Two videos on increasing Russian logistics difficulties in the Russo-Ukrainian War. First up: A video that suggests Ukraine has switched from a territory recapture strategy to an attrition strategy.
“Russia is burning whether it’s oil terminals on the Baltic and the Black Sea, factories in far-flung Siberia, or military bases in Crimea, it seems almost every day something bursts into flames in Putin’s backyard. And Ukraine is thought to be the one behind it.” It’s an open question whether structure hits in places like Siberia are Ukrainian “werewolf” teams operating behind enemy lines, or native anti-Putin/anti-war (or even anti-Russian) partisans, but the effect seems the same: Russia now has to worry about attacks to its military, transport, energy, and manufacturing infrastructure far from the frontlines in Ukraine.
Zelensky warned Putin that if Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with indiscriminate missile attacks again, Ukraine would hit back. When it did, “Ukraine struck back a fire at the electrical substation outside Moscow, plunged three districts of the capital into darkness. Water pipes also burst, leaving people freezing in their homes. The plague of accidents soon spread to the cities of Omsk and Novosibirsk, deep in Siberia, which were left without heating as temperatures fell below -2.” Actually, Omsk and Novosibirsk aren’t “deep” in Siberia, because the place is so vast there another five time zones east of there.
“Soon after attacks began on critical infrastructure, including oil refineries upon which Putin’s economy relies. To date, three refineries have been blown up or set on fire, including two which were hit by long-range Ukrainian drones. One of those the Ust-Luga oil refinery near St. Petersburg, is almost 600 miles from Ukraine.”
“Railways and factories have also been blown up or burned down at the same time the Ukrainians have stepped up their campaign against Crimea.” Naval successes we’ve covered here already skipped.
At this point the video argues that Ukraine’s strategy was to liberate Ukrainian territory, no matter the strategic value. I don’t think that was the case.
Following the “failure” of the summer offensive (I would say “limited gains”), “Ukraine is digging in and refocusing liberation of territory is no longer the main goal hitting Russia where it hurts most.”
“Ukraine knows that victory in a long war depends on two things above all else: The will of people to keep fighting, and the ability of the country to provide weapons for them to fight with, and that’s where these drone missile and sabotage attacks come in.”
It then argues (as many others have) that Crimea is Putin’s main weakness, and that losing it will cripple his prestige and ability to stay in power and continue the war.
I think there has been a shift in Ukrainian strategy, but that shift has mainly been driven by the development and availability of longer-ranged weapons Ukraine lacked earlier in the war, combined with the effects of a long-term campaign to degrade Russia air power, naval assets and SAM systems, opening up avenues for longer range strikes. Ukraine focused on attacking Russia’s logistics systems right after the Battle of Kiev was won, but now they have the capability to hit much deeper into Russia’s logistics infrastructure.
Actually, I’m surprised there haven’t been any reported attacks on the Trans-Siberian Railway, given what a long, slender link that is. A few medium-to-long range drone teams inserted into northern Kazakhstan or Mongolia could wreck real havoc on trains, lines, bridges, etc.
Next, a video from Kanal 13 (very much a pro-Ukrainian source) suggests that the war and sanctions are cratering Russia’s military industrial complex.
“The Russian military industrial complex is being destroyed because of the war against Ukraine.”
Dimitri Fidive, CEO of the Muram Machine Building Plant, wrote in an email intercepted by the activists, that inflation and the shortcomings of Russia’s bureaucratic approach prevents plants that form the country’s military industrial complex from fulfilling government orders.”
“Plants are forced to sell their goods at prices set in 2019, but are at the same time expected to purchase details at market prices and in advance.”
“The money received from the government was not enough to cover the interest on the credit that his firm would need to take out to pay its suppliers.”
“Money is tied up until the completion of the government contracts, which normally last 3 to 5 years, meaning during this time the money is effectively frozen.”
“There is a shortage of staff at the plants due to both mass mobilization and a lack of accommodation [housing] in the area.”
Hell of a way to run a railroad. One wonders how extensive these problems are with other companies in Russia’s military industrial complex
Ukraine’s strategy has shifted more in relation to the way the war developed, and the changing availability of western weapons, than any fundamental shift in strategy. It became apparent that this was going to be a war of attrition in the first year, and the question of which would break first: The west’s willingness to send Ukraine weapons, or Russia’s economy and ability to wage it’s illegal war of territorial aggression?
Nothing about that strategy has changed, only Ukraine’s greater reach to affect the latter.
Tons of Fani Willis’ crooked shenanigans come to light, Ukraine bags another warship, all those things they said the vaccine wouldn’t do it’s doing, and an anger management therapist who was very poor at his job. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Business partners of District Attorney Fani Willis’ alleged lover Nathan Wade, whom she appointed to work on the case against former President Donald Trump, made donations to her campaign before receiving lucrative contracts from her office.
Terrence Bradley, Wade’s former partner, and Christopher Campbell, his current partner, have collectively contributed more than $5,000 to Willis’ campaign, contribution disclosure reports show. Moreover, both men have each raked in tens of thousands of dollars from contracts with the district attorney’s office, according to county records.
Campbell is a partner at Wade & Campbell Firm, where he works with Wade. Bradley formerly worked with Wade at Wade, Bradley & Campbell Firm, and also represented Wade in his divorce case until Sept. 2022.
The donations add another wrinkle to Willis’ already-scrutinized relationship with Wade.
Willis was accused in a motion earlier this month by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman of benefiting from the “lucrative” contract she awarded Wade when he took her on vacations using money earned from the position. Wade filed to divorce his wife on Nov. 2, 2021, the day after his contract with the district attorney’s office began, and has earned nearly $700,000 from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office since his appointment.
More Willis shenanigans: “DA Fani Willis fired a whistleblower who informed her about the intentional misuse of federal funds and there’s audio of their conversation.”
BREAKING: @FreeBeacon has obtained audio of a whistleblower privately warning Fani Willis in 2021 that her top aide was trying to misuse federal funds.
Willis did not dispute the allegations.
56 days later, Willis fired the whistleblower and perp walked her out of the office. pic.twitter.com/YEkKIB2L5f
Resident Biden appears to be in serious trouble with black voters ahead of the 2024 election, and black lawmakers and organizers are starting to panic.
“What I’m hearing in my district is how ‘Bidenomics’ hasn’t really hit them in the pocket,” New York representative Jamaal Bowman told National Review earlier this week on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. “I need him in the barbershops. I need him on the basketball courts. I need him talking to the hip-hop community. I need him talking to the sports and athletics community to really get at what is troubling black men.”
Polling suggests Bowman is right to be concerned. Just 50 percent of black adults said they approve of Biden in a national AP-NORC poll last month — a 36-point drop from July 2021. An October Siena College/New York Times poll found that 22 percent of black voters surveyed in six competitive presidential battlegrounds say they will vote for Trump over Biden in 2024, a stunning polling shift from a reliably Democratic coalition that helped Biden win the White House in 2020. That same survey found Trump’s numbers were even higher among black men.
In the 40 years he’s spent in political activism, National Black Farmers Association president John Boyd Jr. says the Biden administration has done worse than any other administration in his lifetime in opening its doors to black voters. That lack of outreach, Boyd warns, may come back to bite him in November.
Wait, black people like jobs and safe neighborhoods and dislike inflation and illegal aliens sucking up welfare benefits? Who knew?
The U.N.’s agency for Palestinians said that it fired several employees after receiving information from Israel showing that they had taken part in the October 7 terrorist attacks. The State Department indicated that twelve U.N. employees allegedly took part in the attacks and announced that it had temporarily paused funding for the agency while it reviews the situation.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) delivers aid to Palestinians across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The U.S. is UNRWA’s largest donor, providing $343 million of its budget in 2022.
In a statement Friday morning, UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini disclosed that Israel had presented his agency with evidence of its employees’ involvement in Hamas’s massacre of Israelis.
“To protect the Agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay. Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” he said.
Sure they will. The question is why the United States ever funded UNRWA, since the funds seem to go straight into rockets and murder tunnels to kill Israeli civilians with?
The Trump administration cut off all funding to UNRWA in 2018, saying that the U.S. shoulders a disproportionate share of its budget. Blinken resumed funding to UNRWA three years later, pledging that the U.S. would seek reforms to the organization.
You know all those crazy “fringe” “conspiracy theories” about the Flu Manchu vaccine? Yeah, about that.
We found the number of myocarditis reports in VAERS after COVID-19 vaccination in 2021 was 223 times higher than the average of all vaccines combined for the past 30 years. This represented a 2500% increase in the absolute number of reports in the first year of the campaign when comparing historical values prior to 2021.
“Starbucks Employee Opposed to Unionization Sues to Declare National Labor Relations Board Unconstitutional.” “The National Labor Relations Board should not be a union boss-friendly kangaroo court run by powerful bureaucrats who exercise unaccountable power in violation of the Constitution.” This is another post-Chevron lawsuit that has the potential to completely dismantle the administrative state.
Proposition 2 allowed counties to create transportation reinvestment zones (TRZs), a power they did not previously have. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, a TRZ is a kind of tax increment financing district where a “zone is created, a base year is established, and the incremental increase in property tax revenue collected inside the zone is used to finance a project in the zone.”
The proposition did not include language about the use of increased ad valorem taxes to pay bonds or notes issued by the county in the TRZ district. A similar measure in 2011 that included such language was voted down.
“Anger management therapist loses his temper and murders a homeless man.” To be fair, the transient did try to fark with his dogs…
Woman with Master’s degree finds out that her trade school husband is quadrupling her salary with no debt.
Russia laid the groundwork for expanding its soft power across North America and Asia with a new executive order signed by Vladimir Putin last week.
The new order provides funds for the search, registration and legal protection of Russian properties abroad, including land and buildings located on the territory of the former Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
Among the areas affected by the new decree is Alaska, which was sold to the United States in 1867 and still has communities with close ties to Russia.
Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and large parts of Asia were once part of the former empire.
However, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) notes that “it is not clear what Russia’s current or historical assets consist of.”
This first of what promises to be multiple Nelsons
A second Nelson, because one simply wasn’t enough.
Evidently Putin’s continuing inability to conquer Ukraine, a former vassal state laying right next door, wasn’t enough of a humiliation for him, and he needs to pretend he can go toe-to-toe with the world’s only hyperpower to reclaim the 49th state over a century-and-and half old case of buyer’s seller’s remorse.
Another Nelson, just because.
Let’s, for the moment, set aside the distinct possibility that this declaration of suzerainty over former Soviet states not only implicitly threatens the Baltic Nations, but also Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
Basically, all the Stans.
Still, the “just wants to watch the world burn” part of me wants to see Pooty-Poot’s Russia try to conquer Alaska, if only because the American reaction to whatever half-assed misexpedition across the Bearing Strait Russia is able to launch might result in the complete seizure of the Kuril-Aleut oil fields in far eastern Siberia. Indeed, I imagine that it wouldn’t even be a week before American air power completely wrecked the fragile Transiberian Railway and Highway, making Russian forces in the far east completely SOL. At that point, an American air and sea bridge from Alaska would still provide more reliable logistical support than Russia’s long, primitive and fragile Transiberian transport network.
One wonders what purpose these vainglorious, unenforceable pronouncements are meant to serve. It’s like an eight year old building a pillow fort in the middle of the living, loudly proclaiming “Better not come in here! It’s my fort!” Only for his mother to ignore it and pick up the couch cushions because The Price Is Right is on.
Maybe no other reason than puffing up Putin’s fragile ego.
Perhaps Putin should limit himself to one unwinnable “Special Military Operation”” at a time…
The Bradley Fighting Vehicle is an infantry fighting vehicle armed with a 25mm Bushmaster autocannon that first entered service in 1981. The T-90M is Russia’s most modern fielded main battle tank (we’re not counting the still-in-development T-14 Armata), armed with a 125mm main cannon, and on paper should make mincemeat of a Bradley if it meets one in combat.
That’s not what actually happened in Ukraine. Video shows two Bradleys, each engaging a single Russian T-90M (though serially rather than in parallel), and they absolutely wreck the Russian tank.
If you just want the close-in money shot, here’s closer footage from later in the fight:
For the longer 10 minute engagement, here’s another video, which includes the end where you see the T-90Ms turret go into autorotation and the tank drive uncontrollably into a tree.
“This shows a big failure in Russian tactics here. This T-90M was operating on its own with no support from other vehicles such as BMPs, and no infantry support.” We’ve seen a whole lot of this in the last year or so of the war: atomized encounters that show no real combined-arms use on either side.
Give Ivan his due: The Russian tank took a tremendous pounding, but stayed mobile until the very end. Other videos show three crew members staggering away from the tank after the engagement.
Those 25mm tungsten depleted uranium rounds are no joke, and we have multiple reports as far back as Desert Storm of them penetrating earlier Soviet armor.
(I’ve been having hosting problems, so I’m going to publish this sucker before another problem crops up…)
The front lines in Ukraine have been static for the last few months, with Russia grinding away in Avdiivka to little effect and Ukraine having failed to effect further advances. However, there are a few snippets of interest from the ongoing cyberwar, on both sides. I thought it worth taking a look at.
Over nearly a decade, the hacker group within Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency known as Sandworm has launched some of the most disruptive cyberattacks in history against Ukraine’s power grids, financial system, media, and government agencies. Signs now point to that same usual suspect being responsible for sabotaging a major mobile provider for the country, cutting off communications for millions and even temporarily sabotaging the air raid warning system in the capital of Kyiv.
On Tuesday, a cyberattack hit Kyivstar, one of Ukraine’s largest mobile and internet providers. The details of how that attack was carried out remain far from clear. But it “resulted in essential services of the company’s technology network being blocked,” according to a statement posted by Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-UA.
Kyivstar’s CEO, Oleksandr Komarov, told Ukrainian national television on Tuesday, according to Reuters, that the hacking incident “significantly damaged [Kyivstar’s] infrastructure [and] limited access.”
“We could not counter it at the virtual level, so we shut down Kyivstar physically to limit the enemy’s access,” he continued. “War is also happening in cyberspace. Unfortunately, we have been hit as a result of this war.”
The Ukrainian government hasn’t yet publicly attributed the cyberattack to any known hacker group—nor have any cybersecurity companies or researchers. But on Tuesday, a Ukrainian official within its SSSCIP computer security agency, which oversees CERT-UA, pointed out in a message to reporters that a group known as Solntsepek had claimed credit for the attack in a Telegram post, and noted that the group has been linked to the notorious Sandworm unit of Russia’s GRU.
The pro-Ukrainian hacker group Blackjack is claiming that it breached a Moscow internet provider to seek revenge for a Russian cyberattack on Ukraine’s largest telecom company, Kyivstar.
The attack on M9com was carried out in cooperation with Ukraine’s security forces (SBU), said a source in Ukraine’s law enforcement agency who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the incident.
There isn’t much information available about the attack, and the SBU’s role in the operation. Hackers said Monday on their Telegram channel that they will reveal more details soon. So far, the only confirmation of the incident they have provided includes screenshots of the allegedly hacked systems of the internet provider.
The group also published some of the data obtained during the hack on a darknet site accessible via the Tor browser.
The time frame of the attack on M9com is unclear, but as of the time of writing, the allegedly hacked website is up and running. There has been no mention of the operator’s shutdown in the Russian media or on its official website. The company has not replied to requests for comment.
This is not the first time Ukrainian civilian hackers have allegedly cooperated with security services to attack Russian organizations. In an incident publicized in October, two groups of pro-Ukrainian hackers and the SBU claimed to have breached Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa-Bank.
The Ukrainian government’s military intelligence service says it hacked the Russian Federal Taxation Service (FNS), wiping the agency’s database and backup copies.
Following this operation, carried out by cyber units within Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence, military intelligence officers breached Russia’s federal taxation service central servers and 2,300 regional servers across Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories.
The breach led to all compromised FTS servers being infected with malware, as well as the hacking of a Russian IT company that provides FNS with data center services.
The attack also reportedly resulted in the complete deletion of configuration files crucial for the functionality of Russia’s extensive taxation system, wiping out both the main database and its backup copies
As Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) says, the repercussions of the cyberattack have been severe, causing a breakdown in communication between Moscow’s central office and the 2,300 territorial departments that also got hacked in the attack.
It has led to a virtual collapse of one of Russia’s vital governmental agencies with a significant loss of tax-related data, according to GUR, as well as tax data-related internet traffic across Russia falling into the hands of Ukraine’s military hackers, as The Record first reported.
If this is true, it will take quite some time to get tax collections up and running again. And the inability to collect taxes will severely hamper Russia’s ability to finance the war.
The Ukrainian hacker group Kiborg has made the entire client base of the Russian Alfa Bank publicly available.
Kiborg hackers, acting in collaboration with NLB hackers, gained access to the customer database in October 2023 and exposed information about 44,000 customers.
The database contains information on the names, dates of birth, phone numbers, cards and accounts of 38 million unique individuals and legal entities.
The Vazhnyye Istorii (Important Stories) website clarified that this includes over 24 million customer accounts and over 13 million more data on legal entities.
Both sides have struck cyberblows against the other, but Ukraine seems to have done more damage to Russia than vice-versa this week.
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of 2023! Iranian proxies get pounded, NGO’s help destroy the border, Democrats keep trying to remove Trump from the ballot, and thieves get a taste of their own medicine. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Not only is the Obama/Biden administration undermining American sovereignty and the rule of law by allowing a massive influx of illegal aliens, but a wide variety of NGOs, some “none political,” are also involved.
A network of NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, seems to be playing a powerful role in coordinating the large-scale invasion of illegals at the US southern border.
The new website Muckraker revealed a treasure trove of “mass migration blueprints,” handed out by NGOs across South and Central America to illegals with details about their route to the US.
“The collapse of the US southern border is the result of a carefully planned and deliberately executed industrial mass migration program,” Muckraker said.
MAP #1 – Distributed by Doctors Without Borders (Médicos Sin Fronteras in Spanish).
They seem to be taking that “Without Borders” part way too literally.
What’s becoming increasingly evident is that a network of NGOs funded partly by the US taxpayer but by other countries and corporations are covertly facilitating the invasion of illegals at the US southern border, as well as distributing them across the US into progressive metro areas.
According to an August report by progressive left-leaning media watchdog organization Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security allocated $363 million to NGOs to assist illegal aliens once in the US.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a press release one year ago detailing how “NGOs may be engaged in unlawfully orchestrating other border crossings through activities on both sides of the border, including in sectors other than El Paso.”
Once across the border, NGOs are also helping migrants with transportation across the US, such as providing seats on commercial airlines.
Also “Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona Inc.”
And speaking of Flu Manchu, here’s another fraud case. “A Georgia attorney and former City of Atlanta police officer has been convicted of fraudulently obtaining over $7 million in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, 62-year-old Shelitha Robertson from Atlanta conspired to submit PPP loan applications on behalf of four businesses she owned.”
The Real Story: “Philadelphia trans activist charged with rape of not one, but two minors.” The Newsweek Story: “Trans Activist Kendall Stephens’ Arrest Sparks MAGA Uproar.” Evidently the left feels that only MAGA Republicans should be upset at the rape of minors…
According to the Department of Emergency Management, San Francisco’s 911 call dispatchers answered just 72 percent of calls within 15 seconds in October, the latest month available. That’s the lowest share of any month in the last six years, and well short of the department’s goal to answer 95 percent of calls in 15 seconds or fewer.
Staffing is not up to the levels required, which is causing people to burn out, due to mandatory overtime. The bureaucratic hiring practice moves at a glacial pace, and so they can’t hire people to cover retirement and people just quitting due to burn out. They did raise pay some, but there is no indication if that is enough. I guess only time will tell.
The second problem that San Francisco has, in relation to 911 calls, is getting officers to the scene of a “Priority A” incident.
The slowdown in responses has contributed to broader delays San Franciscans face when trying to get help during emergency situations. The city’s typical response time to “Priority A” incidents — defined as the most urgent and serious events, like assaults-in-progress — is slower than it’s been at any point in the last eight years, increasing from about 6.5 minutes in January 2016 to nearly nine minutes this November.
Now this is the media, so there is no mention of any “defund the police” initiatives in San Francisco over the past few years.
“Since President Trump’s win in 2016, black support for him has more than tripled, now exceeding 20 percent in some surveys.” Including Mark Fisher, co-founder of a Black Lives Matter group in Rhode Island
“Two large Pizza Hut operators in California are laying off all their delivery drivers ahead of a new state law that raises the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour, Business Insider reports.” Good work, Democrats!
Grocery store manager Gatzke told Bild that the thieves who steal huge bags full of items are usually migrants, with around a third of them being Tunisian.
During one incident at the Edeka supermarket in Regensburg, a man stole €140 euros worth of goods, while the manager has also tried to stop thieves stealing groceries worth €300 euros.
“In the bag were spirits: vodka and liqueurs again. They are Muslims — did they want to resell the alcohol?” asked Gatzke.
“What do you need 10 sea bream and so many shrimp for? Nobody steals that because they’re hungry,” he added.
Gatzke noted that the culprits even steal shopping bags worth up to €2.50 euros.
However, he was denounced as a “racist” for complaining about the mass looting and subsequently criticized by Ferat Koçak, a member of the Berlin House of Representatives for The Left party.
Siding with the criminals, Koçak suggested that the migrants were “entitled” to steal because the government wasn’t giving them enough free money in welfare payments.
Some interesting artillery usage data, via reader Kirk”
Russian tremendous artillery advantage at beginning of war (65k shells/day) down to about 1/10 of that, while Ukraine advantage in platforms & counter battery has grown significantly. Then,… pic.twitter.com/Ak6o0hJmpv
Nothing says “Republican” quite like having Democrats do fundraising for you. “Dade Phelan Fundraiser Hosted by Liberals. Former House Speaker Joe Straus and former Democrat nominee for lieutenant governor Leticia Van de Putte are among those raising cash for Phelan.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a $700 million settlement with Google over anticompetitive practices.
According to the settlement, Google must pay $630 million in restitution—minus costs and fees—to consumers who made purchases on the Google Play Store between August 2016 and September 2023 and were harmed by Google’s anticompetitive practices.
Paxton secured the settlement alongside attorneys general from all 49 other states as well as the District of Columbia, and the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
would like to share the happiest Christmas memory of my childhood with you, an experience that shaped the young adult and the man I would become as much as any book or teacher ever would. I was accidentally given an inestimable gift – one which unwittingly dared me to grow intellectually and culturally so that I could be properly worthy of it, and which has since comforted me through endless long subsequent years of disappointment, heartache, personal growth, and triumph. And there’s no better time to write about it than during a season of joy. So if you will graciously permit me, on this Christmas Eve 2023 I’d like to take you back to the “not-too-distant future.”
On Christmas Eve 1991, my father suggested we should watch a cassette of an obscure TV show his friend at work had taped off a then-obscure cable channel called Comedy Central a few days before. “A guy and some robots make fun of bad movies” was how he described the premise. Since my dad and I had been talking back to films from the safety of our family-room couch for years already while watching B-movie schlock like USA Up All Night, it was at least something to do. (11-year-olds do not otherwise have a long list of entertainment options.)
Although my dad couldn’t possibly have intended it, what happened next altered the course of my life, and profoundly for the better: I was exposed to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K for short) for the first time. And “exposed” is the right word; the experience was as instantly catalyzing a moment for me as a rapid chemical reaction. It was the Christmas episode from a few days earlier, and the show was mocking something called Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
“I’ll never forget how comforted MST3K made me feel from that exact moment onward, comforted that there were people out there who had my sense of humor – only they were vastly more funny than me.”
God bless us, each and every one…
“North Carolina has a law that allows people to do practically whatever they want to the official state marsupial.” Which would be the possum. And it only applies five days a year. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
It appears the model Denmark, Norway and Netherlands all have is F-16AM/BM Block 15 MLU, which means they’re pretty old F-16s (bad), but were all upgraded (good), but the upgrades arrived in 1996 (not exactly bad, but not great either).
I would expect them to beat the snot out of anything manufactured in the Soviet Union, hold their own against the Su-30 (and possibly the Su-34, of which the Russians have lost a considerable number), maybe get edged by the Su-35 (though maybe not; that platform has had a lot of teething problems), and should theoretically be outclassed by the Su-57, which on paper is a thoroughly modern fighter aircraft with stealth capability (assuming the Russians will even let it go up against a near peer aircraft; they’ve seemed to use it very sparingly after the early stages of the war). And given the NATO country origins, expect all to be better maintained than their Russian counterparts.
This quick and dirty comparison analysis, of course, assumes that said planes will be engaged in dogfighting, which we’ve seen precious little of since the opening days of the war. Indeed, the aerial environment has become so deadly in Ukraine that neither side ventures much in airspace controlled by the other, and the favored Russian ground support tactic seems to be to fly up just short of the front live, release dumb munitions in an arc calculated to have it come down someone in the general vicinity of the enemy forces, then hightail it home and call it a day.
Ukraine getting F-16s would make Russian air activity near the front line even less likely, with AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles and their 60 mile range offering a real threat to splash anything that gets near the contested territory.
While the lethality of the airspace over Russian-held territory will also discourage too much direct sorties against Russian forces (at least at first), the AGM-88 HARM missile would considerably speed up the destruction of Russian anti-aircraft systems.
Russia’s S-400 system (their answer to Patriot) is probably good enough to shoot down the pre-stealth F-16, but Ukraine has had some success in destroying those systems. A squadron of F-16s launched from Odessa is easily within strike range of Sevastopol, and either JDAMs or Harpoons would be enough to sink whatever is left of the Black Sea Fleet that Russia has foolishly left there. And Harpoon-armed F1-6s on regular patrol would probably be enough to deny use of the northwest Black Sea to all of Russia’s surface fleet.
With enough degradation of Russia’s air defense systems, Ukraine might be able to achieve local air superiority in regions like Kherson, which could prove very valuable in future offensives.
A final advantage: With over 4,000 F-16s built, spare parts should be readily available to keep them flying.
Some 50-100 F-16s in Ukraine’s arsenal probably wouldn’t be the game changer that, say, HIMARS and ATACMS have proven, but they might be enough to shift the balance of power top further erode Russia’s hold over illegally seized Ukrainian territory.
Imagine a timeline in which Russia became a normal country.
Imagine, instead of Putin and a corrupt oligarchy, that Russia had a functioning democracy and a viable economy. It wouldn’t need to be perfect, just something as functional as that seen in, say, Poland or Hungary. There would still be controversies and scandals, but Russia wouldn’t be an international pariah, and would still be fully plugged into the global trade system.
And a normal country wouldn’t have launched an illegal war of territorial aggression against Ukraine.
In such a timeline, old Russian foes Finland and Sweden would never see the need to join NATO. And Russia wouldn’t be getting U.S. bases right on its border.
The US will gain access to 15 military bases along the border with Russia under a defence deal to be signed with Finland next week.
Russia would regard the presence of Nato infrastructure near its borders as a threat, said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.
“This will certainly lead to tension. We can only regret this,” Mr Peskov said.
The treaty must be approved by Finland’s parliament.
Elina Valtonen, the country’s foreign minister, will be present in Washington during the signing to meet Antony Blinken, the United States secretary of state.
Washington signed a similar pact with Sweden on Dec 6 that gives the US access to 17 military bases.
Concerns raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led both Finland and Sweden to abandon their military non-alignment and apply for membership in the Nato.
Finland joined in April, while Sweden is still waiting for its bid to be ratified by Nato members Hungary and Turkey.
To be sure, the U.S. already has some access to the military bases of NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But Finland is much larger than all three combined, and has a vast border with Russia. And the Finns, as I’ve noted before, are no pushovers, having fought the Soviet Union to stalemate during The Winter War.
And now you add American force projection to Finland, and there chances of Russia securing its vast northern flank in any potential war against NATO is essentially nil. Plus it puts St. Petersburg at risk of being captured in a swift pincer movement.
And with real U.S. Air Force support, Russia will be completely incapable of establishing or maintaining air superiority. Ukraine has already made it prohibitively dangerous for Russian aircraft to overfly their territory. How well do you think Ivan will fare when he has to go up against F-22s and F-35s? (And yes, there are already F-22s in Estonia. And Finland and Poland already have F-35s on order.)
Of course, Russia could have avoided all this by not launching an illegal war of territorial aggression in Ukraine. But that would require it being a normal country, which is evidently too much to ask…
Israel has begun the process of flooding the network of tunnels beneath Gaza in an effort to flush out the impacted Hamas assets lodged there, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. The Israeli military operation has so far involved the installation of seven massive pumps and testing the process of flooding the Hamas holes with water from the Mediterranean Sea, and now the great enema has begun in earnest.
“Israeli officials say that Hamas’s underground system has been key to its operations on the battlefield,” explains WSJ. “The tunnel system, they say, is used by Hamas to maneuver fighters across the battlefield and store the group’s rockets and munitions, and enables the group’s leaders to command and control their forces. Israel also believes some hostages are being held inside tunnels.”
The tunnel system has been dug throughout much of Gaza and is also active at the Egyptian border, the crossing at which Hamas militants smuggle many of their weapons into Gaza. It is a critical infrastructure for the terrorists’ ability to continue to wage their bloody war against the only democracy in the region. Remove the network of tunnels from the table, and you severely cripple that ability.
Thanks to Home Alone and Irish we know that a particular cart of groceries went from $19.83 in 1990 to $77.28 today.
389.7% inflation over 33 years.
Annualized, that’s just 4.208% inflation, since the goal is 3%, that doesn’t seem so bad.
The problem is that cart of goods was $44.40 last year. That’s an annual inflation of 2.4755% from 1990 to 2022. Below the Fed’s desired rate, good for us, bad for the national debt.
That means we had 174% inflation in one fucking year.
A common problem, one that well pre-dates the invasion of Ukraine, is that we have shockingly well credentialed people of influence from both parties who have an inability to understand that Russians are not Westerners. They don’t think like Westerners, though they may look like them.
The Russians have a distinct culture, history, and view of themselves and their place in history. The underperforming political, military, and diplomatic elite in the West – with few exceptions outside the former Warsaw Pact nations now in NATO – expect Russians to react in the same way and to the same degree to the incentives and disincentives that move needles and preferences in DC and Brussels.
Time is always on the side of Russia, which is one of the reasons the slow rolling of weapons to Ukraine has been an exercise of malpractice of the highest degree. You are either in or out.
Two years on, “we” still are not sending a clear signal. It is amazing, really; in military might, GDP, demographics and a whole host of other reasons, Russia should not be as resilient as they are … which is why DC & Brussels are being played so hard. They still do not understand Russia.
Even after 1,000 years of experience, we have Western leaders who refuse to believe that the Russians are fundamentally different than the West is in the 21st Century. You can’t put the cultural ability to absorb damage and brutal patience you cannot see in some metric that can go on a PPT slide.
What the Russians lack in so many other places, they make up for here. As such, this critical part of understanding Russian motivation keeps being missed. Yes to their economy and apocalyptic demographics. Yes to all that.
For all the reasons Russia continues to fight, so too do their Ukrainian brothers – demonstrating greater resilience and endurance that Western expectations.
The time for leaving Ukraine to its fate is long past. Yes, the West has a short attention span and is suffering under the dead hand of entrenched leaders with a defeatist mindset – but none of this is written.
Ukraine can still win – or at least something that can be called a win. It would help if the Russians had some internal issues that required more attention that Ukraine, but even then – all is not worth shrugging over.
Yes, I’ve seen the math – the metrics – but war is informed by math, but not defined within it.
At a relatively modest cost in our treasure and almost none of our blood, we are wearing down Russia’s ability to project power for a generation, perhaps two. Perhaps many more generations should demographic instability mate with political instability. The Ukrainians – facing the same economic and demographic challenges as the Russians – are up for the fight. There is no reason for more comfortable nations who have supported them so far to go wobbly at half-time.
“FBI Official Who Helped Launch Trump-Russia Probe Sentenced to Four Years in Prison for Work with Russian Oligarch…In August, Charles McGonigal, a 22-year veteran of the bureau’s field office in New York, was found guilty of a count of conspiracy for working with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.”
Jagged Little Pill is now 28 years old. I don’t think I’ve listened to it for the last 27.
Texas Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) has won a resounding victory over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18) in a runoff election for mayor of Houston, carrying the race by 64 percentage points according to election results.
“Voters have spoken and I am humbly grateful to the people of Houston for electing me as their next mayor,” said Whitmire in a statement.
The election results largely mirrored the latest polling in the race where Whitmire maintained a lead over Jackson Lee, especially in runoff scenarios where negative perceptions of the congresswoman indicated many voters who had supported one of the other 18 candidates in the first round would likely move strongly towards Whitmire. Polls also indicated crime and public safety were among the top concerns for Houstonians — an issue on which Whitmire, as the longtime chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, held a distinct advantage over Jackson Lee.
I didn’t follow that race closely because it’s been obvious for a long time that Lee simply isn’t very bright, something even the lefty sorts at the Daily Beast noticed.
In the Democratic-leaning Houston, Republican-backed candidates have slightly increased their presence on the 16-member city council with the help of the local party, outreach efforts into minority communities, and campaign efforts from conservative organizations.
According to unofficial election results, candidates Julian Ramirez, Willie Davis, and Twila Carter all won runoff elections for At-Large Positions 1, 2, and 3, and incumbent Mary Nan Huffman handily fended off a challenge from attorney Tony Buzbee for District G. The victors will join incumbent Amy Peck, who ran unopposed for District A, and Fred Flickinger, who won the District E seat on Election Day last month.
Each of the five contested candidates have enjoyed the support of the Harris County Republican Party (HCRP), the Republican Party of Texas, and groups like the Kingwood Tea Party.
Pundits frequently forget that not so long ago, Houston was a Republican stronghold. Ted Cruz won Harris County (albeit it narrowly) in 2012, and Greg Abbott carried it in 2014.
“Elon Musk took another shot at Disney CEO Bob Iger Thursday, after the state of New Mexico sued Meta for allegedly enabling child sexual abuse and trafficking – yet Disney and other woke advertisers, who paused advertising on X in a kneejerk reaction to claims of antisemitism – apparently have no problem when it comes to the sexual exploitation of minors.”
A black scholar Harvard President Claudine Gay plagerized is plenty pissed off.
One of the academics who was plagiarized, former professor Carol Swain, is pissed after Harvard gave Gay a pass on what would have resulted in severe punishment and/or expulsion for anyone else, as Townhall’s Christopher Rufo reports.
“I rarely get angry, but I am angry,” Swain wrote on X. “[R]ight now about the racial double standards that are TEMPORARILY giving #ClaudineGay an opportunity to resign. White progressives created her and white progressives are protecting her. The rest of us have had to work our rear ends off to achieve success. Some get it handed to them.”
Rufo interviewed Swain, who said that the plagiarism went far beyond a few paragraphs – and that Gay’s “whole research agenda, her whole career, was based on my work.”
“She became president of Harvard and got recognition as being its first black president. I don’t believe her record warranted tenure, and I believe that I had to meet a much higher standard than she did,” she told Rufo, adding “Something changed in the mid-1990s, [when] we were having a big affirmative action debate.”
Rufo asked Swain what she thought would happen to a white person under these circumstances, to which she replied “A white male would probably already be gone.”
Harvard announced that Gay would keep her job after a week of calls for her ouster, first, regarding her refusal to condemn calls for violence against Jews on campus, and then, after the plagiarism accusations broke. Despite a donor revolt spearheaded by billionaire Bill Ackman, a petition signed by 700 faculty members on Gay’s behalf won in the end.
Biden family corruption tops this week’s LinkSwarm (with a lot of links to go through), Juicy heads back to jail, and the Houthi’s tug on Superman’s cape.
A corporation owned and controlled by Hunter Biden made several direct monthly payments to President Biden beginning in 2018, according to bank records released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday.
The subpoenaed bank records obtained by National Review reveal Owasco PC established a monthly payment of $1,380 to President Biden beginning in September 2018. The committee says the payments establish a direct benefit Biden received from his family’s foreign business dealings, despite Biden’s claims that he has never benefitted from or been involved in his son’s ventures.
“This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” House Oversight chairman James Comer says in a new video detailing the findings. “At this moment, Hunter Biden is under an investigation by the Department of Justice for using Owasco PC for tax evasion and other serious crimes.”
Comer says the payments “are part of a pattern revealing Joe Biden knew about, participated in, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes.”
“As the Bidens received millions from foreign nationals and companies in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan, Joe Biden dined with his family’s foreign associates, spoke to them by speakerphone, had coffee, attended meetings, and ultimately received payments that were funded by his family’s business dealings,” the committee added in a press release.
It was unclear based on the bank records how many monthly payments were made, but a source familiar with the committee’s probe said investigators had discovered at least three payments.
Last week, the committee released an email from a bank money-laundering investigator who expressed serious concerns about a transfer of funds from China that ultimately trickled down to President Biden in the form of a $40,000 check from his brother, James Biden.
Biden received a $40,000 personal check from an account shared by his brother, James Biden, and sister-in-law, Sara Biden, in September 2017 — money that was marked as a “loan repayment.” The alleged repayment was sent after funds were filtered from Northern International Capital, a Chinese company affiliated with the Chinese energy firm CEFC, through several accounts related to Hunter Biden and eventually down to the personal account shared by James and Sara Biden.
Northern International Capital sent $5 million to Hudson West III, a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong on August 8.
On the same day, Hudson West III then sent $400,000 to Owasco, P.C., an entity owned and controlled by Hunter Biden. Six days later, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall Group, a company owned by James and Sara Biden. Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall Group on August 28 and then deposited the funds into her and her husband’s personal checking account later that day.
On September 3, 2017, Sara Biden wrote a check to Joe Biden for $40,000.
An unidentified bank investigator sent an email on June 26, 2018 to colleagues raising concerns about money sent from Hudson West III to Owasco P.C. The email said the $5 million in funds sent from Northern International Capital to Hudson West III were primarily used to fund 16 wire transfers totaling more than $2.9 million to Owasco PC. The wires were labeled as management fees and reimbursements.
Joe Biden used several email aliases to regularly correspond with Hunter Biden’s business partner in recent years, including while he was serving as vice president, a GOP-controlled House committee leading the Republican impeachment inquiry revealed Tuesday.
IRS whistleblowers Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley provided the eleven-page log of emails ahead of a closed-door hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday. The document includes metadata associated with emails sent to and from Joe Biden’s alias email addresses from 2010 to 2019, though it does not include the content of those emails.
In total, Joe Biden exchanged 327 emails with Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, the founding partner and managing director of Hunter’s defunct Rosemont Seneca Partners investment firm. Fifty-four of those emails were sent directly to Schwerin, while the rest included other parties. Out of the 327 emails logged in the document, 291 were sent during Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency. Joe Biden’s email aliases included “robinware456,” “JRBware” and “RobertLPeters.”
“Through months of testifying for hours and producing hundreds of pages of documentation, and just as many months of baseless attacks against them, their story has remained the same and their credibility intact. The same cannot be said for President Biden,” committee chairman Jason Smith (R., Mo.) said in a statement.
“So far, our witnesses have produced over eleven-hundred pages of evidence, sat for 14 hours of closed-door testimony with counsel from the majority and minority on this committee, testified publicly before the Oversight Committee, and today, have provided us with new evidence.”
Smith also emphasized that much of the email correspondence between Joe Biden and Schwerin occurred around the then-vice president’s June 2014 trip to Ukraine.
Hunter Biden received a whopping $4.9 million from Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris in a three-year period, according to an IRS agent who investigated the president’s son for alleged tax evasion.
The revelation signifies a substantial increase in the known amount that Hunter, 53, got from his so-called “sugar brother” after the men reportedly met for the first time at a December 2019 campaign fundraiser.
IRS agent Joseph Ziegler shared the jaw-dropping figure and additional documentation Tuesday with the House Ways and Means Committee in a follow-up appearance as House Republicans near an expected vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden for his alleged role in his family’s foreign dealings.
Prior reporting indicated Morris paid about $2 million in tax debts for Hunter and purchased some of his novice artworks.
Morris’ motives for helping the first son financially and the authenticity of their friendship have been debated by Republicans.
As part of his Tuesday testimony, Ziegler provided legislators an email showing that as early as Feb. 7, 2020 — two months after they met — Morris was contacting accountants on Hunter’s behalf and warning them to work quickly to avoid “considerable risk personally and politically.”
Ziegler, who investigated Hunter’s taxes for five years before he was removed from the case this year, said the first son’s income from Morris — at least some of it deemed loans — resembled Hunter’s practice of trying to avoid paying taxes on other income by describing it as loans.
And after the hundreds of stories of Hunter Biden’s corruption, and his key role in funneling foreign money into his father’s hands, Hunter has finally been indicted on nine criminal counts.
An American warship and several commercial ships faced attacks in the Red Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said.
“We’re aware of reports regarding attacks on the USS Carney and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and will provide information as it becomes available,” the Pentagon said.
A U.S. official told the Associated Press the attack began around 10 a.m. in Sanaa, Yemen, and lasted five hours.
Officials did not say where the attacks may have come from.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched several attacks in the Red Sea in recent weeks and has launched drones and missiles toward Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
Texas is suing the Biden Administration yet again, this time over imposing censorship.
The Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed a joint lawsuit, along with co-plaintiff media outlets The Daily Wire and The Federalist, against the U.S. Department of State, alleging the federal government both directly and indirectly violated the First Amendment rights of certain online news outlets by placing them on a censorship “blacklist.”
According to the OAG, the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleges an office within the state department known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC) was used to “limit the reach and business viability of domestic news organizations by funding censorship technology and private censorship enterprises.”
The stated purpose of the GEC is to lead the federal government’s effort to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda” and disinformation efforts that pose a risk to the United States or influence the government’s policies.
However, the plaintiffs argue the GEC was weaponized to “violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech.”
In short, the lawsuit describes how the government created multiple censorship programs that worked to de-platform, shadowban, discredit, and demonize certain American media outlets.
It argues that some of these mechanisms were not just surveillance tools for the government to monitor and identify potential propaganda and disinformation, but rather characterized the technology that had been developed as “tools of warfare” used to shape opinions and perceptions that had been “misappropriated and misdirected to be used at home against domestic political opponents and members of the American press with viewpoints conflicting with federal officials.”
“Media Plaintiffs each face blacklisting, reduced advertising revenue, reduced potential growth, reputational damage, economic cancellation, reduced circulation of reporting and speech, and social media censorship — all as a direct result of Defendants’ unlawful conduct,” the lawsuit states.
“I am proud to lead the fight to save Americans’ precious constitutional rights from Joe Biden’s tyrannical federal government,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a news release announcing the lawsuit.
“The State Department’s mission to obliterate the First Amendment is completely un-American. This agency will not get away with their illegal campaign to silence citizens and publications they disagree with.”
“Those government-funded, government-promoted censorship technologies and enterprises targeted conservative media outlets, including The Daily Wire,” Ben Shapiro said in a video statement released regarding the lawsuit. Shapiro is the editor emeritus of The Daily Wire.
“Their goal is to paint us as unreliable and therefore to push advertisers away from advertising on programs like this one, websites like The Daily Wire, websites like The Federalist, that is an ongoing problem that is being pushed by the state department,” he said.
Back to jail for Juicy. Nate the Lawyer offers a good overview of the twists and turns of the case. I had forgotten that he had paid his “attackers” with a personal check…
The F-117 Nighthawk was retired in 2008. Or was it?
the Belarus Red Cross Society is suspended from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The suspension is the result of noncompliance by the Belarus Red Cross with the request for the dismissal of Mr. Dimitry Shevtsov, Secretary General of the National Society. This follows the decision of the IFRC’s Governing Board of 3 October 2023 relating to the investigation into the allegations against Belarus Red Cross Secretary General for his statements, including on nuclear weapons and on the movement of children to Belarus, and his visit to Luhansk and Donetsk.
The suspension means that the Belarus Red Cross loses its rights as a member of the IFRC. Any new funding to the Belarus Red Cross will also be suspended.
“Governor Greg Abbott is keeping the endorsements rolling, announcing his support for Marc LaHood for Texas House. LaHood, an attorney from San Antonio, is challenging State Rep. Steve Allison (R–San Antonio), who was elected to the House in 2018 to replace retiring House Speaker Joe Straus. Since then, Allison has consistently had one of the most liberal voting records among his Republican colleagues.”
The Walt Disney Co. effectively controlled the local government around the site of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for decades in what an extensive review by the state government calls “the most egregious exhibition of corporate cronyism in modern American history.”
After Disney bought the land that would become its massive amusement park and resort, it received permission from the Florida Legislature and governor in 1967 to create a local government, the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
From that time until Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Feb. 27 abolishing the Reedy Creek district, Disney heavily influenced the local government to its advantage, according to a new report Monday from the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.
The legislation signed into law by DeSantis, a Republican, transformed the Reedy Creek district into the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which aims to root out what critics see as Disney’s corrupt hold over the local government.
In the report, a copy of which was provided early to The Daily Signal, the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District claims that “Disney not just controlled the Reedy Creek Improvement District, but did so by effectively purchasing loyalty.”
Although the Reedy Creek district was a separate entity from the Walt Disney Co., the district treated its employees as if they were Disney employees, sometimes referred to as “cast members,” and awarded them lavish perks unavailable to the general public.
The new Florida government report used the expertise of George Mason University Professor Donald J. Kochan in governance; William Jennings at Delta Consulting Group in accounting; the consulting firm Kimley-Horn for engineering; and Public Resources Advisory Group Managing Director Wendell Gaertner for public finance.
The report notes: “Disney effectively bribed RCID employees (and retirees, members of the [RCID] Board of Supervisors, and vendor VIPs) by showering them with company benefits and perks: millions of dollars’ worth of annual passes to theme parks worldwide, 40% discounts on cruises, free transferable single-use tickets during the holiday season, steep discount on merchandise, marked discounts on food and beverage, and access to non-public shopping reserved for Disney cast members (where merchandise was greatly discounted and items were made available that were otherwise not available for public purchase).”
