[BearingArms] It’s a wonderful stroke of irony that a guy whose byline appears on the eponymously-named news site of the gun control lobby’s biggest sugar daddy has delivered one of the most devastating blows against the idea that Science has proven the effectiveness and need for more gun control laws. In a new video from Reason’s Justin Monticello risk analyst, statistician, and Bloomberg columnist Aaron Brown lays to waste the tired tropes of politicians who claim that "evidence shows" the urgent adoption of gun or magazine bans, or that "studies show" gun homicides dropped by 20, 30, or 40% after the passage of a "common sense gun safety" measure. How? By taking a look at the studies themselves.
He’s not the first to do so. Brown begins by using a recent RAND analysis of gun research, which the corporation used to try to determine what the science actually says about the effectiveness of various gun control laws. What RAND found is that out of 27,900 pieces of research, just 123 of them displayed enough academic and scientific rigor to be taken seriously. Brown says that the problem is actually even worse, and that virtually none of the 123 projects that RAND deemed worthy of examining can be trusted to tell us anything of note.. and not just statistical noise.
We took a look at the significance of the 123 rigorous empirical studies and what they actually say about the efficacy of gun control laws.
Continued on Page 49
Direct Translation via Google Translate. by Oleg Airapetov
[REGNUM] One of the most hostile neighbors of the Soviet republics, and then the USSR, was Poland. The end of the First World War gave her a chance for a revival. Already on November 10, 1918, under the influence of news from Berlin, where the revolution was going on, the German garrison began to be disarmed in Warsaw. The pockets of resistance could not change anything. Soldiers' Soviets were formed, the army wanted to return home.
#1
That is helpful. My understanding of that era in that area was inaccurate and might as well have been drawn with crayons.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/05/2022 11:12 Comments ||
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#2
...Sadly, the Poles weren't so much interested in peacefully rebuilding their nation after a few centuries as they were interested in Revenge(TM). Winston Churchill may have said it best about the land of my fathers: "There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess...and there are few mistakes they have ever avoided."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/05/2022 11:24 Comments ||
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#3
The person who can forgo revenge is maybe the most dangerous person you ever will meet.
"Beware the wrath of a patient man." -John Dryden
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/05/2022 11:32 Comments ||
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#4
That is helpful. My understanding of that era in that area was inaccurate and might as well have been drawn with crayons.
Why I post this.
The Russian civil war has never been told to this extent and detail in English (to my knowledge) until this guy and regnum.ru started with the series.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Aleksandr Kots
[KP] There are no bodies scattered around the city in the video footage of the National Police of Ukraine
The morning covers of Western newspapers, as expected, exploded with the headlines "Nightmare in Bucha", "Genocide", "Mass murder of the innocent". The meaning of the publications is reduced to one "axiom": "Russia must answer for the execution of civilians in the suburbs of Kyiv." The terrible footage was published by the Ukrainian side the day before, the Russian military was indiscriminately accused of torture and extrajudicial executions.
The proof is only footage of the unfortunate on the streets, in basements, many have their hands tied behind their backs. Killer picture. And I’ll say right away that I have no doubt that in the photo and video there are really the bodies of the dead. There were enough of them in Bucha. But who shot the unarmed? Let's restore the chronology.
On March 30, Russian troops withdrew from Bucha as part of a regrouping. This is stated by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. I was these days in the suburbs of Kyiv. In fact, the withdrawal of our units began even earlier. It's just that by the 30th there was not a single soldier from Russia left in Bucha. The enemy did not immediately realize this. And he continued to inflict artillery strikes on our former concentration areas.
On March 31, Bucha was visited by the mayor of the city, who pathetically announced the "liberation" of the settlement. At the same time, without saying anything about the corpses on the roads. On the same day the deputy and wrestler Zhan Beleniuk visited here . In the photo, he is smiling, which would look out of place against the backdrop of dead bodies. The statement of the mayor, in fact, was premature - I really wanted to hurry things up. But Ukrainian forces have not yet taken control of the entire city. Artillery continued to work in separate areas.
On April 2, the National Police of Ukraine enters the city. A long video of their work to clean up the city has been preserved on the Web. There is everything to understand the atmosphere there - crumpled cars, destroyed buildings, joyful locals, one of whom says that they wanted to shoot him for Ukrainian symbols, but for some reason changed their minds. There are no only bodies scattered around the city.
On the same day, units of the Kiev Territorial Defense entered Bucha from another direction - to clean up. Among them is a detachment of a certain Boatswain. On the footage of their video chronicle, one of the militants asks the question: “There are boys without blue armbands, can they be shot at?” "And then!" - happily replies the other. And this is the key point.
"Boatswain" is a neo-Nazi Sergey Korotkikh , well-known in Russia by the nickname "Malyuta" . At one time, he was one of the leaders of the RNU and the closest associates of another far-right figure , Maxim "Tesak" Martsinkevich . Born in Togliatti, grew up in Belarus. Since 2014, he fought in the Azov battalion.
In Russia, such neo-fascists do not take root, but Ukraine welcomes them with open arms. It was he who gave the go-ahead to fire on people without identification marks. The blue bandages on the sleeves are the identification mark of "friend or foe" of the Ukrainian forces. In order not to open fire on their own from afar. During sweeps, people's nerves are strained to the limit and any little thing is enough to pull the trigger. For example, the lack of an identification mark. Or the presence of another - enemy.
And now let's take a closer look at the video and photo materials published by the Ukrainian side. Yes, it is quite obvious from the not dried blood and not yet stiffened bodies (the nationalists pull them and move them from place to place) that they were not killed on March 30th. But most importantly, most of those killed have white armbands on their sleeves. Who has a ribbon, who has a bandage, who has just a rag.
The white armband is the identification mark of the Russian forces. Nobody forced the locals to put them on, they did it themselves to designate themselves - "we are ours." One of the locals, blogger Vladimir Sklyarov , describes his experience with the Russian military: “They said: “Tell everyone that we will not hurt anyone. Let them hang white sheets on the windows so that we can see that peaceful people live here. Let them be calm. We only burn the Nazis and Bandera.”
This is so, a lyrical digression. What was going on in the city when the militants of the "Boatswain" and other Nazi leaders entered there? Natural cleaning.
They just killed people on the streets without knowing if they had weapons or not. And someone was captured and tortured. Footage from the basement, in which the Russians allegedly shot several people, confirms this. Among the dead are also people with white armbands. Most likely they were killed as "agents of the Russian troops" or "collaborators" who collaborated with the "occupation authorities."
Why didn't civilians take off their white armbands after the withdrawal of Russian troops? Because they didn't know about it. I repeat, for three more days after that, artillery strikes were carried out in the city, people sat in the basements, not sticking out. As soon as the cannonade subsided, they went upstairs and came under fire from their "zahisniks".
Frames with bodies appeared the next day - most likely, the Internet was given to the city, which disappeared during the fighting. At the suggestion of the Ukrainian authorities, the West began to disperse this great hoax of the “Buchan massacre”. As in the summer of 2014, when the Ukrainian front in Donbass was bursting at the seams and Kiev needed a breather, a passenger liner was shot down in the sky over the war zone. And Moscow was immediately blamed for the death of its passengers.
With the provocation in Bucha, it is quite possible that Ukraine, with the support of the West, which should put pressure on Russia, is trying to save its group in Mariupol, which is living out its last days.
Aleksandr Kots is prior service Russian airborne and a writer for Komsomol Pravda
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] 1. It is obvious that the story with Bucha simply one in one copies a similar methodology of staged accusations that everyone could observe in Syria (regardless of whether the participants in the staged picture are alive or dead) since 2012, when only "bloody Assad" did anything in Syria.
2. It is obvious that such stories will continue, as they have continued in Syria for many years. Moreover, in the next episodes of the series, we will surely see the series "The sinister attack of the Russians using chemical weapons."
In Syria, this was done by "fighters for the freedom of Syria." In Ukraine, "fighters for the freedom of Ukraine" are doing this. The template is the same, because the owner of all this action is the same. The performers shoot a picture for the media, which is used by diplomats to encourage further action. Moreover, at all levels, the process is controlled from one center.
3. Russia's arguments in the mainstream media and at the diplomatic level will not be accepted, because this is not a discussion, but a war of annihilation. Therefore, the facts provided by the Russian Federation will be swept aside according to the principle "if the facts contradict faith, then so much the worse for the facts." What kind of faith they want to impose is not difficult to assess from the rhetoric of the US-controlled neoliberal media.
4. Nevertheless, it is important for Russia to explain the mechanism of such provocations inside the country for its own citizens, as well as to work with those groups in Western society that also did not buy into the "stories about the atrocities of the Assad regime" - on the one hand, there are anti-imperialist leftists, and on the other hand, the alt-right. So, you can't go all out on this job.
5. Of course, such provocations will be used to impose new sanctions against the Russian Federation and intensify the supply of weapons, as well as to demonize the Russian Federation and dehumanize its population.
6. It is important to remember from the Syrian experience - despite a whole bunch of such provocations, they did not help the United States and its satellites achieve victory in the Syrian war. Neither Eastern Ghouta nor Khan Sheikhoun prevented Assad's victory.
Accordingly, realizing the meaning and consequences of such provocations, as well as taking the necessary measures to stop them, it is necessary to continue operations in Ukraine until the goals are achieved, which, in fact, they are trying to prevent with such provocations.
If you have already declared to fight the "Empire of Lies", be prepared for its usual tools of warfare. And then, just another provocation, and some have already hung their noses. Don't worry, there will be more. More cynical and bloody.
Learn to take a hit.
PS. In the title photo, an attempt by Ukrainian propaganda to break through a new bottom, passing off the body of a girl killed in Mariupol (filmed by Patrick Lancaster) as a "victim of Russian troops in Gostomel." This is again to the question of what the authors of fakes about the "genocide in Bucha" feed the audience with.
#6
I've had the misfortune of seeing someone's brains knocked out of their head with my own eyes. I don't say this to be macho; it's not something I ever wanted to see. I'm not a soldier or anything like that, and I had hoped to live a nice, long life without ever seeing anything like that.
But, since I have seen it, I had a good long look at the Bucha pictures; especially the one of the man in the blue jacket face down on the street with a spray of viscera below his face. It didn't look quite right to me - until those satellite images came out. Then it made sense. He'd been lying like that for weeks in the cold of Winter, so everything had frozen, changing color and consistency. Then the picture made sense.
God help us all, the Russians are practicing the Russian way of war straight out of the old Stalin playbook. Mass executions, gang rape, and even genocide are unfortunately part of that way, designed to break the spirit of the population and make them more docile. It worked pretty well in East Germany; but it isn't working on the Ukrainians. Whether they were or weren't a nation before, they certainly are one now.
I say this as large "L" Libertarian who is extremely suspicious of the Western media; a media prone to beat the war drums one moment (Ukraine) and to go completely quiet another moment (Somalia, Ethiopia) when it suits them. And I have been critical of much of the propaganda on both sides during this war - like Putin bathing in deer antler blood. (Please!) But as much as a Libertarian has any power at all, you can have the power to not lie to people. Or yourself.
The Russians are clearly doing many of the things they are being accused of. They are clearly guilty and need to be stopped. The trolls they are sending to this website are also clearly lying. The Russians also have a lot of nuclear weapons and a willingness to use them. So an extremely unsatisfying tightrope must be walked at all times, less the killing of thousands turn into the death of millions.
So let us all pray whomever in Washington is running the show behind the scenes is a lot smarter and more capable than the human marionettes they're currently hiding behind.
The propaganda on CBS is just as bad as the propaganda coming out of Russia. There are many victims in this war. The truth is prominent among them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/05/2022 13:02 Comments ||
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#10
And the Katyn Forest massacre was done by Nazis, not the Soviets...
NB: much, much less horrific accusations against US troops resulted in investigations, trials, and political fall-out. The Putinist line appears to be "didn't happen, we left earlier, besides they were asking for it".
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/05/2022 15:10 Comments ||
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#11
It's well past time to start referring to Actual Nazis™ vs Media narrative nazis™
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/05/2022 15:21 Comments ||
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[defenseone.com] From battlefield concepts to geopolitics, Beijing is sure to be watching with avid interest—and some chagrin.
Operation Desert Storm was a turning point in modern Chinese military history. As military planners with the People’s Liberation Army watched U.S. and allied forces make short work of the world’s fourth-largest military (on paper), equipped with many of the same systems as the PLA, it became obvious that China’s quantitatively superior but qualitatively lacking massed infantry would stand no chance against the combination of modern weaponry, C4ISR, and joint operations seen in Iraq. The result was new military concepts and over two decades of often-difficult reforms, which produced the modern, far more capable, "informationized" PLA of today.
Today, the PLA is no doubt closely observing its Russian contemporaries in Ukraine as they under-perform in multiple areas, from failing to take key targets or claim air supremacy to running low on fuel and supplies and possibly experiencing morale collapse, and surely taking away lessons that will shape its own future. Of note, Russia’s experience appears to have confirmed many of China’s recent assumptions behind its investments, such as the utility of unmanned aerial systems in high-intensity conflict, as well as the necessity for the PLA’s 2015 reforms, which aim to fix many of the issues driving Russian failure that the PLA recognizes in itself. Follow the link, read the whole thing
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain ||
04/05/2022 12:01 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
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#1
...One thing I'd be looking for is a series of retirements in the Chinese military, both civilian and military...and possibly a 'plane crash' or two. That'll tell me that they're going after the corruption aspects hard.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/05/2022 13:36 Comments ||
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#2
...One thing I'd be looking for is a series of retirements in the Chinese military, both civilian and military...and possibly a 'plane crash' or two. That'll tell me that they're going after the corruption aspects hard.
#5
The reason the Chinese were able to hit us so hard with Covid 19 is that they were able to recognize guys like Fauci, Baris, and Daszak as classical corrupt bureaucrats of the Tang Dynasty model. They look at the white house communications guy with the makeup and the fashionable bag and see the long-fingernailed mandarins of that time period.
We really need a rent-a-Mongol-horde service if we want to buy another generation or two.
#6
Hopefully they haven't learned about the costs of discount tires and cheap radios.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/05/2022 15:05 Comments ||
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#7
What is China learning...?
That it's better to posture and strut with knockoff armament, and to make edited presentations about capability, than to start a real war. They've got that lesson I'm sure. Real cautious bunch, those Chinese. Not like Russkies at all.
#10
We had people within the CCP since the beginning of the millenium. By 2010 nearly all were re-converted or deep sixed. Today, the effort is merely to make the leadership see the light.
An establishment that does not believe in a lengthy due process or equality or inalienable rights is not something one can take lightly. They kill kill kill moles there, and traitors. Anybody who inconveniences their long game, just disappears.
Besides, there is a huge racial problem with the Chinese. Americans think they know racism? For example, Chinese absolutely detest Americans naivety for giving the black people any rights at all. These people are quintessentially in awe of only the strong, the supremacist, a lot like the Japs although they won't admit it. Demonstrate overwhelming strength and they find a way to fall in line. The problem is, there's a shortage of testicles in the world today. As for who you can buy, the random ideologue the activist, the uighur sasquatch leader, the disgruntled businessman... maybe.
Posted from a comment yesterday by our own Unavinter Ulaitch.
[Glenn Greenwald - May 3, 2021]
One of the primary plagues of corporate journalism, which I have documented more times than I can count, just reared its ugly head again to deceive millions of people with fake news. When one large news outlet publishes a false story based on whispers from anonymous security state agents with the CIA or FBI, other news outlets quickly purport that they have "independently confirmed" the false story, in order to bolster its credibility (oh, it must be true since other outlets have also confirmed it).
This is an obvious scam — they have not "independently confirmed" anything but rather merely acted as servants to the same lying security state agents who planted the original false story — but they do it over and over, creating the deceitful perception that a fake story has been "confirmed" by multiple outlets, thus bolstering its credibility in the public mind. It was the favored tactic for spreading debunked Russiagate frauds and is still used. One of the most vivid examples occurred in December, 2017, when CNN falsely reported what it hyped as "a major bombshell": that Donald Trump, Jr. had advance access to the WikiLeaks archive. Within an hour, NBC News’ Ken Dilanian and CBS News both claimed they had "independently confirmed" this fairy tale. When it turned out that it was a complete lie, all based on a false date on an email to Trump Jr., these outlets embarrassingly corrected it hours later and then simply moved on as if it never happened, never explaining how multiple outlets could possibly have all "independently confirmed" the same blatant falsehood.
On Thursday night, The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources (of course), claimed that the FBI gave a "defensive briefing" to Rudy Giuliani in 2019, before he traveled to Ukraine, that he was being targeted by a Russian disinformation campaign to hurt Joe Biden's candidacy, yet he ignored the FBI's warnings and went anyway. The Post also claimed that the right-wing news outlet OANN was similarly briefed. The claim about Giuliani not only predictably ricocheted all over social media and cable news — where, as usual, it was uncritically treated as Truth — but it was shortly thereafter "independently confirmed" by both NBC News’ de facto CIA spokesman Ken Dilanian along with The New York Times.
What was the problem with this story? It was totally false. The FBI never briefed Giuliani on any such thing. As a result, The Washington Post had to append this "correction" — meaning a retraction — to the top of its viral story:
#1
Ken Dilanian is a tool. Most of the "national security" reporting from D.C. consists of fables, spin, bullshit planted by anonymous "senior Pentagon officials" and "intelligence analysts."
#2
Uhhh.... the entire reason for a defensive briefing is so you CAN go. Go with a little warning of what you might face and how to...defend yourself from the threat. That and last time I checked, the USG cannot restrict the travel of private citizen barring a legal process/order.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
04/05/2022 4:55 Comments ||
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Dimon called on Biden to organize military frameworks to make the world prosperous
He added that the war, the pandemic and inflation will have a 'meaningful effect on the economy for the next few years and on geopolitics for several decades'
He slammed the 'dysfunctional' politics of Washington that have turned the 'brightest minds' away from becoming leaders
'Regulation has dramatically impeded our ability to build good infrastructure in a timely manner,' he said
If you want to see "what were they thinking" and "what did they expect to happen" re: the civilian massacres in Ukraine, here's a historical backgrounder. Pay close attention to all the half truths and modified limited hangouts and whatabouts in the second half of the article. It's what you'll see about the current event, especially if Putin manages to eventually win. I'll put up the introduction here, but you really want to follow the link and read the whole thing.
The Huế massacre (Vietnamese: Thảm sát tại Huế Tết Mậu Thân, or Thảm sát Tết Mậu Thân ở Huế, lit. translation: "Tết Offensive massacre in Huế") was the summary executions and mass murder perpetrated by the Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during their capture, military occupation and later withdrawal from the city of Huế during the Tet Offensive, considered one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.
The Battle of Huế began on 31 January 1968, and lasted a total of 26 days. During the months and years that followed, dozens of mass graves were discovered in and around Huế. Victims included women, men, children, and infants.[2] The estimated death toll was between 2,800 and 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war,[1][3] or 5—10% of the total population of Huế.[4] The Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) released a list of 4,062 victims identified as having been either murdered or abducted.[5][6] Victims were found bound, tortured, and sometimes buried alive. Many victims were also clubbed to death.[7][8][9]
A number of U.S. and South Vietnamese authorities as well as a number of journalists who investigated the events took the discoveries, along with other evidence, as proof that a large-scale atrocity had been carried out in and around Huế during its four-week occupation. The killings were perceived as part of a large-scale purge of a whole social stratum, including anyone friendly to American forces in the region. The massacre at Huế came under increasing press scrutiny later, when press reports alleged that South Vietnamese "revenge squads" had also been at work in the aftermath of the battle, searching out and executing citizens that had supported the communist occupation.[10][11] In 2017, Ben Kiernan described the massacre as "possibly the largest atrocity of the war."[12]
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain ||
04/05/2022 12:25 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] 
