#and Off Ramp 1991

[allthingsgrunge]

Alice in Chains, Mookie Blalock (formerly Mother Love Bone) at Harpo's, The Real Rock Club & Cafe, The Cattle Club, Wow Hall, Club with No Name, and Off Ramp 1991

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Alice In Chains performing live at Off Ramp Cafe, Seattle, WA; February 25th 1991.

📸Alison Braun

[mb-scatafalcostuff]

📌 February 25, 1991

Alice In Chains performed at The Off Ramp Cafe (Seattle, WA)

TOUR: FACELIFT

SETLIST:

Real Thing

Put You Down

Man in the Box

Love, Hate, Love

It Ain't Like That

Dirt

Confusion

Bleed the Freak

(📸 Alison Braun)

[idolbound]

Modern Verse Timeline

1967:

Meredith is born in London, England, to Bernard and Maighread Stannard, 7 years after her older sister Amelia.

1972:

The Stannard family is murdered by one of Amelia's school teachers. He fostered a relationship with the vulnerable 12 year old Amelia by manipulating her into believing he could be trusted; he gained access to the home by asking her to let him in. During this incident, their next door neighbour, Officer Wentworth Kell heard the disturbance and entered the Stannard residence. Unfortunately, he was too late to save Amelia (who had tried to stop the assailant), but he was able to apprehend the man before he found Meredith. Subsequently, after making a call to the police and handling the aftermath, wee Meredith refused to leave Wentworth's side; with no other family on record, he decided to pursue the adoption process, officially becoming her adoptive father only weeks after the murders.

1973-1985:

For the next 12 years, young Meredith harbors the trauma of what she witnessed as a girl. Wentworth does his best to raise her to be well-adjusted, given the circumstances. He gets her involved in extracurricular activities like rugby (which, women's clubs were just beginning to form at this time in the U.K.), and by the time she's ready to take her final exams at high school, she had already decided to pursue a military career much like Wentworth did before 'retiring' into policing.

1986:

However, in this time frame, Wentworth's years-long symptoms of forgetfulness and cognitive impairment (which had led to his early retirement from policing) ramp up quite quickly, and he becomes diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Meredith manages to finish school and graduate with high grades, but she does not yet pursue her enlistment in order to take care of her adoptive father.

1987:

Wentworth eventually passes a year later; fortunately, with changes in U.K. police legislation, officers both active and retired who passed away could leave their pensions to their surviving loved ones. As a young 20 year old with no family left in her life, she enlists with the British Armed Forces, beginning her military career with the intention to rise through the ranks, despite being at a disadvantage in such a male-dominated field.

1990-1991:

With rising tensions abroad, Meredith is deployed in one of the first units to have women in active combat roles, seeing live combat in the Gulf War.

1995:

After 2 consecutive terms, Meredith retires from the military, deciding to take up a career in law enforcement in London like Wentworth did. She starts off as a beat cop but desires to become a detective eventually.

2002:

After 30 years, the Stannard Family killer is released on 'good' behaviour; it makes the news, and it sends Meredith spiraling. She believes there had to have been corruption behind bars that led to a deal being made. This eventually leads her to being put on "leave" from active duty, but in the meantime, she decides to quit the police force, sell Wentworth's house, and moves to Scotland. She does this in order to pursue a career in Corrections, seeking to climb the career ladder to one day become the Prison Warden of Kirkwall Penitentiary, with the intention of both implementing strict regulatory policies and harsh punishments within the prison, as well as using her access to the judicial system in order to keep tabs on the status of her family's killer. She holds this desire because she wishes that no one else should experience seeing their loved ones' murderers/rapists/etc. be set free on "good" behaviour. She is a staunch believer in corporal punishment.

2004:

After a couple years as a corrections officer, the board sends Meredith along with a few others to attend a Prison Security conference in New York City, USA. It is the first time she has left the U.K., and their hotel rooms and meals are all paid for through their work, allowing her to learn American methods and to socialize with others there. However, on the first night, Meredith decides to go out to a local club and it is here that she first meets Amelia Comstock ( @sanctamater ). They two very much hit it off and return to Meredith's hotel room to hook up. It goes so well that they call each other the next day and decide, after the conference concludes, to go out to dinner, and spend the night together again, as well as Sunday, ordering in room service for all their meals, having gratuitous sex in between. Meredith's flight leaves the following Monday night, but within the week, they are calling each other, and desire to see one another again. This continues for weeks into months, with Amelia being able to easily afford the time and trips to visit Meredith. In the time in between visits, Meredith falls into an old habit, getting with a friend with benefits (Constable Anne S. Jackson, a police colleague of Meredith's and resident corrupt cop), only to realize she has deep feelings for Amelia, and that even this casual endeavor did nothing for her, deciding that she wants to make it work with Amelia, whatever it may look like as a distanced couple.

2008:

4 years into their relationship of going back and forth (including a time when Amelia and her young daughter Liz came to live in Kirkwall on her own for a few months to be near Meredith), Amelia prompts a streak of jealousy which finally pushes Meredith to purchase a ring and propose, (pushing past her repressed Catholic ideology). Amelia accepts.

2009:

A year later in the winter time, Meredith and Amelia legally enter a Civil Partnership in Scotland, as gay marriage did not become legal until 2014. For them, it was not so much about the law as it was the symbolism of recognizing their relationship as legally binding. In this time, Amelia expresses the desire to have another child, and they agree to have children through IVF using donor sperm and fertilized eggs from Meredith, implanted in Amelia to be the childbearing parent. The timing of this process works well as it just became legal for lesbian couples to get access to IVF treatments via the NHS by November of '09.

2011:

By early 2011, Meredith and Amelia give birth to fraternal twin daughters. Margaret Isobel Stannard and Johanna Siobhan Stannard are born, healthy and well. Meredith takes maternity leave for the first year of her daughters' lives. When she returns to work, she receives a promotion to Prison Warden, invoking new responsibilities at the Penitentiary and a much bigger paycheque. She runs the prison much like the military, following strict regulations and laws, and cracking down on contraband and illicit dealings within its walls. The prison soon earns the nickname The Gallows, as often, many prisoners feel that their time there is so horrific and cruel, that they would rather take their own lives rather than continue to live under the same conditions for the rest of their sentences. This repeated problem begins to arouse the interest of a few detectives back at the Scotland Yard who knew Meredith when she was an officer, wondering if they have a case to investigate for cruel and unjust punishment. The Penitentiary goes under a few inquiries and investigations with Meredith at the helm, but each time they try to find evidence of her practices (e.g., violent interrogations, undue punishments for bad behaviour, corruption at the administrative level, etc.), they seem to come up shorthanded with nothing really to persecute her without the case being thrown out by the judge.

2015:

It is at this time that Meredith and Amelia begin the process of moving to the United States permanently. It is not a decision that comes easily, but one Meredith is willing to do now that Maggie and Anna are nearing school age, and she herself has saved up a lot of funds. Throughout the year, Amelia has most of their things sent stateside, and starts adjusting the twins to attend school by September in the U.S. With this in mind, Meredith tenders her resignation to complete by the end of the year, December 31st. In the meanwhile, Meredith plans to to visit Amelia, Liz, Maggie, and Anna during holidays. However, news breaks that a local London family has been murdered, and while full case details are not provided to the general public, Meredith's friend Anne feeds her information because the killer appears to have the same M.O. as the man who killed the Stannard family (grooming one of the teenagers, gaining access, killing all of them using that trust). This sets Meredith on an spiral once again, fueling an unhealthy obsession trying to link her family's killer to the case. With Anne, they begin to look through the details and piece it together in their off duty time. At this time, Meredith isn't sleeping well, and she picks up her old cocaine habit out of stress. She is distracted and doing poorly at work. Her mind is obsessed with this new case. She also ends up using the resources available to her as the Warden to get a most recent known location of the man that killed her family through the parole system, and with the acquired insider details from Anne, gets confirmation that police suspect it is the same killer responsible for both families' deaths. In the interim, she visits Amelia and the children for American Thanksgiving, but it is noticeable that something isn't quite right with her. Amelia does not say anything, and Meredith returns to Kirkwall after a 5 day trip. It is in this time, that she creates a meticulous plan of operation for premeditated murder; she intends to go to London in advance to lure the man into a false sense of safety to then kill him in time to leave the country on her already-booked one-way flight to the United States. However, after locating the man and instigating a fake flirtation at a local pub to convince him to take her home, Meredith's confidence wavers; it ends up going a lot messier than she’d planned - both out of a revenge-filled rage and being high on a lot of cocaine. She does her best to clean and remove any trace of blood, and in her panic calls Anne to help her. Together, they end up ditching the weighted body in the river before Anne drives Meredith straight to Heathrow to board her scheduled flight In this time, however, she has had her phone turned off for the past 72 hours, leaving Amelia to be calling and texting with no answer. She calls to put out a wellness check on Meredith at their home in Kirkwall. However, when Meredith lands stateside on New Year's Eve, she turns on her phone and receives all these messages, but does not answer them. Instead, she takes the next cab to their NYC brownstone home, finally meeting an exasperated Amelia, asking to put their daughters to bed because they need to talk. Much of the conversation is hushed, spoken out on the balcony in the snow. Immediately, Amelia asks who knows, and Meredith confides that her old friend Anne is in on it. Creatively, Amelia plans a strong alibi, provided that Anne will cover her -- she suggests that Meredith was having a 3-day long affair with Anne, for old time's sake before moving away to the US permanently. They get Anne to agree to testify to that story, but still invest in hiring a powerful lawyer to handle the eventual case. Meredith ends up being cleared as a potential suspect as there isn't enough evidence to convict, and her alibi with Anne is firm, given their past relationship.

2016 to Present:

After settling in New York, Meredith and Amelia focus on raising their daughters together, while maintaining their long-term relationship. When gay marriage becomes legal in the U.S., they officially get 'married', and both women hold dual US/UK citizenships. While with Amelia's money, they do not have to work, but Meredith chooses to, pursuing her corrections career in an American setting, getting into the management of a high security prison. Amelia eventually expresses interest in pursuing politics and Meredith quits to support her wife.

Some headcanons of note:

As a young girl, Wentworth brings Meredith into the Catholic church with him (especially as her mother Maighread was an Irish Catholic as well) - which, of course, at the time in England, still had a bit of lingering anti-Catholic sentiments in its own context as well as in the context of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland. However, this had Wentworth instilling a strong sense of faith in Meredith at a young, impressionable age, which she still very much carries with her to this day, going to church every Sunday.

In her teens, Meredith became well aware of her attraction to other girls. While her friends were busy being 'boy crazy' and dating, she had no interest. In this way, she used her faith as a cover (she was just a good Catholic, and would be saving herself for marriage as an adult). That said, she did have a very homoerotic relationship with a close friend that, unfortunately, never came to fruition and Meredith was preoccupied with Wentworth's declining health, and then enlisted in the military. Which, eventually, she met another lesbian who wasn't exactly out when in the military (especially since the U.K. military had anti-homosexuality laws in place for its army until 2000), but had a first relationship with this woman when they were off duty and keeping it a secret for the many months they were together.

Meredith has dealt with a lot of repression and Catholic guilt about her sexuality, but given that she has no family or ties to anyone important, she also has no one to judge what she does behind closed doors, eventually coming to accept herself but keeping her personal life extremely private.

With the money she inherited from Wentworth's account and his pension, along with her own income, Meredith was able to sell the house and put a payment down on a secluded home in the rural area outside of Kirkwall, commuting to work as the Prison Warden. She prefers to drive a 4 door Mercedes-Benz sedan with tinted windows and drives it standard/manual.

Meredith's house is a fair size, with dark colour themes and wood furniture and hardwood flooring, with marble tiles in bathrooms and the kitchen. She collects classic literature and history texts, and spends much of her time in her office when she is not working. There are lots of trees around her property, and the house is almost a quarter mile back from the road.

Meredith boards her grey mare at a local stable and rides her a few times a week. She once thought of competing in hunter-jumper events, but with previous injuries and an ageing body, she prefers to go for solo trail rides for a couple hours on weekends, and otherwise working her horse to keep her in shape during the week.

Meredith has PTSD from both her childhood trauma as well as her stint in the military; she is not in therapy (and she should be).

Meredith is also addicted to cocaine, using frequently throughout the workday when stressed and dealing with a lot of problems. (She can often be found doing a line off the counter in her personal office bathroom). This is mainly the cause of her erratic behaviour as of late, though stress and paranoia are additional factors.

She keeps a childhood picture of herself and her sister Amelia on her desk; it is one of her most prized possessions.

Cullen is her second-in-command at work, but they also have a more personal relationship outside of it (well it started when she asked for his help outside of work hours and then they've become weirdly friends but also he's like a pseudo-son and she invites him along to events sometimes).

Orsino is a social worker with the NHS who stands to help and represent the prisoners and is a constant thorn in Meredith's side.

Meredith tends to dress in classy business wear, preferring pantsuits and jackets with heels most days, though sometimes a blouse and pencil skirt. She seldom wears jeans or casual clothing outside of the house.

[stinkingofu]

Alice in chains performing at off the ramp in Seattle, WA, February 1991 (2/25/91)

SAP

Late in 1991 Alice released a mostly acoustic EP called Sap. The release was inspired, Cantrell revealed, "by a dream (Sean) Kinney had. He actually dreamed that we put these three songs on an EP and called it Sap. he saw us talking about it at a press conference and saw it doing really well.” The realization of the dream, Cantrell added, “came together so smoothly, it’s almost scary.”

Sap features appearances by venerable Seattle rock bands Heart, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney and one noisy cut called “Love Song” on which Alice’s members switched instruments.

SAP also marks Jerry's debut singing lead. Encouraged by Layne to start singing lead on the songs he works so hard on to write, Jerry sang lead on the song “Brother.”

[blogdemocratesjr]

Joan of Arc by Jeanne Friot

La Coursier de Jeanne D'Arc

You know that they burned her horse before her. Though it is not recorded, you know that they burned her Percheron first, before her eyes, because you

know that story, so old that story, the routine story, carried to its extreme, of the cruelty that can make of what a woman hears a silence,

that can make of what a woman sees a lie. She had no son for them to burn, for them to take from her in the world not of her making and put to its pyre,

so they layered a greater one in front of where she was staked to her own-- as you have seen her pictured sometimes, her eyes raised to the sky. But they were

not raised. This is yet one of their lies. They were not closed. Though her hands were bound behind her, and her feet were bound deep in what would become fire,

she watched. Of greenwood stakes head-high and thicker than a man's waist they laced the narrow corral that would not burn until flesh had burned, until

bone was burning, and laid it thick with tinder--fatted wicks and sulphur, kindling and logs--and ran a ramp up to its height from where the gray horse

waited, his dapples making of his flesh a living metal, layers of life through which the light shone out in places as it seems to through the flesh

of certain fish, a light she knew as purest, coming, like that, from within. Not flinching, not praying, she looked the last time on the body she knew

better than the flesh of any man, or child, or woman, having long since left the lap of her mother--the chest with its perfect plates of muscle, the neck

with its perfect, prow-like curve, the hindquarters'--pistons--powerful cleft pennoned with the silk of his tail. Having ridden as they did together

--those places, that hard, that long-- their eyes found easiest that day the way to each other, their bodies wedded in a sacrament unmediated

by man. With fire they drove him up the ramp and off into the pyre and tossed the flame in with him. This was the last chance they gave her

to recant her world, in which their power came not from God. Unmoved, the Men of God began watching him burn, and better, watching her watch him burn, hearing

the long mad godlike trumpet of his terror, his crashing in the wood, the groan of stakes that held, the silverblack hide, the pricked ears catching first

like driest bark, and the eyes. and she knew, by this agony, that she might choose to live still, if she would but make her sign on the parchment

they would lay before her, which now would include this new truth: that it did not happen, this death in the circle, the rearing, plunging, raging, the splendid

armour-colored head raised one last time above the flames before they took him --like any game untended on the spit--into their yellow-green, their blackening red.

by Linda McCarriston (author of Eva-Mary - Finalist for the 1991 National Book Award for Poetry)

[airsllides]

airsLLide No. 5740: YV-445C, McDonnell Douglas DC-8F-54, Interamericana Cargo, Miami-International, March 21, 1991.

Venezuelan cargo carrier Interamericana Cargo operated between 1982 and 1994. Over the period, it used a total of four DC-8s, mostly provided by Miami-based freighter leasing specialist Agro Air Associates. 445 Charlie has just landed and taxies to the customs ramp in MIA's Northwest corner for clearing.

Although rather just tolerated than supported by officials, the photospot just off the parking lot of said customs building was a popular hang-out for photographers in the late afternoon, maybe in the last hour before sunset. This was the time when the sun was already in the centerline of MIA's main runways, but at a perfect angle for any aircraft taxying into the Northwest corner of the airport. And some rare freighter or two would almost inevitably show up at customs during that final hour of daylight...

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: September 2023

Oh yeah the air is getting crisp and the coats are getting heavier. I'm ready for fall and here's how I spent the month of September!

……….FILM……….

Hook (1991) There's so much to love about this (the sets! every single pirate! And I truly do love the story here) but taking away nostalgia, it really feels like a B movie. And I kinda forgot just how awful adult Peter is. I mean that's the point, but even the stuff with Rufio feels mean-spirited. But Pirate baseball and the croc clock more than make up for any of that.

A Night At The Roxbury (1998) Having never seen it, this was pretty fun. Maybe not as strong as some of the other SNL-inspired movies, but it ended so strong that it more than makes up for anything else.

Strays (2023) Slim movie pickings at the beginning of the month but this turned out to be way better than expected! I was worried all the decent jokes were in the trailer but it was consistent throughout. And a 1.5 hour runtime? The dream.

……….TELEVISION……….

Love is Blind (Episode 4.13 to 4.16) The beauty of missing the first 12 episodes of a season of reality tv is that they replay important clips so frequently that it's like I watched it. Still baffling that anyone signs up for these shows after seeing what happens to folks that go on. Is it hubris? Do they think they'll be different? Truly bizarre.

……….YOUTUBE……….

How Our Property Tax System Robs The Poor to Pay For The Wealthy by Strong Towns and The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (feat. Not Just Bikes) by Climate Town Hey can you tell I'm into city planning and how to move away from crummy design? Can't stress enough that suburbs are a blight on society and it's making cities broke, contributing towards climate change, and ruining good spaces. Push your local councils to move away from minimum parking limits and towards multi-use buildings and public transit. VIDEO (Strong Towns) VIDEO (Climate Town)

when green screen actually makes the movie better by CinemaStix When folks complain about green screen (me included), I think what we're really complaining about is seeing a tool used poorly for the wrong job. Sin City (or another fave of mine, Speed Racer)wouldn't have worked if not for green screen. VIDEO

Why Policing in America has ALWAYS been Broken. by F.D Signifier A thoughtful and thorough crash course on policing in America. VIDEO

……….READING……….

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell (Complete) The beginning is promising but the book is so casual and leans so much on the author's own experiences that I can honestly only recommend it as a loose introduction to cults. I really wanted a deep dive into language, psychology, and sociology but this isn't that. Hey if you know a good book about weaponizing language, let me know.

The Road to Oz and The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Eric Shanower, and Skottie Young (Complete) Finished rereading the omnibus collection of Oz comics and it really is a joy. Young's drawings and Shanower's writing does a lovely job at capturing the whimsy and warmth of Baum's books. Really really great adaptations.

……….AUDIO……….

Guts by Olivia Rodrigo (2023) Listening to this reminds me of what it was like when small problems felt like the biggest problems in the world and there's a sweet comfort in that. Realizing that those troubles passed means that maybe these current ones will too.

Punk Tactics by Joey Valence & Brae (2023) This hasn't hooked me the way that the Underground Sound ep did but I'm still going to give it a bunch more listens before I decide if the Beastie Boys schtick has worn off.

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Mof1 Crew is dealing with the aftermath of causing some light domestic terrorism. So the usual.

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) Drama with the rival elves is ramping up and who knows what will happen next! You can read about it here.

And that’s it. See you in October!

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"I REALLY WANTED TO CAPTURE THE DARK, SINISTER FEEL THAT THE LIGHTS CREATED DURING CERTAIN SONGS."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on CD booklet photos of American thrash metal band SLAYER, as captured by photographer Kevin Estrada for the band's live double album "Decade of Aggression," released on October 22, 1991 through the Def American label (later renamed American Recordings).

"In the spring of ‘91, SLAYER was the biggest “underground” metal band in the world, and they were recording shows for their double live CD, "Decade of Aggression." They were at the top of their game in every way, tearing through Southern California on "The Clash of the Titans" tour.

I had just started to get in tight with the SLAYER camp and this was the first time I was allowed to shoot their entire set. (Photographers usually only get to shoot the first couple of songs and are then booted out of the photo pit.) This was an important point in my career in terms of credibility, and I remember being so nervous and excited that my hands were sweating as the lights went down and the intro to "Hell Awaits" rang out. But the raw fury of the music instantly burned off any nerves I had, and I started snapping. SLAYER had really stepped it up with their light show on this tour, lots of reds, and lots of silhouettes. It looked really cool, but it was a pain to shoot.

I really wanted to capture the dark, sinister feel that the lights created during certain songs. Again, keep in mind that only film cameras existed then, there was no way for me to take a look and see if my aperture and shutter speed readings were accurate…you either know what you are doing or you don’t…it was all manual back then. I really feel that I did a great job of capturing the essence of SLAYER that night – lots of reds, lots of blues, lots of silhouettes, many powerful shots were captured that evening. It was all knowing when to open and close the aperture and occasionally ramping the shutter up or down as needed."

-- KEVIN ESTRADA (American photographer) on the "Decade of Aggression" live double album photoshoot

Sources: www.45worlds.com/cdalbum/cd/3145867992 & https://kevinestrada.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/south-of-kevin.

[dankusner]

During media availabilities held on his first day on the job, new Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux didn't answer questions about immigration, response times or what he thinks about a voter-approved requirement that his department hire 900 more officers.

DALLAS POLICE DEPARTMENT 

New chief kicks off first day

Says focus is ramping up recruitment efforts, strengthening public trust

Dallas’ new police chief is unequivocal about his priority as he settles into North Texas: recruiting.

“There will definitely be some changes,” Daniel Comeaux told The Dallas Morning News in a brief interview at police headquarters Wednesday. 

“We’re gonna really ramp up our recruiting efforts — that’s gonna be one — and then just making sure that the officers know the residents of Dallas and the residents know the officers.”

Comeaux, Dallas’ new top officer, started in the role Wednesday, about two weeks after City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert announced he beat four other finalists to become the police department’s 31st chief. 

He most recently served as the Drug Enforcement Administration’s special agent in charge in Houston.

City officials made Comeaux available to individual news outlets on his first day for five minutes each and told media outlets they could not ask questions about specific policies, such as his stance on immigration.

Pressed on why Dallas limited the interviews instead of holding a longer news conference, Elizabeth Saab, a spokesperson for Tolbert, told The News that Comeaux’s “ first few weeks are going to be focused on spending time internally with his team” and the five-minute interviews were a “happy medium” to let news media meet him.

She did not reply when The News asked why the city could not hold a news conference with all the news media in the same 90 minutes allotted for back-to-back interviews.

Three-month search

The selection of Comeaux capped a three-month national search to replace former Chief Eddie García, who left last year for Austin city management.

Comeaux said his priorities in Dallas would be to enhance recruitment, implement innovative crime-fighting tactics and strengthen public trust.

Top of mind at Dallas City Hall — and for Comeaux — is a new voter-approved mandate to hire around 900 more police officers. 

The new chief outlined the basic details of his immediate plans Wednesday, noting that he wants to “aggressively recruit” and is looking at requirements and qualifications to make the Dallas police force more attractive than other departments. 

He said he’s already been in meetings about it.

He praised Dallas’ current violent crime plan, implemented under García, but said he wants to zero in on getting those who already have felony warrants “off the streets.”

His No. 1 goal, he said, is to make the Dallas Police Department the best in the nation. 

As he looks to build his own team, he said he’s asked commanders to provide him with biographies and wants to go station to station to talk to officers.

“We’re gonna be out there,” Comeaux said. 

“We’re gonna be present. Everyone needs to understand that the Dallas Police Department will be present.

“It starts with leadership, and it’s gonna start from the top — I’m gonna lead and do my very best in leading with the command staff. There’s a whole bunch of good thoughts that are already coming my way. I’m gonna empower them, and we’re gonna figure out how to put those in play,” he said.

‘Super excited’

Comeaux is already living in Dallas in temporary housing and said he’s looking to buy a house. 

He said he’s “super excited” to be in the city and wants to end his career the way he started it — as a local cop.

Originally from Louisiana, Comeaux began his law enforcement career with Houston police in 1991, then transitioned to the DEA about six years later.

He said in the news release announcing his hire that at the federal level, he’s “known as the local cop because of my collaborative approach to tackling crime and my dedication to developing leaders in public safety who are bridge builders for the community.”

Asked if there’s any learning curve after coming from the federal government, Comeaux said that “You can always learn” and that he’s looking forward to everything Dallas has to offer.

“I’m wrapping my head around everything right now,” Comeaux said.

“I’m looking forward to working with everyone, every community. They’re gonna get to know who I am.”

I don't care what race you are. I don't care what gender you are.

Everybody's important and everybody should know that we're gonna treat everybody the same. Chief,

welcome to Dallas. We're happy to have you here. I'm gonna jump right in because I know we have a limited amount of time.

The city of Dallas is under a mandate from the HERO amendments to hire and maintain 900 more officers. Are you going to be able to meet that requirement? And if so, how? Look,

I'm gonna do my very best to meet it.

We're working already on different strategies, the requirements, uh, different ways that we can bring officers in. Uh, we're really gonna focus on lateral transfers also. uh, there's some other officers from other departments -- that want to be a part of Dallas Police Department and we're gonna open up that -- door.

QUESTION: Do you think [the HERO Amendment] a reasonable mandate?

SPOKESPERSON:  But -- it's an introductory interview, so we're more or less getting to know him talking about his first day, things of that sort. You'll have another chance at a later date to go more -- in depth.

QUESTION: Sure, I'm happy to ask the questions, sir. You can answer them if you want or not. Do you think that's a reasonable mandate?

SPOKESPERSON: So he's not gonna answer that question so you can move on to your next.

QUESTION: You're not gonna answer that question.

SPOKESPERSON: I'm telling you he's not going to answer that question.

All right, let's talk about response times. City of Dallas has had issues with response times.

It's nearly 12 minutes for priority 1 calls. It's 4 hours for priority 3 calls. Is that acceptable?

This is an introductory email or an introductory interview, so give him a chance to get here, see how things are going. This is day one, literally day one so I'm telling you again he's not gonna answer that question.

So you're not gonna answer that question.

I'm telling you he's not going to answer that question. Your staff is saying you're not going to answer that question.

Let me ask you about violent crime. City of Dallas has had some success. Do you coming into the city envision changes to the city's violent crime plan? Uh, look, we're gonna work with the violent crime plan that they have. Uh, definitely we'll have some tweaks and some hopefully we'll, we'll end up being enhancements to it. Do you think that the way the city's been doing things is working? It's definitely working. It shows by statistics that uh the city is trending in a downward way, which is very great for the residents of Dallas. I heard you earlier talk about community policing and the importance of that. What does community policing in Dallas look like in 2025? Uh, we're gonna have officers out there. Uh, it's gonna be mandated for me that my command staff also makes themselves more available. Uh, to the community along with the officers we've seen improvements in violent crime overall, but there are some areas that have not improved as fast or have deteriorated. We've seen violence downtown including just in the past week where a tourist was attacked by a person who was experiencing homelessness. What are the challenges, um, when you address violent crime in a major urban area? Look, it's day one. I'm gonna wrap my head around it and we're gonna do everything to keep all the residents safe. Can we talk about the command staff? Do you think that you'll be making changes to your staff over your time here? Look, it's very possible. however, if everyone's doing their job at a high level, then I will not make any changes. But if there's changes to be made, I will make those changes. I wanna circle back to recruiting because that's a key element that we talked about when when you came to interview. I know that was a key element that we've seen overall. How do you make the Dallas Police Department a place that attracts those kind of lateral transfers? Look, a lot of it is culture and everyone has to understand what the culture is gonna be like here. uh, we're gonna become one. And once everybody realizes that this department is one I think it will attract more. What does that culture of one look like? -- What what do you think -- shows that? Look, it's gonna be one where we're gonna we're gonna take care of each other and we're gonna take care of the residents and we're gonna work together. Look, police officers love when the community loves them. And the community loves when the police officers love them we have to get to that. I just have 2 more questions for you because I know we're running out of time. One of them is this What do you think the bottom line for folks in Dallas who are looking at a new chief coming in should be? Look, the bottom line is I'm excited to be here. I want all the residents to give me an opportunity, uh, to make this place even better than what it already is, and Dallas Police Department is definitely not broken, and I just hope to add value.

QUESTION: One question — and your staff told me you wouldn't answer this, but I'm going to ask it anyway because it's important for people in the community to understand when we talk about the immigration issue, That's something that a lot of people are concerned about when you talk about community trusting the police. What do you think the bridge that needs to be built and specifically with communities of-of color in Dallas is?

SPOKESPERSON: So like I said, he won't be answering questions about immigration.

What do you expect? -- how do you look to reach out to communities that don't trust -- police? Look, we're going to treat everybody fairly. Everybody is important. I don't care what race you are. I don't care what gender you are. Everybody's important and everybody should know that we're gonna treat everybody the same, sir, thank you for your time. I apologize if we've asked some questions you were hoping not to answer, but that's our job, so I appreciate you.

Very disappointing debut for the new Dallas police chief. This interview starts off with a bunch of not very good boiler plate patter at first. When he finally gets asked one good question about immigration enforcement, some flak interrupts the interview, basically stops the chief before he can answer and tells the reporter the question is off limits.So, in other words, he can’t handle himself in an interview, he needs protection .This is not auspicious.

TRANSCRIPT NOTES

COLE SULLIVAN: Do you think [the HERO Amendment] is a reasonable mandate?

DPD SPOKESPERSON: But it's an introductory interview. So we're more or less getting to know him — talking about his first day. Things of that sort. You'll have another chance at a later date to go more in depth.

COLE SULLIVAN: Sure, I'm happy to ask the questions, sir. You can answer them if you want or not. Do you think that's a reasonable mandate?

DPD SPOKESPERSON: So he's not gonna answer that question. So you can move on to your next.

COLE SULLIVAN: You're not gonna answer that question?

DPD SPOKESPERSON: I'm telling you he's not going to answer that question.

COLE SULLIVAN: All right. Let's talk about response times. City of Dallas has had issues with response times. It's nearly 12 minutes for priority-1 calls. It's 4 hours for priority-3 calls. Is that acceptable?

DPD SPOKESPERSON: Mr. Sullivan, this is an introductory email... or an introductory interview. So give him a chance to get here, see how things are going. This is day one. Literally, day one. So I'm telling you again — he's not gonna answer that question.

COLE SULLIVAN: So you're not gonna answer that question?

DPD SPOKESPERSON: I'm telling you he's not going to answer that question.

COLE SULLIVAN: Your staff is saying you're not going to answer that question.

—— minutes later ——

COLE SULLIVAN: One question — and your staff told me you wouldn't answer this. But I'm going to ask it anyway. Because it's important for people in the community to understand when we talk about the immigration issue. That's something that a lot of people are concerned about when you talk about community trusting the police. What do you think the bridge that needs to be built and specifically with communities of-of color in Dallas is?

DPD SPOKESPERSON: So like I said, he won't be answering questions about immigration.

DALLAS POLICE 

Chief says he’ll aid feds when ‘needed’

His comments on immigration are first since joining DPD

Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux said Friday that his officers will assist federal immigration authorities if asked — his first public remarks about the topic since he became the head of the department.

Comeaux told The Dallas Morning News in an exclusive interview that Dallas police will help federal partners “whenever help is needed or requested.” 

Asked if that means he’ll direct Dallas officers to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, he said: “If our federal partners need us to assist them, we’ll assist them.”

“It’s going to be very important that we enforce all the laws to keep everybody safe in the communities,” Comeaux told The News . 

“If that means make a necessary arrest, we will — as long as it’s a legal arrest — and we’re going to treat everybody fair, and we’re going to do the job the right way.”

He said the department will not have programs in which DPD is the lead enforcement agency on immigration laws because “we don’t have the authority.”

Dallas’ handling of immigration enforcement has been under a spotlight this year after a clip went viral in February of former interim Chief Michael Igo telling community members that the police department “is not assisting any federal agency” in detaining people for immigration violations. Igo later clarified that remark.

Delayed response

Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a probe into Dallas’ immigration enforcement after Igo’s comment circulated, stating in a March news release that local governments cannot “disregard” state or federal immigration laws.

Comeaux, who came to Dallas after serving with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Houston, was criticized on social media this week after he did not answer immigration questions during brief interviews on Wednesday, his first day on the job.

The city had set up five-minute back-to-back interviews with Comeaux and individual media outlets. 

Police spokespeople hovered over each interview and interjected when questions were asked about certain topics, including immigration.

In a clip posted online by WFAA-TV (Channel 8), Comeaux was seen sitting silently as a police spokesperson told a reporter who asked about immigration and police response times that he would not speak about it and to move on to other topics.

Asked Friday why he could not comment on immigration earlier this week, the new chief told The News it was a “miscommunication” but would not give details.

He did say — when asked by The News — that he was not told by the city manager that he couldn’t comment on immigration.

“The city manager’s been amazing,” Comeaux said.

“Literally, it was my first day on the job,” he added. 

“The city has been amazing. The city wants to be the safest large city in the United States. They made that very clear to me. And they want me to implement programs that’s going to continue us trying to be the safest, large city in the United States.”

Department policy

Local police face a distinct challenge amid the national immigration crackdown. 

While officers can work with federal authorities on operations, they do not typically get training on immigration enforcement and have voiced concerns about the impact such duties could have on efforts to fight crime and build community trust.

The Dallas Police Department’s current policies prohibit officers from stopping or contacting anyone solely to determine his or her immigration status. 

Officers can only ask people who are lawfully detained or arrested about their immigration status.

One way local law enforcement can arrest undocumented migrants is through 287(g), a national program that deputizes local officers to assist ICE and carry out a limited number of immigration enforcement actions. 

Participation is currently voluntary in Texas. 

At least 51 law enforcement agencies in the state are enrolled.

Comeaux told The News he does not have plans to enroll Dallas police at this time.

Comeaux said “no one” should have any fear in Dallas because police “are here to protect everyone that’s in our communities.” 

He repeated that the department is going to “do everything that is necessary to keep everybody safe.”

He said police will “attack gangs, drug cartels — anything that rolls over to violent crime."

“Dallas has a city manager and a mayor that want us to be the safest city in the United States,” Comeaux said, ”and whatever programs that I feel is necessary to accomplish that, they’re 100% supportive.”

My answer (below) in a conversation in which a frequent and very welcome visitor makes the mistake of telling me Democrats are anti-police:

Sorry to whatabout you, but you are the one, after all, stigmatizing Democrats as anti-law. when your own Dear Leader is the one who pardoned Jan. 6 cop-murderers, the one who is arresting judges and defying court orders, who speaks of firing officials over whom he has no authority, to the extent that the real crisis facing the country transcends any and all of his sloppy ill-thought so-called policies and is an even more grave catastrophe in the rule of law itself.

Your party, the Republican Party, is the radical law-hating party, my friend, and the least you could do is stand down on the question.

The problem for you Republicans is that you don't know the difference between true reverence and respect for the law, even when it goes against you, and a mindless goose-stepping passion for authority, which you very foolishly believe will always have your back.

You might ask yourselves late at night if you really even know what law is. 

I have always been satisfied with the answer my professor gave me in a constitutional law class: 

the law is a compromise and a respect that we grant each other so that we can all close both eyes when we go to bed at night.

You think law is a cudgel to inflict your will on anybody who disagrees with you. 

You ignore that other law, the rule of the street: what goes around comes around.

The new Dallas police chief moved quickly today to repair an unfortunate debut yesterday in which he appeared to be intimidated by members of his own public information staff.

Today in an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Chief Daniel Comeaux went straight to the issue he was not allowed by his own staff to talk about yesterday -- cooperation with ICE on immigration "issues" ( read, roundups).

His answer was not what a lot of people in this blue city will want to hear: 

he intends to cooperate.

But, wait. 

The issue with his debut was not actually his position on federal cooperation. 

It was that some fool on the PIO staff kept telling reporters they weren't allowed to ask about cooperation. 

The next thing Comeaux needs is a smarter PIO staff. 

But he did pivot. 

He did make a move. 

Right away. 

That's a good thing, because it shows he's got some moves.

So fingers crossed, he could still be OK.

Many people have reached out to ask for my thoughts regarding the interview my colleague Cole Sullivan conducted with the new Dallas Police Chief.

First, it’s important to clarify: 

neither the Dallas Police Department nor the City of Dallas public information officers informed the media that this would be a "get to know you" interview with restricted topics. 

Had that been made clear, we would not have agreed to those conditions. 

If the goal was simply an introduction, it would have been more appropriate to hold a group meeting where all members of the media could meet the chief.

Instead, DPD arranged one-on-one interviews, and as journalists, it is our responsibility to ask public officials substantive questions about their vision and leadership. 

When someone holds a position of public trust — especially one with a salary exceeding $300,000 — it is reasonable to expect them to share their plans and priorities with the community from day one.

It was concerning that an officer with a lower rank than the chief  from the PIO office appeared to limit the chief’s ability to answer questions freely. 

Over the years, DPD has had many outstanding public information officers who understood the vital role of transparency. 

Unfortunately, there have also been periods where media access was tightly restricted, even during critical incidents — including limiting press conferences to as few as five questions.

It’s worth noting that DPD’s own general orders direct the highest-ranking officer at a scene to brief the media, ensuring the public remains informed.

I truly wish the new chief success and hope he will prioritize building a strong, transparent relationship with the media moving forward.

[nfr-reviews]

NFR Reviews #14: The Italian

Released 1915 / Inducted 1991

Watch film here

While the characterization of protagonist Beppo Donneti leans into negative Italian stereotypes of the time, like an inability to control strong emotions and a predilection to violent crime, they aren’t shown as inherent traits but as reactions to extreme trauma and the isolation that stems from prejudice. Structures of authority fail him at every turn. Cops are unsympathetic from the moment they come onscreen, tearing up his testimony of getting mugged in the street. His landlord initially seems friendly and is willing to offer him money and charity, but only sees him as a potential voter to increase his friend’s political power. He also refuses to help him when his baby’s life depends on something as small as pasteurized milk, despite certainly having the money to do so. He only cared about how he can personally benefit from people he has power over and became indifferent to their suffering otherwise. Real-life Italian immigrants found community not in powerful outsiders but in “Little Italy” neighborhoods. People could navigate a new country with others who shared their religious practices, language, and food. In some regions of the US, these two influences clashed. For example, Michigan’s Ford Motor Company emphasized the self-made man in their film productions and moved employees away from ethnic communities and towards generalized working-class neighborhoods near Ford plants for the sake of cultural assimilation. His minimum wage of five dollars per day was high for the time, but the full $5 was contingent on “character requirements” like taking Americanization classes (if you were a recent immigrant) or not having a wife working outside the home. The politician in The Italian is representative of how authority figures, of which Ford provides a real-life mirror, may do nice things for their employees or constituents but are insufficient for all a person’s community needs due to the transactional power dynamic. 

Perhaps to ramp up the tension when the tragedy starts, Beppo is left to fend for himself during the lowest moments of his life despite having people who care about him. On the boat to America, a crowd dances to lift their spirits, but Beppo is set apart, left standing still and consumed by thoughts of his wife back in Italy. He’s not physically alone much when he settles in the US, and his neighbors form a similar community to the real Little Italies. They dote on the couple at their wedding and the birth of their son, celebrating during the happy times. But from a story perspective, they’re a throng of unnamed background or side characters the audience knows little about, making them seem less close to the main family than they’re implied to be in-universe. They’re not bad people, and occasionally help in small ways when things go wrong, they just have their own responsibilities and struggles like the protagonist does. Beppo’s neighbors have a less self-interested relationship with him than a politician or landlord, genuinely wanting to form a thriving community, but the narrative places them as peripheral to the plot. This is so they don’t become an easy solution to the tragedies late in the movie. They can’t prevent him from contemplating an extreme action like killing the child of the landlord whose inaction indirectly caused Beppo’s son’s death. He only calls off the plan because the wealthy child reminds him of his own son.

His wife and son are actually prominent characters, but also depend on him more than the other way around. The infant is completely at the mercy of adults around him for obvious reasons, but his wife Annette depends on him for more socially constructed ones. Both the narrative and the society she lives in takes for granted that the wife stays home and cares for children while the husband is the working breadwinner. It’s never contemplated as a possibility that she would be able to pay for the milk, putting the onus on her husband to do it from his own wages. His responsibilities became overwhelming, the odds too stacked against him, and the death of his baby even more of a crushing blow due to how preventable it was. After getting the money for the milk stolen, he can’t bring himself to go inside his house and face them.

The distance between Beppo and the other characters sets up his anger and grief to explain his contemplation of violence, but the framing device distances him, as well as real people who’ve had similar experiences of prejudice, from the audience in a way that undercuts itself. The opening and closing scenes depict a comfortable man in possession of a nice house, nice clothes, and a nonzero amount of leisure time who reads a book and dreams himself into the main story (he and Beppo are played by the same actor). You could argue it’s supposed to be a breather from the dark storylines to come, but the Italy-set parts of the movie that focus on comedy, escapist landscapes, and romantic rivalry already fill that function. The more plausible explanation is that movie studios wanted to appeal to both working-class immigrants and the middle class audience viewed as more “respectable” to maximize ticket sales. Once the action moves to New York, the film is meant to be a realistic (if heightened by melodrama) social problem story with much less focus on escapism. Emphasizing that this story is in fact fictional might prevent audiences from getting too uncomfortable or depressed, but it lessens the rest of the film’s urgency and tragedy. But at the end of the day, it’s a small part of the movie so it doesn’t erase or ruin the entire thing. Beppo experiences different types of community and lack thereof: authority figures fail him due to greed or prejudice, his neighbors are sympathetic but not major characters, and his family is depicted as heavily reliant on him. All this culminates into a snowballing series of tragedies which will take a huge amount of strength and support for anyone to recover from, if he ever can.

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/04/the-story-of-henry-fords-5-a-day-wages-its-not-what-you-think/

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/232015151.pdf

https://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1999/3/99.03.06/2

Black hands and white hearts: Italian immigrants as ‘urban racial types’ in early American film culture by Giorgio Bertellini 

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/A8188E40DDA25381A8C84638E566879B/S0021875821000542a.pdf/div-class-title-making-americans-spectacular-nationalism-americanization-and-silent-film-div.pdf

https://www.transatlantic-cultures.org/en/catalog/imigrantes-em-nova-iorque

https://umassdtorch.com/2019/03/07/life-as-an-italian-american-through-the-eyes-of-1915s-the-italian/

Italian-Americans’ Contested Whiteness in Early Cinematic Melodrama by Valerio Coladonato

[stuidlearningapp]

Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter!

Steve Robert Irwin was born in Upper Ferntree Gully, Victoria on February 22nd, 1962. His family moved to Beerwah, Queensland. They opened the ‘Beerwah Reptile Park’ in 1970.

Steve loved wildlife, especially reptiles. At the tender age of six, he caught his first venomous snake – a common brown. It is said that Steve would often arrive late to the school, he often managed to convince his mother to pull over, so that he could rescue even a lizard off the road!

Steve was pretty adventurous from a very young age. When he was just 9-years-old, he used to help catch small problem crocodiles, hanging around boat ramps. He used to jump on them in the water, wrestle them back into the dinghy. When it came to wildlife, Steve always had an uncanny sixth sense!He spent his entire life honing the very same skill!

The wildlife park was renamed as the ‘Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park’ by the 1980s. It was Steve’s home, the place he loved the most! He spent hours at the place, working continuously along with his best mate West Mannison. Together, they took care of the wildlife and maintained the grounds!

Steve’s love for crocodiles kept growing. He used to spend months in the most remote areas of far north Queensland, helping the government catch problem crocodiles. His dog Sui used to accompany the crocodile hunter in all his missions. The crocodile capture and management techniques developed by Steve are utilized with crocodilians around the world!  

From October 4, 1991, Steve started managing the park. Soon he came across Terri Raines – a visiting tourist. The couple got married in Eugene, Oregon on June 4, 1992. 

Instead of going for a honeymoon, the couple took up the task of filming a wildlife documentary while relocating a problem crocodile in far north Queensland. The show was an instant hit, giving birth to the series called ‘The Crocodile Hunter!’ The TV series soon became an internationally broadcast wildlife documentary that was hosted by Steve and his wife Terry. They worked tirelessly for improving and expanding the wildlife park. It was renamed as ‘Australia Zoo’ in 1998, gradually their vision for the best zoo in the world was coming into fruition. Even today, the zoo strives hard to achieve Steve’s message of ‘conservation through exciting education!’ 

Read more : https://blog.stuidapp.com/steve-irwin-the-crocodile-hunter/

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Alice In Chains. Mookie Blaylock, Sweetwater. Off Ramp Concert Poster (1991)

[mariacallous]

In March 2024, Victoria Nuland stepped down as State Department under-secretary for political affairs, ending her tenure as the third-highest-ranking U.S. diplomat. Early in her career, from 1991 to 1993, Nuland worked at the American embassy in Moscow and was responsible for relations with Boris Yeltsin's government. Later, as America’s assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, she visited the center of Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity and publicly supported the demonstrators. Standing in the Maidan in Kyiv, Nuland even handed out cookies, which soon became a meme in Russia symbolizing supposed U.S. political interference. From the first days of the war in Ukraine, she helped develop Washington’s response to the Russian invasion. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Nuland’s work as “indispensable to confronting” Russian aggression. Meduza special correspondent Lilia Yapparova spoke to Victoria Nuland about the current state of the war in Ukraine, Russia’s claimed justifications for the invasion, and the future of the West’s relationship with Moscow.

— To outsiders, it seems like the war in Ukraine has already become a routine affair for many American and European politicians. It seems like the general concern and willingness to allocate funds are fading.

I would argue with that premise.

I think it took a while, but when you see the strong bipartisan vote for more than $60 billion from the U.S. taxpayers for Ukraine — including more than 100 House members, even as the Republican candidate was urging against that vote until the last minute — it shows that the American people understand that we can't allow a global bully to bite off a piece of another country and that that has ramifications for U.S. national interests.

And if we allow that to happen, he'll come for more. He'll come for NATO. And it sends a bad message to autocrats all over the world.

So, I'm actually encouraged that — in an election year, when this could easily have been a highly partisan vote — particularly the elders in the Republican Party listened to their voters, and we got the money.

Now, the Ukrainians obviously have to use the money, and we have to use the money, as well. Putin is ramping up his defense industry at a massive pace and pouring all the money of the Russian Federation not into schools or healthcare or any of those things but into the war effort. So, we need to stimulate our own defense industry and help the Ukrainians build up theirs, as well. And some of this money will help do that.

— You've proven yourself to be a determined advocate of tough policies towards Vladimir Putin's Russia and Vladimir Putin personally. You supported supplying defensive weapons to Kyiv and you visited the Maidan. The Kremlin has interpreted these actions as Washington meddling in its relations with Ukraine. If you could go back in time, would you do anything differently, perhaps with more caution in anticipation of Putin’s apparently great sensitivity?

I don't think it's a matter of how sensitive or not sensitive Putin is; I think it's a matter of Putin's aspirations going well beyond the borders of the Russian Federation. It is anathema to him, for reasons that we find hard to understand, for Ukraine to be a strong, independent, European country.

One would think that if Ukraine were prosperous, that would be advantageous for Russia, as well. If Ukraine were a route to the West, that would be advantageous for Putin, as well.

But instead, he's chosen to define his personal interests and insisted that they be Russia's interests, that the only good Ukraine for Russia is a subservient Ukraine, a Ukraine that essentially goes back to the 20th century and is under Russian domination.

And that's not what was agreed in 1991, and it's not what Russia as a country signed up to when the Soviet Union broke up.

And it is he who has twice invaded Ukraine. Ukraine was minding its own business, and we were minding our own business, including in the neighborhood.

So, I don't think that any amount of deference… unless we were willing to feed Ukraine to Putin, which we were not because that would have been just the first country he would have chosen to eat, would have been enough for him.

— Putin insists that Russia has a right to this kind of reaction, and he sometimes compares creating threats to Russia in Ukraine to Moscow creating an anti-American threat in Mexico. “They’ve started to create an anti-Russian bridgehead in Ukraine,” he says. “Okay, well, let’s try creating an anti-American bridgehead somewhere there on the U.S. borders, say, in Mexico. And just guess what would happen next.” What’s your reaction to that?

Let's just remember what the facts are.

The vast majority of Ukrainians — 60 percent [or] 70 percent — were pro-Russian, even after independence, until 2014, when Putin decided to grab and take Crimea illegally and send his little green men into the Donbas and into Luhansk.

It is Putin who has made Ukrainians anti-Russian.

And how could you not be anti-Russian when you see this massive invasion of your country, when so many of your young people are lost, when Russian missiles are targeted not just at the front lines, but at critical infrastructure, energy, water, etc., when you find mass graves like Bucha, when there are allegations of chemical weapons being used? If the United States did any of those things in Mexico, which we're obviously not going to do, then the Mexican people would be radically anti-American, regardless of what Putin did.

This is a dislike and an enmity of Putin's own making, and it was completely unnecessary.

— Many experts say Ukraine won’t be able to win, even with the latest American aid package. Why are Ukraine’s allies unable to supply Kyiv with what it needs for victory?

Well, the United States has been providing a massive amount of assistance for three years, including military assistance, economic support funds, reconstruction funds for energy, and humanitarian needs. We have a special envoy who's working on helping to rebuild Ukrainian cities so that exports can resume and people can go home to good jobs.

I think the problem here is that, at every stage, as we and our European and Asian allies are giving more and more money and support to Ukraine, Putin is escalating the war. Putin is creating more and more damage. Putin is ginning up the Russian defense industry. He's throwing, by some estimates, a thousand Russian young men to their deaths a day in order to gain a couple of kilometers of ground in different villages.

So the requirements are growing.

But I do think that we will continue to give strong assistance to Ukraine. And the new and longer-range weapons, which I think you'll see deployed on the battlefield this summer, will have an impact. 

— Some Congressional Republicans say they want a clearer strategy from President Biden on U.S. involvement in the war. A few have even argued that continued funding of Ukraine’s Armed Forces “only prolongs the conflict.” What’s the ultimate objective of American aid to Ukraine?

Well, again, more than half of congressional Republicans, when you put the Senate and House together, did vote to support this massive aid package. And they did it because they understand the stakes, not just for Ukraine but for us, as well.

And it's up to Ukraine if and when it goes to the negotiating table.

But right now, Putin does not look sincere about relinquishing territory. His attitude towards a negotiation is “what's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable.”

So, the goal of the U.S. strategy has been to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position, militarily, economically, and politically, so that it can go to the negotiating table from a position of strength when it is ready, and that Putin and his military will understand that we will continue to support an independent, sovereign Ukraine for as long as we need to, and that this war has been a loser for Russia, and that Russia should settle it in its own interest, as well, and get back to building its own country rather than just pumping money into a failed venture.

— Just to clarify, are you saying that reestablishing Ukraine’s 1991 borders is no longer the ultimate objective of U.S. policy? Now the goal is pursuing peace and supporting Ukraine in the negotiations ahead?

No, I mean, it's up to Ukraine to decide what its territorial goals are. But right now, it is not strong enough to have negotiations.

All wars end in negotiation.

We would like to see Putin get out of every square kilometer of Ukraine, but we won't know what is possible unless and until Ukraine is strong enough to go to the negotiating table and Putin understands that this is a failed venture for Russia and he needs to deal.

— The United States will hold its next presidential election in November, and the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, has offered to end the war in 24 hours. Is that realistic?

Putin's idea of ending the war is that he gets to keep everything he's got, which does not leave Ukraine with a sustainable country.

What we've also learned is that Putin went to negotiations called Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 in 2014, 2015, and 2016, but he did not negotiate in good faith, so it became a frozen conflict, and it became a platform for him to launch a second, bigger invasion.

So, were there to be a ceasefire today, if I were sitting in Bankova in Ukraine [at the Ukrainian president’s office], I would sincerely worry about whether Putin is ready to negotiate in good faith, whether he's ready to get out of any of Ukraine. (It would just be a pause so that Putin could rest and refit and rebuild his military.) And that's not in Ukraine's interest, and it's not in our interest for him just to come back and try to get more in six days, six months, six years, as he has proven.

We need a settlement that leaves a strong, independent, democratic, and economically viable European Ukraine that is politically supportable by the Ukrainian people and that guarantees that Vladimir Putin won't do this again, which is also why half of the money that the Congress passed is not only for the war today; it's about building up a highly deterrent Ukrainian military for the future, so that — even if the Ukrainians choose to go to the negotiating table and you have a pause — Putin has to know that they're just going to get stronger during that period of pause, not the other way around.

— What do you think might happen in a second Trump presidency? Amid rising tensions with Russia, Iran, and China, is there any chance that he’ll abandon his usual isolationism?

Well, I worry not simply about isolationism in this case, but I do worry about Trump and his inclination to pander to other autocrats and other leaders with dictatorial tendencies.

He's made a lot of statements about the dictatorial aspects that he'd institute in the United States, so I worry that he has historic tendencies to be sympathetic towards Putin's position and that if he were to do that, if he were to get elected and choose to abandon Ukraine, he would face a Putin who just kept walking west towards NATO territory, and he would endanger us and our allies as well.

I don't think Putin's ready to negotiate in good faith. I think he's always wanted a pro-Moscow, subservient government. That's what he had with Yanukovych. That's what he's had in other periods in Ukrainian history: leaders who were ready to make Ukraine subservient to the whims of Moscow and, in fact, have their own economy ripped off by Russia, have their own territory be used as a military base for Russia's external ambitions.

Zelensky is not that guy.

We will know that Putin is ready to negotiate in good faith — we will know that he understands that this war is a loser for Russia and a loser for the Russian people — when he sits down with the government that the Ukrainian people elected, instead of trying to change it or hurt it.

— Some analysts say the West has essentially pressured Kyiv over the past six months the reconsider its position on peace negotiations.

You know, I think you see on the peace-negotiation side that the Ukrainians are continuing to advance this peace formula that Zelensky had published for more than a year: sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, removal of foreign militaries, reparations for damages, return of children, all of these kinds of things. And he has gathered (at some meetings) up to 50 or 60 countries, like the meeting in Davos. Sometimes there's an inner core of countries that includes not just U.S. allies but some of the major non-aligned countries like India, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia.

All of these countries support those principles. 

And I think Zelensky has been very, very effective at reminding the world what a just settlement for this war would look like, not a settlement where Putin gets to subjugate Ukraine for the long term.

— Russian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Ryabkov has described Russian-American relations as being in a “comatose state.” How bad really is the current state of diplomacy between our two countries?

You know, it's not just bad — it's sad.

When I was younger, when I was very young in the 90s, I would say that we had regular contact on a weekly basis with Russians all over the country and with Russians of every political persuasion, from liberals to hardcore… You know, I used to see [LDPR founder Vladimir] Zhirinovsky myself and some of these hardcore guys. That really helped us understand the views across the country better. We were able to travel, see people when we traveled, and all of that.

And what Putin has done, beginning in the aught years but steadily across his five presidencies (and we see he's being inaugurated after his most recent “selection,” I will call it), is he's slowly closed down the channels of communication. And those official Russians who we do still talk to are not allowed to negotiate. They're not allowed to say anything of substance.

You know, even in the Obama administration, when Putin wanted the U.S. involved in Minsk, he assigned a full-time negotiator, and that person and I met five or six times. that person was empowered to have a conversation. 

Now there's nobody who's empowered to have a real conversation with us. It's like talking to telephone operators. You know, long-term contacts of mine, [people I’ve known for] 20, 30 years, you go see them or you get on the phone with them, and in fact we don't meet because there's no point anymore. But even when you get on the phone with them, all they do is transmit the message and repeat public talking points. They're not empowered by Putin to engage in any kind of real negotiation or dialogue.

And that's really, really too bad and sad.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the only place where we've had a little bit of productive work, I would say, has been when we were able to get the hostage deal on Brittney Griner, and I hope we can continue to look at those kinds of things because we have more wrongfully detained people in Russia, including the Wall Street Journal journalist, Evan Gershkovich.

And when you start locking up journalists, what does that say to your own? I can imagine how Meduza feels about that.

— How far did negotiations get on exchanging Alexey Navalny? The Anti-Corruption Foundation claims that he was killed in prison because a swap was imminent, but The Wall Street Journal reports that there was no final U.S.-German agreement or any proposal from Moscow.

There have been proposals put forward by our side repeatedly over the last two, two and a half years. And the Russian side has not been willing to engage seriously in negotiations.

In the context of Navalny, I personally don't think that his death was the result of negotiations. Putin didn't need to ensure that he was killed for that. He could have just said, “Nyet.” I think it was the result of Putin not wanting him around during his election and being unhappy with some of the things he was advising Russian voters to do. We'll never know, right? 

What's paramount for us is that we save space to get our remaining Americans home.

— Can you reveal who in Washington is working on that, on these exchanges?

Senior leadership is all involved. There have been conversations at the various levels on the Russian side [through] national security channels and intelligence channels — those kinds of things. But again, nobody on the Russian side appears to be empowered to cut a deal.

— So, there seems to be little hope?

In all of these cases, we have to keep working. We have to keep trying to find the right formula, whether it's with Russia, whether it's with Iran, whether it's with China, whether it's with North Korea. Russia has now put itself in the category of all these countries that use innocent Americans as vicious trade bait, and it's just a bad practice.

— Does the United States maintain any backchannels with the Kremlin, at least in case of emergencies?

We have channels to talk about this. The Russian side knows how to reach us if they're ready to be serious.

— Many ordinary Russians have a rather negative view of the Western sanctions imposed after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They feel personally impacted, and it has led some Russians to support Putin even more.

We're happy to take advice from those Russians who can tell us how to make the sanctions more effective. As you know, the first wave was designed to cut Russia out of the banking sector and put pressure on the big tycoons and the oligarchs, in the aspiration that they would put pressure on Putin.

The issue with sanctions, no matter where they are applied and who's applying them, is that they have to be refreshed constantly because the targeted country is always looking for workarounds. What we saw in the last six, seven, or eight months was that Russia was very successful, first of all, at hiding the circumvention of sanctions. So, all of a sudden, imports of U.S. laptops and washing machines to countries like the UAE, Turkey, and India were going way up because those countries were then transferring them onto Russia.

It has been important to call those countries' attention to who the real end user is. Calling American sellers' attention to who the real end user is is important — because [the Russians] don't need a washing machine or a laptop; they need the microelectronics inside.

What you see now is that, over the last six months, the military-industrial relationship between Russia and China has really exploded. Now, the Chinese promised the world they wouldn't send weapons to Russia, so instead they're sending all of the inputs for the weapons — like a Lego house — and then it gets put together in Russia. This has been a very successful strategy for both countries because Russia has nobody else to trade with (except North Korea and Iran). The Chinese have discovered that, in a time of economic hardship, they can stimulate their own economy by enhancing the defense industry. So, it's very symbiotic.

We can't stop every Chinese company from talking to every Russian company. It's just too big. They change their names.

Instead, we're working on trying to close down the financing, particularly saying to Chinese banks: “If you want to have an external trading relationship with us or with Europe or with any of the Asian democracies or the rest of the world, you must not be financing these component parts, microelectronics, nitrocellulose for explosives, rocket engines, etc., to Russia.”

We'll see if that's more successful, but we have to refresh what we are doing at every stage.

And I would argue that, if there are hardships for Russian citizens, it is because Putin doesn't care about his own citizens. He cares about his war effort. And when a guy is spending 25 percent of GDP on the war rather than on the needs of his citizens, when his policies have closed Russians off from travel, from education abroad, from real news, from real participation as global citizens. He's sacrificing Russia's future and Russia's children, whether they are the 20-year-old soldiers dying on the front line or whether they are the kids in school now who are not getting that world-class technological education that we all want our kids to have. And he's doing that for the vanity of eating Ukraine, which does not help today's Russia. 

— It seems that China clearly has no intention of renouncing Russia. In fact, Xi Jinping has visited Europe and urged its leaders not to follow the U.S., telling them to adopt a policy of "pragmatism.”

 China claims publicly to be neutral. It claims so all over the world. And then, under the table, its companies are supporting the [Russian] war effort, as we just discussed.

So, I think it's imperative that we speak directly to China and say, "You can't have it both ways. Either you are a supporter of the Russian side, and you have to pay the consequences globally in terms of reputation, in terms of trade, etc., for that. Or you're going to be truly neutral."

At the beginning, the Chinese participated in Zelensky's peace format. They've stopped doing that. They also tried a little bit of shuttle diplomacy, but the negotiator they hired was a guy who had lived in Moscow for 20 years and was very sympathetic to Putin, so he didn't get much traction.

Europe, in particular, is an extremely important trading partner for China and is increasingly upset that China is helping to extend this war. And I think that European pressure on China, along with our pressure, will continue to grow [and prove] that they can't have it both ways. If they want a good relationship with Europe, they have to be truly neutral in this war, and then they'll just have to decide where they want to stand.

[jaybe11]

Alice in Chains - Off Ramp Seattle - 1991 - Remastered

[xtruss]

Illegal Regime of the Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell and Terrorist, Fascist, Genocidal, War Criminal Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell Alone Kicked Off This Escalation — In a Bid to Drag U.S. Into War With Iran

Satan-yahu’s Recklessness was Fostered by Blind U.S. Support, but Isra-hell is the One Pushing its War with Iran Out of the shadows

— Murtaza Hussain | April 14 2024

War Criminal, Terrorist, Fascist, Genocidal Zionists 🐖 Isra-helli Prime Minister Benjamin Satan-Yahu greets War Criminal, Complicit in Gaza Genocide and Demented U.S. President Joe Biden upon his arrival at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

The Isra-helli Bombing of an Iranian Consulate Office in Damascus on April 1 was the first salvo in a new phase of a regional conflict between the two countries. The attack, which killed several senior Iranian military officials, took the conflict from proxy warfare to direct confrontation.

On Saturday night, Iran launched its long-expected response to Israel, targeting the country with hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles. The attacks, reportedly telegraphed in the days beforehand as part of backchannel negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, were mostly intercepted en route to Israel.

The first direct attack by a state military against Israel since Iraq’s Scud missile launches during 1991’s Gulf War, the Iranian salvo — slow, deliberate, and forewarned — appeared calculated not to escalate the situation. The same cannot be said of Israel’s strike against the Iranians in Syria.

While Israeli officials, not least Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have sought to portray the Jewish state as the victims of an unprovoked Iranian attack, it was their own deadly strike on the Damascus consulate that triggered the new phase of the conflict. Though the U.S. created the conditions that may have encouraged Netanyahu’s gambit, it was reportedly Israel, acting on its own behalf, without coordination with its allies, that precipitated the latest grave escalation.

Even Israel’s patron and closest partner, the U.S., indicated it had not been involved or aware of planning for the consulate attack. Following this weekend’s Iranian response, which did very limited damage, the U.S. cautioned patience and encouraged Israel to see the barrage as an end to the current standoff.

The reciprocal blows between Israel and Iran have now pushed the Middle East into dangerously uncharted waters, at a time when many U.S. policymakers are seeking to leave the region and refocus attention on Europe and east Asia.

Despite reported pleading from the Biden administration to seek a diplomatic off-ramp, Israeli officials are promising an escalated response to Iran. They are threatening to target military sites inside Iran, as well as sites tied to the country’s nuclear program, a longtime Israeli obsession.

The Iranians have said continuing this cycle of strikes would trigger another reciprocal attack against Israel, far broader in scope and less likely to be coordinated with the U.S. or other regional powers to minimize damage. The result could be a full-scale war between two powerful states, including one whose security is all but politically guaranteed by the U.S. military. In that light, the prospect of the U.S. “pivoting to Asia,” or even recommitting fully to the defense of Ukraine would likely become farcical.

The potential handcuffing of U.S. policy has not gone unnoticed in Washington. A report by NBC News on the morning after Iran’s strikes quoted three individuals close to Joe Biden as saying that the president “privately expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to drag Washington into a broader conflict.”

“War Criminal, Complicit in Gaza Genocide, Demented President Joe Biden” meets with members of his national security team on April 13, 2024, regarding the unfolding missile attacks on Israel from Iran, in the White House Situation Room in Washington, D.C. Photo: Adam Schultz/White House

Reaping What Is Sown

Despite Biden’s concerns, the U.S. is the one that created a moral hazard by encouraging Israel to act more recklessly. Israel’s decision to attack Iran’s consulate building, where it killed a number of top officials from the elite Quds Force, itself was unlikely to have happened without Netanyahu’s belief that he could count on U.S. support no matter what Israel does.

Who could blame him? There have been sudden U.S. shifts on the war in Gaza, and Biden apparently rejected further Israeli strikes against Iran, but American officials including the president have by and large struck a tone of total, unflinching support for Israel. Though this support has not always extended to Netanyahu himself, the strike against Damascus seemed to be a test of that distinction.

And the violent exchange with Iran also highlights a much wider chasm between the interests of the U.S. and Israel — and the countries’ leaders. The U.S. has material incentives to draw down its focus on the Middle East and does not want to fight another major war in the region, but for Israel and for Netanyahu personally, there are strong reasons to start a direct confrontation with Iran and its allies.

Since the start of its post-October 7 assault on Gaza, Israeli civilians have mostly abandoned the northern area of the country due to the nearby presence, across the Lebanese border, of fighters from the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Many Israeli security officials feel that a war with Hezbollah and by extension Iran is inevitable. They prefer a strategy of initiating one now on Israel’s terms while the U.S. still has a military presence in the region that could be forced into the fight.

From Netanyahu’s perspective, once the current war ends, he is likely to face serious political and legal problems inside Israel. Expanding the conflict to a regional one could delay his day of reckoning — or even change his personal fortunes entirely.

Israeli incentives for war with Iran should logically put it on a crash course with the U.S. political establishment. Yet the deep ideological, economic, and political ties that supporters of Israel have cultivated with U.S. politicians and security elites make it possible that the U.S. may wind up in a war with Iran, whether they like it or not.

It would not be a cakewalk. Iran is larger than Iraq, boasting vastly more sophisticated defenses and a huge web of regional military assets. A major war would not be limited in time or scope. At a moment when the U.S. is running short of munitions and funding to support Ukraine and is nervously eyeing China’s military buildup in east Asia, it is hard to think of worse timing for such a conflict, regardless of how opportune it may be for Israel.

Israeli officials are now reportedly debating whether to “go big” with strikes against Iran, or take a more measured response. Iran meanwhile has said that if Israel lashes out, it will hit back harder — ostensibly in a manner calculated to overwhelm Israeli air defenses. If that happens, Biden will have to confront the contradictions of a policy of embracing Israel and enabling its most extreme tendencies, while at the same time trying to do what is best for the U.S.

Contrary to the words of some sycophantic U.S. politicians, the interests of the two countries are not identical and, today, do not even appear to be aligned.