Two cases of delusion. 1st, Trump followers think Trump can run for POTUS from prison, and 2nd, Putin loses Young Russians due to brain drain
If this were not so serious in import, these two take aways would be funny. In reality, they are a signpost to delusionary thinking in both the Russian Federation and the United States.
1/3rd of America is locked in delusion created by you know whom
I have had discussions with still remaining GOP adherents whom treat Trump as their new MAHDI, the new Messiah, who will fulfill Gods kingdom on Earth
This is patently INSANE. It is time for a few people I know to come back to Planet Earth
Here is an example of that delusional thinking in full flower
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“I don’t think him being behind bars would stop him from winning the Republican nomination,” said Brendan Buck, a Republican consultant.
Trump has a death grip on enough of the Republican base that even if he is in prison, he will still be the Republican nominee.
If Trump was in prison, it would mean no candidate rallies, no convention acceptance speech, no debates. Everything that voters expect from a presidential campaign would not exist.
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AGAIN FOR THE RECORD
And you know what. I have had discussions with still remaining GOP adherents whom treat Trump as their new MAHDI, the new Messiah, who will fulfill Gods kingdom on Earth
This is patently INSANE.
whereas we have a similar situation in Russia, as that the regime there really thinks it will be able to run the country when
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As a result, young people in Russia envision an uncertain and unstable life ahead due to the war. They’re?more opposed?to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than other demographics groups because they?don’t want war,?nor to be isolated from the rest of the world, according to surveys and experts.
“They feel more acutely than other groups that the war has deprived them of a future,” Kseniya Kirillova, an analyst for think tank Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told?Fortune.
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In January 2021, 36-year-old Andrey Gusev, the product head for blockchain and gaming firm Sabai Ecoverse, left Zelenograd, a small city outside of Moscow, for Phuket for better career opportunities. He has no plans to return.?
“Seventy percent of my friends, who were in intellectual spheres…like IT, science and engineering, have left or are actively looking for ways to leave Russia,” he told?Fortune.
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Righto, and Putin thinks this is a winning strategy in order to reclaim the Romamov Dynsasty empire, say 1900?
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Butkevych devoted nearly 20 years of his life to humanitarian activities, including advocating for refugees through the No Borders Project, co-founding the Zmina human rights center, and Hromadske Radio non-governmental media organization.
He also helped multiple victims of Russian aggression since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2014. Butkevych actively participated in the campaign for the release of Kremlin's political prisoners from Ukraine, including Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko.
After he volunteered to join the army at the beginning of Russia’s all-out war, Butkevych became a unit commander as he had completed a military course in college. He was first deployed just outside Kyiv. In June, he was deployed to the east, near the city of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast.
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Butkevych is the sort of person whom Putin would need to inspire Russia after the Ukraine war. Right now, he will probably be murdered in detention. And this is transmitted freely to the Russian Diaspora.
As it is, both Putin and Trump supporters have taken a massive flight from reality and the results of all this will be horrific for their communities, and both America and Russia. Some sort of backup procedure out of this delusion really needs to take hold. Unfortunately, not on the horizon either in America or Russia now.
meanwhile this is what is happening in Southern Ukraine
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On Friday, the US said for the first time that it would provide Ukraine with ScanEagle surveillance drones, mine-resistant vehicles, anti-armour rounds and howitzer weapons in a new ￡655m aid package to help its efforts to take back Ukrainian territory.
“These capabilities are carefully calibrated to make the most difference on the battlefield and strengthen Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table,”?Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said.
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In fantasy land, none of these developments seem to be registering.
https://www.politicususa.com/2022/08/20/republican-consultant-says-trump-could-win-the-2024-nomination-from-prison.html
Republican Consultant Says Trump Could Win The 2024 Nomination From Prison
A Republican political consultant expressed the belief that even getting sent to prison won’t stop Trump from winning the 2024 GOP nomination.
For now, though, Trump seems to be consolidating Republican support since the unprecedented search at his home. In retrieving the records, the FBI tapped into deep-seated grievances among many Republicans that government institutions aren’t trustworthy and are persecuting their lone defender, multiple GOP operatives interviewed by NBC News said.
“I don’t think him being behind bars would stop him from winning the Republican nomination,” said Brendan Buck, a Republican consultant.
Trump has a death grip on enough of the Republican base that even if he is in prison, he will still be the Republican nominee.
If Trump was in prison, it would mean no candidate rallies, no convention acceptance speech, no debates. Everything that voters expect from a presidential campaign would not exist.
It would be a disaster for Republicans if an incarcerated Trump were the party’s nominee.
Republicans appear to be preparing for Trump to potentially run for the presidency from behind bars, and if this happens, it will wreck any chance the GOP has of winning in 2024.
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Whereas
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‘We realized that there’s no way we can return’: Russia’s best and brightest are leaving the country in record numbers. 6 young Russians explain why they left
August 20, 2022 at 6:00 AM EDT
Photo of 25-year-old Sonya, who fled Moscow, Russia, for Belgrade, Serbia, in May.
Three months ago, Sonya, a 25-year-old who works at a major mobile gaming company and moonlights as a tutor, made one of the toughest decisions of her life: She left Russia.
She had an old but cozy communal apartment with her boyfriend and two other roommates in Moscow’s city center, a tight-knit group of friends, and spent several days a week taking classes at a local dance academy—her lifelong passion.?
“It’s my home. My family, friends are there. My whole life. How can you possibly abandon all these things?” she told?Fortune.
But like countless other young educated Russians, Sonya, who asked that only her first name be used, packed her bags and fled the country after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.?
Over?3.8 million Russians left?from January to March this year, according to the Federal Security Services’ own estimates. Some left for work or travel reasons, but?many also?left because of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Other estimates put the number of people who left because of the war at?300,000?to?3.8 million.?The exact number is still unknown.?A?recent survey?from non-governmental organization OK Russians says that the average age of Russians who left the country after Feb. 24 is 32 years old, while 80% of them have a higher education degree.
And as the war approaches its six month anniversary, the country is experiencing a?second wave of outward migration, as individuals and families who needed more time to wrap up their lives are now leaving. And although the estimates vary widely, this year’s mass exodus from the country is comparable to the initial emigration out of Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed and?1.2 million Russians left?in 1992 and 1993. Russia’s current, large-scale brain drain of young, skilled and educated citizens, could decimate sectors from journalism, to academia, and technology, experts say.
Sonya was part of the second exodus. In March, she bought tickets for the cheapest flight out, which was $650—only slightly less than her monthly salary of $750—and left in May. She said she realized early on that life in Russia was untenable, because of “the war… more horrid details about the situation in Ukraine were being revealed. The government, the system. Inhumane [and] anti-democratic laws. A ruined economy.”?
“Everyday we were, and still are, going through an uncontrollable stream of shame and anger,” she says.
For a better future
Almost overnight, Putin’s war on Ukraine turned Russia into a?global pariah?and plunged the economy into chaos.?
International leaders?condemned Putin’s actions,?and Western nations hit the country with unprecedented?sanctions, including cutting it off from SWIFT, the international payments system.?
Since February, over?1,000 global companies?have curbed their operations in Russia, curtailing job opportunities and?access to goods?and?services?for Russians. Inflation?soared?to nearly 18%, while real wages?plunged?7.2% in April.?
In the first quarter of this year, the number of Russians living below the poverty line surged to?20.9 million—14.3% of the population, compared to 12.4 million in the last quarter of 2021, an increase of nearly 67%,?according to Russia’s government statistics agency,?which attributes the rise in poverty to inflation. Former Putin aide Andrei Illarionov?told the?BBC?in April that this number could double or triple as the war continues.?
As a result, young people in Russia envision an uncertain and unstable life ahead due to the war. They’re?more opposed?to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than other demographics groups because they?don’t want war,?nor to be isolated from the rest of the world, according to surveys and experts.
“They feel more acutely than other groups that the war has deprived them of a future,” Kseniya Kirillova, an analyst for think tank Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told?Fortune.
Last June, 23-year-old Roman Pastukhov left his hometown of Blagoveshchensk, a small Russian city where China is a?5-minute pontoon ride away. He knew he had to leave Russia to obtain a widely-recognized post-graduate degree, and had received a scholarship to study environmental science and technology in Japan.?
Russia’s social, political, and economic problems, which have piled up over the years, made living in Russia an unattractive prospect, Pastukhov told?Fortune.?“A mid-range job won’t get you anywhere,” he said, citing low salaries, high inflation, and an unstable ruble.??
Pastukhov and his wife Anastasiia, had planned to return to Russia to see family and figure out the next chapter of their lives. But Putin’s war reinforced that living there would only bring financial instability and repression. After Feb. 24, Pastukhov lost access to his investment accounts, due to western sanctions on Russian banks.?
He says at first, he was mostly upset and terrified for his friends in Ukraine. Now, he’s shocked at how well?state propaganda?is influencing Russians.?
“We realized that there’s no way we can return to Russia anytime soon. Once we get in, we might not be able to get out. Staying outside seems to be the safest option for now,” Pastukhov says.
‘The creative class that I know has already left Russia’
For over a decade, 32-year-old digital artist Grishanti Holon—a professional pseudonym— participated in radical art groups, including the infamous anti-government collective?Voina, and hung up anti-Putin posters.?
Despite his activism, the government recognized his talent and awarded him with the title of “Talent of Russia” in 2019. But he says life under Putin’s regime had by then become unlivable because free creative and political expression was impossible.?
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By December 2021, the “atmosphere became so tense” that he left Moscow for Bali with his partner and professional team, Holon told?Fortune.?He believes if he had tried to do it after the war started, he would not be able to.???
“I’m more than sure I would’ve been detained and imprisoned,” he says. After the war began, he halted a digital NFT project in partnership with Russian state bank?Sberbank?mid-launch, as he didn’t want to support the country’s war effort, even indirectly.?
Now, the “vast majority of the creative class that I know has already left Russia. [Our community] in Bali alone is several hundred people,” Holon says.?
Academics,?activists?and?tech workers?are also leaving in droves. Around 10% of Russia’s tech workforce has left—or is planning to leave—the country, the Russian Association for Electronic Communications told Russia’s Parliament in May.?
Elena, a 31-year-old freelancer who creates content on?YouTube,?shared her story with?Fortune?in March, when she fled Moscow for Istanbul. Her elderly parents ask when she will return, but she says she has no plans to do so because the “news and ideas coming from the Russian government terrifies me,” she told?Fortune.?
She’s now learned basic Turkish and opened an account with a European digital bank. She says her friends have settled in Brazil and South Korea.?
“Educated people who understand the real situation are leaving the country; selling their houses, making different documents, and learning foreign languages,” she says.
In January 2021, 36-year-old Andrey Gusev, the product head for blockchain and gaming firm Sabai Ecoverse, left Zelenograd, a small city outside of Moscow, for Phuket for better career opportunities. He has no plans to return.?
“Seventy percent of my friends, who were in intellectual spheres…like IT, science and engineering, have left or are actively looking for ways to leave Russia,” he told?Fortune.?
Another tech worker, Alexander Salomatov, founder of metaverse and crypto consulting firm Soulmate Consulting, left Moscow for Bali in January of this year. He wanted to develop tech projects with a global team and user base, which seemed difficult to do in Russia. But it was the war that reinforced his belief that “now is not the best time” to live in Russia and traditional allies like Belarus and Kazakhstan.
“I can’t image what [good] is going to happen in Russia… if all of the most talented, energetic, and enterprising people have left their homeland,” Holon says.
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whereas
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Relatives sound alarm as prominent activist in Russian captivity painted ‘Nazi’
August 20,?2022?12:40 pm
Ukrainian human rights activist Maksym Butkevych speaks during a press conference in Kyiv on May 21, 2018. (UNIAN)
Maksym Butkevych, a well-known human rights defender in Ukraine, has had anti-militarist views all his conscious life.
But when Russia launched a brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, he put pacifism aside and joined the Ukrainian army.
"There are times when one needs to be ready to defend what is important," Butkevych said back then.
Over the years, Butkevych has helped hundreds of people fleeing authoritarian regimes and internally displaced Ukrainians from occupied territories.
But now he himself needs help.
When Russian troops took him into captivity in late June, Russian state-controlled media published multiple reports about Butkevych, painting him as a “Nazi” and “anti-Russian.”?
There has been no information about his fate since then.?
According to Oleh Kotenko, the commissioner for people missing under special circumstances, as of July 11, as many as 7,200 Ukrainian service people have been reported missing, most of whom are in Russian captivity.
Numerous reports from those who returned from Russian captivity describe torture or witnessing torture by beating and, in some cases, electric shock.
Surrender to save lives
Butkevych devoted nearly 20 years of his life to humanitarian activities, including advocating for refugees through the No Borders Project, co-founding the Zmina human rights center, and Hromadske Radio non-governmental media organization.
He also helped multiple victims of Russian aggression since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2014. Butkevych actively participated in the campaign for the release of Kremlin's political prisoners from Ukraine, including Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko.
After he volunteered to join the army at the beginning of Russia’s all-out war, Butkevych became a unit commander as he had completed a military course in college. He was first deployed just outside Kyiv. In June, he was deployed to the east, near the city of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast.
Some of the war's bloodiest fighting was happening in the area at the time.
By the end of June, Sievierodonetsk had turned from an industrial center into a ghost town of ruins, with nearly 90% of buildings damaged or destroyed, along with most of the city's vital infrastructure, according to Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhii Haidai. The city?fell to Russia?on June 24.
That very day Butkevych's mother, Yevheniia, 70, had last seen her son. The Russian state-controlled news outlet RIA Novosti posted a video featuring Butkevych alongside other captured Ukrainian soldiers.?
According to Yevheniia, Butkevych’s unit got surrounded by Russian troops. When two Ukrainian soldiers went looking for water, they got captured, and Russians used them to lure the rest of the group into a trap.
"It was tough to listen to Maksym,"?she recalls. "They had to lay down their arms so they would not be shot down like targets in a shooting range. As a commander, he decided to save the lives of the personnel."
Fears grow amid unknown fate
Since Butkevych was taken captive, Russian state-controlled media outlets published dozens of articles accusing him of being a Nazi unit commander and an anti-Russian nationalist. Other accusations were even more random: They included him being a British spy, being responsible for organizing anti-government protests in Belarus, and attempting to overthrow Kazakhstan's state system.
At first, the activist's family, as advised by Ukraine’s Armed Forces and Defense Ministry, remained silent about his capture, fearing publicity could potentially harm him.
However, as the number of reports about Butkevych continued to grow daily, suggesting he was considered "a big fish” for Russia, his relatives decided to go public in mid-July.?
Tetiana Pechonchyk, head of the board of the ZMINA human rights center, believes it was necessary to make Butkevych's case public and share the truth about his human rights work.
"Amid this shameful propaganda campaign, there was a high risk of torture and ill treatment against him or fabrication of some criminal case against him," she told Krym Realii media outlet.
Friends and colleagues of Butkevych, who previously were members of the board of Amnesty International's Ukraine section, denounced Russian media reports as propaganda.
"It's so Orwellian," said Yevheniia Polshchykova, a former student activist, as quoted by the New York Times. "They literally take an anti-fascist, a human rights defender, and call him a Nazi."
As Russian dictator Vladimir Putin used the so-called "de-Nazification" to justify the invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian prisoners of war accused of being "Nazi" may be at higher risk of getting tortured or even killed.
In late July, Ukraine's Defense Ministry's Intelligence Directorate accused Russia of deliberately attacking a prisoner camp in occupied Olenivka, killing at least 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war. Many of the victims were members of the Azov Regiment, which the Russian media has been portraying as a Nazi battalion
Butkevych's family hasn't had any news about him for almost two months.
"There has never been a worse period in my life," his mother Yevheniia said.
The activist’s parents are concerned he could have been singled out from other prisoners of war so Russia could set up a show ”trial" to charge him with terrorism, or other false accusations. It would make it impossible for Butkevych to participate in a prisoner exchange.?
But his family hopes that the fact that Russian media keep making reports about their son means that he is at least still alive.
"We really need to find out where he is," his mother said.
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All this happening when Ukraine is about to drive Russia from Kherson and the Russian Black fleet is being pulverized
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/20/ukraine-launches-fresh-strike-on-russias-black-sea-fleet-headquarters?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
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Ukraine launches fresh strike on Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters
Video on Twitter appears to show reported drone attack on Sevastopol but Russians say at least one device was shot down
Sat 20 Aug 2022 10.40 EDT
Ukraine has launched a fresh strike on Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters at Sevastopol, where officials in the annexed Crimean peninsula said that at least one drone had been shot down by air defences.
The reported attack on Saturday morning – a day after explosions erupted near military bases?in Russian-held areas of Ukraine and Russia itself?– came on the same day that 12 civilians were reportedly wounded when a Russian missile hit a residential area of a Ukrainian town.
Vitaliy Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv, said that four children were among those wounded in an attack that damaged several private houses and a five-storey residential building in Voznesensk, about 19 miles (30km) from the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant.
He added that a young girl had lost an eye as a result of the attack on Saturday.
While there was no apparent major damage after the reported unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attack on Sevastopol, which has not been independently verified by the Guardian, observers said it demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to?strike deep behind Russian lines?at prestige targets.
Video?shared on Twitter?appeared to show Russian air defences attempting to destroy the UAV and dark plumes of smoke rising from the city.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, Sevastopol’s governor, wrote on Telegram that a drone had hit the roof of the headquarters on Saturday and said there were no casualties, reports the Russian news agency?Tass.
“I am at the [Black Sea] fleet’s headquarters now. A drone hit the roof here 25 minutes ago. Unfortunately, it was not downed … There are no casualties,” he wrote.
Later on Saturday, Crimea’s governor, Sergei Aksyonov, contradicted the earlier statement by saying on Telegram that local air defences shot down the drone above the Black Sea fleet headquarters in Sevastopol.
“Air defense systems successfully hit all targets over the territory over Crimea on Saturday morning. There are no casualties or material damage,” his boss, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Telegram.
Authorities in Sevastopol reported on Saturday night that the city’s air-defence systems had been called into action again in the evening.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defence ministry on Saturday said its forces had killed a total of 44,900 Russian personnel – a rise of 200 on the day before.
On Friday, the US said for the first time that it would provide Ukraine with ScanEagle surveillance drones, mine-resistant vehicles, anti-armour rounds and howitzer weapons in a new ￡655m aid package to help its efforts to take back Ukrainian territory.
“These capabilities are carefully calibrated to make the most difference on the battlefield and strengthen Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table,”?Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said.
There was cautious optimism on Saturday as two more grain ships left the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk , bringing the total number to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea under a UN-brokered deal to 27.
Welcoming the sailings, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Saturday that governments and the private sector should cooperate to bring Russian food and fertilisers as well as Ukrainian grain to world markets under the deal agreed last month.
“The other part of this package deal is the unimpeded access to the global markets of Russian food and fertiliser, which are not subject to sanctions,” Guterres told a news conference in Istanbul. “It is important that all governments and the private sector cooperate to bring them to market.
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Andrew Beckwith, PhD
Wednesday will mark six months of war in the region since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While Russia has made gains in the east, it has been put on the defensive in other regions as Ukraine scales up its attacks in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was?seized by Russia in 2014.
Last week, a total of nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at a Crimean airbase.
Russian leaders have warned that such strikes indicate an escalation in the conflict, powered by the US and?Nato?allies.
In its latest intelligence update on the conflict, Britain’s?Ministry of Defence?(MOD) said last week that it saw “only minimal changes in territorial control along the frontline”.
In Donbas, it said Russian forces have approached the outskirts of Bakhmut, but have not broken into the city. In the south-west, it reported that neither Ukrainian or Russian forces had made advances on the frontline in occupied Kherson, but added: “Increasingly frequent explosions behind Russian lines are probably stressing Russian logistics and air basing in the south.”