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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
ISIS Leader Killed During Raid in Syria by U.S. Special Forces
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
10 19:56 Woodrow [7] 
4 19:26 Procopius2k [8] 
3 13:18 Abu Uluque [7] 
20 19:32 ruprecht [8] 
2 14:21 European Conservative [9] 
2 17:30 Skidmark [12] 
12 19:29 Ulelet Snusotch7182 [18] 
7 21:39 swksvolFF [7] 
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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10 17:21 Skidmark [6]
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3 12:13 Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 [6]
6 18:23 swksvolFF [14]
4 13:57 swksvolFF [5]
8 19:54 Woodrow [6]
18 21:06 CrazyFool [10]
Page 6: Politix
4 12:44 NoMoreBS [6]
1 10:27 swksvolFF [11]
3 12:38 Rex Mundi [12]
23 19:32 CrazyFool [9]
7 12:02 swksvolFF [9]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Hypocrisy At The Highest Levels: ATF Asks Judge To Close Hunter Biden Gun Inquiry
The Deep State protecting its own.
[TMGN via ZERO] A story not being covered by the corrupt corporate media over the past few years has been the story of Joe Biden's Son, Hunter. Or maybe, more specifically, the story of Hunter Biden's Handgun.

Hunter Biden purchased a .38 Revolver from a Delaware gun shop on October 12, 2018. If you're familiar with gun law or have bought a gun yourself, you'll know that to purchase a firearm you'll have had to fill out an ATF Form 4473, also known as a Firearms Transaction Record. More on that later.

Days later, on October 23, Hallie Biden (widow to Joe Biden's son Beau) searched Hunter's truck and found the handgun. She apparently feared for Hunter's safety and decided to put the gun in a shopping bag and throw it in the trash outside a grocery store. During the same day, Hunter finds out about the gun disposal and notifies law enforcement of the missing firearm. The investigation that followed involved the Delaware State Police, Secret Service, the FBI, and later on, the ATF.

Eventually, the revolver was found, turned into authorities by a man who routinely searched garbage cans in the area for recyclables. Interestingly according to a report from Politico, the Secret Service visited the gun shop where Hunter had purchased the firearm and asked to take the 4473 associated with the gun. The shop owner wisely refused this request, apparently "suspecting that the Secret Service officers wanted to hide Hunter's ownership of the missing gun if it were ever to be involved in a crime." Eventually, the gun shop owner did turn in the firearm transaction record to the ATF.

Here's where it gets interesting. Back in 2018, when this event occurred, Hunter Biden was famously addicted to drugs. (According to his memoir, he was smoking crack in 2018)

On a Firearms Transaction Record, there's a question on the form about drug addiction. It's a yes or no question, and answering yes leads to disqualification of being able to purchase a firearm.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2022 00:12 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Hypocrisy" or criminal obstruction? You decide.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2022 0:17 Comments || Top||

#2  I'll go for both.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2022 9:40 Comments || Top||

#3  bordering on treason
Posted by: 746 || 02/03/2022 10:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Quite important to determine if Hunter is important enough to ignore all rules and regulations.

The smart money is on "yes."
Posted by: Tom || 02/03/2022 11:16 Comments || Top||

#5  Most corrupt political class in 150 years
Posted by: Merrick Ferret || 02/03/2022 11:40 Comments || Top||

#6  And Hallie Biden should have been prosecuted for criminal negligence. They are fortunate the gun was recovered rather than falling into the hands of kids or violent criminals.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/03/2022 11:50 Comments || Top||

#7 
Eventually, the gun shop owner did turn in the firearm transaction record to the ATF.

Anyone want to bet that the ATF has no record of having received that form?
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 02/03/2022 12:24 Comments || Top||

#8  This stinks to high-heaven, but it is the swathe of corruption that is the real disgrace. Felony act by Hunter to lie, felony act by Beau's widow to throw the gun away, the failure of the local PD to disclose the fingerprints lifted from the weapon omce it was turned in, the illegal cover-up attemot by the Secret Service (if they were actual agents and not former agents acting under the color of authority) the ATF failure to prosecute, and the DoJ attempting to make this all go away.
Clearly, Biden and his family are treated as above-the-law in this and so many other examples of the corruption spanning decades,and the fear of reprisals has stopped a number of federal, state and local agencies from actually upholding the law. Instead, special rules for the powerful...
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 02/03/2022 13:03 Comments || Top||

#9  "We've slow rolled this thing long enough, now we've got better things to do."
Posted by: KBK || 02/03/2022 19:05 Comments || Top||

#10  ATF has gone for FBI KGB.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/03/2022 19:56 Comments || Top||


-Great Cultural Revolution
Boomers, Meet the Based
[AMERICANMIND] There’s a generation gap on the Right, and it’s hurting us.
"Divide and conquer" is the guiding strategy of the woke oligarchy. The regime is trying to marginalize Red America as illegitimate, to separate us from "the mainstream," and thus declare us undeserving of the rights and privileges of citizenship. But beyond that, the woke regime is also exploiting a generation gap on the right (which is partly but not wholly a factor of age), through double-speak and mixed messages.

Contrary to some prejudices among the younger Right, not every self-identified conservative over 50 is deluded and useless. Likewise, older conservatives need to know that not every young, right-wing provocateur on Twitter is a racist anarchist. But a lot of people on either side see each other that way, largely because the regime’s vast propaganda machine is able to re-enforce both of these prejudices.

It’s hard to know whether this multi-pronged media campaign by the Left is a carefully planned psy-ops strategy, or just the net effect of simultaneously asserting contradictory arguments depending on whatever seems expedient. Either way, a generation gap on the right is being exacerbated, in part because each side is reacting to the Blue regime’s propaganda.

The older generation grew up in an America where, on the surface, institutions were trustworthy, or at the very least, not actively at war with the people. That facade crumbled for those who grew up after 9/11. Decades of pointless war in the Middle East, the financial crisis in which not a single banker on Wall Street went to jail, and the ever-skyrocketing cost of living, soured the generation that grew up under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The promise of racial reconciliation never materialized and the constant screams of crisis (climate change! COVID!) have further radicalized a growing youth faction on the right.

REINFORCING NARRATIVES
Young people get almost all their news online, which gives them a broad array of information sources and makes them far less likely to accept any "official" narratives. At times, they may almost be too skeptical, embracing odd and outlandish theories simply because they are outside the mainstream. Insisting that the sky is pink just because Ibram X. Kendi says it is blue is not a sign of independent thinking.

Americans over 50 tend to be less active on social media, less frequent consumers of alternative news sites, and more dependent on the legacy media of newspapers and television networks. Of course, many older conservatives know that the establishment media is heavily skewed to the left, yet the publications they turn to correct this imbalance are, let us say, rather tame and conventional. As far as the younger dissident right is concerned, most old-line "conservative" publications are part of the same corrupt media establishment.

The more staid and authoritative style of the New York Times and the network news (which the Times heavily influences) tends to reinforce the Boomers’ inclination to believe that our institutions are still functioning normally and the system is working. Our political gerontocracy contributes to this problem: nothing makes a Boomer feel young like seeing Congress run by people in their 80s.

News stories that create enormous controversy online often get much less attention in the legacy media. Thus, conservatives among the older generation may have little familiarity with the details of events and scandals that lead millennials to be alarmed and cynical. The treatment of those arrested in connection with January 6 is a good example. Right-wingers under 40 tend to know much more about the mistreatment of these prisoners, and thus tend to be more sympathetic, compared to conservatives over 50, who were alarmed and repelled by the events of January 6, and thus are usually much less concerned with or attentive to those who have been arrested.

When a clear case of left-wing excess does leak into the mainstream news—about Critical Race Theory being taught in schools, for example—the legacy media will quickly offer an authoritative source to deny or downplay the revelations. This tactic works, up to a point, for those with more limited access to alternative news sources, but it only hardens the disgust and skepticism of those who are mostly online, who quickly learn about the dishonesty and hypocrisy of such denials.
Read the rest at the link
Posted by: 746 || 02/03/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The divide is between those who think our major institutions are run by competent, credible authorities and those who view them as decadent, not worthy of deference and run by mendacious and corrupt fools.

The former group is overwhelmingly based in or near the D.C. Swamp and incapable of seeing that the system which benefits them so handsomely is literally destroying millions of normal Americans who lack their access or credentials.

Does anyone still believe that the CDC and NIH and FDA really have our best interests at heart, or that they practice disinterested science to advance public health?

When AstraZeneca's COVID vax in the U.K. and Europe was found to cause a spike in clotting that caused death in a few cases, it was halted by those nations' public health authorities. Pfizer's own data show their vaccine killed over a thousand people and caused many times that number of serious adverse effects in its first three months.

Was the Pfizer vax pulled here, as AZN's vax was in the U.K.? No. Instead we've heard nonstop bullshit about how safe it is, how anyone who expresses doubt or demands to see and scrutinize and discuss the data is a "denier" or a "conspiracy theorist" or "killing grandma" etc.

And yet the skeptics have been proved right again and again-- on the stupidity of the lockdowns, on the criminal suppression of effective treatments such as HCQ and ivermectin, on 'with' vs 'from' and the vast overcounting of COVID deaths and undercounting or denial of the vast number of deaths caused by the elite's botched public policies.

Ditto for the Ukraine farce, the endless overseas interventions to support gender studies at Kabul U., for all the BS about "systemic racism" and St George Fentanyl, for the notion that our elections are fair and honest, for the demonization of Russia or Hungary's Orban, for the UniParty's embrace of illegal immigration etc etc.

There is literally not one American institution's leadership that deserves our respect today.

Posted by: Merrick Ferret || 02/03/2022 7:50 Comments || Top||

#2  COVID has peaked at Worldometers (Thanks, G(r)om!)

New "Serious/Critical" cases have dropped every day for almost two weeks, and yesterday's "Active Cases" dropped for the first time in two months.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/03/2022 11:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Actually, LBJ destroyed us baby boomers' belief in government and institutions pretty well.
Posted by: Tom || 02/03/2022 11:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Brandon is LBJ x10
Posted by: Merrick Ferret || 02/03/2022 11:39 Comments || Top||

#5  free based?
Posted by: Greng Black3494 || 02/03/2022 12:13 Comments || Top||

#6  they suspect that many older conservatives, with their comparative financial security, are too insulated from the current crisis. Boomers have “made it” and will likely not live long enough to suffer the consequences of a financial or political collapse; they have seized the lifeboats and left the young to fend for themselves.

Unfortunately true, although I have tried to educate my adult children, but they already know everything.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/03/2022 12:43 Comments || Top||

#7 
I have tried to educate my adult children, but they already know everything.

Should they ever be so blessed as to grow up, they will be surprised to find out how much the old man has changed!
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 02/03/2022 12:48 Comments || Top||

#8  Agree with Tom at #3. LBJ introduced us to the credibility gap, sent our boys into a war with no clear plan for victory, gave us Affirmative Action, Medicare, raised taxes and stole money from Social Security which was never anything but a Ponzi scheme anyway. His Great Society and Vietnam War were the classic definition of guns and butter that bankrupted and poisoned our whole country. Remember HUD? HEW? I don't think we've ever really recovered from LBJ's time in office. That's certainly when I realized the government cannot be trusted.

Naively, I still believed in the media. It took me a long, long time to fully appreciate how biased they are. But I think that up until the 1990's there were still some newspapers, at least in southern California, that tended conservative. They're all gone now.

Now the TV and newspapers are nothing but Democrat Party propaganda, a vile pack of lies. Now we have the cancel culture with people like Neil Young trying to tell us what is misinformation and what isn't.

Neil Young can kiss my ass and then Joni Mitchell can too. Get Roger Waters in the line too. I'd rather listen to Pat Boone. But it's kinda sad, really, that we can no longer just kick back and listen to music or watch TV and be entertained by it instead of getting pissed off at all the lies, the stench of all the corruption.

I think it was when all of our major corporations, which include the major media outlets, got into bed with the Chinese Communist Party. The corruption stinks to high heaven.

Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/03/2022 13:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Boomers have “made it” and will likely not live long enough to suffer the consequences of a financial or political collapse

My RETIREMENT plan!
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/03/2022 17:33 Comments || Top||

#10  There is literally not one American institution's leadership that deserves our respect today.

Gavin Newsome getting a maskless picture taken with a maskless Magic Johnson while preparing LA and lockdown emergency California for the Super Bowl:

"I can't breathe."
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/03/2022 18:51 Comments || Top||

#11  Getting crowded down there Abu
Posted by: KBK || 02/03/2022 19:12 Comments || Top||

#12  Gavin Newsome getting a maskless picture taken with a maskless Magic Johnson while preparing LA and lockdown emergency California for the Super Bowl:

"I can't breathe."


LA Mayor Garcetti in same photo op: I didn't inhale. ‘I hold my breath’
Posted by: Ulelet Snusotch7182 || 02/03/2022 19:29 Comments || Top||


Arabia
The Houthis: Who are they and what do they want?
[JPost] The Houthis — also known as Ansar Allah, who now control most of Yemen’s north, have launched repeated missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE over the course of Yemen’s civil war.

Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday launched a ballistic missile at the United Arab Emirates. The missile was intercepted by the UAE military and no casualties were reported. It was the third Houthi attack on the UAE, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government, in less than two weeks, and follows a series of territorial defeats for the Houthis in its years-long battle to control the country. UAE’s Defense Ministry said Emirati forces responded by destroying the missile launch site in Yemen’s northern Al-Jawf region.

The Houthis — also known as Ansar Allah, who now control most of Yemen’s north, have launched repeated missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE over the course of Yemen’s current eight-year-old civil war.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [12 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran Proxies

#1  Nice summation. Personally, I hope they kill each other to the last man, woman, cat, dog, chicken, ... you get the idea.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 02/03/2022 13:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Who are they and what do they want?

Angry black people wanting to destroy what they don't have, with Iran's help.

See Chicago, with Narcos help.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/03/2022 17:30 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Upcoming 105th anniversary of the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Other than the upcoming 105th Anniversary of Nicholas' abdication, dunno why this is coming up in Russian press.

Opinion: "Nicholas II lost everything that was created by his predecessors"

[REGNUM] Many decisions of Nicholas II as emperor became fatal mistakes, however, Sergei Kosinov , head of the Just Russia faction in the Legislative Assembly of the Rostov Region, considers his canonization to be a saint .

"Nicholas II didn’t follow his relatives a bit and didn’t understand a lot. He lost everything that was created by his predecessors, due to a character that was too soft. And, of course, it was wrong to make those rash decisions that led to disastrous consequences," the source of the REGNUM news agency believes .

As REGNUM reported , representatives of the investigative committee of Russia ruled out the possibility of saving one of the members of the royal family. All 11 people (Nikolai Romanov, his wife, their children and relatives) were shot on the night of July 17, 1918 in the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg. On August 14, 2000, at the bishops' council of the Russian Orthodox Church, the royal family was canonized as holy new martyrs.

In March 2022, it will be 105 years since the abdication of Nikolai Romanov from the throne, and in April - 110 years since the Lena massacre, when, according to various estimates, from 150 to 270 people were killed by bullets from government troops.

“There are much fewer pluses in the reign of Nicholas II than minuses” - opinion

[REGNUM] In the reign of the Russian Empire, Nicholas II had much less advantages. than cons. His actions led the country to disaster. Such an opinion in a conversation with a REGNUM correspondent was expressed by a graduate of the history department of the Orenburg State Pedagogical University, who wished not to disclose personal data.

"For his time, he was a weak ruler. Under him, many negative events took place, which ultimately dragged the country into a civil war, and a monstrous split occurred. As he ruled Russia, this led, in principle, to a disaster. I am against the canonization of the image of Nicholas II," said the interlocutor.

Recall that on August 14, 2000, at the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, the royal family was canonized. In modern Russia, the crimes committed during the reign of Nicholas II are rarely remembered.

In March 2022, it will be 105 years since the abdication of Nikolai Romanov from the throne, and in April - 110 years since the Lena massacre, when, according to various estimates, from 150 to 270 people were killed by bullets from government troops.

Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nicky the 2nd reminds me of Baby Trudeau
Posted by: 746 || 02/03/2022 10:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Poor old Nick was a dullard.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/03/2022 13:14 Comments || Top||

#3  A callous retard. If only Russia had been governed by Witte and Stolypin instead of this cruel dunce.
Posted by: Merrick Ferret || 02/03/2022 17:33 Comments || Top||

#4  #2

Happens when you give up taking German royal princesses in to be your future Empresses.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2022 19:26 Comments || Top||


Photoplay: 79th Anniversary of the Soviet Victory at Stalingrad
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] February 2 is a memorable date not only for the people of Russia, but for the whole world. On this day, 79 years ago, Soviet soldiers defeated the Nazi troops near Stalingrad.

Commemorative actions were held in the Volgograd region. Servicemen of the Volgograd Territorial Garrison of the Southern Military District (SMD) took part in the solemn events on Mamaev Kurgan.

Servicemen of the Guard of Honor Company, accompanied by a military band, laid wreaths and baskets of flowers at the Eternal Flame in the Hall of Military Glory on Mamaev Kurgan, as well as at the grave of Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Chuikov.

According to tradition, at exactly noon, on the southern slope of Mamayev Kurgan, a "shot of memory" thundered in honor of the 79th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. Artillerymen of the Southern Military District fired a salvo from two ZIS-3 guns from the Great Patriotic War.

The Governor of the Volgograd Region Andrey Bocharov congratulated the veterans on the holiday and noted:

"The victory of the Soviet troops over the Nazi invaders in the Battle of Stalingrad - in the historic, turning point battle of the Great Patriotic War and the entire Second World War - is a vivid example of courage, heroism, love for their Motherland, their Fatherland, for their native land, self-sacrifice of the Generation of Winners in the name of future generations, in the name of us.

The words of the great commander, defender of the Russian land Alexander Nevsky: "Whoever comes to us with a sword, he will die by the sword" have become and will remain prophetic for all the invaders of our land. Eternal glory and memory to the Generation of Winners. Happy holiday! Happy Stalingrad Victory Day!

The festivities ended with colorful fireworks. It should be noted that due to the unfavorable epidemiological situation in the region, part of the events took place online.
See photos at the link
Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Excellent photos. Thx Badanov.
Posted by: borgboy || 02/03/2022 0:30 Comments || Top||

#2  In a related vein, Sunday the 30th was the date of birth of Vasily Arkhipov, a Soviet officer who saved the world from nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 02/03/2022 12:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Hey, Brandon, you really don't want to mess with these people especially on their home turf.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/03/2022 13:18 Comments || Top||


Briefly about Ukraine
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Commentary by Russian military journalist,. Boris Rozhin

[ColonelCassad] 1. According to CNN, Biden has approved sending more US troops to Europe. Shipping will start in the next few days. We are talking about 3,000 soldiers in Poland, Germany and Romania. Earlier, the Poles announced the dispatch of 2.5 thousand soldiers from the United States to Poland.

2. Poland, following the Baltic states, will transfer MANPADS and various ammunition to Ukraine. The Czech Republic will transfer a batch of artillery ammunition to Ukraine.

3. The President of Croatia said that Britain is deliberately pushing Ukraine to war with Russia. So to speak, Johnson's visit to Kiev and all the accompanying talking shop summed up.

4..Germany has banned the broadcasting of RT DE in German. I wonder when DW and the Ebert Foundation will be blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation as a load?

5. In addition to the announced expansion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by 100,000 people, additional distributions of weapons (including MANPADS and ATGMs) for terbats for urban combat have been announced. Such terbats, if necessary, can be included in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and used to support offensive operations.

6. Head of the SBU Bakanov instructed to prepare the removal of personal files of SBU employees working in the occupied territories of the DPR and LPR. Earlier, there were reports that the documents of the Ukrainian special services were being taken to western Ukraine.

7. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine ruled out granting a special status to Donbass. A day after Zelensky's statements about his readiness to try to implement the Minsk agreements.

8. A wave of fake calls spread from Ukraine about the mining of 400 buildings swept through the DPR. Yesterday, a soldier of the LNR UNM died on the front line (bomb from a drone).

Overall, signs of an impending escalation persist, especially against the backdrop of a diplomatic stalemate.

The most likely scenario for the start of events is some kind of provocation in the Donbass or on the border of Ukraine and the Russian Federation, to which the Russian Federation will not be able not to react, after which prepared sanctions will be introduced against the Russian Federation.

The United States and Britain are pushing Ukraine along this path despite the plaintive protests of the Zelensky gang, which is also being driven to the slaughter.
Al Ahram adds:
President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing...
ordered Wednesday the deployment of several thousand more troops to bolster NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
forces in eastern Europe, ratcheting up the US military response to fears that Russia could invade Ukraine.
With Russia refusing to pull back 100,000 troops poised on Ukraine's borders, Pentagon front man John Kirby said 1,000 US soldiers now in Germany would deploy to Romania, and another 2,000 in the United States would be sent to Germany and Poland.

Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Continued from yesterday from the stroke of midnight.

We have vital interests in the Persian Gulf. In the South China Sea. In the Caribbean / on our southern Border.But not in Eastern Europe, let alone Georgia and Ukraine.

Are you kidding? Vital interests in the Persian Gulf? The US has the world's largest carbon reserves (I think Canada is 2nd). Exploit them and the Persian Gulf goes back to tribal war and piracy.

The South China Sea? The US has fewer interests and ties there than in Europe. Modern China is a creation of American elites' greed. It is American dollars and, more recently, Euros that created the threat. Cut off the fuel and fire goes out.

How about that Venezuela and Cuba? Feel threatened by them? Wanna go hide in a closet?
Posted by: Ulelet Snusotch7182 || 02/03/2022 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Complete bullshit. 3,000 troops ... right. How many did we send to Iraq?

You mean, 1/100th of our Iraqi Freedom expeditionary force is supposed to make a difference to the calculations of a nuclear-armed SUPERPOWER that's essentially fighting on its home turf?

Biden will capitulate because ANY rational US president would capitulate: Ukraine is not a vital interest of ours and therefore none of our business.

Just as Hungary in 1956 was none of our business -- which is why Eisenhower wisely did nothing.

Sigh. Think how much stronger and better this country would be today if we'd had a skeptical, laissez-faire, domestically-focused, non-interventionist and non-Woke, conservative government like Eisenhower's for the lady half-century. Or Nixon's.
Posted by: Merrick Ferret || 02/03/2022 0:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Those "republics" are anything but. Nearly all are third-world shitholes presided over by bandits.

"Republics" were the Soviet Union's designations. They already were poor corrupt shitholes due to misrule by the Communists. That local Communists took over in the south upon dissolution of the Soviet Union is no surprise. What was fortunate is that most of the newly freed eastern European nations threw out the commies and formed democratic nations. No thanks to people like you.
Posted by: Ulelet Snusotch7182 || 02/03/2022 0:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Mr. Ululet: I don't disagree with much of what you say.

The COVID debacle has taught me that we civilized, western, tradition-minded, freedom-loving folk can count on no one to defend our civilization.... certainly none of the globalist virtue-signaling morons who gave us the last five years of insanity over RussiaRussiaRussia, St George Fentanyl, BLMscam, PervOTUS Brandon, St Anthony the Dwarf and the Homy Church of Christ-COVIDian etc etc etc.

Let's agree that we need to
- Defend the homeland first and foremost
- Fix the homeland by beating back Woke-ism and its cucks within the elite
- Reduce overseas commitments -- "Retrench" and "Restrain" as B. Posen, J. Mearsheimer, and R. Schweller brilliantly
- Stand up for our traditional values and culture, especially our sons who've been maligned and assaulted from every corner by a decadent culture of fools, harridans, Marxists and pussifiers

Deal?
Posted by: Merrick Ferret || 02/03/2022 0:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Ukraine is not a vital interest of ours and therefore none of our business.

A country struggling to become a modern (classical) liberal democracy is American business. Another consensual democracy always strengthens the US. You can argue whether the US should go to war over it and nobody here is advocating attacking Russia, but it is always in every democracies' interest. (Tell us about your thoughts on Korea in 1950).
Posted by: Ulelet Snusotch7182 || 02/03/2022 0:32 Comments || Top||

#6  Mr Ferret, a truce as long as it doesn't violate either our principles.

We do agree on a lot of ideas or we wouldn't frequent Rantburg. Domestic agenda is broadly the same: mismanaged borders, political corruption, Marxist capture of institutions, trade.

But I am not an isolationist. Maybe it the generations of military family background. I don't like it when more powerful empires try to swallow up other counties, whether Ukraine or Taiwan. I don't like enabling enemies nor wasting resources on cultures diametrically opposed to ours. I do believe expending resources to advance freedom and democratic rule for people who want it is in our interest.

Posted by: Ulelet Snusotch7182 || 02/03/2022 0:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Truce. Nice to know you. Talisker, Oban or Laphroaig?
Posted by: Merrick Ferret || 02/03/2022 1:05 Comments || Top||

#8  My tastes are pedestrian and support domestic producers. J Daniels will do.
Posted by: Ulelet Snusotch7182 || 02/03/2022 1:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Guys, you cheer me immensely as you choose to find comity.

Thank you, and may we all wake to still have electricity in the morning!
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2022 2:06 Comments || Top||

#10  A country struggling to become a modern (classical) liberal democracy is American business. Another consensual democracy always strengthens the US. You can argue whether the US should go to war over it and nobody here is advocating attacking Russia, but it is always in every democracies' interest. (Tell us about your thoughts on Korea in 1950).

Truly inspiring, and had you mentioned the 2014 coup that removed a Ukrainian political leader, it would have been the whole truth.
Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2022 7:59 Comments || Top||

#11  Remember when the reddit crowd was yelling that Trump was going to start WW3 after killing Solamaniac? Wonder where that crowd is now?
Posted by: Chris || 02/03/2022 9:43 Comments || Top||

#12  Not a peep from Code Pink or Cindy Sheehan either.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/03/2022 9:44 Comments || Top||

#13  Forget logic. This is just more theater in which our UniParty signals its virtue by heaping scorn on Deplorables. To them, Putin = Trump... even though Trump was the most anti-Russian hard ass POTUS we've ever had.

Russians, Hungarians and other tradition-minded or rightist Europeans = Jan sixers in the fevered little minds of Lindsey Graham and his ilk
Posted by: Merrick Ferret || 02/03/2022 11:50 Comments || Top||

#14  Truly inspiring, and had you mentioned the 2014 coup that removed a Ukrainian political leader, it would have been the whole truth.

The scale of cheating, sponsored/paid by the Russian SVR, that put Viktor Yanukovych in power in 2010 was truly staggering. Yulia Tymoshenko (primary opponent) was also corrupt elite, while the Russians had poisoned the previous president who Yanukovych lost to in 2004, again with massive fraud in the east.

It was Yanukovych who industrialized corruption into a truly national enterprise w/ a menu of bribes to be paid and the amount to be kicked upwards for any service. It made life impossible for citizens while vastly enriching himself and his cronies.

Yeah, it was truly inspiring to watch ordinary men and women face down imported secret service snipers with nothing but wooden shields to protest the industrialized corruption that was benefiting none but a tiny Russian controlled elite that was purposely killing the country.
Posted by: Ulelet Snusotch7182 || 02/03/2022 12:09 Comments || Top||

#15 
Another consensual democracy always strengthens the US.

Of course, other nations being organized along divine lines would be good for the USA. However,
nation-building is to be avoided, period.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 02/03/2022 12:34 Comments || Top||

#16  It was Yanukovych who industrialized corruption into a truly national enterprise w/ a menu of bribes to be paid and the amount to be kicked upwards for any service. It made life impossible for citizens while vastly enriching himself and his cronies.

Yeah, it was truly inspiring to watch ordinary men and women face down imported secret service snipers with nothing but wooden shields to protest the industrialized corruption that was benefiting none but a tiny Russian controlled elite that was purposely killing the country.


And it continues to this day with new management.

This time with ten percent for the Big Guy.
Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2022 13:11 Comments || Top||

#17  as you choose to find comity.

Comedy indeed.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/03/2022 14:08 Comments || Top||

#18  And it continues to this day with new management.

This time with ten percent for the Big Guy.


Burisma was controlled by a Yanukovych ally. It was consolidated during Yanukovych's misreign. Hunter joined Burisma's board while Yanukovych was president. You are blaming the wrong faction.

While Burisma gets all the attention in the US, it was not the most corrupt energy dealer. One of Yanukovych's cronies acquired a large portion of Russian nat gas imports and resold it for huge profits. Life under Russian puppets.
Posted by: Ulelet Snusotch7182 || 02/03/2022 14:22 Comments || Top||

#19  And it continues to this day with new management.

This time with ten percent for the Big Guy.


As I have pointed out, the Big Guy was really up to his neck in bribes from the Yanukovitch government, which he blackmailed subsequent Ukranian governments into _not_ prosecuting.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/03/2022 19:12 Comments || Top||

#20  Part of me thinks this is kabuki theater by Russia to allow Biden to broker a peace, avert the crisis and be the great statesman so as to improve his poll numbers.
Posted by: ruprecht || 02/03/2022 19:32 Comments || Top||


Baltic bridgehead of NATO
Direct Translation vi Google Translate. Edited.
By Boris Rozhin

[KateHon] For 30 years after the destruction of the USSR, the West turned a blind eye to the oppression of "non-citizens", the rehabilitation of Nazism and collaborationism, and also periodically sent its citizens to the Baltic borderlands as "presidents". The task was simple - to fix such a role and internal structure of the limitrophs at the stage of Russia's internal weakness, in order to use them in the future when Russia can finally turn to foreign policy issues and ensure the protection of its own borders.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  yeah baltic birch armored tanks!
Posted by: Greng Black3494 || 02/03/2022 12:08 Comments || Top||

#2  “If I wanted, Russian troops could be not only in Kiev, but also Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest in two days,” Russian President Putin allegedly told Poroshenko, according to the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

From BBC: Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung says it has a leaked document showing that Mr Putin made the threat to Mr Poroshenko, and the Ukrainian leader then passed on the comments to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the weekend in Kiev.
Posted by: European Conservative || 02/03/2022 14:21 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Why you are seeing the world 15 seconds out of date: Your brain shows you images from 'the past' instead of trying to update your vision in real-time, study reveals
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] 600 mph airspeed/60 minutes per hour/60 seconds per minute*15 seconds ~ 2.5 mile miss.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/03/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes. That would certainly explain wing shooters (birds / clays) and football circus catches. This story reminds me of the one about how daylight savings time confuses animals.

/sheesh
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/03/2022 7:32 Comments || Top||

#2  is thawhy so many pee pees get caught in zippers and bras are so hard to undo in the back seats of cars?
Posted by: Greng Black3494 || 02/03/2022 12:11 Comments || Top||

#3  True most of the time, but most definitely NOT all the time. I believe strongly in intuition, but your beliefs on this will vary.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 02/03/2022 12:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Intuition — which is very real — skips the seeing/observation step. But often it’s based on experience seeing the same thing multiple times in the past, so the brain and hand together act in anticipation of the message still on the way up the nerves from the eye.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2022 14:48 Comments || Top||

#5  often it’s based on experience seeing the same thing multiple times in the past,

Fellow I was playing baseball catch with [for those too young to remember baseball or catch, sorry] proposed we were doing realtime processing of partial differential equations (arc of the thrown curve) and solving boundary value problems (positioning the glove axis within 6 degrees for reception). That never left me and I always considered Intuition as a process of extending the curve without regards to boundaries.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/03/2022 17:42 Comments || Top||

#6  It's all just models, anyway.

Edditngton's Tables
Posted by: KBK || 02/03/2022 19:16 Comments || Top||

#7  Ummmmm.....seems like a bit much. Perhaps missed a Schiaparelli Conversion? Point 1-5 perhaps, but fifteen and no way traffic functions...ok maybe explains Suburus and Jettas.

*creepy Joe whisper*
I think someone has spent too much time with lockdown herbs--
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/03/2022 21:39 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2022-02-03
  ISIS Leader Killed During Raid in Syria by U.S. Special Forces
Wed 2022-02-02
  Iraqi intelligence destroys 80 ISIS IEDs in Ninevah village
Tue 2022-02-01
  The leader of the Hamza Division eliminated in Aleppo province
Mon 2022-01-31
  Cairo court sentences 10 to death over terrorism charges; including Yehia Mousa
Sun 2022-01-30
  DR Congo sentences 51 accused of killing UN staff
Sat 2022-01-29
  Russia insists ‘we don’t want wars’ as it ponders Ukraine-NATO answer
Fri 2022-01-28
  Fighting Rages on Between Libyan Army and ISIS
Thu 2022-01-27
  SDF declare victory in week-long ISIS stand off in northeast Syrian prison, 181 dead thus far
Wed 2022-01-26
  Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer Announces Retirement
Tue 2022-01-25
  Over 120 Killed After ISIS Mass Prison Break In US-Occupied Northeast Syri, 140+ as of Monday
Mon 2022-01-24
  Egyptian court sentences Mufti of Al-Qaeda affiliate 'Al-Nusra Front' to life in prison
Sun 2022-01-23
  56 IS terrorists killed in northeast Syria
Sat 2022-01-22
  Iran says in talks with Russia to build nuclear power units
Fri 2022-01-21
  Al Qaeda announces death of former Bin Laden associate
Thu 2022-01-20
  Indonesian Militant Linked to Bali Bombings Sentenced to 15 Years


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