestrate a U.S. coup in Venezuela to overthrow<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez"> Hugo Chávez</a>.
“There will be no substitute for military strength, and we do not have enough,” writes Abrams for the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/new-cold-war-0">Council on Foreign Relations,</a> where he is a senior fellow:
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" readability="14">
“It should be crystal clear now that a larger percentage of GDP will need to be spent on defense. We will need more conventional strength in ships and planes. We will need to match the Chinese in advanced military technology, but at the other end of the spectrum, we may need many more tanks if we have to station thousands in Europe, as we did during the Cold War. (The total number of American tanks permanently stationed in Europe today is zero.) Persistent efforts to diminish even further the size of our nuclear arsenal or prevent its modernization were always bad ideas, but now, as China and Russia are modernizing their nuclear weaponry and appear to have no interest in negotiating new limits, such restraints should be completely abandoned. Our nuclear arsenal will need to be modernized and expanded so that we will never face the kinds of threats Putin is now making from a position of real nuclear inferiority.” 
</blockquote>
Putin played into the hands of the war industry. He gave the warmongers what they wanted. He fulfilled their wildest fantasies. There will be no impediments now on the march to Armageddon. Military budgets will soar. The oil will gush from the ground. The climate crisis will accelerate.
China and Russia will form the new axis of evil. The poor will be abandoned. The roads across the earth will be clogged with desperate refugees. All dissent will be treason. The young will be sacrificed for the tired tropes of glory, honor and country. The vulnerable will suffer and die.
The only true patriots will be generals, war profiteers, opportunists, courtiers in the media and demagogues braying for more and more blood. The merchants of death rule like Olympian gods.  And we, cowed by fear, intoxicated by war, swept up in the collective hysteria, clamor for our own annihilation.
<hr class="wp-block-separator" />
<a href="https://battleplan.news/watch?id=6234a8e88c6751070d3c48fc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ENEMIES WITHIN</a>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/chris-hedges-waltzing-to-armageddon">https://www.infowars.com/posts/chris-hedges-waltzing-to-armageddon</a>

news Chris Hedges: Waltzing To Armageddon

The Dr. Strangeloves, like zombies rising from the mass graves they created around the globe, are once again stoking new campaigns of indust...

Russophobia Didn’t Start With Ukraine — It’s Long Been Brewing in the West

Moscow’s actions in Ukraine have exposed a deep-seated latent racism toward the Russian people that a number of Western institutions – not least Hollywood and the legacy mainstream media – have been cultivating for far too long.
Of all the major military operations that have been undertaken since the start of the millennium – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, to name but some of the broken places – Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine already stands apart for a very peculiar reason, and that is the ugly backlash it has generated against ordinary Russian citizens.
By now, many people will have heard the stories circulating online of Russians enduring discrimination in Western capitals – from famed conductor Valery Gergiev <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/arts/music/valery-gergiev-fired-munich-ukraine.html" target="_blank">losing</a> his job at the Munich Philharmonic, to children being bullied in school, to families being denied service in cafés and restaurants.
Not even medical facilities are immune from the lunacy. Last week, the Iatros Clinic in Munich, Germany, <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.opindia.com/2022/03/clinic-in-germany-denies-treatment-to-russians-and-belarusians/" target="_blank">announced</a> it would no longer treat Russians and Belarusians, and I’m guessing that unspeakable act of cruelty would have included pediatric patients too. Only after experiencing a wave of online criticism, proving that not everyone has lost their mind, did the facility retract its racist decision.
Equally astonishing has been the West’s brutal sanctions regime, which is so vicious and over the top that it could actually succeed in inflicting severe economic pain even on Westerners. This emotionally charged reaction to the events in Ukraine looks like virtue-signaling gone mad – a particularly worrisome development, given the mob seems incapable of differentiating between the actions of the Russian government and those of its citizens, who, as is the case with every country finding itself in such circumstances, have precious little say in matters related to war and peace. 
And while it is perfectly natural to loathe war, and to speak out against it, a little consistency would be nice. Since I’ve already explored the question of Western hypocrisy in a <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/550990-us-nato-sanctions-wars/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previous column</a>, I’ll just touch on it here: Why have the US and its NATO allies never suffered so much as a canceled dentist visit for their illicit military adventures across the Middle East and North Africa?
And that brings us to another question: why has it become so acceptable, even fashionable, for people to embrace their inner Klansman whenever the subject is Russia, the global whipping boy? I believe I speak for the majority of Americans when I say we have been methodically conditioned from birth to believe Russians are inherently ruthless and amoral. Much of this conditioning occurs on the television screen and in the movie theater over the duration of a lifetime. Russians find the clichés so ridiculous as to be amusing. 
To offer just a couple of famous examples, in the 1985 film ‘Rocky IV’, Dolph Lundgren plays the part of Ivan Drago, the icy-cold, expressionless Soviet-Russian boxer who literally beats his opponent, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), to death in the ring without displaying an ounce of remorse. On a lighter but no less effective note, American children were entertained during the Cold War years by the TV series ‘The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends,’ in which the main antagonists are Russian spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. Such examples of Russians playing the role of evil villains in Hollywood could be cited hundreds if not thousands of times. 
<div class="BGaf2iuV"><a href="https://www.infowarsstore.com/specials-clearance/top-selling-products-sale?ims=qlupe&utm_campaign=blowoutsalebhero&utm_source=Infowars+Hero&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=blowoutsalebhero" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.directus.libertycdn.com/uploads/_/originals/IEBS-hero-385.jpg" /></a></div>
These racist stereotypes have become so deeply ingrained in the Western brain that most people accept them at face value without thought – which, by the way, is practically the definition of ‘brainwashed.’ It’s interesting to note that Americans – at least from what many Russians have told me – are rarely typecast as the villain in Russian films.
In addition to being systematically vilified by Hollywood scriptwriters, Russia has been subjected for many years to a non-stop media smear campaign. From perpetuating the <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/03/mueller-concludes-investigation/">debunked</a> news that the Kremlin played kingmaker by installing Donald Trump in the White House, to falsely accusing Russia of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-hackers-penetrated-us-electricity-grid-through-a-utility-in-vermont/2016/12/30/8fc90cc4-ceec-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html">hacking</a> the US power grid at the very peak of torrid AC season, it should come as no surprise that many Americans – aside from feeling nothing but media-generated contempt for Russians – have absolutely no clue what motivated Moscow to initiate its offensive actions in Ukraine in the first place. 
A person does not have to agree with those motivations, of course, but they should at least be made aware of them. Instead of behaving in the interest of real journalism, however, Google’s YouTube, for instance, banned all channels linked to Russian state media and even the supposedly unbiased search engine <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://slate.com/technology/2022/03/duckduckgo-russian-disinformation-downranking.html" target="_blank">DuckDuckGo</a> said it would deliberately down-rank Russian news sites. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="8.8852459016393">
Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StandWithUkraine%EF%B8%8F?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#StandWithUkraine️</a>
At DuckDuckGo, we've been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.
— Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) <a href="https://twitter.com/yegg/status/1501716484761997318?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2022</a></blockquote>
As far as the mendacious Western media is concerned, Russia woke up on February 24, yawned, stretched, and scratched itself, before deciding then and there that it was a wonderful day to shake up its neighbor. Such a myopic narrative precludes decades of Kremlin warnings, most notably Putin’s now-famous speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, in which he <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034">told</a> the packed assembly, “NATO expansion … represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?”
Far from legacy media and social media using the vast tools at their disposal to keep their readers informed, perhaps even demand some answers from NATO as to why it was so necessary to smash up against Russia’s border, they contributed to political climate change at the worst possible time. Meta Platforms announced that, in the context of Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine, it would condone on Facebook and Instagram hate speech that called for violence against “invading Russians.” As a thought experiment, would these US-based companies have made such dramatic concessions had American or NATO-ally lives been on the line? It seems doubtful.
So, as Russians find themselves increasingly discriminated against in the West, another important question must be asked: Where was this level of hysteria when America and its allies was obliterating various Middle Eastern nations with its “shock and awe” performances that gave rise to a whole new <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/all-the-euphemisms-we-use-for-war/">genre</a> of Merriam-Webster-approved euphemisms – gems such as “collateral damage”(dead civilians), “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture), and “extraordinary rendition” (state-sanctioned kidnappings to “black hole” sites).
Setting aside the tricky matter of whether a military response is ever the right response, should a people ever be judged on the actions of their leader? According to a recent<a href="https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/75711/"> poll</a> by the state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 70% of the Russian population supports the offensive in Ukraine. Yet military decisions in every country are typically made without the consent of the governed. Historically, the majority of onlookers are tolerant and intelligent enough to separate the actions of a government from those of its citizens. But somehow that sort of rational thinking got tossed out in the Ukrainian conflict, and that is turning into a tragedy not just for Russians, but for mankind.
<hr class="wp-block-separator" />
<a href="https://battleplan.news/watch?id=623628229c80910ae8b19773" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">American Regime Incites A New RED SCARE Against Russia</a>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/russophobia-didnt-start-with-ukraine-its-long-been-brewing-in-the-west">https://www.infowars.com/posts/russophobia-didnt-start-with-ukraine-its-long-been-brewing-in-the-west</a>

news Russophobia Didn’t Start With Ukraine — It’s Long Been Brewing in the West

Moscow’s actions in Ukraine have exposed a deep-seated latent racism toward the Russian people that a number of Western institutions – not l...

MSNBC Guest: Sen. Josh Hawley Trying to Get SCOTUS Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson ‘Killed’

The Nation’s Elie Mystal, a regular MSNBC contributor, accused Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) of trying to get Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson “killed” for pointing out her <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2022/03/17/hawley-bidens-scotus-pick-pattern-letting-child-porn-offenders-off-hook/" target="_blank">leniency towards sex offenders</a> in previous cases.
Mystal argued on MSNBC’s “Cross Connection” on Saturday that Hawley’s attempt to highlights Jackson’s questionable rulings toward sex offenders was just a ploy to get her “killed.”
“[S]he is going to be confirmed, and she is going to be well-liked while she’s confirmed,” Mystal said. “So them going to the mattresses against her is kind of a waste of their time. But I don’t want to let the Josh Hawley thing lie, because here’s, you know, like — here’s where I need the Democrats to step up — because when they try to smear her, I need the Democrats to get up there and defend her just as vociferously as Lindsey Graham defended <a href="https://www.independentsentinel.com/all-the-many-lies-of-credible-christine-blasey-ford/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">alleged</a> attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh.”
[embedded content]
“Like, I need that level of energy from the Democrats, especially when they come at her with these trumped-up alleged issues about her sentencing for sex offenders because what Josh Hawley is doing, let’s be very clear — what Josh Hawley is doing when he tries to do this, is he’s trying to get her killed,” Mystal continued. “He is trying to get violence done against a Supreme Court nominee.”
Mystal then bizarrely referenced how Jackson <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pizzagate-gunman-edgar-maddison-welch-sentenced-four-years-prison-n775621" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sentenced an anti-pedophile activist</a> who fired a gun in the D.C-based pizza parlor Comet Ping Pong in 2016 as evidence that she is somehow against pedophilia.
“[Y]ou know how I know that Josh Hawley knows what Pizzagate is all about?” he added. “Because guess who’s the judge who sentenced the Pizzagate guy? Oh, that was Ketanji Brown Jackson.”
Hawley had highlighted in a Twitter thread Wednesday Jackson’s troubling pattern of “letting child porn offenders off the hook” in numerous cases.
“Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker. She’s been advocating for it since law school. This goes beyond ‘soft on crime.’ I’m concerned that this a record that endangers our children,” he tweeted, citing cases like United States v. Chazin, United States v. Cooper, United States v. Downs, United States v. Sears, and United States v. Stewart.
<div class="ocXajU1P"><a href="https://www.infowarsstore.com/specials-clearance/top-selling-products-sale?ims=qlupe&utm_campaign=blowoutsalebhero&utm_source=Infowars+Hero&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=blowoutsalebhero" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.directus.libertycdn.com/uploads/_/originals/IEBS-hero-385.jpg" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="10.48322147651">
I’ve been researching the record of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, reading her opinions, articles, interviews & speeches. I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1504221926662844418?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2022</a></blockquote>
“In United States v. Cooper, in which the criminal had more than 600 images and videos and posted many on a public blog, the Guidelines called for a sentence of 151-188 months. Judge Jackson settled on 60 months, the lowest possible sentence allowed by law,” Hawley tweeted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" readability="9.5302013422819">
In United States v. Cooper, in which the criminal had more than 600 images and videos and posted many on a public blog, the Guidelines called for a sentence of 151-188 months. Judge Jackson settled on 60 months, the lowest possible sentence allowed by law.
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1504221951849635840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2022</a></blockquote>
“In United States v. Downs, the perp posted multiple images to an anonymous instant messaging app, including an image of a child under the age of 5. The Guidelines recommended 70-87 months. Judge Jackson gave him the lowest sentence allowed by law, 60 months,” he said in another tweet.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" readability="9.5317725752508">
In United States v. Downs, the perp posted multiple images to an anonymous instant messaging app, including an image of a child under the age of 5. The Guidelines recommended 70-87 months. Judge Jackson gave him the lowest sentence allowed by law, 60 months
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1504221954072629255?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2022</a></blockquote>
“In every single child porn case for which we can find records, Judge Jackson deviated from the federal sentencing guidelines in favor of child porn offenders,” he added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" readability="8.5367647058824">
On the federal bench, Judge Jackson put her troubling views into action. In every single child porn case for which we can find records, Judge Jackson deviated from the federal sentencing guidelines in favor of child porn offenders
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1504221948955475969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2022</a></blockquote>
<hr class="wp-block-separator" />
<a href="https://battleplan.news/watch?id=62350079d3632308a12921b1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EXCLUSIVE: Gavin McInnes Warns Ketanji Brown Jackson May Be a Pedophile</a>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/msnbc-guest-sen-josh-hawley-trying-to-get-scotus-nominee-ketanji-brown-jackson-killed">https://www.infowars.com/posts/msnbc-guest-sen-josh-hawley-trying-to-get-scotus-nominee-ketanji-brown-jackson-killed</a>

news MSNBC Guest: Sen. Josh Hawley Trying to Get SCOTUS Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson ‘Killed’

The Nation’s Elie Mystal, a regular MSNBC contributor, accused Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) of trying to get Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee ...

Shock Video: Journalists Detained At Gunpoint By Border Patrol For Filming Biden’s Open Border

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents detained journalists at gunpoint on the Arizona-Mexico border for filming illegal aliens freely crossing into the U.S. thanks to Joe Biden’s open border policy.
Real America’s Voice investigative journalist Ben Bergquam and his crew were detained by CBP at gunpoint on Friday while filming the network’s “Law and Border” program.
“I have been to this section of the border many times, both with law enforcement escorts and without, and have never had an encounter like this,” Bergquam said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="3.8552036199095">
Biden administration has journalist detained instead of illegals! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LawAndBorder?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LawAndBorder</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RealAmVoice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RealAmVoice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Brandonjarvis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Brandonjarvis</a> <a href="https://t.co/w63J9ePUjB">pic.twitter.com/w63J9ePUjB</a>
— Ben Bergquam – Real America’s Voice (RAV-TV) News (@BenBergquam) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenBergquam/status/1505029394162540547?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2022</a></blockquote>
Footage shows that while numerous border agents were preoccupied harassing Bergquam and his crew, dozens of illegal aliens were seeing crossing the U.S. border unimpeded.
“There are guys out there fully armed, guns out- while Washington DC is supporting the drug cartels. While our country is being invaded, there are 60 guys who are just standing around and they are worried about us, ” Bergquam said as he and his team were detained and questioned.
“While we have complete respect for law enforcement, we were stunned to be detained at gunpoint while illegal immigrants looked on right after crossing our southern border. This incident reveals the backwards priorities of our leaders in Washington, unfortunately, as the border crisis worsens by the day,” he added.
Real America’s Voice CEO Howard Diamond condemned Biden’s targeting of journalists in a Saturday statement, but added his company won’t relent in its coverage of the open border crisis.
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“Such targeting of journalists has rarely ever happened in America,” said Diamond. “Though the Biden administration’s border agency’s detainment of our journalists greatly concerns us, we remain undaunted in our commitment to deliver consistent and fact-based news reporting on the crisis on the southern border while the rest of the media ignore it.”
CBP data shows that <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=3478104-1&h=3343258652&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbp.gov%2Fnewsroom%2Fstats%2Fsouthwest-land-border-encounters&a=164%2C973" target="_blank">164,973</a> illegal immigrants were encountered at the U.S. southern border in February, the highest total number recorded <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=3478104-1&h=3610051257&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbp.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fassets%2Fdocuments%2F2020-Jan%2FU.S.%2520Border%2520Patrol%2520Monthly%2520Apprehensions%2520%2528FY%25202000%2520-%2520FY%25202019%2529_1.pdf&a=in+the+history+of+the+Department+of+Homeland+Security." target="_blank">in the history of the Department of Homeland Security.</a> 
<hr class="wp-block-separator" />
<a href="https://battleplan.news/watch?id=622f7f3ecdae537415c5156c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DHS Head Announces New Speech-Control Laws – Questioning Incompetent Government Will Be Illegal</a>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/shock-video-journalists-detained-at-gunpoint-by-border-patrol-for-filming-bidens-open-border">https://www.infowars.com/posts/shock-video-journalists-detained-at-gunpoint-by-border-patrol-for-filming-bidens-open-border</a>

news Shock Video: Journalists Detained At Gunpoint By Border Patrol For Filming Biden’s Open Border

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents detained journalists at gunpoint on the Arizona-Mexico border for filming illegal aliens freely crossi...