The Russians and Chinese can’t be all that happy about the performance of their defense systems in Venezuela

The New Neo Posted on by

This was one of the things that struck me the most about the recent US operation against Venezuela’s Maduro:

… EurAsia Times, an Indian publication that is no friend of Trump, reported, “Boasting one of the strongest militaries in Latin America, Venezuela possessed a variety of advanced radars, including the [Chinese-made] JY-27, whose capabilities have now been called into question by observers.

“These radars were integrated into Venezuela’s air defense network alongside Russian systems like the S-300VM surface-to-air missiles, forming a layered defense around key sites, including Caracas.”

America stuffed both systems.

The publication said, “Designed to detect low-observable aircraft like the US F-22 and F-35 by operating at meter-wave frequencies that, in theory, exploit resonance effects on stealth designs, the JY-27 has been marketed by Beijing as an anti-stealth or stealth hunter radar.”

The only person in their showroom now is Wile E. Coyote.

I haven’t a clue how this was done. But it seems that neither Russia nor China have a clue either, which is more important.

More:

Zona Militar said, “From a military standpoint, analysts agree that the outcome cannot be explained by the failure of a single system, but rather by the inability of a Chinese-designed command-and-control framework to operate under intense interference and multidomain attacks. The U.S. operation exposed the limitations of these architectures when confronted by forces capable of integrating intelligence, electronic warfare, combat aviation, and special operations within a single operational cycle, confirming that superiority lies not solely in hardware, but in the coherence and resilience of the system as a whole.”

In other words, a lot of things must have been operating to make this occur.

It also seems that something similar happened during the Israeli and US attacks on Iran last summer.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Vance continues to serve up weak tea on the anti-Semitism among “influencers” such as Carlson:

“I think we need to reject all forms of ethnic hatred, whether it’s antisemitism, anti-Black hatred, anti-white hatred,” he said. “And I think that’s one of the great things about the conservative coalition, is that we are, I think, fundamentally rooted in the Christian principles that founded the United States of America.”

It’s true, but that was in answer to a question that was specifically about anti-Semitism. His answer is a bit like the leftists who must cite “Islamophobia” whenever asked about anti-Semitism. I understand – or I think I understand – why Vance does that; he doesn’t want to lose Tucker’s fans, and apparently his son works for Tucker [oops, switcheroo: Tucker’s son works for Vance]. Nor do I think that Vance is a Jew-hater. But he sounds weak here.

(2) Amidst growing protests, Iran’s military head threatens the US:

Hatami … took over as commander in chief of Iran’s army, known by the Farsi word “Artesh,” after Israel killed a number of the country’s top military commanders in June’s 12-day war. He is the first regular military officer in decades to hold a position long controlled by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

“The Islamic Republic considers the intensification of such rhetoric [as Trump’s] against the Iranian nation as a threat and will not leave its continuation without a response,” Hatami said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

He added, “I can say with confidence that today the readiness of Iran’s armed forces is far greater than before the war. If the enemy commits an error, it will face a more decisive response, and we will cut off the hand of any aggressor.

Somehow those threats don’t ring as loudly at the moment as they might have before this summer. Then again, a cornered rat can bite.

(3) Trump’s designs on Greenland:

Trump does not intend to “buy” GREENLAND as “buy” is used in common usage. What the administration hopes to purchase is DENMARK’s claim over GREENLAND as a matter of public international law.

Such a purchase of a public international law claim would be akin to the U.S. purchase of the LOUISIANA TERRITORY from FRANCE—as negotiated by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison, and ALASKA TERRITORY from RUSSIA—as negotiated by President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. In each case, the U.S. did not purchase the actual land at issue from a foreign power. Rather, in each case, the U.S. payment was consideration for FRANCE’s and RUSSIA’s divesting themselves of their public international law claim over the relevant territory.

In the event of a U.S. purchase of DENMARK’s public international law claim to GREENLAND, private property in GREENLAND would continue to be owned by its current owners and undisturbed. The citizenship or dual citizenship of the inhabitants is (as with LOUISIANA and ALASKA) a matter for negotiation. The status of public property and otherwise unowned interests is also a matter for negotiation.

See also this: “Rubio to meet Danish officials on US strategic interests in Greenland.”

(4) The government’s new food pyramid has been unveiled. The main difference seems to be that meat and dairy, as well as some fats, are prioritized. For example:

Notable changes from the previous DGAs include an increased recommended daily protein intake, emphasis on the healthfulness of dairy, and sweeping advice to avoid “highly processed” foods as a category, as well as novel consideration of the gut microbiome.

At the January 7 press conference unveiling the new DGAs, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) summed up the guidelines by saying “My message is clear: Eat real food.”

Alongside the new DGAs is a reimagined, inverted food pyramid (Figure 1), at the top of which (the largest part) are “Protein, Dairy, and Healthy Fats,” placed next to “Vegetables and Fruits”—both given equal importance—which narrow down to “Whole Grains” at the bottom (the smallest part). The new pyramid was released on realfood.gov, which reads, “For decades we’ve been misled by guidance that prioritized highly processed food, and are now facing rates of unprecedented chronic disease… For the first time, we’re calling out the dangers of highly processed foods,” before introducing the new pyramid.

I never paid much attention to the old food pyramid, so I’m no expert – but I don’t think the government had been touting “highly processed foods” so very much. Were Cheeze-Its and Tasty-Cakes recommended? If so, I missed it.

(5) Democrats in Minnesota blocked whistleblowers’ efforts to prevent massive fraud:

The Somali-dominated Democratic political machine in Minnesota successfully silenced hundreds of government experts who tracked the huge flow of taxpayer funds through Somali-run businesses, a top Minnesota Republican told a House hearing on Wednesday.

Up to 1,000 government auditors, accountants, and program managers were silenced by Democratic threats, Minnesota House Rep. Marion Rarick told a House hearing:

“The most severe ones was that they would be fired with cause so they couldn’t have unemployment insurance, that they would be blacklisted from all state agencies… [including] Hennepin County, Ramsey County. As you know, those are Democrat-run.”

Many government experts, non-government professionals, and Republicans detected many of the frauds, but their voices were muffled by Democrats who allied with the Somalians’ political machine in the state.

And from Representative Anna Paulina Luna:

Based on testimony today, I have enough evidence to believe both @GovTimWalz and @keithellison were knowingly complicit in a Somali fraud scheme in Minnesota.

Therefore I have referred them BOTH to the DOJ for criminal charges. May justice be swift. The American people are tired of being taken advantage of.

(6) In Minnesota, the left has its ICE martyr, the one it’s been agitating for. We still don’t know exactly what happened, but there’s certainly some evidence that the ICE officer was not at fault and was acting in self-defense. But that doesn’t stop the left from using this to incite further rage and protests against ICE right now. Accuse first, ask questions later or not at all.

ICE agent shoots and kills woman in Minneapolis

The New Neo Posted on by

Left and right describe the incident very very differently.

For example, from the right:

Dramatic video purportedly shows the moment an ICE agent opened fire and killed a 37-year-old woman who attempted to barrel her SUV into the officer’s path in Minneapolis Wednesday morning — as the mayor furiously demanded the agency “get the f–k out” of the city.

In the footage being widely circulated on social media from varying angles, ICE officers approach a plum-colored Honda Pilot and order the driver out of the vehicle after she blocked the path of their truck.

As one of the agents attempts to open the door, she quickly throws the car into reverse before trying to speed forward in the direction of another agent in her path. …

President Trump said in a statement that the driver caused the incident, which he said landed the agent in the hospital.

“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense,” he said in a post on Truth Social. …

Video taken from another angle showing the incident from further away appears to show the SUV run into the officer who fired the deadly shots as he leaps out of the path. …

DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said the incident happened while ICE was conducting “targeted operations” when “violent rioters” began blocking the streets.

One of the violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism,” she said in an X post.

And from the left:

“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly: that is bulls—t. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying,” [Mayor Frey] said, pledging a full investigation into the incident.

“To ICE: Get the f—k out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being here is to create some kind of safety and you are doing exactly the opposite.” …

Embattled Minn. Gov. Tim Walz fired back “don’t believe this propaganda machine” and promised the state will conduct “a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice.”

People are being whipped up into an anti-ICE frenzy by the left. Whether this woman was one of them remains to be seen, and I certainly don’t know at this point. But I wouldn’t trust anything Frey and Walz say.

Neves Valente – remember him?

The New Neo Posted on by

The killings of the Brown students and the MIT professor weren’t that long ago (less than a month), but so many events have intervened that those murders may seem more distant in time. Even the killer’s name – Claudio Neves Valente – may not ring much of a bell at this point.

But authorities have released the transcript of a video he made shortly before killing himself. He spoke in Portuguese, so it’s a translation, but the chilling quality of the testimony comes through.

Neves Valente sheds very little light on his motive for the crime. But he describes a lifelong emotional flatness and emptiness, no remorse, and what seems almost a resentment of life itself and people in general. He focuses more on an eye injury he sustained during one of the shootings than on his victims, who seem to be less than nothing to him.

A few excepts:

… [I]t was all a little incompetent but at least something was done. The only objective was to leave more or less on my own terms and – and it’s – it’s already long overdue. …

So, if you don’t like it, tough luck. Tough luck. There was also a lot of shit that I didn’t like, and I had to put up with it. …

I still have money, I would have money for a few more good years, if it was in Portugal or a cheaper place it would still be a long time, but I don’t care …

I’ve been here without caring for a very long time now. To say that I was extraordinarily satisfied, no, but I also don’t regret what I did. Honestly, my only regret is this thing in my eye (laughs). …

I’m not going to apologize, because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me. …

I did not like any one of you. I saw all of this shit from the beginning. I began to grow suspicious since I barely had conscious memories, at the age of three. At the age of five I was already sure. I saw all of this shit from the beginning …

There’s more, but that’s the gist of it, and I doubt anything much more illuminating will come out.

Incredibly tragic that three promising and rewarding lives were snuffed out by this person.

Did Rubio and Cruz change their minds about J6?

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Niketas Choniates” asks:

If Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, just to name three from the top of my head, have repudiated their earlier remarks on what J6 was and what legal consequences should happen to those who participated, I haven’t yet seen it.

Like I said above, plenty of Republicans piled on to the J6 narrative. I’m not counting the never-Trump ones, of course.

Cruz:
“The January 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol was a dark moment in our nation’s history, and I fully support the ongoing law enforcement investigations into anyone involved. Everyone who attacked the Capitol must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and brought to justice. I also support the Senate committees of jurisdiction who are exercising their proper oversight roles to provide an in-depth and complete account of the attack. With multiple investigations already underway, I do not support the politically motivated January 6 Commission led by Sen. Schumer and Speaker Pelosi.”

Rubio:
“The events that we saw this week should sicken every single one of us. The mob violence like the kind you see in third world countries happened, not just in America, but in your Capitol building. I don’t care what hat they wear or what banner they’re carrying, riots should be rejected by everyone every single time.”

Here’s what Rubio said about it approximately a year later, on 2/9/2022, calling it a “violent riot” but explicitly disagreeing with the idea that it was any sort of insurrection. And he called the J6 committee a “complete partisan scam,” among other things.

In 1/22, a year after the attack, Cruz took back his earlier statements:

The Texas Republican attempted to clarify his intent on FOX News program “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” calling his own words “sloppy” and “frankly dumb.” Cruz insisted he was referring only to the rioters who attacked police during the breach of the historic building.

“For a decade, I have referred to people who violently assault police officers as terrorists. I’ve done so over and over and over again,” Cruz said Thursday. …

Cruz said he understood why people were angry at his use of the word “terrorist” but insisted that he would never use the same word that “Democrats and the corporate media have so politicized” to describe the “patriots” that were at the Capitol that day to protest the results of the presidential election.

At the time of the breach, Cruz argued, he was asking for Congress to investigate potential voter fraud in accordance with the law.

“It would be ridiculous for me to be saying that the people standing up and protesting to follow the law were somehow terrorists,” he said. “I was talking about people who commit violence against cops.”

Democrats and the media, Cruz said, “are trying to paint everyone as a terrorist, and it’s a lie.”

In August of 2021, Cruz also criticized the prosecution of many of the J6 participants:

Republican Senator Ted Cruz is under fire for arguing that some participants in the Capitol riot should be spared prosecution.

Mr Cruz told HuffPost that people who “assaulted a police officer” should spend “a long, long time in jail”, but balked at criminal charges for participants who entered the Capitol but did not harm anyone.

“If, on the other hand, the Biden administration is targeting and persecuting people for exercising political speech that is nonviolent and simply expressing their peaceful support for a political party different from that in power, that is not the purpose of our criminal justice system,” he said. …

In June, Mr Cruz and Senator Tommy Tuberville sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland complaining that Capitol rioters are facing harsher treatment than people who protested during the George Floyd demonstrations in 2020.

“DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the US Capitol,” the duo wrote.

As for Graham, as far as I can tell he’s never taken back what he’d said.

Venezuela is about the oil, but not in the way the left says

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an article about the Venezuelan oil industry. Venezuela’s oil is very thick and needs to be mixed with thinner oil to be usable:

… [T]he oil that in the past has been used for this [thinning process] is American oil which was exported to Venezuela, blended with Venezuelan sludge and then sent back to US gulf coast refineries to be turned into gasoline, diesel etc.

However, recently, a fair chunk of the oil that Venezuela used to blend was oil from Russia and/or Iran that was shipped in on the “shadow fleet” and then sold on having been laundered with Venezuelan oil to mask its sanctioned origins.

That’s not going to happen any more. Which will hurt Putin and the Mullahs2 a good deal because they really need that oil money to prop up their regimes and finance their military forces. …

Tie that in to the oil embargo for all Venezuelan oil announced last month and you hurt two other deserving targets too. First, and most obviously, it stops Cuba from getting cheap oil or bartering for it. As I said in my previous Insta-analysis3 this puts the Cuban regime in significant pain and may cause it to collapse. Cuba doesn’t have any hard currency money to pay for oil so it cannot buy it on the open market even though that would be legally fine.

Neither Russia nor Iran can afford to subsidize Cuba by giving them oil so Cuba is kind of stuck. One possibility is that Cuba will ship off a bunch of solders to Russia to die in Ukraine in exchange for oil, but that’s tricky because it exposes Russia’s oil tankers to the US and, worse, Ukraine.

Much more at the link. It’s a series of oil dominoes.

And also this:

Finally, the other thing the Maduro seizing did, was put Venezuela’s plans to seize the oil fields in neighboring Guyana on hold – probably permanently.

US control of the Venezuelan oil for now also would represent leverage over the remaining pro-Maduro power structure in Venezuela:

… [I]t seems like the Trump administration has decided that it makes the decision on how much oil Venezuela can sell and who to. For now that number is zero. I am sure that the Chavistas are being asked how long they think they can survive without oil income, and whether they might prefer to leave Venezuela for other climes and let people that the US approves of run the country and, more importantly, fix the oil industry so it can export oil to places the US approves of in volumes that mean that the global oil price drops.

Venezuela seems as though it may be a keystone in the Arch of Evil.

The US seizes tankers

The New Neo Posted on by

Breaking news – perhaps important, perhaps not so very:

The U.S. carried out operations Wednesday to seize two oil tankers linked to Venezuela — one in the North Atlantic and one in the Caribbean Sea, officials said.

The U.S. European Command confirmed the seizure of the Marinera, a Venezuela-linked oil tanker formerly known as Bella-1. It said the vessel was seized for violations of U.S. sanctions and pursuant to a warrant issued by a U.S. federal court after being tracked by USCGC Munro.

The U.S. has been following the tanker since last month, and CBS News first reported on Monday that American forces were planning to intercept it. …

A Russian submarine and other naval vessels had been deployed to escort the tanker as the U.S. followed it, two U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News on Tuesday. …

The Russian Maritime Register of Shipping lists the tanker as being ported out of Sochi, off the western coast of the Black Sea. The New York Times reported that the Russian government officially had asked the U.S. to stop all attempts to interdict the ship.

However, the ship apparently wasn’t carrying oil:

Russia has deployed a submarine and other naval assets to escort an aging oil tanker, Marinera, formerly known as Bella 1, which the US has been trying to intercept.

The oil tanker, which sails under the Russian flag, has historically transported Venezuelan crude oil. However, reports suggest that the tanker is not currently carrying oil.

The tanker … is accused of failing to abide by US sanctions and shipping Iranian oil. The US has been pursuing the tanker, which began its journey from Iran and was heading to Venezuela, across the Atlantic.

More here.

It’s been five years since J6

The New Neo Posted on by

Time flies; things change.

There’s still plenty that we don’t know about J6. One thing we do know is that the Democrats made sure their narrative of the day got cemented in people’s minds very early.

Here’s Victor Davis Hanson with a few remarks on J6, in a video I think was made fairly recently but before his surgery (hat tip: commenter “huxley”):

Mamdani’s Rental Ripoff theatricals

The New Neo Posted on by

Mamdani is staging a series of struggle sessions in which people complain about bad kulaks landlords. These events have been given the alliterative title of “Rental Ripoff” hearings:

New Yorkers will be able to lament about their rental woes – from hidden fees, retaliation, discrimination, illegal eviction and deplorable building conditions – during Mamdani’s first 100 days in office, according to an executive order signed by the mayor on Sunday. …

“In a city filled with older buildings that could use some tender loving care, some landlords are taking advantage of the housing market to gouge tenants with outrageous fees, all while leaving them trying to survive in homes with collapsing ceilings and sinking floors,” Mamdani said in an Instagram video. …

“He’s one-sided right now. Everything is about destroying the landlords,” said Humberto Lopes, CEO of H.L. Dynasty and the Gotham Housing Alliance.

“You think all the landlords are slumlords?” Lopes added.

If you help the landlords, you can help the tenants. Landlords can make the repairs if you help them.”

Instead, Lopes argued that Mamdani was going in the other direction by squeezing property owners.

This approach is highly likely to involve a succession of theatrical ventings without much attention paid to economic realities. That omission would be a hallmark of socialism/Communism.

One of the commenters at the article writes this:

Is Zoron also planning on holding hearings on tenants abusing the landlords? The deadbeats, the squatters, the tenants that tear up the property, or the rent controlled apartments that are money losers for the landlords.

I think we know the answer.

I wonder if Mamdani plans a similarly creative and theatrical approach to this problem:

In New York City, making a profit on real estate has become increasingly difficult. Rent-stabilization laws built on the mantra that “housing is a human right,” a dysfunctional housing court, and myriad other interventions have driven thousands of units off the market, giving rise to the phenomenon of New York’s “ghost apartments.”

The city now has nearly 50,000 empty units, absent from the market either because their operating costs exceed legal rents or because they require considerable renovations. Recently, I visited four of these ghost apartments. Together, they reveal the city’s fundamentally broken housing market and what needs to be done to fix it.

In New York, rent stabilization laws often mean that the cost of making repairs and improvements in apartments – especially older ones – cannot be recouped. So the apartments remain vacant and in disrepair.

There are possible solutions, but I would be extremely surprised if Mamdani and his team would ever consider them:

“New York is unique in its rent-control system,” Kenny Burgos, who heads the New York Apartment Association, said. “Even Los Angeles [gives landlords] an ability to reset rents after [apartments] become vacant.”

Burgos’s suggestion is to amend the law to restore landlords’ ability to raise rents after vacancy. Under this proposal, rents would continue to be subjected to the Rent Guidelines Board’s maximum increases while a lease is active. But landlords would be allowed to raise rents once the units come off the market, reestablishing the economic incentive to renovate. This would mitigate the effects of the below-inflation rent increases that the RGB has permitted over the previous decade.

Burgos didn’t endorse it, but there’s an even more effective option: eliminate rent stabilization entirely. This would let rents rise to meet demand while also making renovations profitable again. New Yorkers whose incomes are below a certain level could get a housing voucher, thereby restoring the investment required to maintain, construct, and operate buildings. New Yorkers would gain a sustainable solution to rent burdens while also keeping the existing housing stock in good shape.

Democrats on the capture of Maduro

The New Neo Posted on by

I was wondering whether any prominent Democrats had broken ranks and praised the Venezuela operation that netted Maduro.

And so of course I thought of John Fetterman, and he didn’t disappoint:

“I don’t know why we can’t just acknowledge it’s been a good thing what’s happened. I’ve seen the speeches from, whether it’s Leader Schumer or kinds of past tweets from President Biden,” he said, referring to recent criticism of the military operation by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and former President Biden’s tough talk about Maduro in the past.

“We all wanted this man gone, and now he is gone. I think we should really appreciate exactly what happened here,” Fetterman said. …

“I salute our military, what they’ve done,” he said on Fox News. “That was really surgical and precise and very efficient — so why we can’t celebrate these kinds of things?

The Pennsylvania senator said Maduro’s ouster opens up the possibility of a more prosperous future for Venezuelans.

Decades ago such comments might have been standard from the opposition. No more.

Fetterman was not entirely alone among Democrats, however. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, of all people (who represents a district in Florida, however, which probably has plenty of voters in favor of Maduro’s capture), has spoken similarly, although her comments were mixed with some criticism:

“The capture of the brutal, illegitimate ruler of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who oppressed Venezuela’s people is welcome news for my friends and neighbors who fled his violent, lawless, and disastrous rule. However, cutting off the head of a snake is fruitless if it just regrows,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., wrote on X.

“Venezuelans deserve the promise of democracy and the rule of law, not a state of endless violence and spiraling disorder. My hope is it offers a passage to true democracy and liberation. This action offers beleaguered Venezuelans a chance to seat their true, democratically elected president, Edmundo González.”

She criticized the GOP administration for apparently failing to notify Congress beforehand, however.

Most – or perhaps all? – of the rest of the Democrats followed party orders, although not always happily:

Some Democrats are grumbling at their party’s largely oppositional stance to President Trump’s raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, saying privately that their colleagues should be celebrating.

Why it matters: These lawmakers argue it could be a major political miscalculation if the party fails to applaud the downfall of a brutal dictator with sufficient volume, even given grave concerns about the operation’s legality and longer-term ramifications.

Such independent thinkers.

And of course the Democrats say it’s an impeachable offense – but then again, that’s true of everything Trump does. They’ve managed to strip impeachment of all meaning, but if they win the House in 2026 (perish the thought) they’ll go for the hat trick of at least three impeachments for Trump.

ADDENDUM:

Once upon a time, Democrats demanded Maduro’s ouster.