If you enjoy spy thrillers, as I do, this rather long, and detailed article (long and detailed is a good thing) is well worth the read.

For those who are interested, Yahoo has added a new reader comment feature on its news page. MSN.com has had this feature available for months now.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cias-hunt-russian-mole-blinded-103000064.html

Time
How the CIA's Hunt for a Russian Mole Blinded It To Putin's Rise
Robert Baer
Sat, May 21, 2022, 3:30 AM

...snip
The CIA, along with other American intelligence agencies, has dazzled the world over the past several months. First, in the months leading up to the invasion, the U.S. used satellite imagery to continually insist Putin was planning an invasion, even when he denied it. Now, stories are emerging of Ukraine using U.S. intelligence to target Russian generals and warships. There are even suggestions that the U.S. has flexed its muscles by intentionally leaking its involvement.

But we shouldn’t let our pride over what we do know drown out of concern for what we don’t know. For example, we had we had no idea how weak Russia’s military actually was, that it had become a Potemkin village that couldn’t fight its way out of a Ukrainian paper bag. Consider General Milley’s prediction that Kyiv could fall within 72 hours. We didn’t know just for example, that thanks to corruption the Russian army relied on faulty Chinese tires.

And yet, what we don’t know about Putin and Russia goes so much deeper than that. In the 90s, the CIA completely missed KGB hardliners plotting against Gorbachev, then Yeltsin. And then, most importantly, it missed the rise of Putin.

Although Putin has become one of the most powerful men in the world, to this day we still don’t have an authoritative, firsthand account of how he got to where he did. We don’t know, for example, who in the KGB backed Putin and what was expected of him after he got to the Kremlin. Without even these most basic facts, how can we expect to have any sense of whether his fascist rhetoric about nuclear weapons or further territorial expansions is real or just bluster?
...snip

An excellent article that begins with a history going back to the 1600’s. I’ve included only a snip at the end of a very long and worthwhile read, imo.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vladimir-putin-sits-atop-a-crumbling-pyramid-of-power/ar-AAUmGHH

GuardianUK
Vadimir Putin Sits Atop a Crumbling Pyramid of Power
2/27/22
Vladimir Sorkin
...snip
Putin’s inner monster wasn’t just brought up by our Pyramid of Power and the corrupt Russian elite, to whom Putin, like the tsar to the satraps, throws fat, juicy bits of corruption from his table.

It was also cultivated by the approval of irresponsible western politicians, cynical businessmen, and corrupt journalists and political scientists.
“A strong and consistent ruler!” This bewitched them. “A new Russian tsar” was, for them, something like Russian vodka and caviar: invigorating!
During this period of time, I met many admirers of Putin in Germany, from taxi drivers to businessmen and professors. One aged participant in the student revolution of ’68 confessed:
“I really like your Putin!”
“And why exactly is that?”
“He’s strong. Tells the truth. And he’s against America. Not like the slugs we’ve got here.”
“And it doesn’t bother you that, in Russia, there’s monstrous corruption, there are practically no elections or independent courts, the opposition is being destroyed, the provinces are impoverished, Nemtsov was murdered, and TV’s become propaganda?”
“No. Those are your internal affairs. If Russians accept all of that and don’t protest, that must mean they like Putin.”
Ironclad logic. The experience of Germany in the ’30s didn’t seem to have taught such Europeans anything.
...snip

https://poets.org/poem/still-i-rise

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou 1928-2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

I've been watching CNN in the mornings for years. These are the people that keep me coming back:

Poppy Harlow, Jim Scuitto, Jim Accosta, and
Brianna Keiler

I always cringe when I read a post that blames all media journalists for political woes.

Vomiting and Convulsing, is that inhumane treatment?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/oklahoma-inmate-julius-jones-is-scheduled-to-be-executed-today-the-state-s-governor-still-hasn-t-decided-if-he-ll-spare-the-man/ar-AAQRGok?ocid=Peregrine

Oklahoma inmate Julius Jones is scheduled to be executed today. The state's governor still hasn't decided if he'll spare the man.

kmclaughlin@businessinsider.com (Kelly McLaughlin)

11/18/21
...snip
"Thousands of people across Oklahoma, the country, and the world have called on the governor to prevent Oklahoma from executing an innocent man,"Amanda Bass, one of Jones' attorneys, said in a statement shared with Insider on Thursday. "Our hope is that the Governor will ensure that this execution does not go forward given the many concerns about the execution process and Mr. Jones's case."
...snip

Dale Baich, another of Jones' attorneys, told Insider in March that evidence in the case was "flimsy," and, according to the City Sentinel, Jones' family has said Jones was home eating dinner at the time of the crime.

Jones' scheduled execution comes weeks after another Oklahoma inmate, John Marion Grant, vomited and convulsed as he was executed. Grant was the first execution in Oklahoma in six years.

Read the original article on Insider

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/chinese-journalist-imprisoned-for-her-ground-breaking-coverage-of-the-wuhan-covid-19-pandemic-is-close-to-death-reports-say/ar-AAQoCsW

Business Insider

Chinese journalist imprisoned for her ground-breaking coverage of the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic is 'close to death,' reports say

ashoaib@insider.com (Alia Shoaib)

11/6/21

Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison for her early coverage of COVID-19 in Wuhan.

Her family warned that Zhan is close to death from a hunger strike and will not survive the winter.

International groups have called for her release and said her sentence is a "shameful attack on human rights."

A Chinese citizen journalist jailed for her reporting in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic is at risk of dying from a hunger strike, reports say.

Zhang Zhan, a 38-year-old former lawyer, was sentenced to four years in prison in December after she traveled to Wuhan in February 2020 to document what was happening on the ground.

She had posted on social media about government officials detaining independent reporters and harassing the families of COVID-19 patients.
...snip

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-efforts-to-diagnose-democrats-biggest-problem-are-off-the-mark/ar-AAQoqx9

CNN

Opinion: Efforts to diagnose Democrats' biggest problem are off the mark

Opinion by Peniel E. Joseph

11/6/21

Efforts to diagnose Democratic defeat in Virginia, a state which has trended reliably blue in recent years due to its northern suburbs and which President Biden won by 10 points, have missed the mark.
...snip
Two US senators, West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Arizona's Krysten Sinema, have become the targets of vociferous criticism from within the Democratic Party for resisting efforts to end the filibuster, pass voting rights legislation or support the full measure of Biden's legislative agenda.

And then there's Critical Race Theory. The assaults against CRT are a 21st-century echo of the Lost Cause mythology that attacked Reconstruction as a failed effort to grant citizenship to formerly enslaved Black Americans long before they were ready or capable of such an awesome responsibility. The falsehood of this narrative made it no less effective. Public school textbooks and teachers, North and South, taught aspects of the Lost Cause for more than a century. Some are still teaching it.

Anti-CRT legislation successfully passed in states such as Texas and used as a wedge issue in the Virginia gubernatorial election, traffics in lies and falsehoods that are, nonetheless, stunningly effective. Teaching Black history is not Critical Race Theory, but it has been treated as such in hundreds of school districts where White parents are screaming that they don't want their children to be taught CRT. What are these White parents and voters so afraid of?

Videos of White voters and pundits of all colors attacking CRT while simultaneously being unable to explain what it is offer us potent clues to what's happening in America right now. Attacks on CRT, through legislation, threats and falsehoods, represent a modern-day extension of White backlash against any and all hopes of racial justice in America. This backlash now, just as during Reconstruction and the civil rights era, is marked by legislative efforts to roll back perceived gains by African Americans.
.....snip

https://news.yahoo.com/arizona-cant-covid-money-anti-170556743.html

COLLIN BINKLEY
Associated Press
October 5, 2021, 10:05 AM

Arizona can't use COVID money for anti-mask grants, feds say

The Biden administration on Tuesday ordered Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to stop using the state’s federal pandemic funding on a pair of new education grants that can only be directed to schools without mask mandates.

In a letter to Ducey, the Treasury Department said the grant programs are “not a permissible use” of the federal funding. It’s the latest attempt by the Biden administration to push back against Republican governors who have opposed mask mandates and otherwise sought to use federal pandemic funding to advance their own agendas.

Ducey, a Republican, created the grant programs in August to put pressure on school districts that have defied the state’s ban on mask mandates.

He launched a $163 million grant program using federal funding he controls, but he made it available only to schools without mask mandates. He also established a $10 million program that offers vouchers to families at public schools that require masks or that tell students to isolate or quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure.

https://news.yahoo.com/arizona-cant-covid-money-anti-170556743.html

COLLIN BINKLEY
Associated Press
October 5, 2021, 10:05 AM

Arizona can't use COVID money for anti-mask grants, feds say

The Biden administration on Tuesday ordered Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to stop using the state’s federal pandemic funding on a pair of new education grants that can only be directed to schools without mask mandates.

In a letter to Ducey, the Treasury Department said the grant programs are “not a permissible use” of the federal funding. It’s the latest attempt by the Biden administration to push back against Republican governors who have opposed mask mandates and otherwise sought to use federal pandemic funding to advance their own agendas.

Ducey, a Republican, created the grant programs in August to put pressure on school districts that have defied the state’s ban on mask mandates.

He launched a $163 million grant program using federal funding he controls, but he made it available only to schools without mask mandates. He also established a $10 million program that offers vouchers to families at public schools that require masks or that tell students to isolate or quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure.

https://waytowin.us/about-us

Walnut, CA

https://news.yahoo.com/left-done-pressuring-kyrsten-sinema-085639341.html

Roger Sollenberger, Sam Brodey
Wed, October 6, 2021, 1:56 AM

The Left Is Done Pressuring Kyrsten Sinema. Now They Want a Primary.

For months, progressives have blanketed the airwaves in Arizona in hopes of pressuring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to back down from her contrarian positions. In response, she’s just dug in further.

But now, as Sinema becomes perhaps the lead Democratic objector to President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, some progressives are no longer trying to move the stubborn senator—they’re just trying to replace her.

A new group that launched last week—unambiguously titled “Primary Sinema PAC”—is wasting no time getting into the fray, reporting its first two $10,000 ad buys Sunday evening.

While the PAC would not disclose more information about the ads, the Facebook ad library shows the group has bought more than $7,000 in anti-Sinema posts since Sept. 30. The ads link out to the group’s ActBlue donation page.
...snip