Off Topic The Politics Thread

From the same party that took the piss of Corbyns “Magic money tree”.

They really are a party of ****s

 

Time to do the Dine n Dash....

 

My issue is that so much of what they now need to put inadequate sticking plasters over were so easily avoidable. Proper thinking people were warning of the dangers of high inflation right at the outset of the Covid pandemic two years ago, when the government announced the measures they would take and the borrowing it would require. The energy crisis has been a problem on the horizon for at least the past 40 years.

 

My bugbear, and I’ve mentioned this already, is the absolute naivety, or stupidity, of not making some kind of caveat into furlough payments to companies that if and when they return to profit then the money, or at least most of it, would be paid back to the government.
When I see companies and individuals like Damien Hurst or car traders who now are making massive profits for themselves….the fact this has been allowed to happen is bizarre and totally inept.
My kids have to pay back their university loans when they start earning a decent wage so why can’t they.
Hats off to the companies who voluntarily paid back the money, like Games Workshop, IKEA and Halfords

 

Russia's finished:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60850209

 

You’ve got to wonder how much we read is propaganda and how much is reality. We were told that Russia only had supplies and money to be able to fight for 10 more days and all Ukraine needed to do was to hold out till then for Russia to retreat with its tails between its legs….about 2 1/2 weeks ago.
Now we are being told the attacks are stalling and in places Russian troops are retreating…..but then we get shown they are gaining ground.
Hard to work out what is truth and what are falsehoods….from both sides……we see only 1 side

 

Russia trolling UEFA now...

 

Teamsters: A sleeping American giant now spoiling for a fight
By Sam Cabral
BBC News, Washington

Published
17 hours ago
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IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Sean O'Brien (left) is the new president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
It is not a surprise when Sean O'Brien tells the BBC that he plans to take one of America's largest labour unions from "complacency" to "militancy".

On Tuesday, Mr O'Brien, 49, became the first new president in 23 years to take the helm of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters - a 1.4 million member union that represents professions from warehouse workers to freight drivers - and he has made it known that he is aching for a fight.

"Over the last 10 years, there hasn't been any vigilance, any militancy, and corporate America knew that," he said, speaking to the BBC after his election last year.

Under his tenure, "we're going to put the Teamsters back on the map", he said.

Mr O'Brien has vowed to re-negotiate "substandard" and "concessionary" national contracts with companies like United Parcel Service (UPS), one of the largest mail carriers in the US, and says he will not shy away from walkouts if his demands are not met.

And he has an even bigger goal in his sights: taking on Amazon.

"We've got to protect, preserve and improve working conditions," he said.

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IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Former Teamsters boss James Hoffa marches at a rally in 1999
In many places, the Teamsters are almost synonymous with US labour unionism, founded in the early heyday of a movement that began in the country in the 19th Century.

That was true for Mr O'Brien, a Boston native who is a fourth-generation member. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all truck drivers with the union.

As a boy, he watched his father get up at 4am and come home late at night. Sometimes he would tag along to union meetings. "I adored the camaraderie," he recalled.

"I learned what it was to be a union member around the dinner table," he said.

At 18, he joined the Teamsters as a rigger, hauling heavy equipment around construction sites. Since 2006, Mr O'Brien has represented some 12,000 Bostonians and their families as head of the Local 25 union.


He took credit for 19 strikes during his tenure, the majority of which he says the union won.

Now in his 32nd year with the Teamsters, his is a familiar face. He was previously the vice-president of the national union's eastern region. "I love this organisation," he said. "It has given me everything in my entire life".

But today, "we have a whole new workforce coming in that weren't raised part of a union, didn't get free healthcare and weren't guaranteed pensions", Mr O'Brien said.

"This new generation is not afraid to fight, but they're only going to fight if they have strong leadership and strong support."

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IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Notorious Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa vanished without a trace in 1975
But the organisation in modern times has vacillated between becoming a byword for grift and gangsterism - or stagnation.

For 36 of its 119 years, the Teamsters had been led by someone with the surname Hoffa.


The first, Jimmy, was notorious for using the strength of the union to bolster organised crime.

Hoffa was not the first to forge links between unionism and crime; the inaugural Teamsters boss Cornelius Shea was indicted for embezzlement in 1908, and early Teamster leaders were known to collude with employers to price-fix.

But under Hoffa's watch, the mafia gained influence at its highest leadership levels, including its executive board. Mobsters raided the Teamsters' most important pension fund to bankroll their development projects in Las Vegas.

Despite the union being mired in corruption, "the contradiction is he builds a union that's quite powerful", said David Witwer, a labour historian at Penn State Harrisburg University.

Hoffa was "a true icon of the Teamsters Union", Mr O'Brien told Boston Magazine. "We had tremendous political clout on [Jimmy Hoffa's] watch."

But the reputation of Teamsters as blue-collar toughs willing to walk on the wrong side of the law has stuck. Even in the early 1990s, Teamsters were being charged with racketeering crimes.

Mr O'Brien has previously said that it is hard to get away from the reputation. "But the bottom line is that there's no organised crime presence in the Teamsters Union," he told Boston Magazine.

Hoffa, who led the Teamsters from 1957 to 1971, disappeared in 1975 at the time of a planned meeting with Detroit mafiosi.

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IMAGE SOURCE,PAUL TRUJILLO
Image caption,
Paul Trujillo (left) voted for "change" when he supported Sean O'Brien's campaign last year
His son, James, took over in 1998. Though gone were the mobsters on speed dial, many - including Mr O'Brien - argue that his tenure has left the union at its weakest and most divided in years.

• Deathbed confession sparks Jimmy Hoffa body hunt

The union's power has "declined in every meaningful way, from contracts to pensions to member involvement", said David Levin, lead organiser at the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), an internal reform group that backed Mr O'Brien.

It was because James Hoffa "talked tough, settled short and declared victory", Mr Levin lamented.

Mr Hoffa declined to comment for this story.

In November, the candidate he hand-picked was defeated by Mr O'Brien by a two-to-one margin.

Much of the recent frustration with Mr O'Brien's predecessor arose from 2017 negotiations with UPS for a new national contract.

As president, Mr O'Brien has said he will take that on.

"A lot of companies - not just UPS but several major employers - knew that the Teamsters union wasn't going to strike," he said.

"The empty threats need to be realities moving forward".

The Teamsters have not had a national walkout since 1997. Its defence fund for members on strike has ballooned to over $300m (£226m) under Mr Hoffa.

Mr O'Brien's contention is that, if he fights hard for better contracts, he can mobilise his members to recruit warehouse workers at Amazon.

"That means being tough at the negotiating table and using a template that we can take to unorganised workers," he said.

Pro-labour sentiment is trending upward in the US, both at the picket line and in the Biden administration, he points out.

"Think about it: we oversee and run every mode of transportation for the entire country, whether it's planes, trains, boats or trucks. We've got a great opportunity here".

 

Disturbing and not for the easily offended. Maybe the fog of war but shocking none the less

 

and age restricted

 

Watched the first minute, when the presenter asked whether Nazi policies were mainstream in Ukraine, then switched off because I already know that Azov got less than 2% in the last Ukranian election. This looks like a Russian propaganda video, Stainsey.

 

just think how good they will be when those european jets turn up

Outnumbered five to one, Ukraine’s top guns fend off Russian fighter jets against the odds
Robert Mendick17:39, Mar 23 2022




The United States rejected a surprise offer by NATO ally Poland on Tuesday to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets to a U.S. base in Germany as a way to replenish Ukraine's air force in its defense against invading Russian forces.

Night after night, Ukraine’s fighter jet pilots have taken the battle to an enemy that has “five times more planes”; their aircraft pushed to the limit with no time for pre-take-off checks. The chances of survival in the dogfights in Ukrainian airspace are all too slim.

But against the odds, Ukraine’s air force has kept flying a month since the Russian invasion started. Nobody gave the pilots more than a few days. Moscow’s failure to establish air superiority – key if it ever wanted to win a speedy victory – has caused the invasion to stall.

Without air cover, Vladimir Putin’s army is stuck, unable to venture beyond entrenched positions without being picked off at will.

For the first time, Ukrainian air force pilots have been allowed to tell their story of how they have kept the skies open after The New York Times was given access to pilots at an airbase, its location undisclosed for obvious reasons.




The United States rejected a surprise offer by NATO ally Poland on Tuesday to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets to a U.S. base in Germany as a way to replenish Ukraine's air force in its defense against invading Russian forces.

READ MORE:
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* Ukraine retakes key Kyiv suburb; battle for Mariupol rages as civilians fleeing describe fierce street-to-street battles
* Russians push deeper into Mariupol as locals plead for help

“Each night,” said the newspaper, the pilots “loiter” in their hangar until the tension is broken with a shout of “Air!”

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Andriy, 25, a Ukrainian fighter pilot, told the paper he was not informed of his mission until he was in the air. The pilots have little time for pre-flight briefings, seemingly aware that it is not a good idea to linger in one spot for too long.

Andriy, whose surname and rank has been kept secret, said there was no time in a conflict to make pre-take-off safety checks on his Sukhoi Su-27, a Soviet-origin, twin-engined fighter jet. Out of Ukraine’s total fleet of about 100 combat aircraft at the start of the war, roughly a third were Su-27s. Now, fewer than 60 are available.

“I don’t do any checks. I just take off,” he said, adding: “Every time when I fly, it’s for a real fight. In every fight with Russian jets, there is no equality. They always have five times more planes in the air.”

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RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE/AP
A Russian MiG-31 fighter jet carrying a Kinzhal missile takes off from the Hemeimeem air base in Syria. (File photo)
Living to knock the enemy out of the sky
In almost four weeks of fighting, Andriy has flown 10 sorties. Dogfights were supposed to have been consigned to history. But in this war, Ukraine jets have engaged with Russian fighters and Andriy says he has shot down Russian aircraft – although, as The New York Times reported, he was neither permitted to say what he has taken out nor how many.

“I mostly have tasks of hitting airborne targets, of intercepting enemy jets,” he said. “I wait for the missile to lock on my target. After that, I press ‘fire’.”

He now lives for knocking the enemy out of the sky: “I am happy that this plane will no longer bomb my peaceful towns. And as we see in practice, that is exactly what Russian jets do.

“I had situations when I was approaching a Russian plane to a close enough distance to target and fire. I could already detect it, but was waiting for my missile to lock on while at the same time from the ground they tell me that a missile was fired at me already.”

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RODRIGO ABD/AP
A Ukrainian soldier looks through binoculars at a military check point, in Lityn, Ukraine.
Andriy told how he had pushed his Su-27 through steep banks, climbs and dives to avoid the incoming missile.

He said: “The time I have to save myself depends on how far away the missile was fired at me and what kind of missile. I can still feel a huge rush of adrenaline in my body because every flight is a fight.”

A graduate of the Kharkiv Air Force School, Andriy had wanted to be a pilot since childhood. However, the true nature of war and the violence of the conflict has clearly shocked him.

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“Neither me nor my friends ever thought we would have to face a real war. But that’s not how it turned out,” he said.

Andriy, who is married, has relocated his wife to another area of Ukraine that is currently secure. He telephones her only after he has returned safely from a sortie, but never before.

“I only have to use my skills to win,” Andriy told The New York Times. “My skills are better than the Russians. But on the other hand, many of my friends, and even those more experienced than me, are already dead.”

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ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/AP
Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 fighter jet is in the sky outside Slovyansk 160 kilometres from the Russian border, in eastern Ukraine – pictured in 2014. (File photo)
Mismatch in the skies
The mismatch in the skies was supposed to have ensured a quick win for Putin. Russia has more modern aircraft. While Andriy flies an Su-27, his Russian counterparts are flying the more technologically advanced, newer generation Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft.

In the build-up to the invasion, analysts estimated that Russia had about 300 combat aircraft available for sorties into Ukraine out of a total attack fleet of 1500. Russia has suffered losses. Ukraine claims to have downed 97 fixed-wing aircraft.

Experts suggested that number may be optimistic, although as many as 10 or 11 were lost on one weekend early in the war, forcing Russia to change tactics reducing the number of forays.

Ukraine has 55 warplanes now ready to fly owing to losses in the sky or mechanical and maintenance problems caused by wear and tear.

Justin Bronk, a research fellow in airpower and technology at the Royal United Services Institute, said that Russia’s inability to knock out Ukraine’s air defence systems, rather than the heroism of the fixed-wing fighter pilots, had hit Putin’s plans hardest.

“As I understand it, Ukraine is not flying that many missions in fixed-wing fast jets,” he said.

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MIKHAIL PALINCHAK/AP
Su-27 fighter jets fly above a military base in the Zhytomyr region, Ukraine in 2018. (File photo)
After suffering heavy losses over the weekend of March 4 and 5, Russia had strengthened its own air defence systems, restricting Ukraine jets to shorter sorties at low level. A fully laden Su-27, flown by the Ukraine military at low altitude to stay under the radar, may have a flying time of no more than 30 minutes.

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However, according to Bronk, Ukraine’s air defence systems – the S400 and S300, both Russian made – have been effective at bringing down jets and cruise missiles while unmanned drones continue to hit Russian targets, flying into the wind at slow speeds to evade Russian radar systems.

He believes Russia has lost up to 22 fast jets and clearly still has the capability, but is seemingly not willing to risk further losses.

He added: “What the Russians have still been unable to do is knock out the Sam [surface-to-air missile] systems, which means they have to fly around at either very low altitude or very high altitude.”

Has Russia run out of momentum?
Most Russian sorties are restricted to 45,000 feet and maybe in Ukrainian airspace for no more than a few minutes before returning to bases either in Crimea or in Belarus.

“Russia has run out of momentum,” said Bronk, adding that if Ukraine can maintain its current level of resistance, then the war is unsustainable for Russia.

Philip Ingram, a former British Army colonel in military intelligence, said: “It is quite clear the Ukrainian air defence systems remain operational and capable and their fixed-wing aircraft are still flying albeit in a limited way.

“Given Russia’s air advantage, I am surprised we have not seen more of their air force come into play. But without air superiority, they cannot plan properly or manoeuvre operations.”

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FELIPE DANA/AP
Firefighters extinguished a fire near a shopping centre after a shelling, in Kyiv, Ukraine.
For the moment, Russia is flying about 200 sorties a day compared to five to 10 a day by Ukraine. But those high-altitude missions, dropping so-called “dumb” bombs, might have a devastating effect on the civilian populations being bombed mercilessly in cities such as Mariupol. Yet that doesn’t necessarily help Russia win the war, and certainly not quickly.

The Ukrainian air force still has runways it can use in the west of the country and there is even an ability to take off from major roads. The locations are closely guarded secrets.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian air force said that Russian planes were being lured into traps inside Ukraine airspace.

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They said: “Ukraine has been effective in the sky because we operate on our own land. The enemy flying into our airspace is flying into the zone of our air defence systems.”

And while the air defence systems can evade Russian missiles, Russian planes cannot undertake precision bombing needed to win the war on the ground.

Putin’s dream of a rapid win has gone. A lengthy war of attrition beckons.

 

From a centre right podcast who are more akin to yours and Cols thinking than mine………shame you didn’t watch the whole thing, as sickening as it was, as they are definitely not what you say.
However I think they show a broader side of the story than our media.

And just to correct you….The Azov Battalion are a Neo Nazi militia, who are now part of the National Guard of Ukraine and have never contested elections

 

Saw a clip from Russian State TV this evening where someone was proposing nuking the Baltic states, Poland and other European countries I think he said. Very worrying considering this is Russian State TV. Who he was I didnt catch.

 

Thats pretty ****ing scary

 

Probably a motherfucker

 

#WeDeserveBetter

 

Azov's political wing combined with several other right wing groups to fight tbe 2019 election and got 2% of the national vote.

 

But not the actual Azov Batallion militia that you mentioned.
Just me being pedantic.

 

It is pedantic, because from memory, the founder of Azov headed up the political movement.

Strains of Gerry Adams