Another day, another news drop. Now, more disturbing info about the CF of SS and police agencies involved on last Sat. A lot of Drip, Drip.
I did see, briefly, report of police shooting someone 2 mi from the convention, and another person arrested close by. Then, disappeared.
In the wake of Trump’s vice presidential announcement on Monday, numerous conservative and far-right figures have taken to social media to launch racist attacks against Usha Vance because of her Indian heritage and the assumption that her influence on her husband’s political career means the Republican Party will be softer on immigration.
“I’m sure this guy is going to be great on immigration,” Jaden McNeil, a far-right activist and the founder of America First Students…
Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist who visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home along with rapper Kanye West in November 2022, suggested that Vance would not be a “defender of white identity” because of his wife’s Indian heritage.
Vincent James Foxx, who was present at the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, wrote on X: “JD Vance gets tapped as VP and immediately there’s a Hindu prayer at the RNC. Next we’ll see Sen. Mike Lee and JD Vance team up to convince Trump to let in 10 million Indian immigrants. Green cards on diplomas!”
And here was humble me thinking that the Trump/Vance ticket might be Too White for the American populace!?!
I loved that scene pacino. He did chew the scenery with that terrible southern accent, its almost as bad as his cuban accent (i know about such things) you dont need to over enunciate to sound authentic
Now major slades sentiment is one that probably not uncommon in the big hearing scene, now is o donnells character in the right well neither are his other classmates who are protected
Back to idle trolling Karmi? Can’t resist those urges, eh? Heh.
I hardly think Newsweek’s cited sources represent “MAGA” or conservatives in general. Besides, they’re ignorant. Usha Vance is American-born. And the prayer was offered by Harmeet Dhillon, a legal immigrant, who is Sikh, not Hindu.
Let me preference all this by saying that I have absolutely zero hard evidence for any of the following ideas, which could fairly be described as conspiracy theories I guess.
I strongly suspect that the Biden team deliberately allowed Trump’s Secret Service detail to become understaffed which in turn lead to them becoming overworked. I further suspect that personnel and resources have been deliberately redirected from Trump’s campaign events to other events (like for example Jill Biden’s speaking event last Saturday). I also would not be at all surprised if less experienced agents have been assigned to Trump’s Secret Service team.
Obviously the secret hope that Biden, his handlers, and doubtless many others in the deep state apparatus had (and continue to have) is that Trump would be assassinated in a way that would provide them plausable deniability regarding any involvement. A successful assassination of Trump would’ve solved virtually all of their current problems, or so they likely believed anyway.
Emerging today, news of a Zoom call between Biden and a large group of Democrat Congressmen which took place Saturday before the assassination attempt, partially and temporarily buried therefore.
The gist:
Right before the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a group of moderate Hill Democrats held a “tense” Zoom call with the White House to express their concern about Biden’s ability to win—and their ability to win, should he tank and take them down with him. “The call was even worse than the debate,” one of the participants told me. “He was rambling; he’d start an answer then lose his train of thought, then would just say ‘whatever.’ He really couldn’t complete an answer. I lost a ton of respect for him.” A second participant in the call confirmed this characterization. “The president was rambling, dismissive of concerns, unable or unprepared to present a campaign strategy, and had a particularly troubling exchange with Jason Crow—saying to him, ‘Tell me something you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son,’” this member of Congress told me. “Had the assassination attempt not occurred an hour later, I imagine 50 people on that Zoom were ready to come out publicly against him.”
Chris over at his youtube channel Task&Purpose put up a good first analysis yesterday. His main focus is usually military…new weapons systems, Ukraine war, etc. But, I think he does a good job here, and he admits as new info comes out he will update and maybe even changes his views:
Let’s finish off the idiots in the Newsweek article posted by Karmi with this gem:
Conservative commentator Stew Peters wrote, “There is an obvious Indian coup taking place in the US right before our eyes,” while sharing a screenshot of an article about the Vances’ three children.
But then idiocy shows it has no ideology:
Saira Rao, a progressive activist and former Democratic congressional hopeful, also attacked Usha Vance on X.
“Usha Vance, the latest Indian American woman delighted to do the bidding of white supremacy. Who needs white women when brown ones are ready to serve,” Rao wrote.
The bio of Usha is as impressive as her husband!
After graduating from Yale in 2013, Usha Vance worked as a clerk for Brett Kavanaugh, now an associate justice on the Supreme Court, when he served as an appeals court judge in Washington, D.C. She also worked as a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts.
Usha Vance went on to work as an attorney at Munger, Tolles and Olson, a prestigious law firm. She left the firm following Trump’s announcement that her husband would be his new running mate.
“Usha has informed us she has decided to leave the firm,” Munger, Tolles and Olson told the Associated Press. “Usha has been an excellent lawyer and colleague, and we thank her for her years of work and wish her the best in her future career.”
Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna was among the MAGA figures who praised Usha Vance as “extremely impressive.”
“Mom of 3, met JD at Yale Law School, degrees from Yale and Cambridge, corporate litigator, clerked for Supreme Court justices,” Luna wrote on X.
And the proof that behind every great man is a smart woman:
JD Vance’s confirmation as the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee on Monday caps off a major rise that has seen the Hillbilly Elegy author move, in two years, from political novice to potentially in line for the presidency.
In his bestselling memoir, JD Vance praised his wife. “Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion—I can be defused, but only with skill and precision,” he wrote. “It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me.”
Two best blogs (IOW, my favorites):
neo (of course); and “Samizdata: A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective”.
These are my first thing in morning go-to’s, along with InstaPundit.
Strongly urge all of you here to check out Samizdata (https://www.samizdata.net/). Authors Natalie Solent, Perry de Havillend, and Jonathan Pearce are especially noteworthy, but there are numerous other writers, from all around the world, and they are all terrific.
The Feds may not have planned the assassinsation attempt, but they seem to have heeded Arthur Hugh Clough’s famous couplet:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive.
Nonapod
“the Biden team deliberately allowed Trump’s Secret Service detail to become understaffed which in turn lead to them becoming overworked.” and ” less experienced agents have been assigned to Trump’s Secret Service team.”
Brian E, thanks for the bit from Saira Rao. That offensive riff on the Vance marriage is so typical of the what the Democrat left has become. People are not people to them, they are merely representatives of their intersectional-defined groups.
Saira does remove all doubt, but anyone who grifts by having people pay to be insulted, well, there we are, he and nick should have tea,
Few things enrage the Left more than intelligent, independently minded members of designated minority groups who identify as Conservatives. The Left believes that they are absolutely entitled to the full, unexamined allegiance of such people. And those who dare reject them are to be viewed as reviled apostates, despised above all others. No amount of vitriole is too much to hurl at them.
This 3 minute segment may get JD uninvited from a lot of MSM news shows. He politely refuses to be shouted down.
Also shows that he will be an effective defender of the Trump administration.
yes you’re not a woman or black or hispanic if you don’t toe the line, its a rather worn out trope, which can result in dangerous circumstances,
On another topic: Sabine has another climate video up. In it she takes two steps forward, and one step back. She is finding out the games the climate community is playing with their models and the uncertainties associated with those models. She also has discovered the temperature anomaly and the problems with baselines for those, and the fact that the absolute temperature is what is important. I was about 3/4 of the way through her video and was thinking, “Oh my! She’s really turned the corner!” Nope. She instead said that governments are using these models for “planning”. Yep. Then she said due to the uncertainties that they may not be taking the right path as the future could be even more worse than what the models are saying. Arrgghhh! What about the models over exaggerating the problem???
She seems wedded to the need for an energy transition and hasn’t made the leap that maybe we don’t need such a transition. Like I said 2 steps forward, 1 back. As Neo keeps reminding us, a mind is hard to change.
Instead of politics, I will discuss the open thread video. Several months ago, I listened to a CD of Carlos Gardel, the Argentine tango singer. (He died in a plane crash 90 years ago. A common saying about Gardel is that “every day he sounds better.”) The song that I liked the most was Gira, Gira. Coincidentally, the songwriter and lyricist for Gira Gira was Enrique Discepolo. There were Discepolos in my class and my sister’s class. Back in the day, it was a tossup between Argentina and the US for Italian emigrants.
As a the lyrics make extensive use lunfardo, slang from Buenos Aires, and my grasp of lunfardo is not what it used to be, I used a lunfardo-Spanish dictionary to better understand the lyrics.
This has essentially been the case since after midnight, November 3, 2020 – pausing a bit, then building to a crescendo around 3am, November 4th. Illegitimacy has a price, but it came with a learning experience for us all.
Looks like Vance is pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine. Didn’t know much about him, but now see one of the reasons Trump picked him.
For two days, the Republican Party has shown a remarkable level of unity in Milwaukee. Saturday’s assassination attempt bonded together all the quarrelsome factions of the GOP that we have grown so used to covering. (Remember the House Speaker’s race?)
But behind the scenes of the made-for-primetime programming, there are notable cracks in the unity here. The source of the tension is what it’s been ever since June 16, 2015: the tectonic plates of the old Republican Party and the Trump insurgency crashing against each other in fits and starts to create something new.
By picking Sen. J.D. VANCE (R-Ohio) as his running mate, Trump has inflamed the most passionate fight in the Republican Party. Jonathan Martin is out this morning with a detailed rundown of what the internationalists, who recently seemed to be ascendant, are thinking after Trump chose the most hardline anti-interventionist in the Senate as his number two.
Yeah, a pro-Russian ticket – Russia has enough allies with Iran, North Korea and China – now it looks like the Trump/Vance team will also bend the knee to Russia…bummer.
They were quick to put a cork in the “5’7”” false height for Vance – hopefully team Trump/Vance will be just as quick at putting a cork in the anti-Ukraine issue.
Evidently Ann Althouse also had pretty much the exact thoughts I had regarding all that too. And I’m sure there are loads of other people who have reached similar conclusions. It just makes too much sense given how desperate our ruling overlords are becoming.
They need Trump gone, one way or another. The only question is how to do it in a way that offers plausible deniability. How can they take him out without clearly implicating themselves? After all, we’re talking about a group of people who are proven liars and grifters. We’re tlaking about people who’ve spent years and years pushing hoaxes about Trump. They utterly made up the Russia collusion hoax whole cloth. And all the lawfare demonstrates they are people who have zero compunctions twisting the law in order to stop Trump. And they stand to lose a lot if they don’t win this election and Trump gets in and starts cleaning house.
I think a far better term to use for Vance would be, as Walter Russell Mead said in the WSJ recently, “Jacksonian.” I sincerely doubt either he or Trump is pro-Russia. Naturally Politico and other leftist outlets would call it “pro-Russian.” These are the same folks who assured us for years that the “Russian collusion” hoax was true.
Apologies for the paywall link. I don’t recall how to get a free link.
Russia admits to 71,000 KIA in the Ukraine War so far. If the usual ratios apply, that means they’ve suffered as many as 3x that number of WIA and MIA. So: at least 284,000 casualties total.
Holy smokes.
But there’s more: So-called “other outlets” find that “by the end of June, approximately 120,000 Russian troops had died since the conflict began, ‘but the real number could be as high as 140,000.’” So: more than a half million casualties total.
And: Xi has been said to have suffered a massive stroke and in critical condition.
If this is true: Triple holy smokes.
If the Xi stroke rumors are true, it’s yet another Black Swan in what will go down in history as one of the wierdest weeks ever.
Are there any links for this Xi rumor?
I linked to this yesterday, but given the distortions to Vance’s position on the limitations of US ability to fund/arm multiple wars I would suggest you let Vance explain his position.
Short version. We need to prioritize our support based on production capabilities. Europe needs to take the lead on supporting Ukraine. I have been saying something similar for quite some time. Europe’s industrial capacity/economy is equal to ours. They need to step up and contain Russia.
That is quite different from being “pro-Russia”.
The policies of Biden are fully to blame for the inflamed aggressions around the globe– being felt by Israel and Ukraine. Our disastrous energy policies have fueled the Russian and Iranian economic capabilities to wage war. Then add our direct payments to Iran which enabled Iran to finance/pursue their agenda in Yemen, Gaza and Lebanon.
Because of our disastrous foreign policy decisions we have essentially elevated Iran from a client state to a partner of Russia. We’ve pushed Russia and China into a relationship that is not the normal posture between rivals.
Choosing between Ukraine and Israel, our security interests should focus on Israel. Israel is losing the propaganda war worldwide as they attempt to defang Hamas and Hezbollah. Biden’s schizophrenic support for Israel has emboldened Israel’s enemies worldwide to coerce their governments to isolate Israel.
Is there a path out of this situation? Let’s start with strategic diplomacy.
Answered my own question. Glenn Reynolds says, nothing he’d consider authoritative at this point. Rumor: https://instapundit.com/661142/
Thank you Brian E. I saved your comment at 1:35
Karmi’s take at 12:47 reminds me of what Kate pointed out here: People are not people to them (Democrats), they are merely representatives of their intersectional-defined groups
Yes its a unique dialect
The policies of Biden are fully to blame for the inflamed aggressions around the globe
No. As much as I hate Biden and the Biden administration (and the Democrat Party, and leftists of every stripe, and etc., etc.), Biden’s polices cannot and should not be blamed for inflamed aggressions worldwide. Blame should be directed at the aggressors.
The current POTUS and his administration do deserve opprobrium for their incompetencies in dealing with the situation — not blame for causing them, which they did not.
Power vaccuums are filled by unscrupulous figures where putin xi khamenei et al
In 1979 where was afghan invasion sandinista takeover iranian revolution grand mosque siege
IrishOtter49, you are correct to point out that the blame for aggressions should be placed on those who commit them. However, it’s fair to point out that some policies enable aggressions. This applies to Biden/Obama foreign policies and to leftist domestic policies.
I think they programmed certain parameters to reach the results and perhaps they situated certain measuring stations in sites where they were likely to match the modeled data
Nonapod
Agreed. I’ve been looking for what else could explain what we saw at Butler and the two things that jumped out at me were the impact of cultural changes being forced on the workforce and the increased ops tempo forced on the changing workforce as the number of details has grown as more staffers are granted protective status in an increasing threat environment.
Experienced high performers bail, lesser performers move in and up, and new hires (that would have been never-hires previously) become temporary or permanent fill ins. IOW transitioning the Secret Service from its apolitical roots to just another outfit within the DHS bureaucracy has consequences. Time will tell where the truth lies.
Pure speculation:
Joe/Jill had reason to believe that something big was in the works that would greatly enhance his re-election prospects. That something went terribly wrong last Saturday (thank God!).
That knowledge, combined with he steady drip of Dems calling for him to withdraw, will lead to his resignation sooner rather than later.
I’m thinking he will announce on Thursday, to deflect attention from 45/47’s triumph at the R convention.
Yes, Dems are that desperate.
IrishOtter49;
Yep, the Russian way of warfare is to keep tossing soldiers (and probably poorly trained as well) into the meat grinder.
Putin is not deterred by the magnitude of Russian casualties; he will just keep sending more and more until Ukraine runs out of soldiers.
Yeah, it could be argued that unfreezing billions of dollars for Iran did actually do a fair amount to inflame aggressions. That extra money in Iranian coffers may have freed up resources and allowed certain expenditures that may well have enabled the Oct 7th attack.
IrishOtter49, of course it’s impossible to say absolutely had another policy been used towards and different outcome would have happened.
We can say Iran is absolutely committed to the destruction/annihilation of Israel and the complete control over Jerusalem.
But we did have Iran contained. With the Trump energy policies oil prices were in the mid $50s/bbl, not counting 2020 (oil dropped to $11/bbl in April). Oil prices during the Biden years averaged in the mid $70s, while at the same time Biden drained the SPR to it’s lowest level in 40 years to try and keep gas prices lower in the US.
So our policies did help the economies of Russia and Iran.
Biden resumed the Obama policies of making Iran the regional counterbalance to Israel with the stated objective of bribing Iran not to finish their development of an nuclear bomb. They did this while knowing that Iran’s stated objective is the destruction of Israel as a state.
Possibly a better term would be enabling Iran/Russia.
Kate:
The assertion that some “policies enable aggressions” is true as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. It’s a rather vague formulation. It is easily to manipulate to support one’s thesis. Just about any action or lack of action could be said to have enabled aggression. Ultimately and always, aggressors are responsible for the aggression they commit. As such it is the perfect tool of the Devil. Aggressors have final agency and choice. To believe otherwise is akin to blaming a rape victim for having enabled her rapist. E.g., maybe the rape victim did dress provocatively, maybe she didn’t maintain adequate situational awareness, maybe she was just too damn good-looking to be out in public. Such reasoning was frequently deployed by both Japan and Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II. The Japanese argued that they were forced to go war by the embargo off American and DEI oil because they needed oil to continue their their genocidal war in China. The same type of excuse for aggressive war was given by Germany concerning its handling of the Czechoslovakia/Sudetenland crisis and Poland. “We had no choice other than war, it’s your fault (IOW, your policies compelled/enabled us to go to war).”
In other words: the devil made them do it by enabling them to do it.
IrishOtter49,
Policy vis-à-vis rape would be blaming the policy that allows rapists into the country not the victim for a short skirt.
One doesn’t have to be “Pro-Russia” or “Anti-Ukraine” to believe that Biden’s quixotic (at best) policy of arming Ukraine just prolongs war at great human cost, without changing the inevitable result, and that a negotiated solution is the best approach. I think Vance goes further and says it’s Europe’s problem, not ours, but it amounts to the same thing.
Just about any action or lack of action could be said to have enabled aggression. Ultimately and always, aggressors are responsible for the aggression they commit.
IrishOtter49: That’s all fair and true. But I will say that there are certainly actions that can more clearly and directly be said to “enable aggression”. As an admittedly very extreme example, if you personally were to hand a flamethrower to a known and convicted arsonist and he then goes on to burn a building down with it, I think it may fairly argued that you enabled that outcome to some degree. Yeah, the arsonist is ultimately responsible for burning the building down, but maybe people should at minumum question your judgement for giving that arsonist a flamethrower. Maybe he would’ve still burned the building down anyway even if you hadn’t handed him a flamethrower. But was it wise to do so? And would you say it’s fair to question your judgement in that case?
Yes, I know, this is an extreme example. And maybe “enabling aggression” isn’t the right term to use when talking about foreign policy descisions like the wisdom of unfreezing Iranian assets. And I certainly dislike the implication that we bare responsibility for actions we ourselves did not take.
but given the distortions to Vance’s position
Thanks, saved me having to explain that. It is remarkable how many people believe the pro-Russia thing, people who should know better. It is a huge mistake for the pro-Ukrainian folks to make Ukraine a partisan issue, and it started with the idiot Vindman twins.
There has been a worm hole opened and the reality from another universe has leaked into ours!
This is from an interview on CNN of David Frum who says JD Vance used to write for him on a publication called FrumForum under a pseudonym.
He says Vance was very ambitious and his positions have changed over a short period of time. Thinking about the transformation/formation of Reagan’s ideas over some time, it’s easy to conclude the Vance is an opportunist– but then there has never been a time where information has been so readily available instantly. The time to reflect is indeed shorter, but events today have a way of forcing that reflection to be shorter.
I think Vance’s sincerity and integrity haven’t been questioned by even his adversaries. No one I have read questions his intellect.
I’m not linking to the interview as no one should be subjected to the epic level of distortion spouted by Frum. He would make Goebbels blush.
Ukraine and Europe will do worse under the Brandon junta than under a Trump/Vance administration. I would have preferred someone other than Vance, but the most importiant thing
for the USA and Ukraine is to get the Brandonites away from any part of US policy foreign and domestic.
Some things are that basic and essential.
The Brandonites (actually BHO bastards) have had four years to f’up the world.
Karmi prefers to troll about oppressive law and the “white man’s” GOP.
I think the power vaccuum covers it well, malefactors will do evil, that is no doubt but ‘when good men do nothing’ or foolish men do the wrong thing, or a whole string of wrong things, from the Nordstream pipelines and the cancelling western pipelines* bullying Israel and funding Hamas, through third parties, forcing the Kingdom from acting strongly against the Houthis, and we see the result there,the early capitulations to the PLA ruling circles, at Anchorage, the refusal to demand accountability on the sources of covid, those are just some elements,the capitulations to the Taliban, that led to the attack on Abbey Gate, oddly those who had insisted the Russians had paid ‘afghan bounties’ were strangely silent on that particular instances, this certain contributed to the Khozayin’s deliberation on
resuming the Caucasus wars,
*a coincidence that monies from gazprom, helped cement all those pipeline decisions
ah the Frum Forum, I had forgotten that artefact of ’10s nostalgia, well nostalgia is not the right word, much like Douthat and Yglesias blogs on the Atlantic,
I suggest everyone should listen to Vance’s speech. Even the title gives a clue to where Vance is coming from– “J.D. Vance on a Foreign Policy for the Middle Class.”
This aligns with what forms his policies. The head of the Teamsters pointed out that Vance helped the union with several issues affecting his union. He worked with Warren on issues with interest rates.
Vance takes his “common man” theme very seriously. Circumstances (and Trump’s coalition) have moved the Republican party to representing the interests of the working man/woman and Vance is there to represent them.
The populism of the new Republicans puts the party at odds with Wall St in some instances, but we have experienced the limitations of “free trade” butting up against strategic needs. It’s up to the Trump administration to figure out where the limits should be.
Listen to Vance would be the best way to form your own opinion on the nominee.
The guy who announced the vote for MA at the Republican Convention can be thankful that nobody listens to the roll call of the states. At 1:48:30 in this C-SPAN video he almost out-Bidens Biden when he says “The great Commonwealth of Magachusetts, home of John Quincy Adams, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry and other great patriots . . .”
I’m also seeing those Xi stroke reports. It’s not easy to get reliable and accurate news out of the Forbidden City — like the Kremlin under the Communists … or like the Kremlin today … or like the White House now.
I was reminded of the quote: “There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen.” I wondered who said it. It turns out it was Lenin, but that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.
The girl in a short skirt being blamed for her own rape would be an extreme interpretation of “enabling.” What I meant was Biden weakness on foreign policy and Democrats’ policies against sensible law enforcement.
”Putin is not deterred by the magnitude of Russian casualties; he will just keep sending more and more until Ukraine runs out of soldiers.”
Incorrect. He will keep sending more and more until Russia runs out of tanks.
@JohnTyler
Yep, the Russian way of warfare is to keep tossing soldiers (and probably poorly trained as well) into the meat grinder.
Among other things.
Putin is not deterred by the magnitude of Russian casualties; he will just keep sending more and more until Ukraine runs out of soldiers.
There are a couple problems with this.
Firstly: We have clear indications that he obviously IS being deterred by the magnitude of Russian casualties, as shown by his desire to continue “clandestine mobilization”, refusing an open declaration of war (That would let him send non-Contractniki Conscripts to Ukraine), and his desire to “offshore” a lot of casualties onto North Korean and Venezuelan and Syrian “volunteers.”
Secondly: The blunt fact is that he can’t send “more and more” when there aren’t “more and more” to send. The Russian military had probably the best conventional military it is going to have when it openly went in in 2022, and that got torn up due to the problems in the campaign. We’ve seen units from as far afield as Kamchatka and the White Sea being thrown into the meat grinder and getting torn up. That’s not just legacy equipment, but also relatively trained and high quality troops (especially by Russian standards). This is particularly jarring in the Navy with losses like the landing ships and the Moskva, because they flat out are not going to be able to produce those kinds of ships again.
That doesn’t mean Ukraine isn’t in a manpower crunch (it clearly is) or that Russia will inevitably lose, but the idea that Russia has an infinite amount of soldiers to throw at problems is and always has been a myth.
@Jimmy
One doesn’t have to be “Pro-Russia” or “Anti-Ukraine” to believe that Biden’s quixotic (at best) policy of arming Ukraine just prolongs war at great human cost, without changing the inevitable result, and that a negotiated solution is the best approach.
For the sake of the argument Jimmy, I’ll agree with you that one doesn’t have to be “Pro-Russia” or “Anti-Ukraine” to believe those things. I do, however, think one has to be rather gullible or naive.
Let’s walk through this.
Firstly: “Inevitable Result.” There are basically no inevitable results, and certainly not in this conflict. The Russian military is not and never has been an all-consuming juggernaut. Indeed, the closest the Russian military was to that was in 2022 – when it was fattened by both long term, experienced troops and auxiliaries as well as the new intakes of conscripts with the chance to “bloody” them productively in places like Georgia and Syria. And that military isn’t coming again, it got torn up in the abortive escalade on Kyiv and in the trenches in places like Bakhmut and Kherson.
We’ve seen serious losses and political instability force Russia to retreat from this battle space (and indeed, in many cases this EXACT battle space, such as a bunch of tactical drubbings the Poles and Lithuanians gave them in the mid 1600s and the Poles and Ukrainians gave them in 1919-1920). The Kremlin is obsessed with trying to play up the idea that its victory over Ukraine is militarily inevitable, but that simply isn’t the case.
B: Correspondingly, even if I bought the idea that the result was “inevitable”, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’d believe that the US’s interests were best served by a quick end to the war since that might encourage the Kremlin to try something else and double down on its ties with Iran and the PRC. In particular I don’t see a real benefit to the US (beyond minimizing the risk of the Left using emergency measures against us, but that’s more of a domestic problem) in rolling up the war before the rest of the Russian Black Sea Fleet goes the way of the Moskva, precisely so that the Kremlin can’t easily do nonsense like threaten to starve much of the Middle East by mining around the Hellespont or intercepting food shipments. In particular w-e need to remember the Kremlin’s war hawks have blathered A LOT about widening the war into Transnistria/Moldova, and Poland. That’s unacceptable and in the case of the latter would result in a world war. So I’d much rather them run out of steam in Ukraine and be forced to admit it than not.
Secondly: “Negotiated Settlement.”
Ok Jimmy, the floor is yours. WHAT KIND of Negotiated Settlement should be offered to the Kremlin in reward for violating their previous negotiated settlements at Budapest, Astana, and Minsk (Twice Over)?
A: How do we force the Kremlin to keep its word this time?
B: Is the negotiated settlement you propose something the Kremlin is ACTUALLY WILLING TO ACCEPT? Considering how Putin has repeatedly demanded maximalist conditions such as Ukrainian withdrawal from the contested areas and a pledge to not join NATO in exchange for *MERELY STARTED NEGOTIATIONS*?
C: This ignores an important factor. The Ukrainian factor. What the Ukrainians wish to do. What people tending to cite the cost of war forget is that frankly the war is more popular among the Ukrainian electorate than any one politician or political party, and especially after 2022 Dovish sentiment has dropped off a cliff. They don’t trust Putin or any Russian regime likely to succeed him to honor their terms (and I can’t blame them, given what I’ve seen in this space), they justifiably fear the plight of their people under the Kremlin’s occupation (complete with theft, mass “struggle snuggles”, ‘executions, and so on) and fear a resumption of the conflict will hit them next when they are even less equipped to fight this out.
I think Vance goes further and says it’s Europe’s problem, not ours, but it amounts to the same thing.
IF that were true, I would majorly disagree with Vance on this issue, even while supporting Trump or would respect Vance’s other stances (and gifts, like BTFOing leftists in debate or ambush interviews) willingness to change his previous views like with Trump. Admittedly part of this is being a loyalist Neo-Con who didn’t abandon the party or Trump when the likes of Kristol did, but it also comes down to having worked a modest amount in former Soviet space.
And the idea that it is Europe’s problem but not ours goes out the window when you read the Budapest Memorandum (where we and the Brits joined with the Russians to expressly protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for denuclearization) and Minsk I and II.
And even if we hadn’t, I fail to see how the US would benefit from allowing Putin’s thugs and Kadyrov’s Diet IS to expand their influence and possibly start new wars while we are dealing with our problems here.
there is a limit to the incendiary nature of the regime,
Another day, another news drop. Now, more disturbing info about the CF of SS and police agencies involved on last Sat. A lot of Drip, Drip.
I did see, briefly, report of police shooting someone 2 mi from the convention, and another person arrested close by. Then, disappeared.
Maliciousness is a ‘Sour Fruit’ in the human DNA…
Apparently JD Vance ain’t ‘White’ enough for some of the MAGA mob – MAGA Makes Racist Attacks Against JD Vance’s Wife:
And here was humble me thinking that the Trump/Vance ticket might be Too White for the American populace!?!
I loved that scene pacino. He did chew the scenery with that terrible southern accent, its almost as bad as his cuban accent (i know about such things) you dont need to over enunciate to sound authentic
Now major slades sentiment is one that probably not uncommon in the big hearing scene, now is o donnells character in the right well neither are his other classmates who are protected
Back to idle trolling Karmi? Can’t resist those urges, eh? Heh.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1gi8gbuc
Two greater egos youre unlikely to find
https://x.com/alexstein99/status/1813395380685472006
I hardly think Newsweek’s cited sources represent “MAGA” or conservatives in general. Besides, they’re ignorant. Usha Vance is American-born. And the prayer was offered by Harmeet Dhillon, a legal immigrant, who is Sikh, not Hindu.
It is an amazingly connected world in which we live, is it not?: https://x.com/justin_hart/status/1813575419549061450?t=Ut0PLpkWEqslUWLGuf3REQ&s=19
Let me preference all this by saying that I have absolutely zero hard evidence for any of the following ideas, which could fairly be described as conspiracy theories I guess.
I strongly suspect that the Biden team deliberately allowed Trump’s Secret Service detail to become understaffed which in turn lead to them becoming overworked. I further suspect that personnel and resources have been deliberately redirected from Trump’s campaign events to other events (like for example Jill Biden’s speaking event last Saturday). I also would not be at all surprised if less experienced agents have been assigned to Trump’s Secret Service team.
Obviously the secret hope that Biden, his handlers, and doubtless many others in the deep state apparatus had (and continue to have) is that Trump would be assassinated in a way that would provide them plausable deniability regarding any involvement. A successful assassination of Trump would’ve solved virtually all of their current problems, or so they likely believed anyway.
Emerging today, news of a Zoom call between Biden and a large group of Democrat Congressmen which took place Saturday before the assassination attempt, partially and temporarily buried therefore.
The gist:
There’s more at the link, and on X.
https://therightscoop.com/angry-and-rambling-joe-biden-lashes-out-at-dems-concerned-with-his-candidacy-during-zoom-call/
Chris over at his youtube channel Task&Purpose put up a good first analysis yesterday. His main focus is usually military…new weapons systems, Ukraine war, etc. But, I think he does a good job here, and he admits as new info comes out he will update and maybe even changes his views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko9FO_vs668
Let’s finish off the idiots in the Newsweek article posted by Karmi with this gem:
But then idiocy shows it has no ideology:
The bio of Usha is as impressive as her husband!
And the proof that behind every great man is a smart woman:
Two best blogs (IOW, my favorites):
neo (of course); and “Samizdata: A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective”.
These are my first thing in morning go-to’s, along with InstaPundit.
Strongly urge all of you here to check out Samizdata (https://www.samizdata.net/). Authors Natalie Solent, Perry de Havillend, and Jonathan Pearce are especially noteworthy, but there are numerous other writers, from all around the world, and they are all terrific.
The Feds may not have planned the assassinsation attempt, but they seem to have heeded Arthur Hugh Clough’s famous couplet:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive.
Nonapod
“the Biden team deliberately allowed Trump’s Secret Service detail to become understaffed which in turn lead to them becoming overworked.” and ” less experienced agents have been assigned to Trump’s Secret Service team.”
Sean Davis: https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/16/bidens-team-deliberately-kneecapped-trumps-security-to-allow-an-assassination-attempt/ feels as you do and you both may well be right but efforts to remake the Secret Service while extending protection to more lesser officials will likely explain why so many less experienced subs were working Butler, PA. Hanlon’s Razor and all…
Brian E, thanks for the bit from Saira Rao. That offensive riff on the Vance marriage is so typical of the what the Democrat left has become. People are not people to them, they are merely representatives of their intersectional-defined groups.
Saira does remove all doubt, but anyone who grifts by having people pay to be insulted, well, there we are, he and nick should have tea,
https://www.dossier.today/p/klaus-schwabs-co-author-turns-against
fiction not as strange as reality,
Few things enrage the Left more than intelligent, independently minded members of designated minority groups who identify as Conservatives. The Left believes that they are absolutely entitled to the full, unexamined allegiance of such people. And those who dare reject them are to be viewed as reviled apostates, despised above all others. No amount of vitriole is too much to hurl at them.
This 3 minute segment may get JD uninvited from a lot of MSM news shows. He politely refuses to be shouted down.
Also shows that he will be an effective defender of the Trump administration.
JD Vance HUMILIATES Kristen Welker when she tries insulting him on live tv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdZZ-o_u0AM
yes you’re not a woman or black or hispanic if you don’t toe the line, its a rather worn out trope, which can result in dangerous circumstances,
On another topic: Sabine has another climate video up. In it she takes two steps forward, and one step back. She is finding out the games the climate community is playing with their models and the uncertainties associated with those models. She also has discovered the temperature anomaly and the problems with baselines for those, and the fact that the absolute temperature is what is important. I was about 3/4 of the way through her video and was thinking, “Oh my! She’s really turned the corner!” Nope. She instead said that governments are using these models for “planning”. Yep. Then she said due to the uncertainties that they may not be taking the right path as the future could be even more worse than what the models are saying. Arrgghhh! What about the models over exaggerating the problem???
She seems wedded to the need for an energy transition and hasn’t made the leap that maybe we don’t need such a transition. Like I said 2 steps forward, 1 back. As Neo keeps reminding us, a mind is hard to change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77RobHGXR5I
Instead of politics, I will discuss the open thread video. Several months ago, I listened to a CD of Carlos Gardel, the Argentine tango singer. (He died in a plane crash 90 years ago. A common saying about Gardel is that “every day he sounds better.”) The song that I liked the most was Gira, Gira. Coincidentally, the songwriter and lyricist for Gira Gira was Enrique Discepolo. There were Discepolos in my class and my sister’s class. Back in the day, it was a tossup between Argentina and the US for Italian emigrants.
As a the lyrics make extensive use lunfardo, slang from Buenos Aires, and my grasp of lunfardo is not what it used to be, I used a lunfardo-Spanish dictionary to better understand the lyrics.
Carlos Gardel sings Gira, Gira, with Spanish subtitles
Julio Iglesias sings Gira, Gira, with Italian subtitles. I especially liked having a tango orchestra in the background.
Gira Gira lyrics translation to English. This was the best online translation I could find. Most online translations can’t handle the lunfardo slang.
This song may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it is mine. Or should I say cup of yerba mate? 🙂
“How is this tenable?” the campaign source had asked me on Friday. “We’re in a perfect shitstorm until he steps down or everyone gets back on board.” The Democrats are neither here nor there, neither all in nor all out, neither fully supporting their nominee nor ditching him, a situation perfectly summed up by a Russian expression: a turd stuck in an eddy.
This has essentially been the case since after midnight, November 3, 2020 – pausing a bit, then building to a crescendo around 3am, November 4th. Illegitimacy has a price, but it came with a learning experience for us all.
Looks like Vance is pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine. Didn’t know much about him, but now see one of the reasons Trump picked him.
CRACKS IN THE UNITY FAÇADE:
Yeah, a pro-Russian ticket – Russia has enough allies with Iran, North Korea and China – now it looks like the Trump/Vance team will also bend the knee to Russia…bummer.
‘Scared to Death’: GOP Security Hawks Slam Vance Selection.
They were quick to put a cork in the “5’7”” false height for Vance – hopefully team Trump/Vance will be just as quick at putting a cork in the anti-Ukraine issue.
Evidently Ann Althouse also had pretty much the exact thoughts I had regarding all that too. And I’m sure there are loads of other people who have reached similar conclusions. It just makes too much sense given how desperate our ruling overlords are becoming.
They need Trump gone, one way or another. The only question is how to do it in a way that offers plausible deniability. How can they take him out without clearly implicating themselves? After all, we’re talking about a group of people who are proven liars and grifters. We’re tlaking about people who’ve spent years and years pushing hoaxes about Trump. They utterly made up the Russia collusion hoax whole cloth. And all the lawfare demonstrates they are people who have zero compunctions twisting the law in order to stop Trump. And they stand to lose a lot if they don’t win this election and Trump gets in and starts cleaning house.
I think a far better term to use for Vance would be, as Walter Russell Mead said in the WSJ recently, “Jacksonian.” I sincerely doubt either he or Trump is pro-Russia. Naturally Politico and other leftist outlets would call it “pro-Russian.” These are the same folks who assured us for years that the “Russian collusion” hoax was true.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-jacksonian-turn-presidential-election-history-9e684333?mod=hp_opin_pos_6#cxrecs_s
Apologies for the paywall link. I don’t recall how to get a free link.
Russia admits to 71,000 KIA in the Ukraine War so far. If the usual ratios apply, that means they’ve suffered as many as 3x that number of WIA and MIA. So: at least 284,000 casualties total.
Holy smokes.
But there’s more: So-called “other outlets” find that “by the end of June, approximately 120,000 Russian troops had died since the conflict began, ‘but the real number could be as high as 140,000.’” So: more than a half million casualties total.
Double holy smokes.
H/T Power Line
A cry from the heart
And: Xi has been said to have suffered a massive stroke and in critical condition.
If this is true: Triple holy smokes.
If the Xi stroke rumors are true, it’s yet another Black Swan in what will go down in history as one of the wierdest weeks ever.
Are there any links for this Xi rumor?
I linked to this yesterday, but given the distortions to Vance’s position on the limitations of US ability to fund/arm multiple wars I would suggest you let Vance explain his position.
Short version. We need to prioritize our support based on production capabilities. Europe needs to take the lead on supporting Ukraine. I have been saying something similar for quite some time. Europe’s industrial capacity/economy is equal to ours. They need to step up and contain Russia.
That is quite different from being “pro-Russia”.
The policies of Biden are fully to blame for the inflamed aggressions around the globe– being felt by Israel and Ukraine. Our disastrous energy policies have fueled the Russian and Iranian economic capabilities to wage war. Then add our direct payments to Iran which enabled Iran to finance/pursue their agenda in Yemen, Gaza and Lebanon.
Because of our disastrous foreign policy decisions we have essentially elevated Iran from a client state to a partner of Russia. We’ve pushed Russia and China into a relationship that is not the normal posture between rivals.
Choosing between Ukraine and Israel, our security interests should focus on Israel. Israel is losing the propaganda war worldwide as they attempt to defang Hamas and Hezbollah. Biden’s schizophrenic support for Israel has emboldened Israel’s enemies worldwide to coerce their governments to isolate Israel.
Is there a path out of this situation? Let’s start with strategic diplomacy.
J.D. Vance on a Foreign Policy for the Middle Class
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVzoZwoU_RY
Answered my own question. Glenn Reynolds says, nothing he’d consider authoritative at this point. Rumor: https://instapundit.com/661142/
Thank you Brian E. I saved your comment at 1:35
Karmi’s take at 12:47 reminds me of what Kate pointed out here: People are not people to them (Democrats), they are merely representatives of their intersectional-defined groups
Yes its a unique dialect
The policies of Biden are fully to blame for the inflamed aggressions around the globe
No. As much as I hate Biden and the Biden administration (and the Democrat Party, and leftists of every stripe, and etc., etc.), Biden’s polices cannot and should not be blamed for inflamed aggressions worldwide. Blame should be directed at the aggressors.
The current POTUS and his administration do deserve opprobrium for their incompetencies in dealing with the situation — not blame for causing them, which they did not.
No apparent truth
https://x.com/GordonGChang/status/1813626407290896468
Power vaccuums are filled by unscrupulous figures where putin xi khamenei et al
In 1979 where was afghan invasion sandinista takeover iranian revolution grand mosque siege
IrishOtter49, you are correct to point out that the blame for aggressions should be placed on those who commit them. However, it’s fair to point out that some policies enable aggressions. This applies to Biden/Obama foreign policies and to leftist domestic policies.
I think they programmed certain parameters to reach the results and perhaps they situated certain measuring stations in sites where they were likely to match the modeled data
Nonapod
Agreed. I’ve been looking for what else could explain what we saw at Butler and the two things that jumped out at me were the impact of cultural changes being forced on the workforce and the increased ops tempo forced on the changing workforce as the number of details has grown as more staffers are granted protective status in an increasing threat environment.
Experienced high performers bail, lesser performers move in and up, and new hires (that would have been never-hires previously) become temporary or permanent fill ins. IOW transitioning the Secret Service from its apolitical roots to just another outfit within the DHS bureaucracy has consequences. Time will tell where the truth lies.
Pure speculation:
Joe/Jill had reason to believe that something big was in the works that would greatly enhance his re-election prospects. That something went terribly wrong last Saturday (thank God!).
That knowledge, combined with he steady drip of Dems calling for him to withdraw, will lead to his resignation sooner rather than later.
I’m thinking he will announce on Thursday, to deflect attention from 45/47’s triumph at the R convention.
Yes, Dems are that desperate.
IrishOtter49;
Yep, the Russian way of warfare is to keep tossing soldiers (and probably poorly trained as well) into the meat grinder.
Putin is not deterred by the magnitude of Russian casualties; he will just keep sending more and more until Ukraine runs out of soldiers.
Yeah, it could be argued that unfreezing billions of dollars for Iran did actually do a fair amount to inflame aggressions. That extra money in Iranian coffers may have freed up resources and allowed certain expenditures that may well have enabled the Oct 7th attack.
IrishOtter49, of course it’s impossible to say absolutely had another policy been used towards and different outcome would have happened.
We can say Iran is absolutely committed to the destruction/annihilation of Israel and the complete control over Jerusalem.
But we did have Iran contained. With the Trump energy policies oil prices were in the mid $50s/bbl, not counting 2020 (oil dropped to $11/bbl in April). Oil prices during the Biden years averaged in the mid $70s, while at the same time Biden drained the SPR to it’s lowest level in 40 years to try and keep gas prices lower in the US.
So our policies did help the economies of Russia and Iran.
Biden resumed the Obama policies of making Iran the regional counterbalance to Israel with the stated objective of bribing Iran not to finish their development of an nuclear bomb. They did this while knowing that Iran’s stated objective is the destruction of Israel as a state.
Possibly a better term would be enabling Iran/Russia.
Kate:
The assertion that some “policies enable aggressions” is true as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. It’s a rather vague formulation. It is easily to manipulate to support one’s thesis. Just about any action or lack of action could be said to have enabled aggression. Ultimately and always, aggressors are responsible for the aggression they commit. As such it is the perfect tool of the Devil. Aggressors have final agency and choice. To believe otherwise is akin to blaming a rape victim for having enabled her rapist. E.g., maybe the rape victim did dress provocatively, maybe she didn’t maintain adequate situational awareness, maybe she was just too damn good-looking to be out in public. Such reasoning was frequently deployed by both Japan and Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II. The Japanese argued that they were forced to go war by the embargo off American and DEI oil because they needed oil to continue their their genocidal war in China. The same type of excuse for aggressive war was given by Germany concerning its handling of the Czechoslovakia/Sudetenland crisis and Poland. “We had no choice other than war, it’s your fault (IOW, your policies compelled/enabled us to go to war).”
In other words: the devil made them do it by enabling them to do it.
IrishOtter49,
Policy vis-à-vis rape would be blaming the policy that allows rapists into the country not the victim for a short skirt.
One doesn’t have to be “Pro-Russia” or “Anti-Ukraine” to believe that Biden’s quixotic (at best) policy of arming Ukraine just prolongs war at great human cost, without changing the inevitable result, and that a negotiated solution is the best approach. I think Vance goes further and says it’s Europe’s problem, not ours, but it amounts to the same thing.
IrishOtter49: That’s all fair and true. But I will say that there are certainly actions that can more clearly and directly be said to “enable aggression”. As an admittedly very extreme example, if you personally were to hand a flamethrower to a known and convicted arsonist and he then goes on to burn a building down with it, I think it may fairly argued that you enabled that outcome to some degree. Yeah, the arsonist is ultimately responsible for burning the building down, but maybe people should at minumum question your judgement for giving that arsonist a flamethrower. Maybe he would’ve still burned the building down anyway even if you hadn’t handed him a flamethrower. But was it wise to do so? And would you say it’s fair to question your judgement in that case?
Yes, I know, this is an extreme example. And maybe “enabling aggression” isn’t the right term to use when talking about foreign policy descisions like the wisdom of unfreezing Iranian assets. And I certainly dislike the implication that we bare responsibility for actions we ourselves did not take.
but given the distortions to Vance’s position
Thanks, saved me having to explain that. It is remarkable how many people believe the pro-Russia thing, people who should know better. It is a huge mistake for the pro-Ukrainian folks to make Ukraine a partisan issue, and it started with the idiot Vindman twins.
There has been a worm hole opened and the reality from another universe has leaked into ours!
This is from an interview on CNN of David Frum who says JD Vance used to write for him on a publication called FrumForum under a pseudonym.
He says Vance was very ambitious and his positions have changed over a short period of time. Thinking about the transformation/formation of Reagan’s ideas over some time, it’s easy to conclude the Vance is an opportunist– but then there has never been a time where information has been so readily available instantly. The time to reflect is indeed shorter, but events today have a way of forcing that reflection to be shorter.
I think Vance’s sincerity and integrity haven’t been questioned by even his adversaries. No one I have read questions his intellect.
I’m not linking to the interview as no one should be subjected to the epic level of distortion spouted by Frum. He would make Goebbels blush.
Ukraine and Europe will do worse under the Brandon junta than under a Trump/Vance administration. I would have preferred someone other than Vance, but the most importiant thing
for the USA and Ukraine is to get the Brandonites away from any part of US policy foreign and domestic.
Some things are that basic and essential.
The Brandonites (actually BHO bastards) have had four years to f’up the world.
Karmi prefers to troll about oppressive law and the “white man’s” GOP.
I think the power vaccuum covers it well, malefactors will do evil, that is no doubt but ‘when good men do nothing’ or foolish men do the wrong thing, or a whole string of wrong things, from the Nordstream pipelines and the cancelling western pipelines* bullying Israel and funding Hamas, through third parties, forcing the Kingdom from acting strongly against the Houthis, and we see the result there,the early capitulations to the PLA ruling circles, at Anchorage, the refusal to demand accountability on the sources of covid, those are just some elements,the capitulations to the Taliban, that led to the attack on Abbey Gate, oddly those who had insisted the Russians had paid ‘afghan bounties’ were strangely silent on that particular instances, this certain contributed to the Khozayin’s deliberation on
resuming the Caucasus wars,
*a coincidence that monies from gazprom, helped cement all those pipeline decisions
ah the Frum Forum, I had forgotten that artefact of ’10s nostalgia, well nostalgia is not the right word, much like Douthat and Yglesias blogs on the Atlantic,
I suggest everyone should listen to Vance’s speech. Even the title gives a clue to where Vance is coming from– “J.D. Vance on a Foreign Policy for the Middle Class.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVzoZwoU_RY
This aligns with what forms his policies. The head of the Teamsters pointed out that Vance helped the union with several issues affecting his union. He worked with Warren on issues with interest rates.
Vance takes his “common man” theme very seriously. Circumstances (and Trump’s coalition) have moved the Republican party to representing the interests of the working man/woman and Vance is there to represent them.
The populism of the new Republicans puts the party at odds with Wall St in some instances, but we have experienced the limitations of “free trade” butting up against strategic needs. It’s up to the Trump administration to figure out where the limits should be.
Listen to Vance would be the best way to form your own opinion on the nominee.
The guy who announced the vote for MA at the Republican Convention can be thankful that nobody listens to the roll call of the states. At 1:48:30 in this C-SPAN video he almost out-Bidens Biden when he says “The great Commonwealth of Magachusetts, home of John Quincy Adams, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry and other great patriots . . .”
https://www.c-span.org/video/?536895-1/republican-national-convention-day-1-afternoon-session
I’m also seeing those Xi stroke reports. It’s not easy to get reliable and accurate news out of the Forbidden City — like the Kremlin under the Communists … or like the Kremlin today … or like the White House now.
I was reminded of the quote: “There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen.” I wondered who said it. It turns out it was Lenin, but that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.
The girl in a short skirt being blamed for her own rape would be an extreme interpretation of “enabling.” What I meant was Biden weakness on foreign policy and Democrats’ policies against sensible law enforcement.
”Putin is not deterred by the magnitude of Russian casualties; he will just keep sending more and more until Ukraine runs out of soldiers.”
Incorrect. He will keep sending more and more until Russia runs out of tanks.
@JohnTyler
Among other things.
There are a couple problems with this.
Firstly: We have clear indications that he obviously IS being deterred by the magnitude of Russian casualties, as shown by his desire to continue “clandestine mobilization”, refusing an open declaration of war (That would let him send non-Contractniki Conscripts to Ukraine), and his desire to “offshore” a lot of casualties onto North Korean and Venezuelan and Syrian “volunteers.”
Secondly: The blunt fact is that he can’t send “more and more” when there aren’t “more and more” to send. The Russian military had probably the best conventional military it is going to have when it openly went in in 2022, and that got torn up due to the problems in the campaign. We’ve seen units from as far afield as Kamchatka and the White Sea being thrown into the meat grinder and getting torn up. That’s not just legacy equipment, but also relatively trained and high quality troops (especially by Russian standards). This is particularly jarring in the Navy with losses like the landing ships and the Moskva, because they flat out are not going to be able to produce those kinds of ships again.
That doesn’t mean Ukraine isn’t in a manpower crunch (it clearly is) or that Russia will inevitably lose, but the idea that Russia has an infinite amount of soldiers to throw at problems is and always has been a myth.
@Jimmy
For the sake of the argument Jimmy, I’ll agree with you that one doesn’t have to be “Pro-Russia” or “Anti-Ukraine” to believe those things. I do, however, think one has to be rather gullible or naive.
Let’s walk through this.
Firstly: “Inevitable Result.” There are basically no inevitable results, and certainly not in this conflict. The Russian military is not and never has been an all-consuming juggernaut. Indeed, the closest the Russian military was to that was in 2022 – when it was fattened by both long term, experienced troops and auxiliaries as well as the new intakes of conscripts with the chance to “bloody” them productively in places like Georgia and Syria. And that military isn’t coming again, it got torn up in the abortive escalade on Kyiv and in the trenches in places like Bakhmut and Kherson.
We’ve seen serious losses and political instability force Russia to retreat from this battle space (and indeed, in many cases this EXACT battle space, such as a bunch of tactical drubbings the Poles and Lithuanians gave them in the mid 1600s and the Poles and Ukrainians gave them in 1919-1920). The Kremlin is obsessed with trying to play up the idea that its victory over Ukraine is militarily inevitable, but that simply isn’t the case.
B: Correspondingly, even if I bought the idea that the result was “inevitable”, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’d believe that the US’s interests were best served by a quick end to the war since that might encourage the Kremlin to try something else and double down on its ties with Iran and the PRC. In particular I don’t see a real benefit to the US (beyond minimizing the risk of the Left using emergency measures against us, but that’s more of a domestic problem) in rolling up the war before the rest of the Russian Black Sea Fleet goes the way of the Moskva, precisely so that the Kremlin can’t easily do nonsense like threaten to starve much of the Middle East by mining around the Hellespont or intercepting food shipments. In particular w-e need to remember the Kremlin’s war hawks have blathered A LOT about widening the war into Transnistria/Moldova, and Poland. That’s unacceptable and in the case of the latter would result in a world war. So I’d much rather them run out of steam in Ukraine and be forced to admit it than not.
Secondly: “Negotiated Settlement.”
Ok Jimmy, the floor is yours. WHAT KIND of Negotiated Settlement should be offered to the Kremlin in reward for violating their previous negotiated settlements at Budapest, Astana, and Minsk (Twice Over)?
A: How do we force the Kremlin to keep its word this time?
B: Is the negotiated settlement you propose something the Kremlin is ACTUALLY WILLING TO ACCEPT? Considering how Putin has repeatedly demanded maximalist conditions such as Ukrainian withdrawal from the contested areas and a pledge to not join NATO in exchange for *MERELY STARTED NEGOTIATIONS*?
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/why-putin-remains-uninterested-meaningful-negotiations-ukraine
C: This ignores an important factor. The Ukrainian factor. What the Ukrainians wish to do. What people tending to cite the cost of war forget is that frankly the war is more popular among the Ukrainian electorate than any one politician or political party, and especially after 2022 Dovish sentiment has dropped off a cliff. They don’t trust Putin or any Russian regime likely to succeed him to honor their terms (and I can’t blame them, given what I’ve seen in this space), they justifiably fear the plight of their people under the Kremlin’s occupation (complete with theft, mass “struggle snuggles”, ‘executions, and so on) and fear a resumption of the conflict will hit them next when they are even less equipped to fight this out.
IF that were true, I would majorly disagree with Vance on this issue, even while supporting Trump or would respect Vance’s other stances (and gifts, like BTFOing leftists in debate or ambush interviews) willingness to change his previous views like with Trump. Admittedly part of this is being a loyalist Neo-Con who didn’t abandon the party or Trump when the likes of Kristol did, but it also comes down to having worked a modest amount in former Soviet space.
And the idea that it is Europe’s problem but not ours goes out the window when you read the Budapest Memorandum (where we and the Brits joined with the Russians to expressly protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for denuclearization) and Minsk I and II.
And even if we hadn’t, I fail to see how the US would benefit from allowing Putin’s thugs and Kadyrov’s Diet IS to expand their influence and possibly start new wars while we are dealing with our problems here.
there is a limit to the incendiary nature of the regime,
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/07/failed-chicago-mayor-brandon-johnson-backs-down-plans/
Turtler, here’s a link to the Budapest Memorandum.
I don’t see where it obligates the US to do anything but engage with the Security Council to provide aid should Ukraine be attacked.
https://policymemos.hks.harvard.edu/files/policymemos/files/2-23-22_ukraine-the_budapest_memo.pdf?m=1645824948
james copenhaver is the other victim of the shooter, a retired grandfather and Democrat,
lets not forget him in all the scrum about the bum that the Secret Service let slip through their fingers
also Max Boot’s wife, has been charged for lobbying violations on behalf of South Korea,