Advanced Incompetence

by

The grim and cynical judgment is that advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from deliberate malice. I am certain that grimmer and more cynical commenters than me have long since concluded that the advanced and mind-boggling incompetence of the Biden Administration is indeed indistinguishable from deliberate malice, at least as far as results are concerned. The staggering increase in the price of gas at the pump is the one thing that almost everyone, save the impossibly-out-of-sight-rich are feeling. When the price leapfrogs twenty cents a gallon from one day to the next, it excites notice from ordinary people, who need to drive to the jobs that they still have. And what is the barely sentient vegetable in the White House, or the individuals who are manipulating his strings doing about all that? Essentially nothing, save lip service and pointless gestures.

They want gas prices to go sky-high. No, that’s the take-away. In their fantasy-world, having the price at the pump be equivalent to prices at European pumps will move us all gently, painlessly, and inexorably towards driving electric cars, (and living in high-rise prole cubes in big cities, and eating protein derived from bugs) never mind that the tech and infrastructure to support that kind of thing isn’t even remotely possible, now or ever.

Nope the Biden administration wants us unbiddable red-state, fly-over proles to suffer, to grind us all into the dirt. They want this, they are panting for it, orgasmically. Mostly because we don’t and won’t do what they order us to do, and so we must be punished for disobedience.

Sad it is to be living in this decade watching the great and daring experiment of a democratic republic by and for the ordinary citizens, instead of a small, powerful elite, being taken down by those who have been the privileged beneficiaries of sixty and more years of peace and security; spoiled and corrupted children in a tantrum, destroying it all from within. It’s all too easy, lashing out, little knowing or caring that a high degree of social trust in a society can be readily destroyed and almost impossible to rebuild. When cities become crime-ridden hellholes, and the grocery store shelves empty out because the trucks aren’t running (because fuel is impossible to find and afford) and the farmers have had to cut back because fertilizer, insecticides and fuel are in short supply it will be too late for anything but regrets.

It’s not much better in other countries, either if this and similar reports have any substance, farmers in the Netherlands are in open revolt over government edicts dictating reduction in number of farms by a third in the next eight years. This in the wake of predictions that the war in the Ukraine will set off a world-wide famine in any case; which makes this the best time in the world to pour more gasoline on a bonfire. This move apparently has something to do with reducing nitrogen pollution and also cutting back on the availability of meat, poultry, and dairy for ordinary people. This is going over about as well as can be expected a third of the people in agricultural enterprises being told that they’re going to be thrown out of business on the basis of sketchy science, and consumers being told to subsist on gruel and bugs. The elite don’t care, secure in their protected bubble of privilege. They want this disaster because of the environment or something, and care very little for the results that everyone else can clearly see coming. Discuss as you wish. We might as well, since the major news media outlets seem to be avoiding any mention of famine, revolt, burgeoning civic unrest and violent crime committed by the favored constituencies.

196 thoughts on “Advanced Incompetence”

  1. I think the defining moment is coming soon and will happen in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. The Cabal propping up Biden has now pushed the EPA into using their regulatory power to shut down oil production there. It remains to be seen if Governor Abbott will defy them and send the Rangers and the Guard in to stop the Feds attempt to shut down 40% of the American oil production. I do not expect the courts to stop it as ozone is a specifically mentioned pollutant as per current law. I do not see the demoncrap governor of New Mexico to do anything but wring her hands and mouth insincere platitudes.

  2. I suspect let them eat bugs will work out even worse than let them eat cake.

    I further suspect these regimes- including that of the United States- are already dead, they just haven’t fallen over yet.

    At some point the mental calculus is going to change from expecting a return to the status quo ante to concluding that it will never come back- including by police and other minions of the regime.

    That is, those minions will go from expecting the Davosie regimes will always be there to keep them safe from the bug-eating mobs to noticing that they’re massively outnumbered by people that they’ve trained to hate their guts.

    In other words, I think it’s time for Dutch policemen to think long and hard about the wisdom of shooting unarmed farmers.

  3. A possibility, Joe. I know that there will be an explosion – a clash between state law enforcement authorities and the federals is almost inevitable. Over what and where, is the only question. Sustainable energy isn’t, and the more that people have their lives adversely affected, the angrier they will be.

  4. It remains to be seen if Governor Abbott will defy them and send the Rangers and the Guard in to stop the Feds attempt to shut down 40% of the American oil production.

    I suspect Abbott has neither the guts nor the wisdom to do such a thing. Cometh the hour, cometh the man- and that man ain’t Abbott.

    I’m obviously not a fan of him, so in fairness I should allow that openly defying the DC regime in such a way is a sort of Rubicon that should not be crossed lightly, and then only after making a case to the public as to exactly why it is being done.

    Bluntly, the hour has not yet arrived, although I expect it will arrive soon.

    But I see no ability or willingness in Abbott to make such a case, ever. At best he would go to court, lose, then loudly proclaim nothing can be done.

    And start sending out fundraising emails. Thumbs down.

  5. It’s a combination, I think. They (lefties, globalists, etc.) are intentionally destroying the entire system, so there’s the deliberate malice. They think they can do so with maintaining the overall wealth in the system, and there’s the incompetence part. They’re morons, and are too stupid to know what they’re doing. Justin Trudeau’s father was a thug, but he is a hapless moron. There is very very little intelligence on display in anything he has ever done. Joe Biden is almost certainly the most undistinguished and unintelligent man ever to become president. His advisors and cabinet officials wouldn’t have been higher than clerks in any previous administration.
    As has been said many times, their plans can’t possibly work, so we should be optimistic, but they’re going to cause immense damage and death and destruction before their plans collapse.

  6. When Nazism and Communism were on the horizon in Germany and Russia, a few far-sighted individual halfway predicted the hells that would rise to consume both nations (“Russia would be governed by such crocodiles as to make the Inquisition seem mild”).

    No one foresaw the both nations would return to the days of Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane, the days of war deliberately brutal and bloodthirsty and of the massacre of whole populations.

    By that light I think your prediction is far too mild. Reality will be far worse than anything you or I can conceive.

  7. There is a point at which incompetence is difficult to distinguish from malice. Yes, but the events that followed Biden’s inauguration seem to be evidence of the magic world in which his voters (the real ones) live. There is no possibility that an infrastructure capable of supplying the electricity for electric cars and trucks could be constructed in the next 50 years. Had the greenies been supporting nuclear power, I might believe they were sincere, even if naive. They have not so it seems that destruction of civilization may be their aim. Why ? First, the country and many western countries are run by lawyers. Those are mostly people who did not take math in school. Maybe it is a simple as that.

  8. “There is no possibility that an infrastructure capable of supplying the electricity for electric cars and trucks could be constructed in the next 50 years”
    My small town has put in a dozen of so charging stations in a few parking lots. I have of course never once seen anyone use them. This isn’t exactly hybrid central. And electricity rates have basically doubled here in the past year, as well. Now they’re talking about putting in tens of thousands of acres of solar arrays in our region. The divorce from reality is breathtaking.

  9. “Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.”
    — neither Arthur C. Clarke nor Robert J. Hanlon

  10. There is no possibility that an infrastructure capable of supplying the electricity for electric cars and trucks could be constructed in the next 50 years

    I have done the calculations using the 2019 gasoline/diesel usage in the US. We would have to build over 3000 1200 MW nukes just for us alone. This is beyond the combined industrial capacity of the entire planet just to build them. Staffing the operations, maintenance, and engineering needs for each plant is another nightmare. Just for grins I calculated how many 4 MW windmills it would take – over 6,000,000 Condor Cuisinarts would be required.

  12. All of these things are coming to a head soon; economics, agriculture, energy. But politics are too. We have the last general election that was/is regarded as having been stolen by at least a quarter of the electorate and growing. The regime installed by that election is responsible for those things coming to a head . . . and the suffering that is impending.

    In 4 months we have another general election, albeit just Congressional. The means used in the apparent theft two years ago have NOT been corrected. The Leftists in power are only barely in power in each house of Congress. Given that polling is consistent in showing that the group of fools, miscreants, maladroits, and unindicted co-conspirators in office both in the Executive and Legislative are rated somewhere below canine feces in popularity it would be expected that there would be a change of control of Congress. Not that the Institutional Republicans will do all that much, of which more below.

    If there is NOT a change in control of Congress, and not just a marginal one, then it is reasonable to assume the electoral methods are constant between the last general election and the one coming in November. And the question about Malice -v- Incompetence would seem to be settled. With all that implies about a Hobbesian Social Contract.

    If there is a major shift in control . . . and the Republicans do their usual splitting of the difference between diddly and squat to try to fix things, there are similar implications.

    Earlier today on another site the discussion centered about how, given the lack of depth on the Democrat bench, the Democrats were going to replace President* Biden and when. The consensus there seemed to be that he would stay in at least until the November elections were over, but there disagreement as to when after that and with who. Or with what, since genitals, melatonin content, and copulative preferences seem to be the prime qualifiers in their leadership.

    I tossed something out there, and I will repeat it here for the sake of discussion:

    “Therefore the replacement will be couched in terms of an “previously inconceivable and unprecedented state of emergency that the Founding Fathers did not anticipate” that will require replacing Biden immediately by someone that they do not have time to run through the normal constitutional and electoral processes. Fortunately [as per the Democrats] they can be trusted to pick and place in office someone who can be trusted to handle things if they are granted full power to rule by decree for the state of emergency. And they promise that as soon as it is safe to do so, that they will return to constitutional rule and elections. Like the 2020 elections. Cross their hearts. And since this is so unprecedented, they will have to suppress any opposition to the decrees with whatever force is necessary to ensure compliance.

    You may laugh, but those thoughts are working better than Viagra on most Democrats reading this.”

    Keep in mind that while they may never be held liable for their actions, the Federal government has a certain record of killing large numbers of Americans at will, that they are holding hundreds of Americans in illegal and unconstitutional conditions for exercising their First Amendment rights, and that in a successful coup d’ etat the rule of law, doesn’t.

  13. This is a test. I just spent about a half hour putting together a comment on this thread and when I tried to post it went awa’ w’ t’ fairies. I admit that there was much politically incorrect truth telling. Was it something I said?

    Subotai Bahadur

  14. SB – no, there’s nothing in the queue waiting approval on this post, although I don’t have access to anything that might have gone to the spam queue. I can hardly think it was anything that you might have said that would merit not posting, and I personally, want to hear your thoughts on this.

  15. Sgt. Mom:

    OK, I have people to do and things to see for a little bit. I’ll try to get back later and reconstitute it.

    Subotai Bahadur

  16. It isn’t just elites driving this, of course–you can find acolytes of this faith all over the place. Some urge has to be driving it beyond wanting to live “in a world of pure imagination.”

    I wonder how much of it is a desperate hunger for meaning. We’re rich enough that there are few existential worries. Hedonism is fun, but without gratitude and humility the same old things get boring, and I gather it doesn’t quite satisfy the desire for meaning.

    We have models for serving greater purposes–“fighting” for civil rights, for instance. But if your grandparents won that battle, what’s left for you? More and more obscure civil rights problems? Redefining injustice to be deviations from some theoretical perfection of equality? And since the importance of my cause is measured by how violently I adhere to it, I can prove how vital my cause is by how much I’m willing to smash to make it happen.

    Or you can be meaningful by being creative. I wandered around Berlin a bit during a conference a few years ago. There were plenty of stone or bronze reminders of the great old composers and architects. The posters plastered on sidings for the new music groups suggested that the young composers wanted to distance themselves from the old greats. It would be hard to compete with the old masters: perhaps trying to be something new was the only way to appear great yourself. Or tearing the old down. No doubt there really were some new and interesting idioms, but there was enough glamorization of ugliness to leave me suspicious that the advertised creativity wasn’t profound and only would seem so if you couldn’t compare it to anything.

    I quote Walter Miller a lot: “children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens–and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn’t the same.”

  17. James the Lesser…another Leibowitz quote that often seems relevant:

    “To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law””a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.”

  18. Something I heard in passing today was that there is supposed to be a looming shortage of diesel engine oil. That the producers of the additive packages which turn the base stock into finished lubricants have stopped production. A quick search shows a lot of talk on fringey sites right about June 22, practically years ago in internet terms but nothing more recent. So I’m not too exercised right now. Diesel engines use lots of oil, shortages would show up pretty quick and there’d be a lot more noise. That said, I’m getting my oil changed tomorrow.

    Once upon a time, I’d have thought anybody that told me that when passing a gas station advertising gas at $4.18, I would think that was good price was crazy. Not for a while. I can remember some time in the early ’80’s paying $3.42 which would have been a lot higher. According to this:
    https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
    $10.04 for 1984.

    Of course, Republicans were in the Presidency for more of that then Democrats. You’d be hard pressed to show that any Republican President did more than pay lip service to reducing spending with the exception of Trump.

    In another development I find puzzling, I’ve been hearing a couple of those adds where someone pretends to interview Pence and gets a sort of endorsement for their retirement planning service. It’s on the local classical radio station so I doubt there’s much money changing hands. Is Pence that hard up for money? It isn’t shilling Viagra when your wife has a high profile job but is it a sign that Pence isn’t interested in ’24?

  19. One of the tough facts we have to face is that “we” collectively have done this to ourselves. Biden*’s presidential election vote is dubious to the point of laughable — but he probably won the primaries fair & square, with the full support of many US citizens. And the problem started long before the current regime. For years, “we” collectively have elected persons of dubious character to important offices and “we” collectively stood aside while those elected officials transferred authority to evil & incompetent hired help.

    One of the parts that leave me flabbergasted is that over the last 3 decades something in the range of 60,000 to 80,000 US factories were shut down and their equipment shipped overseas, mostly to China. That is almost one an hour throughout the working week for decades — and “we” collectively did not raise a stink, mostly did not even notice. So now we are dependent on the kindness of strangers — the same strangers the Biden* Krew is trying hard to pick a fight with.

    The die has been cast. We soon will have to suffer the consequences of failing to act earlier. The situation will have to get much worse and we will have to hit rock bottom — but then the situation will begin to improve. Since it is too late to do anything to stop the coming collapse, the most important thing we can do as individuals now is to enjoy the remaining days. Don’t let the opportunities slip by.

  20. OK, trying again and we will see if this one disappears. Yes, we are in the middle of a number of climaxing disasters; economic, food supply, energy, multi-level discriminatory application of the legal system. One thing that people seem to be deliberately trying NOT to mention regardless of official political beliefs is that we are approaching a political climax that will swamp them all.

    The last national general election is rationally believed by at least a quarter of the electorate since the election to have been stolen. And that percentage has been growing for quite some time. It has not been lost, both on those believers and on pretty much everyone living in the country, that the disasters listed above are largely coincident with that election and the installation of the Democrat regime. There have been a number of investigations that show how the election was stolen. And a key point is that no one, including the supposed “opposition” party, has done anything to fix things. Nor do they want to even talk about it.

    The next general election, an off-year Congressional one, is in only 4 months. At the same time Federal elected officials in both the Executive and Legislative branches are polling consistently somewhere below [redacted]. Right now the Democrats hold both Houses of Congress by the slimmest of margins. One could assume that in normal political times there would be a certain amount of desperation on the Left. Yet there does not seem to be.

    By any rational expectation the results of the Democrats’ habit of replacing competence and ability in government with what genitals you are born with, in what variety of ways they are used, and melanin content of the skin would lead to a turnover of control of both Houses of Congress. And not a small shift in seats that would be covered by the usual Institutional Republican defectors on any critical matter. If the Democrats retain functional control of both Houses or either House, there is a very strong implication that the same methods used in 2020 are still being used in 2022. And having worked twice, there is no reason for them to ever change. The percentage of people who believe in the election theft will grow exponentially. And in a Hobbesian sense, the Social Contract will be gone and a new one will have to be established by the usual historic means.

    But let us say that the Republicans [or in my dearest of impossible dreams a Republican/”Pro-American Party” coalition] takes undisputed control of both Houses of Congress. Now, remembering that opposing the Democrats in all the measures that have brought the country to the brink of collapse, and plugging the holes in our electoral system has not been done by the Republicans; if they fail to immediately reverse some [and eventually all] of the Democrat initiatives that put us in this position, it pretty much marks them as the bought and paid for “opposition” to the Democrats. That puts us in the same position vis-à-vis Hobbes. Four months, and we will know and the question of Malice –v- Incompetence will be answered and we will not be able to deny the truth.

    Now, if I may venture further into the politically unthinkable, let me toss in part of something I wrote on another site earlier today. The subject was the maneuvering within the Democrat Party to find a way to get President* Biden out of office; since on a good day, with a downhill run and a blazing tailwind he is a left handed, cross-threaded, football bat just because of his condition. The Democrat problem is that due to their selection criteria noted above, their political bench is bloody thin. I brought out the following option:

    “Therefore the replacement will be couched in terms of an “previously inconceivable and unprecedented state of emergency that the Founding Fathers did not anticipate” that will require replacing Biden immediately by someone that they do not have time to run through the normal constitutional and electoral processes. Fortunately [as per the Democrats] they can be trusted to pick and place in office someone who can be trusted to handle things if they are granted full power to rule by decree for the state of emergency. And they promise that as soon as it is safe to do so, that they will return to constitutional rule and elections. Like the 2020 elections. Cross their hearts. And since this is so unprecedented, they will have to suppress any opposition to the decrees with whatever force is necessary to ensure compliance.

    You may laugh, but those thoughts are working better than Viagra on most Democrats reading this.”

    Another few thoughts for those who think this is not possible. It is not possible inside the law and Constitution. But keep in mind that we have, in living memory, cases where the Federal government has been involved in the deaths of an awful lot of Americans on American soil and not been held in any way accountable. Further, as you read this there are hundreds of Americans being held in violation of the law and Constitution under conditions that the courts have ruled in other cases to constitute violations of the 8th Amendment, all for the crime of peacefully trying to exercise their rights under the First Amendment. Finally, a political science truism. A successful coup d’ etat is not illegal, because if it is successful those who did it make the laws.

    Subotai Bahadur

  21. I’ve always maintained:

    “Never attribute to conspiracy what can be accounted for by stupidity.”

    That being said, there’s absolutely no reason not to embrace Glenn Reynold’s “healing power of AND.” They can be both malevolent and stupid, like Commie LaWhorish. But those aren’t the ones to fear.

    I’ve just finished re-reading Schlichter’s Turnbull novels, and it scares me that each time I read them, the scenes they depict of the left-wing looniness become more and more plausible, sometimes jumping right off the screen at me as reality. I’m starting to believe that something like “The Split” might possibly be the best thing for the country in the long run, since the collectivist/statist/authoritarians running the parasitic Blue states would destroy that half of the country in short order without the semi-rational input of the (actually productive) people in the Red states.

  22. Sgt.Mom:

    OK, I re-wrote it [and saved it this time!] and tried again, twice. The second time redacting a reference to polling showing Democrats elected officials being regarded as lower than dog feces. Neither post went through.
    1) is there a length limit? I’ve done some pretty long things here in the past. This was 917 words.
    2) I have used italics before with no problem. Is there any?
    3) is there I can get it to you, or should I just give it up?

    Subotai Bahadur

  23. There was something out there earlier about the railroads being told to reduce fertilizer shippage. While this would result in a big drop in food production, it would also reduce improvised explosive material from reaching the farming community. Is this battlefield prep?

  24. Retrieved overnight comments from the ‘trash’ file, from SB and MCS – found them and posted. Sorry about that – I have no idea why they would have gone there, and I didn’t think I had access to the spam and trash folders.

  25. “Something I heard in passing today was that there is supposed to be a looming shortage of diesel engine oil.”
    My recollection of the stories last month was that diesel issues apparently are very regional, and the Northeast was reportedly extremely low on supply for some reason, so there were stories going around about trucking companies telling their truckers to be prepared for stations to be out.

    re: Dems getting rid of Biden, I could imagine a scenario in which they vote to convict him after the GOP invariably impeaches him next year. I could also imagine him getting “eliminated” by the Fed Boys. There’s nothing I’d put past the Deep State right now, or as they get more desperate as things go pear shaped.

  26. David,
    I made no assumptions about the time of day demand curves. I just calculated how much electrical generation would be needed to replace the use of gasoline/diesel. But even if you assume at most half the vehicles will be charging at any one time, the number of power plants needed will still be more than the combined world industrial capacity to produce AND staff. Electrification of the transport network is physically impossible without a very drastic cut in both lifestyle and overall population. I also have pointed out before that is also the goal of the “elites” who are running things in the west now. Amory Lovins said as much at a seminar I attended at UT Austin back in 1976 or 1977.

  27. “Therefore the replacement will be couched in terms of an “previously inconceivable and unprecedented state of emergency that the Founding Fathers did not anticipate” that will require replacing Biden immediately by someone that they do not have time to run through the normal constitutional and electoral processes.

    We’re living through the endgame of the present regime so this strikes me as something that the idiots in charge now will quite plausibly imagine can succeed.

    I suspect it will essentially give the same sort of political cover for their unprecedented acts that the bombardment of Fort Sumter gave to Abraham You-know.

    That is, it will blow up quite enthusiastically in their faces.

    Retrieved overnight comments from the ‘trash’ file, from SB and MCS – found them and posted.

    Thank you!! I am always interested in anything SB and MCS have to say.

  28. I don’t think the Dems would be able to do anything that is explicitly anti-Constitutional, which in practice means something the Supreme Court says they can’t do, the popular veneration for the Constitution is too strong. Which means the current SC majority is all that stands between us and outright dictatorship, because we know that there is literally nothing the Dem appointees will say a Dem administration can’t do.

  29. I don’t think the Dems would be able to do anything that is explicitly anti-Constitutional, which in practice means something the Supreme Court says they can’t do,

    I’m not so sure. Last night in a Mortons steak house, Justice Kavanaugh was eating dinner and someone notified a left wing group, which then picketed and protested outside the restaurant. There has been speculation that he had to leave by the rear entrance.

    Biden talks about the “next pandemic.” I doubt the majority of the public will buy it but Democrats will. Demands for mail-in ballots will surge and, unless Republicans get a lot better at this, the 2020 playbook will succeed.

  30. Protesting outside a judge’s house is explicitly illegal, and yet nothing was done about it for months. The Dems are playing with fire. Of course we all know that anyone who dared to “protest” a liberal justice or a major Dem politician would immediately be thrown in prison.

    “Demands for mail-in ballots will surge and, unless Republicans get a lot better at this, the 2020 playbook will succeed.”
    Hence the recent comments in another thread that winning swing state elections (PA, WI, MI, AZ, GA) this fall is absolutely critical to 2024.

  31. anything hat destroys this country faster, they are willing to do, and turtle men like graham and cornyn, are just willing to do so, we can only vote the actual number of registered persons, they can issue ballots like confetti,

  33. Not exactly where to put this, so I’ll add it here:
    Question: If Shinzo Abe was assassinated by China or North Korea, do we think that authorities would acknowledge it? Because I bet they wouldn’t.

  34. Thank you, Sgt. Mom, for chasing down what happened to my post(s) and posting them. I apologize to the Gentle Readers for taking up so much time and space in the process.

    This morning I found something that may have a bearing on the discussion. Keeping in mind that this may be especially noteworthy because Rasmussen turned to the dark side some time ago, but a recent Rasmussen poll shows that 52% believe that the 2020 election was influenced by cheating, and more on point today that 50% believe that the election this November will be.

    https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/public_surveys/election_integrity_50_think_cheating_likely_in_midterms

    The historical meme is that by 1775 or so 1/3 of Americans were Patriots, 1/3 were Tories, and 1/3 just wanted to be left alone. Which the primitive British bureaucrats based in London were incapable of doing until that last 1/3 had had enough. Thus we eventually ended up at Yorktown, and the Tories ended up in Canada and other places.

    History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes like all get out. By this poll, we are well over the 1/3 marker.

    Subotai Bahadur

  35. there’s a whole back story,
    that I found out with britain after the seven years war, the grafton regime was the one that imposed the tax on the colonists, it was brought down by the columnist janus, who would later direct the campaign against warren hastings, for his solid administration in the first mysore war that led to his impeachment attempt by edmund burke,

  37. Brian: “If Shinzo Abe was assassinated by China or North Korea, do we think that authorities would acknowledge it? Because I bet they wouldn’t.”

    Whose authorities?

    Would China or North Korea boast publicly about it? Of course not. But they might ask Hunter Biden to pass on a message about what happens to senior people who cross them.

    Would “Our Guys” tell if they did it, or if they had evidence that China or North Korea did it? Probably not. They have to protect their sources, of course.

    Governments are here to keep secrets from their own people. Remember the situation with the atom bomb in WWII. FDR did not even tell his Vice President about it — but Stalin knew all about that great secret and about the progress even though Truman was kept in the dark.

  38. As Subotai points out, the Democrats appear to be no more concerned about midterms (that should be a bloodbath for them) than they were about the 2020 presidential election. Nancy reportedly canceled plans to retire at the end of this term, and she didn’t do that to be minority leader.

    There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, and it involves all of the Democrats and at least half of the Republicans. Account me among his quoted 50% that expect blatant cheating, an “opposition” party that just doesn’t see it, and courts that aren’t going to touch it. Anyone trying to expose or correct the fraud will be unpersoned.

    All that seems remarkably like 2020, doesn’t it?

  39. Gavin – when I was young, my father(WWII gen) said that a US reporter in Moscow was approached by citizens there on several occasions and was asked about the progress on building the atomic bomb. They might have been intel agents but since they were willing to mention them out in the streets where others could hear, it must not have been much of a secret over there.

  40. While both China and NK have have long standing, deeply held and frankly, well deserved animosity toward Japan and some, more recent, reason to direct a portion at Abe, it’s seems unlikely that their chosen instrument would be reduced to carrying out the mission with a home made zip gun. Despite the tight gun laws, the Yakuza have access and, one would presume, could be bought. If there is evidence of foriegn involvement, I don’t see a motive for the Japanese to cover it up.

    In a slightly different direction of world chaos, a Russian court (who knew) has closed one of the major export ports for Russian oil over environmental concerns.
    https://gcaptain.com/black-sea-oil-port-halts-on-russian-court-order/

    Also, thanks to Sgt. Mom for resurrecting my comment.

  41. I didn’t say China or North Korea did it, I said if they did no one would say so.
    Just like no one said what it meant that Pakistan sheltered bin Laden. Or talks about where covid came from. Or talks about the Las Vegas shooter. Or the Nashville bomber. And yet we still pretend it’s a free country, and pity people living in China or Russia for their state controlled media.

  42. Anyone trying to expose or correct the fraud will be unpersoned.

    I’m pretty sure the regime will attempt to unperson dissidents- but when 50+ percent of the electorate thinks elections are fraudulent- well, I just don’t think that’s going to work.

    I think the fraud has been going on a longer and on a lot larger scale than most people imagine.

    Anecdote- I recall a certain pundit named Hugh Hewitt in 2006 disputing poll numbers that predicted Republicans would lose several senate races. He dug into the internals of the polls, and was explaining why they were wrong- e.g., the sample size of Republicans in this poll is lower than any GOP turnout ever, and if you adjust for that the Republican candidate is going to win. Come election night 2006, the GOP candidates in question all lost. I distinctly recall thinking that the polls were right after all.

    Fast forward to 2016 and of course 2020. The polls were hilariously wrong- I remember a claim that Trump was 17 points down in Wisconsin, for example.

    What changed?

    My guess is that events simply moved too far away from reality for the regime’s tools- of course including vote fraud- to be able to maintain the narrative.

    Should the 2022 election results somehow give us another term as speaker for the senile drunk named Nancy Pelosi I suspect this wouldn’t result in the public metaphorically shrugging its shoulders and accepting the relentless incompetence of the present regime- I think it would result in the end of elections as a means of deciding who rules the central portion of North America.

    For the present regime, at least.

  43. Curse you HTML tags!!

    Anyway: And yet we still pretend it’s a free country, and pity people living in China or Russia for their state controlled media.

    I don’t think so. I recall a thread on a certain website years ago asking when was the last time you heard the phrase this is a free country?

    My recollection is that most answers were a long time ago. I haven’t heard it in decades.

    Living in the US today has the same sort of feel that I got from reading about the USSR, circa 1985.

    That is, like it’s completely non-sustainable and sure to end soon.

  44. Gosh, who could have predicted this, except everyone.
    https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/europe-gas-crisis-lng-supply-poorer-nations-ukraine-war-russia-2022-7
    Europe’s scramble for gas is depriving poorer nations from getting enough amid the energy crisis

    Good thing those Euros care so much about the poor of the world.

    Which Euro capital will see this first?
    https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1545689501758111744
    NOW – Protesters storm the presidential palace in Sri Lanka’s capital.

  45. “Good thing those Euros care so much about the poor of the world.”

    In the same vein, the Kiev Krew are demanding that someone else (it is always someone else — Turkey, in this case) stop Russia from exporting grain through the Black Sea because they claim the grain was stolen from the Ukraine.

    Hungry poor people in Africa probably don’t care about the ownership of the grain — they just want to eat, need to eat. If Zelensky’s corrupt brotherhood gave a tinker’s damn about poor people they would be encouraging the export of grain right now, while retaining the right to get financial compensation for that grain if it is later proved to have been stolen.

    The Ukrainian “leadership” have all the social conscience of a selfish teenage girl in the middle of a tantrum.

  46. So far, the demonstrations in Sri Lanka are only calling for the resignation of the President although I’m sure that could change. They might be satisfied with less than the whole President.

    If you look hard enough, you really can find common ground with anyone:
    https://nypost.com/2022/07/08/hunter-biden-calls-jill-an-entitled-c-t-in-texts/

    And from the same edition:
    https://nypost.com/2022/07/09/shutdowndc-offering-bounty-for-scotus-justices-intel/
    I don’t need to waste the pixels to repeat what we’re all thinking.

  47. If masses are going to starve, may they be in the squalid shanties of Africa and Asia, among the populations who have already missed the modernity boat.

  50. Where do you think all those hungry people will flock to two guesses the first two dont count

  51. I have no idea who to blame for any of this stuff. What actually happened in Kazakhstan a few months ago? It’s obvious that CIA orchestrated the Pakistan coup right after the Ukraine invasion. No idea who’s on what side in Sri Lanka. What a mess. I think it’s a strong theory that the globalists panicked after Trump won and they’re just knocking things over all over the globe now, trying to accomplish in a few years what they had thought they could do at leisure over the next decade or two.

  52. The only question that matters now is: will the West have the stomach (ha) to do what needs to be done when the starving hordes start moving on us?. Houllebecq was a prophet.

  53. Without the well meaning flood of aid that depress domestic prices, things might not get as bad as many expect. Whatever happens, the last 60-70 years of corruption will be a large contributing factor. It’s the recurring pattern of “free” aid collapsing local markets that has driven much of the migration from the countryside to cities and greatly increasing their vulnerability to famine and disease. Much will depend on the harvest in the rest of the world.

  54. Domestically, the Far Left has pushed itself into a bit of a quandary — supporting the trans-gendered risks stepping on the toes of the capital F Feminists.

    Maybe they have now stumbled into an analogous position internationally. Supporting warmongering in the Ukraine risks offending all their capital O Oxfam-type supporters.

    A smart Far Leftie would be seeking to change the subject. Oh look! Monkeypox!

  55. “supporting the trans-gendered risks stepping on the toes of the capital F Feminists.”
    Every “feminist” I’ve ever interacted with (in real life, not online) thinks that a woman bringing her 4 year old son into a woman’s bathroom or locker room is outrageous “male supremacy” and anyone who objects to a 15 year old male, or a 35 year old male, or etc., going into a woman’s bathroom or locker room if he says he’s a she is a complete bigot who should be banished from society. The cognitive dissonance is astounding. I don’t know how anyone can possibly hold such positions. We are truly in a time of madness.

  57. But abortion and guns. I am reading more and more how people in Illinois are going to vote Democrat because of the shooting in Highland Park. Don’t they realize Illinois has been run by the Democrats for about 50 years?

  59. How long before the Dutch pull a Fidel Jr on their farmers? They can’t afford to have the people questioning their betters, not now, not with such a grim fall and winter coming up…

  60. The Netherlands had a starvation year in 1944, just before Liberation. I should think that a lot of the older people would retain memories of that famine, if not directly than from older sibs and parents. The Dutch government is playing with fire, especially with famine all but certain because of the war in the Ukraine.

  62. miguel, I can’t access the discord, but there were Dutch people (and others) in parlous food state in 1944, but IIRC the hardest time was after MG in the German occupied areas. At some point–a few weeks?–prior to the German surrender, I think some Allied food drops were allowed w/o interference (but wouldn’t swear to it).

  64. I thought this was common knowledge. Audrey Hepburn was in Arnhem during Market Garden and commented occasionally on the deprivations of the civilians in Holland during and immediately after the war. Not that conditions in Germany were that much better. Virtually the entire potato crop was devoted to making fuel for the V-2. I believe that the sugar beet crop was already used for something else.

    One of the grievances left from the end of WWI in Germany was sever starvation in the winter of ’18-19 as the Allies delayed ending the embargo.

    Mostly too long ago for living memory but far from forgotten. The Marshal Plan saved many people from starvation.

  65. The Afterwars of the late 1910s and early 1920s produced widespread starvation in the regions affected. We hear less about that than about the Afterwars themselves.

    By some accounts the Germans were closer to starving the UK in the first war than the second. Every country’s leadership should be worried about basic resources in the coming months, and the UK (and Nippon) are still islands, importing almost everything for civilized life.

    I’m beginning to get a bad feeling about this, kids.

  66. Europe is still a net food exporter as is the U.S. so actual privation is unlikely either place. Even if that wasn’t the case, the developed world would just bid up the price to get what they need. Other places, not so much.

    The pattern in the “developing” world has been that whenever something upset food production, the various NGO’s would flood the markets with free or cheap food. The subsequent collapse in prices for domestically produced food would drive more farmers into the cities. There has not been an actual shortage of food for a long time, the NGO’s may have to pick their battles. Generally some portion of the food they imported to their client states was diverted to provide the graft so necessary to operate in these countries. This year, the food won’t be so cheap and the margins will be tight.

    Mention has been made that the Chinese have been on a commodity buying spree to the extent that they may have accumulated a couple of years supply. As with all things Chinese, things may not be what they appear. There have been a rash of grain elevator fires there lately. These have coincided with Xi’s anti-corruption push, specifically, the immanent appearance of auditors and inspectors to verify quantities and quality. Strange that.

    In a normal year, China is the world’s largest importer of food. This has not been a normal year with huge floods where smaller cities and farm land was sacrificed to keep larger cities dry. That land will not be producing food this year. All those smaller cities, flooded as deep as 20 feet, that no one has heard of probably don’t build many iPhones but they build a lot of the things that Chinese need, like food.

  67. Who’s saying Europeans are going to starve? They’re going to freeze, and pay through the nose for food. Food crises will happen in places like Egypt. The discussion above about WWII era starvation in Europe was in regards to what the Dutch politicians are going to be able to do to the farmers who are protesting their insane policies, which are clearly aimed at, not just going to result in, the destruction of a massive fraction of their farmers.

  68. MCS: “Audrey Hepburn was in Arnhem during Market Garden and commented occasionally on the deprivations of the civilians in Holland during and immediately after the war.”

    A related issue — malnourishment of the mother can affect the baby then in utero for the rest of its life. As Brian points out, the starvation is going to be experienced in Africa, not Europe. Meanwhile, Greenies in the West continue to turn corn from food into fuel for reasons which do not make much sense. Those Green hands are dipped in blood.

    https://theanalyticalscientist.com/fields-applications/a-lasting-legacy

    Dutch babies born early during the famine were born underweight, but after the war, many grew to normal weight. Babies spending only the first trimester in utero during the famine, and born after the war, were born with normal weight. Initially it appeared that this latter group had escaped the worst impact of the famine. However, in the long-term, this group were in fact some of the hardest hit. Far from being cushioned from the effects of the famine, they suffered increased rates of obesity and a host of metabolic diseases affecting cardiac health once they reached middle age. They had somehow acquired what is popularly called the “thrifty gene.” A half-century after World War II, Dutch people born just after the famine found that their bodies behaved as though they were still living under conditions of starvation. We now know that the malnutrition suffered by parents caused epigenetic changes in offspring conceived during the famine.

  69. I’m not suggesting that Europeans are going to starve in large numbers (though they might), I’m adding some perspective to the issue. In our case, large-scale disruptions don’t need hot wars of Great Power vs Great Power; they can be caused by regional disturbances like Russia-Ukraine, by non-state actors, or by advanced incompetence.

    One might argue that Great Power wars demonstrate advanced incompetence by their nature, but that’s so wide a perspective as to be entirely academic at this point.

  70. Speaking of “advanced incompetence”, how exactly does a country that we’ve approved tens of billions of dollars in aid for already, with no end in sight, claim its state-owned gas company (i.e., government slush fund) is unable to pay their debts? Rhetorical question, I know the answer is because the recent US-Ukraine relationship is by far the most corrupt in modern American history.
    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukraines-naftogaz-asks-bondholders-freeze-debt-payments-2022-07-12/
    LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s state-owned gas company Naftogaz has asked its international creditors to defer payments on its debt for two years, fanning expectations that the government may soon do the same.
    Naftogaz which has a $335 million bond maturing as well as two interest payments due on July 19, said Russia’s invasion had left it short of cash as many of its customers were now unable to pay their bills.

  71. Did you see the story the other day that Ukraine might legalize same-sex marriage? It’s just government by Western NGO at this point.
    I seriously wouldn’t be surprised if the CIA offs Zelensky at some point soon to make the government collapse, which would stop us from having to keep funding them, put the onus on the Russians to do so, and let the CIA focus on the gun running/insurrection supporting plan that is what they really want to do.

  72. “Did you see the story the other day that Ukraine might legalize same-sex marriage?”

    Someone once offered advice to any young woman who finds herself in a nasty situation where rape is imminent — Stick your fingers down your throat and throw up, as messily as possible.

    Perhaps the ruling junta in the Ukraine — where Zelensky has democratically shut down all the opposition parties and arrested key political opponents — realizes that they are losing the war so badly that the only remaining option is to make themselves as unappealing as possible to Orthodox Christian Russia?

  73. Ukraine represents the wef transnationalists, as does most of the European political class, draghi the man behind the curtain in italian politics has gone back to the shadows as his coalition collapses, in this case the ideosyncratic five star faction pulled out,

  74. What I’m waiting for now is how will the media spin it when Brandon gets absolutely nothing out of whatever this trip to KSA is supposed to be for. I’m sure they’ll trot out Jake Sullivan to give some speech about the glorious accomplishments, and the NYT/WaPo idiots will parrot the talking points, but my bet is it’s going to be a joke and it’ll be a miracle if by the fall KSA isn’t more or less openly aligning with Russia, China, and the BRICS in general.

  75. prince salman has a long memory about these sorts of things, it’s not merely a personal thing, although that does enter into it, the kingdom has engaged in challenging islamists starting with egypt’s al sisi, haftar in libya,

  76. Conspiracy theory of the day: The day after Brandon leaves on his trip Gavin Newsom shows up at the White House for a chat with Ron Klain…Why isn’t the chief of staff on the trip? What could the governor of the biggest state talk about with him that couldn’t better be done with the boss? Hmmm…

  77. Every time Biden pushes for the Iran “deal” (capitulation more like), the Israelis look more like a valuable ally to the Saudi’s and the rest of the Arabs. It’s strange when you think about it that the country they have been at “war” with for nearly 75 years and with the only fairly well verified nuclear arsenal in the region is now courted to counter another nominally Islamic country.

    Has anyone ever heard a coherent explanation of what a deal with Iran gets us? Is there anyone with an IQ above room temperature that believes the Iranian regime will end their development of nuclear weapons to fulfill an agreement with Biden? Apparently, the present deal barely pays lip service to that. The real problem for Biden is that they no longer matter in the area, they can not prevent Iran from developing some sort of nuclear weapon nor can they stop Israel responding on their own if that happens.

    Asia in general, China in particular and Europe, especially now that supplies from Russia are uncertain, stand to be in a world of hurt from any significant disruption of Middle Eastern oil supplies. Yet China, France and Germany have been especially active in circumventing what sanctions there are. They are also in the forefront of trying to cripple Israel, generally displaying characteristic incompetence and impotence. Israel has so far been unwilling to be talked into their own annihilation.

  78. Brian: “What I’m waiting for now is how will the media spin it when Brandon gets absolutely nothing out of whatever this trip to KSA is supposed to be for.”

    If Biden* gets nothing, I will heave a sigh of relief. Think about the situation — Biden* is effectively asking Saudi Arabia to cut their income by bringing the price of oil down. OK, the Saudis might say: What is in it for us?

    Biden* has to offer the Saudis something in exchange, something they want strongly, and something they can’t buy with their current high income. Big problem for Saudi Arabia is Yemen, where they have been fighting a war which occasionally spills over into Saudi.

    OK, says MBS, we will pump more oil and reduce the price of oil — in exchange for the US directly entering the war in Yemen. Boots on the ground, US troops leading the charge, doing the fighting, and taking casualties.

    My fear is that Biden* is so dumb he would take that deal.

  79. “Has anyone ever heard a coherent explanation of what a deal with Iran gets us?”
    Depends on who you mean by “us”…
    Let’s ignore the fact that the Dems are full of vicious anti-Semites now, put that aside, it seems clear that the Obama crew worldview was that Israel is too powerful and the Middle East is “unstable” because of bitterness and resentment towards them, so their “plan” was to make the Middle East “stable” by lifting up Iran to be some sort of serious counterweight to Israel. Which is an objectively crazy plan!
    Not the least because the Saudis hate Iran at least as much Israel does! These are not intelligent people we’re talking about–the Obama (and now Biden) crew I mean–the Saudi leadership has been able to survive for a few generations now, so they clearly have brains enough to be able to do that. But now we’re in a situation where the leadership of KSA absolutely loathes Biden, and has zero respect for anyone anywhere in his administration. Do you think they feel the same way about Putin or Xi? Of course not.
    Whispers are that the Saudis are going to lead the charge of a whole bunch of “non-aligned” countries into an expanded BRICS. People follow the strong horse, etc., as I recall a cliche from earlier this century…

  80. “My fear is that Biden* is so dumb he would take that deal.”
    The only “deals” Brandon makes are ones involving what pudding to have for dessert. The man’s a vegetable. It’s humiliating, but that’s what “we” deserve.
    KSA has zero reason to make any deal with Brandon. Anyone can tell he’s not in charge, could disappear at any minute, and the only thing that the American regime cares about right now is suppressing domestic dissent.
    Putin and Xi, on the other hand, know how to make long-term commitments–look at how they stuck with their man in Damascus–when was the last time America did anything like that? Why would anyone want to be our ally at the moment?

  81. Malley wont let him take that deal besides zaydi dont like being saudi punching bag going back to 1934

  83. Well apparently MBS did in fact greet Brandon personally…maybe to make Brandon have to explain to all the libs why he’s willing to talk to him now lol

  86. I was actually about to post that.
    People need to stop referring to what’s going on as a war in Ukraine. There’s a war by Russia and China against the West. Ukraine is a sideshow to that. The Russian invasion triggered all this, but it’s not the main event. Putin and Xi are deliberately trying to destroy Western institutions. And saying “haha, Finland and Sweden just joined NATO so that backfired on Vlad!” sounds pretty silly when Paris can’t turn on their streetlights and whole German industries are expecting to have to shut down imminently. And no matter how much Western politicians and their media bootlickers claim otherwise, it doesn’t look like most of the world has any interest in taking their side.

  88. Brian: “There’s a war by Russia and China against the West.”

    Remind me, please — Who is it who is sanctioning Russia and threatening China? Who was it who broke the 1990s commitment not to expand NATO to the east towards Russia’s border? Who was it orchestrated a coup in the Ukraine in 2014? Which countries was it which signed but failed to implement the Minsk Accords which would have defused the war Kiev was waging against Ukrainian citizens who happened to be ethnic Russians?

    Disinterested historians a hundred years from now are going to have no problems fingering the West as the culprit for provoking Russia’s intervention in the Ukrainian civil war. Sadly, those historians will be writing in Chinese.

    The challenge those future historians will have is finding where & when citizens in the democratic West voted to provoke a war with Russia and to transfer their manufacturing economy to China. After all, the whole point of democracy is that We the People call the shots.

  89. It’s a war, there’s two sides. Russia/China/etc against the West, the West against Russia/China/etc.
    Future historians will write about the West committing suicide demographically and economically, plus they’ll write about the US losing some major war, that hasn’t even happened yet.

  91. The Saudi’s buying a few thousand barrels a day of finished products from Russia doesn’t impress me. I’m sure it’s for exactly the reason in the article: its cheap. What are we going to do about it, stop buying their oil too?

    If we’re going to fight a war with Russia and China, I’d just as soon do it in Ukraine with Ukrainians doing most of the dying while China lets Russians do the same for them.

    Calling the Obama administration antisemitic is a bit of a misnomer. They were and the rump now mismanaging the Brandon administration were and are anti-Jewish/anti-Israel. Remember, they have no problem kowtowing to the Saudis that are every bit as Semitic as any Hasidim in Tel Aviv.

    The old joke was that Moses lead the Jews to the only part of the Middle East without Oil. That turned out to be wrong, they just had to look for it in the right place. At the same time when you look at what they accomplished in the mean time, in everything from agriculture to computers to weapons, you sort of have to wonder if that would have happened if they had discovered a Saudi sized pool about 1950. In that same time, the Saudi’s have had the leisure to develop the most sophisticated camel racing culture ever seen.

  92. There’s a swathe of countries–most of Africa and the Middle East up through Iran–whose populations have Third World problems that are about to get even worse.

    The Global North has more fat to burn, but it’s not infinite.

  93. “Remind me, please ”” Who is it who is sanctioning Russia and threatening China?”

    The entire Western world.

    “Who was it who broke the 1990s commitment not to expand NATO to the east towards Russia’s border?”

    There was never any such commitment.

    “Who was it orchestrated a coup in the Ukraine in 2014?

    Russia

    “Which countries was it which signed but failed to implement the Minsk Accords which would have defused the war Kiev was waging against Ukrainian citizens who happened to be ethnic Russians?”

    Ukraine was waging war against the Russian troops that invaded and occupied its country. Those troops are not Ukrainian citizens, and the fact that those troops are ethnic Russians is completely beside the point. They invaded Ukraine and deserve to be made war against.

    Really, you should know all this by now.

  94. The entire Western world.

    You write that as if it was a good thing. Meanwhile, the economy of Europe is imploding, Ukraine is getting destroyed, and politically, the pro-Davos EU regimes are looking doomed. Well, at least there’s that”¦

    There was never any such commitment.

    Bovine excrement. I’m old enough to remember otherwise, even going back to the promise made not to expand NATO when German reunification went through.

    Russia

    So Russia orchestrated a coup to overthrow the pro-Russian government of Ukraine? What?

    Ukraine was waging war against the Russian troops that invaded and occupied its country…

    I’ve read this whole passage several times, trying to shoehorn it into anything vaguely resembling reality.

    Nope, just doesn’t fit. What actually happened was the infamous coup caused eastern Ukraine to rebel against Kiev, leading to years of shelling and thousands of dead. The West was and remains nastily indifferent to all that, just like it continues to be indifferent to the actual fate of Ukraine or the fate of its own citizens, for that matter.

    But it isn’t really about Ukraine at all. It’s about destroying Russia.

    We all know that by now, don’t we?

  95. mkent: “They [Russians] invaded Ukraine and deserve to be made war against.”

    Do you understand what you are calling for, mkent? You are calling for conscription of US citizens, and sending them off to fight and die in a foreign land. You are calling for the interruption of imports into the US due to naval actions, and the consequent impoverishment of all those who are not conscripted. You are calling for the bankruptcy of a US which cannot afford a war, and can only print Bidenbucks. You are ultimately calling for the nuclear destruction of the US, Europe, and Russia. Is some damn fool thing in the Ukraine really worth that level of pain & misery?

    Or are you sitting back with your popcorn and saying “Let’s you and him fight”?

    It would be great to see a referendum in the US on fighting to the last American for the corrupt Ukraine. Let We the People decide whether we are willing to die for Zelensky.

  96. China is expanding its territories in equatorial africa in south america even laying siege to grandforks afb
    But Russia is the main enemy lol

  98. Vinnitsya was the 3rd reichs command base in the ukraine it wS previously lithuanian and polish territory till 1793

  99. Find a single square inch of Europe that wasn’t claimed by, under the control of, occupied by, part of, by some King, Prince, Elector, Emperor some time in the past. That was supposed to end in 1945 after 2,000+ years on constant conflict and war. I’ll say it again: Once you let anybody with an army and a Napoleon delusion start redrawing the borders of Europe, there will be no end to it.

  100. europeans don’t even want to hold on to their lands, or care about their own people. or they would not be subjecting them to famine and brownouts, the previous al hijra, from 2015-2017 proved the point, about borders and criminality, that’s the bigger picture,

  101. frau merkel let 1 million so called syrians enter her country, that’s about 2/3 of as many population adjusted for us,

  102. Placing blame is pointless at this point. The important thing is trying to make people see what time it is. Europe seems to be starting to do so, six months too late. They’re not going to be able to be prepared for the winter–of course they’re actually years too late for that, but they needed to be doing far more on day 1 to prepare their populations, and to get people to prepare themselves.
    As for the US, we’ll be fine for food, and things will continue to be expensive in general, but I’d like to see any sign that “people in charge” (I honestly don’t even know what that is these days) have a clue about what’s going on. Instead we have these morons like Jake Sullivan and other pitiful advisers and even cabinet officials strutting around like the US is the unchallenged and unchallengeable colossus of the mid to late 20th century. The crushing defeat the Dems are going to get in a few months won’t matter much about this, since the GOP shows no sign of knowing what time it is anymore than the Dems in DC do…
    Guess what, we’re not 22 year old Mike Tyson anymore. We’re 35 year old out of shape Mike Tyson. And maybe the competitors now couldn’t touch 22 year old Tyson, but they sure can knock 35 year old Tyson around, and that’s all they have to do…

  103. “Once you let anybody with an army and a Napoleon delusion start redrawing the borders of Europe, there will be no end to it.”
    Yes, there will be an end to it. Russia has not even made it anywhere near the Dnipro River, after 6 months. This isn’t Hitler’s Wehrmacht blitzkrieging across Europe, demolishing Poland and France in weeks. We have to live in 2022, not the mythical past. Putin isn’t Hitler, Russia isn’t the Third Reich, and America today is nowhere near America in 1941…
    Besides, what’s your plan when KSA and others join up officially with BRICS? When the dollar reserve status is completely smashed? Are we allowed to ask what the plan is, other than “We have to do something to stop Putler!”

  105. Caitlin Johnstone’s somewhat depressing assessment of Biden’s war against Russia in the territory of the Ukraine:

    https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/this-proxy-war-has-no-exit-strategy-37038f008e11

    “By forbidding the spectrum of acceptable debate to move toward peace while shoving it as hard as possible in the direction of warmongering extremism, imperial narrative managers have successfully created an Overton window wherein the only debate permitted is over how directly and forcefully Russia should be confronted, with calls for peace now falling far outside that window.

    Which is a problem, because both direct NATO hot war with Russia and continuing along the empire’s current course of action in Ukraine are stupid. Direct conflict between nuclear powers likely means a very fast and very radioactive third world war, and the status quo proxy warfare approach isn’t stopping Russia as more and more territory is taken in the east in cool defiance of western claims that Ukraine is bravely vanquishing its evil invaders.”

    Oh well! I guess the thermonuclear killing of all of us in the US would take care of FedGov’s unrepayable National Debt and unaffordable Social Security obligations.

  106. Going back to the theme of advanced incompetence, the Navy has finally figured out who is to fall on their sword for the Bonhomme Richard fire.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7SSdlyW8dQ

    Don’t worry, almost no one still in the navy will pay any price. Nor is there any reason to think it won’t happen tomorrow.

  107. “You write that as if it was a good thing.”

    Yes, it’s a very good thing. Key strategic Russian industries have been shut down, significantly diminishing Russia’s ability to wage war.

    “Bovine excrement. I’m old enough to remember otherwise”

    Your memory is faulty. No such assurances were made. In fact, just the opposite happened. Russia formally signed agreements recognizing former Warsaw Pact nations’ and Soviet Republics’ rights to join international organizations as they see fit.

    “So Russia orchestrated a coup to overthrow the pro-Russian government of Ukraine? What?”

    On 27 February 2014 Russian forces of the Black Sea Fleet invaded Crimea, seized the Supreme Council of Crimea (the provincial parliament) and the local Council of Ministers, installed Sergey Aksyonov as Crimean prime minister (who, BTW, had received only 4% of the vote in the previous election), and raised the Russian flag over the province. The local parliament then voted at gunpoint to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

    *That’s* what a coup looks like. Not a large-scale public protest like the EuroMaiden revolt or the January 6th Capitol protest.

    “But it isn’t really about Ukraine at all. It’s about destroying Russia.”

    Really? Russia’s genocidal war of conquest of Ukraine isn’t about Ukraine at all? I suppose you could say it’s about Russia’s feelings of paranoia and superiority and Ukraine is just the latest victim of such, but I suspect that’s not what you have in mind.

  108. “Is some damn fool thing in the Ukraine really worth that level of pain & misery?”

    Let Russia conduct its genocide in Ukraine and Moldova or Russia will nuke us all!

    End sanctions now or Russia will nuke us all!

    Let Russia conduct its genocide in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, or Russia will nuke us all!

    Let Russia conduct its genocide in Finland, Sweden, and Norway or Russia will nuke us all!

    Let Russia conduct its genocide in Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, and Portugal (Russia claims to lead a Eurasian alliance “from Lisbon to Vladivostok.”) or Russia will nuke us all!

    Let China have Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and all of Southeast Asia, or China will nuke us all!

    Let China have Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Latin America, and Canada, or China will nuke us all!

    Your fear knows no bounds. If you will not stand up to genocide when the price is small, you will not stand up to it when the price is much larger. I believe some guy named Churchill noticed the same trend in the 1930s and 40s.

  109. “Let Russia conduct its genocide in Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, and Portugal (Russia claims to lead a Eurasian alliance “from Lisbon to Vladivostok.”) or Russia will nuke us all!”
    Total derangement. The notion that this Russia could do any of this even in its own fevered dreams is risible and making this part of your “argument” is completely discrediting.

  110. mkent: “If you will not stand up to genocide when the price is small …”

    The only genocide that was happening in the Ukraine was during the 8 long years in which thousands of Russian-speaking Ukrainians were murdered by their own government. Eventually, the Russian government stood up to the genocidal Kiev regime. You should be applauding the Russians, mkent.

    Really, do please engage brain.

  111. Russia invades Ukraine on Feb. 24, next thing you know, Finland and Sweden join NATO. Score that one “NOT A WIN” for Putin. Russia uses battlefield nukes in Ukraine, what do you suppose happens? How many of Russia’s neighbores Nuke-Up? Answer: All of them. Putin seems to be a slow learner, but even he has to know that Russia’s hand would have to get much, much worse. He gets a daily (nightly) reminder that Russian weapons don’t stack up very well against the best that the West has. Too bad, so sad.

    As the war of attrition gradually disarms Russia, I expect discontent to rise both within the native Russian population and non-Russian members of the federation. It is an optimistic view, but collapse of the empire is greatly to be aspired to.

  112. no it took a long time, btw sweden used that admission to reduce their share of funding down to 2%, now Russian forces are much smaller then they were in their Soviet heyday, they could command half a million men, to a battlefield, at the peak of the Great Patriotic War, when it came to the Prague incursion, it took a combined Warsaw pact force of half a million men, three months, and this was when the population was a mere fraction of the current one, now Soviet tactical doctrine, always allowed for use of battlefield nuclear weapons,

  113. Good grief, “haha Sweden and Finland joined NATO, take that Vlad!” just isn’t going to die is it?
    Well that talking point is gonna look pretty dumb when Germans are huddled into public auditoriums for heat and Paris street lights are out and there are riots all across the world over food and gas shortages. But not in Russia, curiously…

  115. Raymondshaw: “As the war of attrition gradually disarms Russia …”

    It is a conflict — both sides take losses. Well, three sides, since the US is emptying our weapons stores to give to Zelensky.

    If you did not catch the news, there is an interesting item about a strange event clouded in confusion. The known facts are that a Ukrainian cargo plane carrying weapons to Bangladesh crashed in Greece.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11021799/Ukrainian-cargo-plane-crashed-Greece-carrying-11-TONS-mortar-land-mines.html

    There are more questions than answers here. Zelensky’s crew are always whining, demanding more Bidenbucks and more US weapons — so why do they have surplus weapons to ship to Bangladesh? Is it simple corruption, because the Ukraine is well known to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world? Or was this flight part of some deeper plan?

    The concern is that something accidental or deliberate could spark a much wider war, in the same way that some damn fool thing in the Balkans triggered the tragedy of World War I.

    There are circumstances where we have to be prepared to stand up and fight — us fight! Not sending other peons to fight on our behalf. And there are many more circumstances where we have nothing serious at stake, and the risks are way disproportionate to the possible benefits. The corrupt & violent Ukrainian “democracy” where opposition parties have been outlawed is not worth the death of Raymondshaw.

  116. why bangladesh, the original report said jordan, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, jordan is loosely allied with prince salman and the uae’s bin zayed, mueller first and then the doj was after the former, because reasons, they supported anti islamists like general sisi and hafter all along the med,
    Qatar most likely has the tie to bangladesh, as they are more vehemently islamist, that was in turn the tie to sri lanka, re that bombing in colombo a few years ago,

  117. How do we know it was going to Bangladesh?
    How come it couldn’t have been going to Iran, or to Afghanistan, or who knows where else? Either directly, or indirectly?

  118. the fact it’s origin point is serbia, and they have ties to ukrainian orthodox, that’s just a strange script,

  119. yeah and Serbia less likely to have CIA connections you would think…
    could it be a Russian arms plane?

  120. Yes, the news report raises more questions than answers. It seems the plane and its cargo were Ukrainian. The deal was arranged through a company in Serbia — presumably a deniability cut-out. The plane was supposedly going to Bangladesh with a refueling stop in Jordan. But all we can really conclude is that it was … curious!

    Suppose the real destination was Pakistan, with a deal between the corrupt Zelensky regime and corrupt US-hating Pakistani military officers to trade for a Pakistani nuke. Then the Ukrainians set off that nuke somewhere — does not matter where; New York, London, Moscow, Helsinki. And that triggers all out nuclear war, with none of those nukes targeting Kiev. Zelensky’s Ukraine wins its war.

    But that is just speculation. If the Ukrainian plane had not malfunctioned and crashed, we would never have heard anything about this — and what happened later would have been a great surprise. Bottom line is that the US interest should be to bring the conflict in the Ukraine to a negotiated conclusion as soon as possible.

  121. here’s where the wheels within wheels comes in, ostensibly they had deposed imran khan, because he was pro russia, but the brother? of nawaz sharif is prime minister now, and he’s more firmly tied to prince salman, who we have driven into the BRICS alliance, of course its anybody’s guess where the ISI’s allegiances are, or which faction of same,

  122. Key strategic Russian industries have been shut down”¦

    Such as?

    No such assurances were made.

    https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

    From the link: “Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University”

    On 27 February 2014 Russian forces of the Black Sea Fleet invaded Crimea”¦

    More about Crimea and its relationship with Russia and Ukraine here:

    https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f38ec2.html

    One entry- “May 5, 1992 Crimea’s parliament declares total independence subject to approval in a referendum to be held in August 1992.”

    In any case, the coup I mentioned was the CIA-funded coup in Ukraine and not anything to do with Crimea. But the Crimean timeline I provide adds a lot of context to your claims about just who was doing what at gunpoint.

    Russia’s genocidal war of conquest of Ukraine blah blah blah

    I’ve noticed any target of the Deep State immediately becomes the epitome of evil, no matter what.

    The years of Ukrainian shelling that killed thousands- meh, what’s that? Tiananmen Square? Whatever.

    I’ve had enough of this bovine excrement. You can keep revelling in it, if you’re into that. I’m not.

  125. What do people think that it means that the actual Ukrainian fighting is completely gone from the news. Not even any fake counteroffensives have been announced for months, it seems like. Poor Ukrainian slobs getting pulverized by Russian artillery doesn’t make good copy, I guess.
    It feels a bit similar to how covid is just gone from the news. And yet infection numbers are way up, compared to a year ago. Excess deaths are way up. Births are way down. Scientific papers slowly come out confirming things that the crazies got banned for a year ago, like about menstrual cycles being massively disrupted, reproductive organs accumulating damage, etc.
    Nothing to see here, I guess…

  126. When they dont talk about something its actually happening when they are it really isnt

  127. I guess by “people” I mean those who think that Ukraine is winning…
    The rest of us know exactly what it means…

  128. Sweden has a top notch military/industrial capability, they will add greatly to NATO. A benefit of membership is eliminating redundant spending. The members in arrears are to the south and west, Germany most conspicuously. The Germans elected Angela Merkel, we elected Barry. Go figure.

    In the Winter War, Finland suffered ~26,000 dead while Russia suffered ~168,000 dead. I am pretty sure that Sweden and Finland in NATO doesn’t make Putin smile.

    Miguel- “now Soviet tactical doctrine, always allowed for use of battlefield nuclear weapons…”

    A doctrine never employed isn’t much of a doctrine. Don’t forget, they bailed on Afganistan. Not trying to compare the circumstances, but still, they bailed.

    Gavin, I am touched by your concern for how the end comes for Raymondshaw., As much as I would like to address your and Xannedy’s suggestion that I join the fray more directly, being in my seventh decade makes me unfit to serve in any nation’s combat arms, except perhaps the Russian Federations. However, there is something that I can do. See here:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/v2ykdi/want_to_support_ukraine_heres_a_list_of_charities/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

    Also folks with an interest in a greater understanding of Russia will likely find this fellow quite fascinating to follow:

    https://threadreaderapp.com/user/kamilkazani

    I mentioned previously that Trent had mentioned him. I am quite grateful.

    If you scroll down to June 1 and June 2 entries, you will find a generous selection of good causes to donate to. I haven’t donated yet, but I intend take some time to select a couple of charities and take the plunge. I hope they can use the money to light up more of those sploody Russian ammo dumps.

    For those desirous of donating to the Russian side, I offer no suggestions.

  129. Well 60 billion is enough of a charity dont you think, now these conflicts flare up and then move to a low boil last time we werent cannibalizing our energy infrastructure and emptying our stores

  130. Well Miquel, we can certainly disagree on what is enough. Considering what we spent countering the USSR the last time, I am game for a whole lot more. It would be a great gift to humanity for the Russian empire to disintegrate. For 300 years they have been wreaking havoc on their neighbors. Now they are weak.

    Slight correction to my prior contribution. Make it my eighth decade.

  131. Well, I’m only in my fifth decade, and grew up in the rah rah for Reagan and Lee Greenwood days, on military bases, even, and I’m not falling for this nonsense. Zelensky ain’t Havel or Walesa, and we’re sure not the America we were back then. Conservatives made a fatal mistake in not realizing that just because libs threw around the “military-industrial complex” Ike quote in their attempt to lose the Cold War it didn’t mean that he was completely spot on, and now that MIC, along with the IC, has completely swallowed up the country.

  133. “Zelensky ain’t Havel or Walesa, and we’re sure not the America we were back then.”

    Wałęsa was communist agent.

  135. China wants European “leaders” to come kowtow to Xi in a few months…by then Xi will have had his coronation, Europe will be in desperate straits, the US will be distracted by the crushing defeat of the Dems in the election…
    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3185727/china-asks-european-leaders-meet-xi-november-will-they-accept
    “Top European leaders have been invited to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in November but have yet to decide whether to accept.
    Invitations have been sent to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, according to a senior source familiar with the situation.”

  136. @Brian What do you mean? I’m a POlish lurker. Usually I do not comment, but I can’t stand westerners implying WaÅ‚Ä™sa was some kind of hero. He definitely was agent well into 1970s and the only question was when he stopped. He denies, just as all of the Polish left and progressivists continue to deny this. However, there is a lot to suggest that communists decided that with their former agent they could control Solidarity movement. Given what he was doing later there is quite reasonable argument they could.

    So no matter what do you think about Zelensky, just to do not compare him to Wałęsa, unless you want to imply Zelensky is a bad guy.

  137. Raymonshaw: “Considering what we spent countering the USSR the last time, I am game for a whole lot more …. Make it my eighth decade.”

    Technically, Mr. Shaw, you are not game for it. Your proposal is that other men, young men, should go and fight, suffer and die — while you personally do not.

    I was always impressed with the behavior of the Ancient Athenians when they decided to invade Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. They had a democratic vote, and then the men who voted for war went down to the ships and started rowing towards Sicily. Many of them never returned. Those who were not killed were mostly enslaved. But knowing those were the risks, the men who voted for war put their own lives on the line.

    Contrast that with today’s situation in the highly corrupt Ukraine. Zelensky’s clique have forbidden fighting age men from leaving the country, and are sending goons to shopping malls, beaches, even churches to conscript those unwilling young men (and now women too) to go and die in the trenches. Very large numbers of young Ukrainians are trying to vote with their feet and sneak (or bribe) their way out of the country. It is not at all like what the true democracy of Ancient Athens did.

    ‘Let’s you & him fight’ is not a morally sound position.

  138. szopen: I don’t know enough about the stuff I see on wikipedia to judge what Walesa did in the 70s. As an American I find it hard to judge what anyone who lives in an authoritarian state does. Certainly Walesa’s actions as Solidarity leader in the 80s seems pretty admirable to me, as far as I can tell, I guess you disagree, but I don’t expect he was a saint. Nor do I think Zelensky is. His story isn’t written yet. He may be a hero or villain, but certainly not a saint.

  139. Walesa btw was the 3rd instance of a revolt there was one in 56 and 70 fwiw which failed. The MISAC was necessary to win the war and prosecute the cold war but it became self perpetuating

  140. All of those leaders agree with xi meloni (the real bartender) marine le pen and the alternative nominee do not

  142. “In microcosm”
    Trump’s original catastrophic mistake was firing Flynn. It made it look like there was something to hide re: Russia, and gave the Deep State the confidence and ability to get the Mueller committee going. Since we know he already knew that They were spying on him, he should have come out punching and say that They would never get away with it. Even now, he’s whining about 2020 instead of how completely corrupt the Deep State is and how they subverted the will of the American people for four years.

  145. Yes the entire IC and fed “law enforcement” is completely corrupt. Whoever the next GOP president is (Trump or DeSantis, no other likely options) needs to immediately fire everyone 10 layers deep at the FBI, CIA, DoD, etc. Ideally just abolish FBI and CIA completely, and level the Pentagon, but unfortunately there’s zero chance of that.

    They were barely able to get enough fraud in 2020, it’s critical to win those “swing” states to suppress what they’re able to do next time. One big question is whether the GOPe wouldn’t still rather lose than see Trump win. They’d probably be more motivated for DeSantis, but that’s not exactly a mark in his favor…

  147. I’m no expert on Walesa, but one thing that the WP systems did very well was compromise almost everyone to some degree or another, in one way or another. When there was talk of seeing justice done after the fall of that Evil Empire, it became obvious to many people that few of them would come off looking good if all the files came out, so those ‘lustrations’ were mostly shelved.

    And Walesa wouldn’t be the first pawn in history to slip his status and step out of line.

  148. @Cousin Eddie good point, but most of the contention people have with WaÅ‚Ä™sa is not that he was cooperating with communist service, but his vehement denial while at the same time acting as he was saint who singlehandly destroyed communism. I’ve heard many times that if he would just said “yes, I was agent when I was younger, I wronged some people, but I’ve changed” he would be forgiven. But instead he mercilessly attacked everyone who suggests that, despite proofs being available that beyond doubts, he WAS an agent in early 1970 and he most likely continued work into the 1970s.

    In fact one of rightwing publicists I value once wrote that maybe this is why WaÅ‚Ä™sa survived and was able to become a leader. A true hero would be destroyed by the system. But the kind of small dodger WaÅ‚Ä™sa was, the kind which communists thought could be controlled, was the only one who could do anything. Well yes, maybe. But why he just doesn’t admit it and stop smearing everyone around?

    The question is whether his past influenced his decisions later, when he propagated ideas like “NATO-bis”, almost managed to keep Russians in Poland, supported left-wing parties post-1989 and contributed to destruction of the right-wing government by Olszewski.

    BTW, people tend to forget Solidarity lost in 1981, at least temporarily. Milions of well-educated people were forced to emigrate and communism finally fell under its own weight, corrupt and inefficient beyond salvation.

  149. Antonov has been running a charter air freight operation since the fall of the USSR. The Antonov An-225 Mriya was just the biggest plane in their fleet. Their specialty is hauling stuff that others either can’t or won’t. Arms from Serbia to Bangladesh, no problem. Refuel in Jordan presumably because they are assured that there won’t be a problem with getting takeoff clearance. Ukrainian planes and crews aren’t sanctioned. Sometimes a crash is just a crash.

    There have been many flights over the years carrying arms from those that don’t ask many questions to those that don’t have many answers but do have cash. I imagine that previously, the flight plan would have been more straight east with refueling in one of the ‘Stans. Many of them would have originated in Russia proper, sharing some of the huge Soviet stock pile with the less fortunate in Africa and other southerly places.

    If these were former Soviet munitions, the trip takes something of the flavor of one of those old westerns where the wagon loaded with nitro-glycerine is bouncing down a rough mountain road behind a run away team.

  150. MCS: “Arms from Serbia to Bangladesh, no problem.”

    Well, that is the cover story. And undoubtedly there was a Serbian company involved. Whether as the real supplier of the weapons or as a front … the likes of us will never know.

    What strikes the dispassionate observer as strange is that a Ukrainian company controlled by the Zelensky regime reportedly had nothing better to do than handle dangerous cargo for a Serbian third party. This is the same Zelensky regime that is always begging Western taxpayers to send more weapons and is so desperate it is conscripting women & old men to go fight in the trenches. Surely the Zelensky regime would have more urgent uses for a cargo plane it controls than running arms for Serbians — such as transporting those weapons Zelensky says he needs, at least flying them from the West into Poland if not into the Ukraine proper?

    There is lots of reporting from/about the Ukraine that simply does not pass the Smell Test — and not all of it from the Ukrainian side. This item is just one more for that ever-lengthening list. If we are lucky, this flight was merely more Ukrainian corruption. And if we are not lucky … time will tell.

  152. Thanks for the details about Walesa, szopen. I was not aware of the allegations and denials–very interesting!

  153. Brian: “a Ukrainian company controlled by the Zelensky regime”
    Does it actually say that?

    Brian — Be serious! Do you really want to try to make the case that there is ANYTHING in the current Ukraine which is not at the beck & call of the Zelensky regime?

    Ask yourself — Why would the Ukrainian regime allow a fairly unique Ukrainian airplane asset and trained Ukrainian air crew go off and do commercial business for a foreign country at a time when that regime has its back to the wall and needs all the help it can get?

  154. Slow down, Gavin. Yes, there’s plenty in Ukraine that’s not under Zelensky’s control. There’s all that land that’s Russian controlled, for example. And I guarantee you there’s a whole bunch of stuff the CIA’s doing that our heroic Z isn’t privy to.
    I have no idea what this plane was, my guess is that it’s either a Russian arms shipment plane shot down by CIA or a CIA arms shipment plane shot down by Russia, but how are we supposed to figure out which? I’d probably lean a bit to the former, to be honest, since it came from Serbia…

  156. is this your card,

    https://t.me/disclosetv/8622

    interesting orban is the last and the youngest of that generation, havel probably the oldest, when he passed on some years ago, he had a falling out with soros, who once upon a time was on the right side of things, when the west’s front bench are solidly for starvation and brownouts, for Mother Gaea of course, you have to wonder what side you’re on,

  157. Brian” “my guess is that it’s either a Russian arms shipment plane shot down by CIA …”

    OK, I surrender! You are more cynical than I am, Brian. :)

    If a scarce Ukrainian plane effectively owned by the Ukrainian regime and scarce Ukrainian pilots are taking money under the counter to transport Russian arms to somewhere far away from the Ukraine which desperately needs old USSR caliber ammunition, then … the corruption in the Ukraine must run even deeper than I thought it was.

    Just a question — Does Hunter Biden get a kickback from the Antonov people for their (… um) side business?

  158. Gavin, what are you talking about?
    “a scarce Ukrainian plane effectively owned by the Ukrainian regime”
    That’s my whole question–is this true? There’s one single quote in that article you posted saying “An official at Kyiv cargo operator Meridian told Reuters: ‘Of course they didn’t survive this.'” Which doesn’t even definitely say if “Kyiv cargo operator Meridian” was the company that operated this plane.
    Even Sundance seems to have similar questions:
    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/07/17/ukraine-cargo-plane-crashed-in-greece-carrying-11-tons-of-bombs-mortars-and-landmines-to-bangladesh/
    If I had to hazard a guess about what this was, I’d say it is most likely: (a) part of the massive Ukrainian stores of mortars and landmines in eastern Ukraine that were moved in order to keep the Russians from capturing them; or (b) the actual arms that were captured by Russian and then sold on the world arms market. Either way, somehow, they end up as part of an arms deal from Serbia to Bangladesh.
    [Allegedly. We know nothing about this situation. And whatever we do “know” is probably mostly lies and misdirection.]

  159. “Well, that is the cover story. And undoubtedly there was a Serbian company involved. Whether as the real supplier of the weapons or as a front ”¦ the likes of us will never know.”

    We already know, just read the story. 11 tons would be about an hour’s consumption if that. Serbia has been a supplier of the finest, well aged, Soviet junk for a long time just as Russia and the ‘stans when they could find someone foolish enough to ignore the very out of date munitions. The real question is why Bangladesh came up needing just enough for a not very ambitions field exercise badly enough to pay an expensive air charter to deliver mortar shells and land mines. There will be literally tons of casings at the crash site, it won’t take much of an investigation to see just what was on board. And it sure was going in a funny direction if they were going to use it against Russia.

    Just a nothing burger to distract the gullible.

  160. Brian: “And whatever we do “know” is probably mostly lies and misdirection.”

    On that, we are in total agreement! The fog of war is thick.

    It is hard to avoid the reasonable base assumption that a Ukrainian plane flown by a Ukrainian crew carrying weapons had something to do with the Ukrainian side of the war in the Ukraine, even though the plane was flying away from the Ukraine. But the truth may not come out for decades … if ever.

  162. I still kind of wonder if the plane wasn’t planning on a stop in Iran, Putin was just there the other day, perhaps there was a big arms shipment to go along with their discussions, who knows?

  164. Brian: “Putin was just there the other day, perhaps there was a big arms shipment to go along with their discussions”

    Given the limited published information and the certainty that (a) it is incomplete and (b) at least part of it is outright lies, anything is possible. But the idea of the flight being a Russian arms shipment to Iran seems low probability.

    Objection 1 — As MCS pointed out, this was not a big arms shipment. And Iran would hardly have been interested in a small amount of old Soviet ammunition.
    Objection 2 — As MCS pointed out, the air shipment does not make sense. There would have been no reason for Bangladesh to pay extra for air shipment of standard weapons/ammunition that genuinely came from Serbia — or for Putin to have arranged air delivery to Iran while he was there.
    Objection 3 — There would have been no reason for Russia to contract an arms shipment to Iran (perfectly legal for both Russia and Iran) to a Ukrainian plane & Ukrainian crew through a cut-out in Serbia — and even less reason for the Ukrainians to have accepted the job.

    Depending on what parts of the very limited reports we chose to accept and what missing parts we choose to fill in, we can create a wide range of scenarios. The only scenario that we should reject out of hand is the official story that the Ukrainian plane was carrying Serbian ammunition to Bangladesh; that one simply does not make any sense.

    Maybe the Ukrainians were planning to do a left turn over Greece, fly across the Black Sea, and crash their explosives-laden plane into the Russian Kerch Straits bridge to the Crimea — but then something went wrong?

  166. I have no idea why you’re so hung up on this being a “Ukrainian” operation, Gavin. All we have saying that is that one passing mention in that one article, claiming the company is from Kiev, but that does not appear to be correct. This appears to be a Serbian company, by all indications.

  167. >i>”I have no idea why you’re so hung up on this being a “Ukrainian” operation

    Antonov is a Ukrainian airframe manufacturer, and the crew was apparently Ukrainian.

  168. And if the plane was a Boeing, would it be an American operation?

    Are the crew from Crimea, or Donetsk, or Kiev? Saying they’re “Ukrainian” tells us nothing.

  170. Brian: “Are the crew from Crimea, or Donetsk, or Kiev? Saying they’re “Ukrainian” tells us nothing.”

    OK, you made me look. Interestingly, there do not appear to be any continuing media reports on the crash, but the reports at the time made it clear this was a Kiev-type Ukrainian operation.

    Let’s go to a third party news source — Al Jazeera:
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/17/cargo-plane-carrying-hazardous-material-crashes-in-greece

    “Ukraine’s foreign ministry said the eight crew were Ukrainian citizens. “The preliminary cause of the accident is the failure of one of the engines,” said spokesman Oleg Nikolenko on Facebook.

    Denys Bogdanovych, general director of Meridian, the Ukrainian airline operating the plane, also told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle that the crew were all Ukrainian.”

    Don’t like the Arabs? Well how about the Europeans?
    https://www.euronews.com/2022/07/17/jordan-bound-ukrainian-cargo-plane-carrying-weapons-crashes-in-greece

    “All eight crew members have died after an Antonov cargo plane operated by a Ukrainian airline crashed on Saturday near the city of Kavala in northern Greece. …

    According to national media, Greece will lodge a protest over Serbia’s failure to warn them about the plane’s dangerous cargo.”

    It is a reasonable guess that if the plane had been Russian-controlled or the crew had been Donbas Ukrainians, the Kiev Ukrainian authorities would have been pointing fingers at Russia — but that has not happened.

    So we are left with the mystery that while Kiev is engaged in an existential struggle with enemy Russia and needs all the help it can command to transport weapons for the conflict, a Kiev-based air transport company is allowed by the Kiev government to carry on with business as usual, expensively transporting moderate amounts of explosive materials to non-wealthy Bangladesh. That simply does not pass the smell test.

  171. I have no idea what happened, my guess is it’s really not very important. Some sort of arms deal (between whom?), even if it was shot down (by whom?), it’s not really that big a deal.
    The real big deal of course is that pitiful display that Brandon put on in Saudi Arabia, and how even his media bootlickers couldn’t spin it as a success. Saudi Arabia moving towards openly becoming a Russian ally rather than a US one, as some of us have been pointing out for months now, would upend US foreign policy fundamentals of the past 50 years way more than anything going on in Ukraine, and no one’s talking about it at all. What was that Ben Rhodes quote about how utterly moronic everyone in the media is? Of course it’s equally true about the government “elites” these days as well…

  172. Brian: “The real big deal of course is that pitiful display that Brandon put on in Saudi Arabia”

    That is indeed a big deal. Russia has to sell oil at a discount — but the price of oil from which the discount is taken has gone up. Net effect of Biden*’s economic war on Russia is that Russia receives about the same oil price as before while the price we pay has gone up.

    A related big deal is the damaging impact of Biden*’s war on German industry and on the global supply of fertilizers and grain. But even that does not get much coverage.

    Most of these problems are self-imposed on the West by our Political Classes. Sadly, things will have to get a lot worse before we start to take steps to turn things around.

  173. Europe’s going to fall apart in the coming months. Expect riots, and multiple governmental collapses. Who knows what the outcome will be, thanks to their decades of fecklessness. Probably it won’t be a European polity that looks gratefully to America…
    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/greece-spain-quick-reject-unfair-eu-proposal-cut-gas-use-poland-italy-voice-doubts
    Greece & Spain Quick To Reject ‘Unfair’ EU Proposal To Cut Gas Use

    If one pays attention to foreign media, you can read about all sorts of fascinating things like meetings between Iranian and Indian presidents, etc., that might just be important. But nah let’s focus on throwing randos in jail for walking into the Capitol for 15 minutes, that’s the real historically important stuff…

  175. The absolute shamelessness of the media never ceases to amaze…
    https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1550014484860866560
    “Since the start of the war with Russia, the Biden administration has mostly ignored Ukraine’s corruption history. Now, questions have resurfaced about its suitability as a recipient of massive infusions of aid.”

    The only thing funnier than this article is the comments…I especially love “Did Putin write this?”

  176. How come there hasn’t been a Ukraine post in a month?

    Are we allowed to post about how insane this, or does that still make one a Putin puppet?
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ukraine-issues-blacklist-russian-propagandists-includes-us-senator-prominent-journalists
    The Ukrainian government has published a list of politicians, academics, and activists who it claims promote “Russian propaganda”. Absurdly, it includes high American officials – even a sitting US senator – and a Pulitzer Price winning journalist.
    A Kiev government-linked agency called the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation released the list earlier this month, identifying figures such as Republican Senator Rand Paul, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), military analyst Edward Luttwak, University of Chicago professor and international relations theorist John Mearsheimer, and award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Intercept, among many others.

  177. Sometimes you have to pick the least worst side for an ally. Overheated rhetoric aside, we picked the Soviets in WWII because they were killing Germans, not because we endorsed their government. Ukrainian support has a fairly large popular component, it won’t be hard for them to forfeit that. Of course there’s a pretty long list of people here that would put Paul or Greenwald away if they could.

  178. “Sometimes you have to pick the least worst side for an ally.”

    That is true. And then sometimes one has to look at a situation and say — NOT MY FIGHT!

    There is no rule saying that the US has to be involved in every entangling conflict everywhere in the world.

    As for whether the media pumped-up support for the corrupt Ukrainian junta still exists? Many have pointed out that the situation in the Ukraine now ranks far below the Kardashians in media attention. And that is probably about where the civil war in the Ukraine should belong. Similarly, there is also next to zero coverage of the long-running wars in Yemen or Syria, and absolutely zero coverage of the situation in Afghanistan after Biden* & Milley ran for the exit. Most Americans have very little interest in foreign wars — and that is quite appropriate!

  179. Yeah, ‘defend Democracy in the Ukraine’ doesn’t really work that well. Poland in August 1939 was nobody’s idea of a democracy; Finland was most people’s idea of a democracy (and actually held legit elections during the war) but what was important in both cases is that they were attacked by larger powers, successor regimes to former oppressors–and that it was simply not in the West’s interests to let the attackers prevail.

    How that maps to the present situation is up to each person to judge for themselves.

    I don’t make a secret that my druthers would be for Putin to be taken down a few notches at least, but beyond that I don’t have much to say. It still seems to me that of all the mistakes made to get here, Putin’s were the most egregious and decisive.

  180. “Finland was most people’s idea of a democracy”

    That must be why England declared war on Finland during WWII.

  181. Well yemen is almost as occluded a battlefield, yes the houthis are iranian proxies but the saudis have used islamist militias including aqap elements the latter has infiltrated the security services so your guess is as good as mind whos in the right

  182. Don’t be a dolt, Gavin. Before (and after) the settlement of March ’40, British and other Western public opinion was pro-Finnish, and by 1944 the Soviets were not willing to alienate Western powers further by trying to take over the country entirely.

    There were also British plans to bomb Soviet oil facilities in the Causcasus prior to that quickie peace, so yes, at one time the Brits considered the Finns democratic enough to deserve help.

    The Brit DoW was in response to the adherence of Finland, Hungary, and Romania to the
    Tripartite Pact of the three Axis majors, who looked to be on a roll. Casus belli, regardless of the internal realities in each country.

    If you had merely challenged the “most people” you would have been on firmer ground for a Gotcha.

  183. We were at war with Germany. So was the USSR. Hence allies.
    We’re not at war with Russia, no matter how much the lunatics in DC might wish otherwise.

  184. Yes the british bombed iraqi oil fields in 41, for similar reason the germans hac sent a small task force to protect their proxy gailani of course where would you launch such an operation from bases in greece they didnt have much access

  186. The Lend-Lease enabling act was signed into law on March 11, 1941, 9 months before the US Congress declared was on Germany. So, no, we were not “at war with Germany. So was the USSR. Hence allies.” when military aid to the USSR commenced. Same, same re: Ukraine.

    The libertarian in me is a great admirer of Rand Paul. While I would rather that Ukraine leave him be, he is hardy enough to endure. I would remind folks that our own Government blacklisted (and much worse) a sitting President of the United States. The same argument applies to the criticisms of Ukrainian corruption. Is the Ukraine corrupt solely because they submitted to extortion by US politicians and beaureaucrats? No. But it happened.

    Ukraine was under the corrupt bootheel of Russia/USSR for many years. The endemic institutional corruption of Russia would find easy purchase in Ukraine. The important consideration is whether Ukraine is trying to do better away from Russian influence. Time will tell. Russia is certainly not trying to do better.

  187. When the local whore house catches fire, you don’t hold the fire department back, waiting to see if the rest of the town catches fire.

  188. Well I guess we see why there’s no Ukraine posts anymore. There’s nothing to say that hasn’t been said a billion times already.
    As for me, I’d feel radically different if it hadn’t been for the farcical impeachment, when the Deep State went to Defcon One about the tiniest moves to investigate their vast corruption in Ukraine. You can’t make me care about keeping “free” a country that our own “elites” view as their own private plaything for money laundering and delusional plans for reshaping global politics. I wish the average Ukrainian well, but it’s far more important right now not to feed into the bottomless pit of corruption in DC.

  189. Cousin Eddie: “Don’t be a dolt, Gavin.”

    Eddie, are you questioning the factual statement that during WWII, England declared war on harmless little “democratic” Finland?

  191. The other topic that “no one talks about anymore” is covid, of course…
    The proof of “actual” covid deaths was always excess deaths, we all agreed on that. “Official” numbers were somewhere between mostly to completely meaningless, but you can’t hide deaths, at least not in modern countries that have decent records.
    And what are excess deaths doing the past year?
    Setting near-record highs.
    Does everyone realize that?
    No one’s talking about it.
    And “They” aren’t even trying to pretend it’s due to covid, and aren’t bothering to pretend to look into it.
    Because we KNOW what it can’t possibly due to. Yep. No doubt. I won’t say it, of course, but we KNOW it’s not that.

  194. I know it’s cliche to say, but…if Trump were president and there were reports he was thinking of trading a Russian arms dealer for a basketball player, he’d be impeached by dinnertime…

  195. Brian: “if Trump were president and there were reports he was thinking of trading a Russian arms dealer for a basketball player, he’d be impeached by dinnertime”¦”

    Indeed! But the DC Swamp flows only one way. Probability that the Institutional Republicans will raise a stink about this? We all know the answer is … Almost Zero.

    The worthlessness of the DC Republicans is why we will not be able to vote our way out of the current mess. The only solution is collapse, followed by complete reorganization of society. I am optimistic that the result (maybe two generations from now) will be good — but the process is going to be very painful.

  196. Michael Anton on fire
    https://compactmag.com/article/they-can-t-let-him-back-in
    The people who really run the United States of America have made it clear that they can’t, and won’t, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again.
    …
    Anti-Trump hysteria is in the final analysis not about Trump. The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are. That class””Angelo Codevilla’s “country class”””must not be allowed representation by candidates who might implement their preferences, which also, and above all, must not be allowed. The rubes have no legitimate standing to affect the outcome of any political process, because of who they are, but mostly because of what they want.

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