If you study fascism you know what’s going on here. 'It's Okay To Be A Unicorn' Comes Under Fire In Ohio School District“ The Republican Party and the Nazification of American Schools

 “Twenty doctors and three administrators — twenty-two men and a single woman — stood accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They had participated in Hitler's euthanasia program, in which around 200,000 mentally and physically handicapped people deemed unfit to live were gassed to death, and they performed fiendish medical experiments on thousands of Jewish, Russian, Roma and Polish prisoners.”

MORE AT:

'Less Than Human': The Psychology Of Cruelty

David Livingstone Smith

Nazis might kill children who looked or behaved differently.

"Jason Tharp, 45, said wrote "It's Okay to Be a Unicorn!," to promote inclusion among children, and he was prepared to read it to students at an elementary school north of Columbus, Ohio on April 6. 

The day before the scheduled reading, Tharp said he received a call from the principal of Buckeye Valley Local School District's saying higher-ups did not approve of the book and believed it could have a "gay agenda."

"I just said, did somebody think I made a gay book? And he's like, 'Yeah,' and I'm like, 'Because why? Rainbows and unicorns?'" Tharp told USA TODAY, adding that the principal confirmed that as the reasoning.

Tharp said he found this rather confusing since the school knew about his visit for two years, and the school's administration ordered over 500 of his books to be distributed to the kids six weeks prior to his visit.

A school parent shared concerns about the book to the superintendent, Tharp said.

"This parent had gone through my social media and saw that I was supportive of LGBT," he said. "What it turns out was that it was one parent that came in and said that apparently, I was coming in with an agenda to recruit kids to be gay."

Tharp emphasized his book had no reference to the LGTBQ community, but that he created the character of a unicorn since they are non-threatening and lovable."

MORE AT:

USA TODAY

'It's Okay to Be a Unicorn' author said school nixed his reading to students over 'gay agenda' fears 

 

It's Okay to Be a Unicorn! Hardcover – Picture Book, February 4, 2020

by Jason Tharp (Author, Illustrator)

 

"In the liberal suburbs of Fairfax County, Virginia, conservative parents like Carrie Lukas have come to local school board meetings to air their frustrations with the failures of the public school system during the Covid-19 pandemic. In late January, Lukas used her two minutes during public comment to criticize mask mandates and call for school privatization.

But when Lukas came to the microphone, she represented more than her family. As the president of a right-wing think tank called the Independent Women’s Forum, Lukas also advanced the interests of her billionaire donors: some of America’s wealthiest people who, for decades, have backed efforts to defund public schools, attack teachers unions, and undermine the scientific community.

The various crises in public education during the pandemic — both real and manufactured — have offered a prime opportunity for wealthy interests to advance this agenda. Meanwhile, Republicans nationwide hope that carrying the “parents party” mantle will help win over suburban voters and carry them back to power in national elections."

MORE AT:

Grassroots or Astroturf? Inside the Republicans’ Rebranding as the “Parents Party”

In a suburban Virginia district, right-wing operatives get involved in local school board politics, with help from billionaire donors.

Paul Abowd

April 5 2022, 9:13 a.m.

Nazis killed children who looked or behaved differently:

"As Adolf Hitler consolidated his power at home in anticipation of war, he moved not only against Jews, Sinti, and Roma but also against those Aryans whom he considered “unworthy of life”—people with epilepsy, alcoholism, birth defects, hearing loss, mental illnesses, and personality disorders, as well as those who had vision loss or developmental delays or who even suffered from certain orthopedic problems. Hitler viewed them as “marginal human beings” who had to make a case for their own survival at a time when the nation was preparing for war.

The first to be eliminated were too young to speak on their own behalf. In fall 1938, the parents of a severely disabled infant petitioned Hitler for the right to kill their child. He granted the petition and saw in the request an opportunity to encourage what he called “mercy killings” or “euthanasia.” In fact, according to science historian Robert N. Proctor, the goal was not to provide mercy to the victims but to improve the “Aryan” race and make hospital beds and personnel available for the coming war.

Hitler also thought that the war might minimize protests from Germans who learned of the deaths. According to Hitler’s chief medical officer, “The Führer was of the opinion that such a program could be put into effect more smoothly and rapidly in time of war, and that in the general upheaval of war, the open resistance anticipated from the church would not play the part it might in other circumstances.”

The following spring, Hitler set up a committee of physicians to prepare for the murder of mentally and physically disabled children. Known as the Reich Committee for the Scientific Treatment of Severe Hereditary and Congenital Diseases, the group was told to keep its mission secret. In August 1939, just two weeks before the invasion of Poland, committee members asked doctors and midwives to fill out a questionnaire that would identify children born with various deformities or disabilities. Initially, the focus was on children under the age of three. The committee claimed it was using the information “to clarify certain scientific questions.” In fact, it was used to determine which children would be allowed to live…

The operation was later expanded to include not only children but also teens and adults, and it was given the codename “T-4.” One “euthanasia expert” excused the murders by arguing: “The idea is unbearable to me that the best, the flower of our youth, must lose its life at the front, in order that feebleminded and asocial elements can have a secure existence in the asylum.” Another suggested that a physician’s duty is to rescue the “fit” for the future by weeding out the “unfit” in the present…

Among Germans who knew of the euthanasia program, many supported it. In some cases, the parents of mentally or physically disabled children 'were eager to rid themselves of the stigma of having ‘defective children.’

Racial ideology and propaganda in the 1930s had also helped to build support in Germany for eliminating mentally ill adults. In addition, according to Proctor:

Doctors were never ordered to murder psychiatric patients and handicapped children. They were empowered to do so, and fulfilled that task without protest, often on their own initiative. Hitler’s original memo . . . was not an order, but an empowerment, granting physicians permission to act.

In some places, doctors used mobile gassing vans to carry out the killings. By June 1940, the vans were being replaced with gas chambers that resembled showers. Proctor adds: “By August 24, 1941, when the first phase of this ‘adult operation’ was brought to an end, over 70,000 patients from more than one hundred German hospitals had been killed.” The operation would turn out to provide a model for the subsequent murder of millions of Jews, Roma and Sinti, and others in gas chambers.”

MORE AT:

FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES

"Unworthy to Live"

Jason Stanley says QAnon is a re-do of the “Protocols of Zion” I have a feeling that Steven Miller, doppelgänger of Joseph Gobbles, was part of the production of Trump’s insurrection day video.

 #amanpourpbs  Jason Stanley: Did This 2 Min. Video Help Incite the Jan. 6 Rioters? | Amanpour and Company1,147,740 viewsFeb 12, 2021:

On January 6, Trump supporters gathered at a rally at Washington DC’s Ellipse Park, regaled by various figures from Trump world, including Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani. Directly following Giuliani’s speech, the organizers played a video. To a scholar of fascist propaganda, well-versed in the history of the National Socialist’s pioneering use of videos in political propaganda, it was clear, watching it, what dangers it portended. In it, we see themes and tactics that history warns pose a violent threat to liberal democracy. Given the aims of fascist propaganda – to incite and mobilize – the events that followed were predictable.

Before decoding what the video presents, it is important to take a step back and discuss the structure of fascist ideology and how it can mobilize its most strident supporters to take violent actions.

“I. The Fascist Framework

Increasingly central to Trumpism is the QAnon conspiracy theory, which, as many commentators have now pointed out, closely resembles Nazi anti-Semitic myths. QAnon is just the most obvious manifestation of the increasing parallels between Trumpism and Hitler’s framework itself. Indeed, several contemporary fascist and white supremacist movements find similar roots in the framework Hitler developed, even if they did not culminate in such extreme actions as the Nazis.

Fascist thought

Chapter 2 of Mein Kampf, Hitler’s first and most famous book, is entitled “Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna.” In it, he documents what he describes as his gradual realization that behind the various institutions of power were the Jews. His enlightenment supposedly begins with the entertainment industry, where he remarks that “[t]he fact that nine tenths of all literary filth, artistic trash, and theatrical idiocy can be set to the account of a people, constituting hardly one hundredth of all the country’s inhabitants, could simply not be talked away; it was plain truth.” But it was, Hitler writes, when he “recognized the Jew as the leader of the Social Democracy” that “the scales fell from [his] eyes.” Hitler describes a growing sense, foundational to the ideology the book delineates, the ideology of Nazism, that Jews were controlling the apparatus of the state, both as important party politicians in the Social Democratic Party, and as operators behind the scenes of the press and other institutions.

In Nazi ideology, Jews are represented by an unholy alliance between Jewish capitalists and Jewish communists. The goal of the Jewish plot is to destroy national states, replacing them by a world government run by Jews. This diabolical Jewish plot involves destroying the character of individual nations, by flooding them with immigrants, and empowering minority populations. Hitler describes the German loss in World War I as part of this plan, a “stab in the back” of the German people by Jewish traitors seeking the ruin of the nation. In Nazi ideology, liberal democracy is represented as a corruption, a mask for this takeover by a global elite. Hitler reveals his true attitude toward liberalism in Mein Kampf, when he writes (in the characteristically sexist terms of Nazi ideology):

Like the woman, whose psychic state is determined less by grounds of abstract reason than by an identifiable emotional longing for a force which will complement her nature, and who, consequently, would rather bow to a strong man than dominate a weakling, likewise the masses love a commander more than a petitioner…

Fascism is a patriarchal cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by a treacherous and power-hungry global elite, who have encouraged minorities to destabilize the social order as part of their plan to dominate the “true nation,” and fold them into a global world government. The fascist leader is the father of his nation, in a very real sense like the father in a traditional patriarchal family. He mobilizes the masses by reminding them of what they supposedly have lost, and who it is that is responsible for that loss – the figures who control democracy itself, the elite; Nazi ideology is a species of fascism in which this global elite are Jews.

The future promised by the fascist leader is one in which there are plentiful blue collar jobs, reflecting the manly ideals of hard work and strength. In Nazi propaganda, many white collar jobs, the domain of Jews – running department stores, banking – were for the idle. And the fascist nation’s heart and soul is the military – as Hitler writes, “[w]hat the German people owes to the army can be briefly summed up in a single word, to wit: everything.” The fascist future is a kind of restoration of a glorious past, but a modern version – replete with awesome technology that glorifies the nation to the world. The German V-2 rocket was a characteristic representation of Nazi might. The fascist future is, in the famous description of Jeffrey Herf, a kind of reactionary modernism.

Fascist propaganda

Fascism uses propaganda as a way of mobilizing a population behind the leader. Fascist propaganda creates an awesome sense of loss, and a desire for revenge against those who are responsible. In the face of the supposed betrayal of the nation during World War I by Jewish “vipers,” Hitler describes the proper response to have been to place the “leaders of the whole movement…behind bars.” Hitler writes, “[a]ll the implements of military power should have been ruthlessly used for the extermination of this pestilence. The parties should have been dissolved, the Reichstag brought to its senses, with bayonets if necessary, but, best of all, dissolved at once.” The goal of fascist propaganda is to mobilize a population to violently overthrew multi-party democracy and replace it with the leader.

Fascism is not an ideology consigned to Europe. Black American intellectuals from W.E.B. Du Bois to Toni Morrison have spoken of American fascism. America has a long history of anti-Semitism similar to Nazi anti-Semitism, central to the ideology not just of the Ku Klux Klan, but to Henry Ford’s “The International Jew.” In its American version, communist Jews supposedly use Black liberation movements, control of Hollywood, and labor unions to destroy the nation in the service of a global elite. We should not be surprised at all by the rise of a fascist movement in the United States. And if it does arise, it would be no surprise if it did so in the party that keeps alive the “lost cause” myths of the American South.”

MORE AT:

Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda

Scholars on the Nazis and anti-Semitism have seen this before

Jason Stanley February 4, 2021

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/
2017/11/5/1687333/-
Trump-s-Stephen-Miller-and-Hitler-s-
Joseph-Goebbels-are-chillingly-similar

"Maddow: “By studying the first few months of Adolf Hitler’s tenure as German chancellor, beginning in 1934.”

Richard Cohen, Washington Post: Trump “is Hitlerian in his thinking.”

Henry S. Rosen, Daily Kos: “Any student of history can compare current times to the rise of fascism in the 1930s — when an electorate reeling from The Great Depression brought to power Hitler and emboldened Mussolini.”

Neal Gabler, BillMoyers.com: “Like Goebbels before them, conservatives understood that they had to create their own facts, their own truths, their own reality.”

Dana Milbank, Washington Post: “Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody. … When the election returns come in Tuesday night, it will be Nov. 9 in Germany — the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the ‘Night of Broken Glass’ at the start of the Holocaust when Nazis vandalized synagogues and businesses.”

Charles Blow, New York Times: “[Trump is] the demi-fascist of Fifth Avenue … an arguably fascist and racist demagogue.”

Paul Krugman, New York Times: “It takes willful blindness not to see the parallels between the rise of fascism and our current political nightmare.”

 Jewish apologists for Trump would be well advised to study the history of fascism in the 1930’s. Or perhaps they should just take in the movie Ship of Fools, set in the 1930’s, in which:

“ . . . the unflappably amiable Jewish salesman Lowenthal” naively proclaims: "There are a million Jews in Germany! What're they going to do . . .kill us all?”

MORE AT:

Trump’s hate-stoking policy guru may be Jewish — but he still bears a scary resemblance to the Nazi Propaganda Minister in both substance and style.

With some bumps, the City of Coatesville Pennsylvania has remained a commonwealth.“Benjamin Franklin's Idea Of Commonwealth Has Abandoned Us - Ken Burns & Mandy Patinkin”

 “Commonwealth is a  traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good."

When I was chair of the Coatesvillle Democratic Committee Ed Simpson was running as a Republican Party incumbent unopposed to represent Coatesville’s First Ward at Coatesville City Council.

I made up palm cards, handouts for Democratic Party voters to write in Ed Simpson on the Democratic Ballot. 

Ed has been a steady voice for the people of Coatesville on City Council for decades, as had Bill Chertok had been as a Democrat.  And has David DeSimone as a Republican. I put those three together because they have all been effective working for the commonwealth of Coatesville. 

Although Chester County has until recently been a stronghold for Pennsylvania Republicans, the Democratic Party has been the dominant political party in Coatesville since at least the 1940s. 

With some bumps along the way Democrats & Republicans have worked together for the commonwealth of Coatesville and still do today.

Ken Burns Was Watching "Homeland" When He Realized Mandy Patinkin Should Be His Ben Franklin

Benjamin Franklin's Idea Of Commonwealth Has Abandoned Us - Ken Burns & Mandy Patinkin

Rebecca Lukens laid the foundations that made Lukens Steel Company an important part of the Westward expansion of the United States by railroad, and an essential part of the military build up for WWII. 

She also made Coatesville a “melting pot” of refugees,  Blacks from the South, Italian, Polish, Jews from Belarus & Germany, Syrian, Hungarian, Spanish, Greek and Ukrainian people looking for a better life, a commonwealth.

THE CITY OF COATESVILLE PENNSYLVANIA

Lukens made the “steel trees” left standing at the Twin Towers.

One Summer break from school I worked on the floor of “The Hill” Building at Lukens Steel Company. My dad operated the crane over my head at times.

Studies show a correlation between diesel exhaust and asthma attacks in children. School busses sit in front of schools for hours spewing toxic chemicals. “BLUE BIRD WILL BRING ELECTRIC SCHOOL BUSES” “with vehicle-to-grid feature”

"Based on their use, it would seem that school buses would be a fairly simple mode of transport to electrify, yet, very few of those vehicles are powered by batteries today.

Now, Blue Bird, an important American bus manufacturer better known for its school buses, announced that it is ready to bring all-electric school buses to its lineup and unveiled 2 new models.

At the STN Tradeshow in Reno this week, Blue Bird unveiled 'its all-new Type A Micro Bird G5 electric-powered school bus and then revealed its all-new electric-powered Type D chassis which will power its Type D All American rear engine (RE) school bus...'

"Interestingly, Blue Bird says that the new electric powertrain will have a Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) feature – meaning that the buses could be used as energy storage systems. It’s not a bad idea considering school buses are often parked for long periods of time.

They aim to start production of the new electric powertrain next year."

MORE AT:

New all-electric school buses unveiled by Blue Bird with Vehicle-to-Grid feature

Fred Lambert

"A study of air quality inside school buses found that children riding on school buses may be exposed to four times the amount of toxic diesel exhaust than someone riding in a car directly in front of it.

Researchers from The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), along with the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health and the Coalition for Clean Air continuously took air quality samples inside the front and back of 4 school buses over a 20-hour period. In addition, they sampled the air quality outside the bus and in a passenger car traveling ahead of the bus. They found that diesel exhaust levels on the buses were 23 to 46 times higher than levels considered to be a significant cancer risk according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Some of the many different chemicals, gases, and particles that are found in diesel exhaust have been shown to be harmful to people. Long term exposure to diesel exhaust is linked with lung cancer, decreased lung function and premature death, according to the NRDC. In addition, studies show a correlation between diesel exhaust and asthma attacks in children."

MORE AT:

Bus Rides Leave Kids 'Exhausted'

By Sally Atwood 

CWK Network 

Thanks for the tip from:

I think only Beltway Democrats think Democrats don’t pack heat. This gives John longer coat tails: "The Braddock man John Fetterman confronted with a shotgun in 2013 says that should not stymie his Senate bid"

It was about 9:30 PM when a few years ago some about 10 years old Black kids on bikes were riding up walkways & smashing windows on homes in my Coatesville PA neighborhood with their bikes. 

They saw kids in Philly doing it on Facebook or something. 

I called Nate Bookman’s Barber Shop & told Nate’s son about the kids. He immediately knew who they were. He said he would talk to their families. 

It was unsaid but understood that those kids could have been mistaken for burglars and shot.

My integrated neighborhood is nearly entirely Democratic and very well armed. A shotgun is considered a standard household appliance. 

I think this will give John Fetterman longer coattails Democrats can ride to victory in Pennsylvania:

The Philadelphia Inquirer 

The Braddock man John Fetterman confronted with a shotgun in 2013 says that should not stymie his Senate bid

In letters from prison, Christopher Miyares says John Fetterman "lied about everything" regarding their 2013 confrontation in Braddock. Still, Miyares wrote, “I hope he gets to be a Senator.

Chris Brennan

I think Connor Lamb is a 2nd Kyrsten Sinema. It's unlikely but Lamb could win with excessive corporate support and corporations want a return on their investment. 

Man interrupts Coatesville burglary but gets shot at 7 times with AR-15 gun

MediaNews Group March 12, 2022 at 10:49 a.m.

"COATESVILLE—A Coatesville man interrupted a burglary in progress at his home Friday afternoon, but ended up getting shot at seven times, with all of the shots missing him. The man returned fire with his own gun but missed as well.

On March 11, the City of Coatesville Police Department was dispatched to the 300 block of East Lincoln Highway at 3:28 p.m. for a report of a shooting. Upon arrival officers located the victim who stated that he arrived home to find a black male in the doorway of his apartment.

The victim struggled with the burglar, who fired at the victim seven times with an AR 15 long gun, and the victim used his legally obtained firearm to shoot back.

Police said no one was struck by bullets during this incident. The burglar stole the AR 15 rifle, a .380 handgun and a PlayStation 5 gaming console during the burglary.

Anyone with information is asked to please contact Coatesville City’s Detective Sergeant Brandon Harris at 610-384-2300, extension 3212."

Was there a motive besides defending the Sahas behind all of the legal motions and intimidation at Coatesville City Council PA meetings? In 2022 we know it's ending democracy & establishing a strong man autocratic government. Judge Mahon’s doing it again.

 I wrote this in 2009:

Next the council had to defend the city charter from the proposed amendments starting two years ago. Legal experts agreed that the amendments had to be fought. The creator of these costly amendments, Sellers, had to have known that these amendments would eventually be ruled illegal, but it didn’t matter to him. The point was to cause further delay (and expense), and to take the issue closer to the elections.

The fact that it took years to get a ruling that should have been open and shut was beyond the city’s control and was very costly. Why the delays in the courts?

FROM:

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Looking through some old news with the benefit of hindsight

Chester County Common Pleas Court Judge Mahon sat on obvious frivolous lawsuits for about 2 years forcing the City of Coatesville to defend the citizens of Coatesville against the frivolous lawsuits at great expense. Now Judge Mahon is doing something similar: 

“Court of Common Pleas Judge William P. Mahon vacated his order Friday removing five members of the West Chester Area School District Board of Education — but the case and the possibility that duly-elected public officials could be removed from office remains a possibility. 

So for now, Sue Tiernan, Joyce Chester, Kate Shaw, Karen Herrmann and Daryl Durnel are back on the board after an effort to remove them for voting to keep masking rules in the district as long as the Centers for Disease Control recommended them. As the case numbers dropped, per CDC guidelines, the mask rules have since been dropped. 

Let’s be clear on this: it stinks to high heaven that it ever got this far…

If lost, such suits would increase taxes to the Act 1 limit, and see cuts in services, extra curricular activities and boost class sizes. Additionally, a weakened local district means your home value could drop.  

So, the WCASD board (and pretty much every other school board in the county) moved to protect students, staff and the wider community, despite literally insane claims that masks trapped CO and impaired breathing. There was no perfect solution — masks make it harder for kids to interact and read emotion, but actually being in school as opposed to virtual class was seen as the least bad solution…

Hence, this pathetic attempt to remove school board members from various school boards around the county, all of whom are Democrats. In short, this is a coup and an open attack on democracy. 

People like Beth Ann Rosica and the political action committee that backs her — Back to School, funded by Bucks County venture capitalist Paul Martino – don’t believe in democracy or majority rule. They are seeking to destroy our public school system to enable for-profit schools.  

In the end, it is never about some “freedom” or “parental rights” effort – it is about putting more money in the pockets of fat cats at the expense of the rest of us. It is about naked greed.

But Judge Mahon also deserves heavy criticism for his handling of this case.

He clearly misinterpreted the rules on this filing, both in terms of timing and substance. And as someone who often refused to wear a mask in his courtroom when it was required under county rules, one has to wonder exactly how impartial Mahon is in this case. 

I also question why this case wasn’t rejected out of hand…

So the whole thing should be have been tossed from the get go…

Bottom line: even if Mahon rules against the school board members, it is highly likely that the Commonwealth Court would immediately issue a stay and reverse the decision – both because of law and common sense. 

If this is sustained, Republican members of school boards will be subject to the same treatment – wasting public funds and time — and creating chaos. 

If a handful of people — 10 petition signers and a judge — can overturn thousands of votes, not because of misconduct, but because of policy disagreement, we no longer have a representative democracy. 

We have mob rule. 

This must not stand.

MORE AT: 

Move to remove WCASD board members is an attack on democracy

Apr 3rd, 2022 · 0 Comment

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times

It’s obvious what Putin is doing now. Alexander Vindman nailed Russian strategy 3 years ago. He is an important voice in Russia & China vs U.S. NATO & diplomatic strategy. “We now have an opportunity to prevent genocide in Ukraine.”

President Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “do him a favor” dig up dirt on Hunter Biden. And that Trump would withhold Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles if President Zelenskyy refused. The very same Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles that made it possible for the Ukrainian Army to stop the Russians. 

“In a phone conversation with Haaretz this weekend, Vindman – an Iraq War veteran who immigrated to the United States from Ukraine with his siblings and father at age 3, said the then-U.S. president had been “really cheerleading for Vladimir Putin – in everything from taking Putin’s perspective on election interference to dividing NATO.” This created an atmosphere of “hyperpolarization in the U.S. political establishment, which suggested that the United States was weak and distracted,” he added.

“It was a hands-off policy under the Trump administration, after the scandal and all the way into the Biden administration,” he said, claiming that the January 6 attack on the U.S. Congress also gave Putin the impression that America was too distracted with internal problems to thwart Russia’s ambitions in Eastern Europe.

Vindman called it “a particularly important milestone in [Putin’s] decision to go after Ukraine, due to the Russian perspective that Ukraine would not garner a great deal of support when there are other bigger issues. 

“Trump was out there bandwagoning for Putin in a way that suggested the Republicans would not punish Putin for his aggression, so that half of the political elites in America would not go in heavy. That was Putin’s assumption.

This hyperpolarization “also undermined Biden’s efforts” in the days and weeks before the invasion, Vindman said, noting that some Republican lawmakers had opposed bills to fund Ukrainian forces and suspend trade with Russia and its ally Belarus.

Vindman, 46, served as director for European affairs on the NSC from July 2018 until February 2020, leaving a few months after testifying in Congress against Trump. He said he had already predicted last year that even if the United States were to apply maximum pressure to deter Russia, moving U.S. forces into Eastern Europe and levying sanctions on Moscow, it probably would not have been enough to avoid the war – “because there was just too much inertia behind it…”

Ultimately, he said, what is happening in Ukraine is “close to genocide. Putin doesn’t believe in the fact that Ukraine is a sovereign, independent state. And the idea here is: if the free world had done more to defeat Nazism in the 1930s, we wouldn’t have had the Holocaust. We now have an opportunity to prevent genocide in Ukraine.” 

MORE AT:

Home | Israel News

How D.C. Emboldened Putin, According to Key Trump Impeachment Witness

Lt. Col. (ret.) Alexander Vindman, the whistleblower from Trump's first impeachment trial, told Haaretz how U.S divisions encouraged Putin to attack Ukraine, and why Israel should adopt a tougher stance on Moscow

Sam Sokol Apr. 3, 2022 5:28 PM