Russia

Isolationism is Best

Mark Noonan44 Comments

David Frum took Senator Lee to task over his refusal to back the war in Ukraine – stating that failure to back the Administration when its helping a NATO effort is tantamount to backing Russia. So it has been in our foreign affairs since WWI – failure to enthusiastically back Administration foreign and war policy is treason.

To my shame, I used to sign on to this. I am glad I’m past it now.

To be sure, there is such a thing as treason – we define it directly in our Constitution. One of the few definitions of crime in it.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. – Article III, section 3

Now, you can make an argument that refusing to condemn Russia over Ukraine is some sort of adherence to our enemies, but I do believe that stretches it far beyond the breaking point. Adhering to our enemies in the Founder’s minds would have been what Benedict Arnold did: taking an officer’s commission in the Royal Army to fight against us. It is true that after the Revolution many Loyalists were mistreated and forced to flee the new nation – and good riddance to them. As Samuel Adams put it, I hope their chains sat lightly upon them and we have very much forgotten they were ever our countrymen. But nothing was done with that very large segment of the population which was neither Patriot nor Loyalist. The bottom line is that a great number of Americans didn’t care one way or the other about the outcome of the war. And after the war, they simply became citizens along with the Patriots and proceeded to play their role as citizens in the formation of our Republic. Given this, I don’t think that anyone refusing to back Ukraine can in any reasonable definition be considered a traitor.

But that is what the Frums of the world consider them to be. They are so committed to the global order that they cannot allow any dissenting view from it. We must be involved. Isolationism must be wrong. And so on like that. It is very useful for them to take such a line as it excuses them from having to argue in favor of the war or the policy. It allows them to merely slander those who disagree with it.

The only war we’ve had since the Civil War which wasn’t a war of choice was the war against Japan. One can argue that various policies of the USA provoked Japan into attacking and I will agree…but the choice still lay with Japan. They did commit the overt act against a Power which was not in any way threatening offensive military action against Japan. But other than that war, everything has been a choice. Sure, a lesser argument can be made that the war against Hitler’s Germany also wasn’t a choice as Hitler declared war on us. But our sending by far the largest part of our military force to Europe was a choice. We didn’t have to do it. Backed by American aid, the Anglo-Russian combine in Europe could never be defeated by Germany. Open question whether this combine absent an American Army and Air Force could have beat down the Germans as was in fact done…but the bottom line is that we didn’t have to be there. And neither have we had to be anywhere else.

But everywhere else we have been, right? And now think about it: in each case the justification for action was Hitler. Because Hitler managed to get rolling against people who didn’t want to put up a fight it became necessary for us to put up a fight for everyone else, forever. And by one means or another (though lately explicitly) each enemy we’re told to go fight is another Hitler who, if not stopped right now and by us, will grow to a Hitlerian threat to the world. It is really rather crude – indeed, cartoonish – propaganda once you see through it, but it has worked very well. And so they keep doing it – and now Senator Lee is a Hitler-appeasing traitor…for not wanting an open-ended commitment to Ukraine’s government (which is getting to be m ore unsavory in action all the time).

It is good to point out that it was only in hindsight that Hitler had to be stopped regardless of cost. Anyone telling you that the leaders of the world knew what Hitler was up to in the death camps is lying or misinformed. Sure, plenty of word did get out but it was like all other word out of an occupied territory…you couldn’t be sure. It was only when the camps were opened that we knew for certain what was happening…and everyone was shocked because nobody, not even the strongest opponents of Hitlerism, thought that an advanced people like the Germans could really round up men, women and children and exterminate them. So, it was good that we got deep into Europe. Had we not, many more millions of innocents would have died. But that was happenstance. It wasn’t intended. We didn’t invade Europe to shut down Auschwitz; it was shut down as a merciful byproduct of the main desire. But this hindsight is now transformed into foresight for the globalist propagandists and everyone they hate has to be Hitler and we all have to jump aboard or we’re allowing another Holocaust to occur.

Drivel.

Hitler was a unique thing. What he did and how he was able to accomplish it will never be repeated. This is not to say that we won’t come across people willing to murder millions. Heck, some of our own leaders are willing to murder millions to appease the weather god. But there won’t ever again be a racial supremacist like Hitler determined to conquer territory for his people and exterminate a group identified as the sole enemy of humanity. It just won’t happen again. Putin not only isn’t a Hitler, he can’t be a Hitler. He might be twenty different versions of SOB, but he’s not an existential threat to Europe or the world. He’s a problem. But is he our problem?

I say, no. Europe is collectively far more powerful than Russia. Just between Poland, Germany, France and Britain a military, naval and air force can be raised sufficient to make Russia back down. And with France and Britain having nuclear weapons, there’s a complete stand off on that level. I can see why Poland doesn’t want the Russian Bear to take Ukraine and once again hold land bordering a Poland which for centuries has been seen by Russia as a sort of redoubt to be held by Russia against Europe. But this tells me the Poles better build a first rate military force and make alliance with Germany and, also, Romania and Hungary who also don’t want a Russian army camped on their borders. And if the Poles or the Europeans in general don’t do this?

Well, how does that become an American problem? People who won’t defend themselves are to be defended by us? For what purpose? If the Poles don’t want to work to keep the Russkies away, why should a kid from Ohio have to do it?

And why is it our problem if the Syrians are having a civil war? Did the Syrians intervene in ours? Sudan descends into chaos. Why is that our problem? I can see keeping foreigners out of the Americas, but what interest do I as an American have in African, European and Asian affairs?

Oh, you can talk me into having an interest. But this would require truly reciprocal alliances and allies who maintain powerful military forces. I don’t think I should have to send an American army to defend Poland unless, say, a Polish army is pledged to come to east Asia to help us fight the Chinese. And that Polish army better be first rate. Well trained. Best possible equipment. Ready at a moment’s notice to fight. See where I’m going? It isn’t an alliance if I’ve got an unlimited obligation to my ally and he has no obligation to me. If he’s allowed to be slack in preparedness and doesn’t have to bleed with us when we’re attacked, then it isn’t an alliance. That is a client relationship – and if Poland is our client, fine. They can pay us 3% of their GDP every year. Same as everyone else in the NATO “alliance”. We’re the first global empire to be the sugar-daddy and its just stupid.

I want us to stop this. To give up the Wilsonian demand that the world be made safe for Democracy. I don’t care what the world is: I only care what America is. And I don’t like being called a traitor – with all that implies – because I don’t want Americans to bleed for the Donbas. We’ve poisoned ourselves with alliances. It is time to bring them to an end. The war is over. Come on home, America. Let the foreigners fight. Advise them carefully that attacking us is suicidal, but leave them alone. It isn’t our world.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

I guess the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine has fallen and the Russians are hailing their victory while the Ukrainians are saying they never really wanted to hold it. The bottom line, for me, is that Russia has definitely resumed advancing and the Ukrainians aren’t able to stop it so far. No breakthrough, but a war of attrition where the Russians are just grinding the Ukrainians down…though such eventually does lead to a breakthrough as the weaker side can never sustain this kind of fight forever. Meanwhile, everyone on the Ukraine side gets ever more hysterical about how we have to support Ukraine. I think it is time for negotiations. Unless Zelensky has something big up his sleeve, offensive-wise, better to quit now rather than wait until there’s nothing left between the Russians and Kiev.

Argentina has ripped up its Falklands agreement with Britain and is demanding negotiations over sovereignty. This is what I mean about just staying the heck out of foreign problems: most of them are stupid. The bottom line is that whatever theoretical legal right Argentina received from Spain to the Islands, there never was a permanent, indigenous population of the Falklands until the Brits showed up in the 1830’s. The people who live there going back nearly two centuries have never had any connection to Argentina. They consider themselves British. The speak English. When asked in a plebiscite what they preferred, more than 98% voted to stay under British rule. But Argentina likes to get all fussy about it – and they are getting fussy about it shortly after HMS Queen Elizabeth became operational which means if they decide to start shooting over it, they’ll lose (the Royal Navy is a shadow of her formal self, but most of Argentina’s navy is laid up in port; and they don’t have a naval air arm to speak of). Amazing how stupid people can be, and for all the wrong reasons.

Kellyanne and George Conway have called it quits – which is kinda sad but very understandable. George acted like an a** during the Trump years and Kellyanne has allowed herself to be squired around by the likes of Cuomo recently. Really its all rather pathetic.

The Left is still trying to sell the notion that the Second Amendment only secured a right to bear arms to the Militia, which is now the National Guard. Of course it is absurd, but lots of people are fierce in their faith about the Militia having the right. It isn’t just propaganda doing this – it is propaganda directed a population which is barely literate and almost entirely ignorant of American history. We can’t get control of the schools fast enough. This is a terrible problem and it will harm us politically…but if we control the schools it is literally just a few years before the problem is fixed.

RDS has put out a video which is “I’m running” without saying the actual words, “I’m running”.

I’m increasingly positive that the Left overstepped on the trans issue – and it is women leading the backlash. Which is proper as women are being erased to accommodate trans women. It is very irritating, isn’t it? What is clearly a man winning women’s sporting contests, Hershey and other woke corporations using trans women as spokespeople for women’s issues. I mean, seriously: who thought this would be a good idea? Oh, yeah: Progressives did. Never forget that as ruthless and cruel as they are, they are also monumentally stupid.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Supposedly General Miley a little while back advised that Ukraine is as strong as she’s gonna get, is not strong enough to defeat Russia, so it is time for a diplomatic solution. If this story is true, my respect for Miley goes up a notch.

Of late, Zelensky has been talking big not just about pushing Russia out of what they’ve taken in the last year, but out of all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. Well, hey, if he can do that, more power to him: but I don’t think Ukraine has the sheer power to do that. Absent a complete Russian collapse, the Russians will pretty much hold on to what they’ve got. As I said at the start – Ukraine’s job since 2014 was to build a mobile strike force capable of immediately going on the offense either right at the time the Russians attacked, or just before that. I like to call this The Israeli Option: what to do with enemies who vastly outnumber you and have far greater strategic depth? You attack and turn their dream of marching on Tel Aviv (Kiev) into a nightmare defending Cairo and Damascus (Rostov and Voronezh). Ukraine had plenty of time and plenty of money – and even plenty of factories and material to produce this force with only very limited support from anyone outside Ukraine. They didn’t do it. They decided that bribing foreign pols as a means of securing their support against Russia was a better idea (and this tells you right there that there’s at least a huge part of the Ukrainian population uninterested in fighting for Ukraine – that the Ukrainian government, unlike the Israeli government, could not rely on the population to make the sacrifices in blood and treasure). And, fundamentally, that is why I was against giving aid from the start – if they can’t sacrifice for themselves, why should I sacrifice for them? Now is the time to make peace – before more blood is shed and before the Russians do put forth their full power.

So, now they’re admitting that masks don’t work and there’s a good chance the Chinese flu came from the lab – whether accidentally or intentionally we don’t know, and likely never can know. Just as the repeated assertions of 2020 being clean are our best proof it was dirty, the assertion that Covid didn’t come from the lab was our best proof that it came from the lab. We just know – if we’ve any sense at all – that whatever it is they’re saying is a lie…or if by some miracle the truth, only partial and designed to deflect attention from something else even worse. Why they’re dribbling this out now remains to be seen – but is certainly isn’t to enlighten us. They’re hiding something else.

Supposedly the J6 footage was all turned over to Tucker Carlson and people are starting to wonder when we get to see it. Rely on it, folks: it was given to Carlson to ensure the most Narrative-Destroying parts never see the light of day. I dig that Carlson has a lot of fans and he does, indeed, say some useful things…but he’s MSM. He’s Establishment. He’ll never jeopardize his meal ticket and while his boss is testifying that Trump was lying about 2020 election fraud, you can bet any money that Carlson won’t piss the boss off by showing that J6 was a setup to ensure the truth about 2020 never came out.

Pudding Brain’s illegal order to cancel student debt was heard before the Supreme Court today – it ain’t looking good for Pudding Brain. But there is a very worrisome thing going – all over the Democrats and MSMers (but I repeat myself) was the assertion that the Court should rule in favor of cancellation regardless of what the law says…with an unstated subtext that if the Court doesn’t rule the way the Democrats want, then it is “out of control”…and so in need of being brought under control. We need not say who’s control is needs to be brought under. This is terrible for our system of government – essentially, the Democrats are saying that any Court ruling going against their desires is illegitimate.

Looks like Lori Lightfoot didn’t pass the graft around enough and she didn’t get into the runoff for Chicago Mayor. The winner will be whichever candidate seems most likely to correctly pass around the graft. Lightfoot will, of course, claim that her loss was because of racism, sexism and homophobia. This would mean the Democrat party is packed full of racists, sexists and homophobes.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan30 Comments

I had mentioned before Aleste and the Ice Crystal Dragons – the story is hooked into my Mirrors series but it came about after I was explaining the series to my granddaughter and she observed that it was an utter fail because it didn’t have any dragons in it. So, I told her to come up with a story that had dragons in it. With her talking and me writing, the book was made. And we’ve got some reviews over at Amazon:

I read this book to my 3rd grade class and they absolutely loved it! The cliff hangers left them begging for me to read more each day. We feel in love with the character Aleste and her bravery throughout the book. The details, descriptive language, and great vocabulary used throughout this book made it a great book to share with my students. Awesome job!

Got a kid or a grandkid? Get the book. It is a heck of a lot of fun.

Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell of Los Angeles was shot and killed on Saturday. It is in the news but it isn’t really making the news, if you know what I mean. The increasing collapse of civilization in Los Angeles does not support any Democrat Narrative, nor will it help Newsom when he runs for President in 2024 or 2028, so what would have been a huge story 20 years ago, is pretty much nothing these days. Nor are any other stories highlighting the end of civilization – the re-barbarization of the West which gains speed day by day. You know – things like mass brawls at fast food joints and stores. Nobody ever even knows why the fights start but a score of people at times are just pounding on each other…or one poor body is being beaten mercilessly by a gang of thugs and everyone is just standing around filming it.

This is not normal and it is not sustainable. Eventually everything falls apart and the reaction sets in – a very violent reaction as the few remaining civilized people decide that the barbarians have to die.

Former Governor Larry Hogan is giving a class these days called, “Why You Got Trump”. At any event, he may as well be doing that. He’s rumbling about running for President but what he’s really doing is auditioning for an MSM gig…which a failed Presidential run and then complaining about the eventual GOP nominee will get him. His most recent absurdity was to claim that DeSantis pushing back against woke ideology in public schools is “big government”…you know what all True Conservatives with Muh Principles oppose. It is just a stupid thing to say – the schools are government and all RDS is doing is making them bend to the will of the people of Florida…you know, like a government is supposed to do. It is stupid – but it is wowing the Left, and that’s the point of the exercise. But for us, what he’s doing is providing the perfect foil for the new, populist GOP…an example of what we cannot go back to. Maybe it is time to move on from Donald Trump, but it isn’t time to move on from Trumpism.

There’s a news report about how to survive a nuclear blast. I did not have this on my 2023 bingo card – but, kiddies, let us oldsters clue you in, because we learned this stuff when we were kids. If there’s a nuclear attack, get under your desk, put your head between your knees and kiss you a** goodbye.

Speaking of which, the global Ruling Class is really pushing for Ukraine victory…but I’ve yet to see how Ukraine destroys the Russian army. That is a kind of a crucial First Step here…a plan and the means to do that. I think that our leaders are so divorced from reality and so ignorant of history that they just don’t know this. That they think high tech weapons will just do the trick, somehow. But unless Ukraine builds a military force which is capable of sustained offensive operations, its all just a waste of blood and treasure. Keep in mind that since the initial Russian invasion there hasn’t even been a battle. Oh, sure, there’s been lots of fighting and dying, but no battles once you understand that a battle is a event whereby your principle military power is directed against the enemy’s principle military power and decisive results are achieved one way or the other. Attrition warfare isn’t a battle…and its a sort of warfare Ukraine can never win given the population disparities. Meanwhile, the Russkies seem to be calling up half a million…and not to just hold the line, but to provide a powerful strike force which will be launched against the Ukrainians with a mind towards destroying the Ukrainian army.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

That quake in Turkey looks really bad. Don’t forget to say some prayers for them.

Saw another one of those articles accusing Putin of war crimes – this on the basis of recruiting soldiers from occupied Ukrainian territory. This is, indeed, a direct violation of the Geneva Convention and other international treaties.

Its also worth about a fart in a hurricane.

One of the most baleful things of the past century was the Nuremburg trials is this misbegotten drivel that there is such a thing as international law or that there can be a neutral tribunal provided for a defeated enemy. It just doesn’t work that way. It only seemed that way after WWII because the enemy powers were utterly defeated and occupied. Absent that, just how are you going to serve your warrant for Putin’s arrest? Unless a Ukrainian or other non-Russian army arrives in Moscow, it just isn’t going to happen.

But even in the unique circumstances of World War Two, the trials were an absurdity. We put on trial Hans Fritzsche as a major war criminal – he was in the same dock as Goering. Of course you’ve never heard of him – he was a radio broadcaster. Sure, he broadcast Nazi lies – that was his job. But if we’re to charge everyone who broadcasts a lie as a war criminal, we’re going to be busy for a bit. We hung Alfred Jodl who didn’t really do that much to order or carry out war crimes but only passed out 12 years to Alfried Krupp who ran the sickest slave labor empire in Nazi Germany; and then we let him out after 3 and gave him all his money back. The Russians made a serious effort to pin the Katyn Massacre on the Germans and have it as one of the counts at Nuremberg – they didn’t succeed but the bottom line here is that both FDR and Churchill were advised early on that it was the Soviets who carried out that massacre and they killed the story so as to not offend Stalin. With, you know, the truth…but then we set up trials with the Soviets helping us judge Germans guilty of carrying out massacres.

This is not to say that the Nazis should have skated. As I’ve noted before, Churchill once mused that the best thing to do would be to haul out the Nazis one fine morning and just shoot them. That would have been just – and of far more moral worth than a charade trial which included a mass murderer among the judges.

But, it happened – and now pinheads are forever asking for a repeat. As if it would do anything. War is about power – who has the most and who can apply that power most effectively. If you want Putin in the dock, then you better gather a lot of power and march on Moscow. Good luck to you. If you get him, go ahead and hang him, if that makes you feel better about it. I’ve no complaint about someone who starts a war getting shot for putting the world to the trouble. But don’t preach international law at me: it doesn’t exist. If you do catch Putin then the trial you hold for him will be garbage – because there can’t be other than a guilty verdict and you’ll be charging him not with being evil, but with losing. International law is whatever the strong choose to enforce at any given time. And that is how it should be: if you defeat your enemy, he is at your disposal. Shoot him or make a deal with him, as you desire. But don’t pretend you caught a bank robber and that a trial will somehow right the scales of justice in the world.

The news report is from 2021 but I first heard it yesterday: the Orwell Estate has given permission for a re-write of 1984 from a feminist perspective. Think about it: the premier book about totalitarian propaganda is going to be re-written to fit current propaganda. And you just watch: once this new one comes out, the original will be condemned and removed from libraries. The Left hates 1984…because they know it is all about them.

They apparently had some sick, bizarre Satanist musical number at the Emmy’s. I didn’t watch it because why would any sane person watch drivel like an award show? But I guess some people are upset. Can’t say that I am – of course these nimrods are glorifying evil. Some of them are just evil, others are too stupid to realize the evil. The few pop culture people who do see through it all usually end up making really good art that doesn’t get a lot of play. Look for those gems – I’ve even found some fairly recent pop music which is darned good and interesting…gotta hunt for it, but it’s there. It isn’t the stuff that tops the charts for the most part. And some of it does make me suspect that pop culture has its secret dissidents from the Leftist Narrative.

Pudding Brain is going to do his SOTU and they’ve put the fences back up around the Capital. Because our government hates the American people.

DeSantis is pulling the plug on Disney’s private empire in Florida. Among the other benefits Disney was given in the 1960’s is that they can take property via eminent domain! Old Walt must have had one heck of a lobbyist back in the day! Anyway, that’s all over with now – a five person board appointed by the governor will look after things; the board being the method by which a Leftist local government is cut out of the process. RDS seems to really get the point: it is all about power and you don’t leave any of it lying around for the Left to use.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan49 Comments

Thinking about it, the best outcome of the Ukraine war is a swift Russian victory. Ukrainian victory would only mean yet another open-ended American commitment to defend an European nation against an increasingly hostile Russia driven closer to alliance with a China which poses the only strategic threat the United States faces.

It must be emphasized that Russia is in no way, shape or form similar to the threat posed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Hitler’s ideology required war to expand German territory into non-German territories to enslave/exterminate the local population so that Germans could move in. Putin holds to no such ideology and it is obvious that all he is attempting to gain is formerly Russian-ruled territories in order to revive Russia’s Great Power status. This is a fool’s errand on Putin’s part, but it does not amount to a threat to American interests.

More and more prison systems are transferring female-identifying male prisoners to the female prisons. This is having the obvious result. It is almost a certainty that every male prisoner who identifies as female is doing it just to get into the female prison either for the opportunity for sex or because the regime is likely lighter than in the male prisons. We’re allowing woman to be raped and abused in order to conform to insane, ideological demands. And, yes, we do bear the moral responsibility here – when we imprison a person we take over the job of keeping them safe from harm as far as practical. To put men in with women – and some of these men were convicted of sex crimes against women – is objectively evil.

People are hanging on to their gasoline cars. My Saturn was built in 2004. I will not let it go. EV’s are not just inefficient, but they are too connected to the internet of things.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan23 Comments

China Joe announced that we’ll be sending 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine – this, apparently, is what the Kraut’s demanded before they would agree to send Leopard tanks. Ukraine is getting a hodge-podge of military equipment which they have no training or maintenance facilities for. This will get interesting.

Russia, meanwhile, continues to push forward in certain areas, likely to prep for an offensive after the Spring rains. We’ll see how this comes out – but I suspect, long term, that Russia will have some Abrams tanks to sell on the international arms market. The bottom line, absent a collapse of Russian will to win, is that Russia has vastly superior numbers over Ukraine and the outcome is only a matter of time.

New York City erected a Medusa-looking statue on their courthouse – in honor of RBG and abortion, so at least kinda appropriate. Very ugly, though. But that is the point of modern art: to be ugly. To be something you hate but can’t get rid of.

Also in New York City – for ages they had de-facto segregation in their schools. This was to allow New York’s rich progressives to have high quality public schools while proclaiming their allegiance to diversity without, you know, the diversity. There merely skimmed the cream of the crop of minority students to put into class with the kids of rich, white Progressives. Former Mayor DeBlasio, true to his Leninism, put an end to that – rather than have test scores determine who got into the swanky, Manhattan public schools, they created a supposedly scientific algorithm which would decide…naturally, it really just managed to shove into these schools kids who were in no way prepared for high education achievement. There is a bit of poetic justice here in that rich, white liberals lost their little education plantation…but the bad news is that now all of New York’s public schools suck. This is considered fine by the upper end of the Ruling Class because they send their kids to private schools and, hey, who wants to take the time and effort to improve all schools? Better to just score some DEI brownie points by wrecking the few remaining good schools.

Surrounded by armed guards, California Governor Newsom proclaimed in the streets that “weapons of war” have no place there. Make no mistake about it: Newsom will be hard for the GOP to beat. He’s good looking, sounds good on TV and, of course, the MSM will cover up his crimes and puff him up as the Second Coming. But he can be beat – his State is a complete disaster outside a few, rich coastal enclaves. The way to handle him in debate is to simply get truthful about him: “Governor, you hate the people of California. You want them to suffer. You talk about ‘weapons of war’ but what you really are trying to do is make honest citizens into criminals while you deliberately and maliciously allow real criminals to run amok.” Words like that – 100% true – will put that arrogant ass into a defensive mode and he won’t know how to deal with it as he’s never had a hostile question asked of him.

What do to about rising egg prices and people suddenly dying? Claim that the eggs are causing sudden death. I’m serious: it is what they are trying to assert. This after they tried to assert that all the sudden deaths are due to climate change.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

I had mentioned the other day that the latest Current Thing is fear-mongering over gas stoves – now that its been a couple days, it is all clear.

The initial fear-mongering was apparently a 2020 study out of UCLA and paid for by the Sierra Club (which advocates for the elimination of oil and gas). This study used a 10×8 room which had been sealed with plastic which they then ran an unlighted stove in for a while and, guess what?, if you have a sealed room and an open gas valve, the air will get toxic. Who knew?

From there, it made it into the MSM and then on to the regulatory agencies and legislatures. That is where we are now – with a few places (NYC most prominent) banning new residential gas installation and various federal agencies looking into the “threat” of natural gas and how it is to be addressed. The initial blowback once the proposal to ban gas stoves was made public caused what seemed like a step back – a claim that, no, nobody is coming for your gas stove. This is just as convincing as the claim that we could keep our doctor. The plan is now proceeding and taking the next, crucial step: reports in local news outlets. You know the type of report: “Is your gas stove killing you?!?!?!? Tune in tonight and find out!”. All of it is still based on that 2020 study, which is pure garbage because there never will be a situation where someone turns on a gas range in a sealed room. It is the same sort of study, though, which was used to ban indoor smoking (they seriously claimed that second hand smoke was just as deadly as the guy huffing three packs of grits a day), rework your gas can into ineffectiveness and a host of other changes imposed by regulation in the name of safety. They are now inducing fear in the sort of person who still watched the news and thinks they are telling the truth – you know: halfwits who vote Democrat. Rely on it, by 2028, at the latest, it will be obligatory dogma among Democrats to call for banning of gas stoves.

Of course, it isn’t about the stove.

The bottom line is a ban on the use of natural gas – it has to go. Not because natural gas isn’t clean but because it is clean and vastly more efficient than solar or wind. It provides cheap and efficient energy which makes life better for humanity. And I’m not kidding: that is why it has to go. They want us to suffer. They need us to suffer. We have to pay for our sins of being rich. Of being American. And for us to suffer all cheap and efficient energy must go…we must depend on solar and wind. Which will leave us eventually with daily blackouts, but that is good…it will be us suffering.

Are they throwing Pudding Brain under the bus due to the classified docs? I doubt it. It could happen, but more than likely, in my view, they’re just clearing out old business. Getting it out into the open before the House GOP finds it so it can either be dismissed as old news or kept silent about due to “ongoing investigations”. Like Hillary, though, Biden violated the laws governing classified documents. And just like Hillary, nothing will be done about it…unless they really are giving Joe the heave ho.

The Russians are having some recent success in Ukraine and so it looks like everyone is going to start sending first rate military equipment to Ukraine…which is really not such a good idea as the time it would take to train the Ukrainians in their use and maintenance is probably insufficient before the predicted Russian Spring offensive. To the untrained eye, the T64/T72 tanks Ukraine use look a lot like a German Leopard tank…but they ain’t the same. You can’t just hand the keys off like a guy switching from a Volvo to a Chevy. And there isn’t a mechanic in Ukraine who knows how to so much as change the oil on a Leopard. So, unless training and maintenance personnel are being sent, all we might be sending to Ukraine is a collection of paper weights. And if we send the support personnel…that means that NATO soldiers will be in a combat zone, very specifically in places the Russians will want to hit very hard.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan8 Comments

Word is that the Russkies are calling up 500,000 reservists for a major Spring offensive. They’d just enough time to do that before the ground gets dry and hard in June. There is some dispute out there as to whether or not the Russians can equip that many but the Russians have massive stockpiles of arms and munitions – older stuff, but it’ll get the job done when your plan is to simply overwhelm with numbers, which is the invariable Russian plan after their initial effort falls flat. That many troops in the wide, flat lands of Ukraine are going to be tough to stop, as the Krauts discovered during the Battle of the Dnieper in 1943.

The Ukrainians can beat this horde but they’ll need to trade space for time and have in hand sufficient mobile reserves to strike hard at Russian flanks. We’ll see if they’re up to it.

The Regime Media is pointing out that time is not on the Ukrainian’s side – it never has been. Absent Putin quitting, unless the Ukrainians can destroy Russian military capability fairly quickly, it becomes a matter of who can call up the most and the Russians have vastly more military-aged males and material resources than Ukraine. This is why at the start I said that Ukraine needed mobile strike forces to go deep into Russian lines and, if possible, into Russia, itself. A positional slugging match – which is what we’ve had for months now – only ends in Russian victory.

Democrats in the States they control are, as per usual, enacting a host of new gun control laws to start 2023 – but I do suspect this will backfire on them. We already have two SC decisions noting that the right to bear arms is an individual right…what we don’t have, so far, is the actually correct Constitutional ruling: the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a very simple statement and it is the law we live under…all restrictions on the people keeping and bearing arms are unconstitutional. I don’t even think a law which says a felon (once out of jail, of course) can’t own a firearm passes muster (and it shouldn’t – once you serve your sentence, you’re square with the house and you should be treated no differently from other citizens…and anyone rated too dangerous to have a pistol after committing a crime is likely someone who should be serving life…reform the law that way, not towards gun restrictions). These attempts to backdoor gun control might eventually get a decision which simply enforces the law as written – and if anyone wants to restrict the keeping and bearing of arms, they’ll have to amend the Constitution.

Been a lot of attacks on US power stations of late. Someone is organizing and paying for it. I can only suspect that it is a dress rehearsal for an asymetric warfare attack on us at a later date.

Hundreds of Chicago teachers had sex with students. The more we see, the more we can’t escape thinking the world is run by a pedo ring trying to normalize it before they get caught.

From the Ukraine to the Nuclear Holocaust is But a Step

Mark Noonan28 Comments

The Ukrainians blow up a bridge. Putin calls it terrorism and in retaliation rains down a bunch of bombs on Ukrainian cities…and then nitwits in the West start calling for direct strikes on Russia.

Not liking where this seems to be heading.

As I’ve said all along, there is zero American strategic interest in who governs the Donbas or, indeed, all of Ukraine. It wouldn’t change the balance of power against us in the least. On the other hand, Poland, Germany and Romania (and, to a lesser extent, France, Italy, Spain and England) have a vested interest in the matter. Combined, they have land forces numbering about 170,000 – and reserves can be mobilized to make them larger. France, Italy, Spain and Britain can back that up with about 380,000 troops (once again, more when fully mobilized). This doesn’t count air and naval forces. Nor economic power. That is more than enough to deter Russia – especially as Europe’s population and industrial power is larger than Russia’s so in a long war, Europe wins no matter what the Russians do (and France and the UK are nuclear-armed, so that balances against Russia’s nuclear weapons). Quick and cool-headed diplomacy backed by a credible threat of force likely would have gotten the Russians to back down.

So, why wasn’t that done? Because while quick and cool-headed diplomacy backed by credible force would likely get Russia to back down, it wouldn’t certainly do so. In other words: the Europeans might have to fight. They don’t want to. And I don’t think they want to ever: not even if their homelands were at stake. Certainly not for the Donbas. Europe is so sunk in narcissistic sloth and cowardice that I doubt there is the plain courage to stand up to a bully…so, they asked us to step in and they are pouring weapons into Ukraine hoping that somehow the 41 million Ukrainians can defeat 145 million Russians (do the math, guys).

The chances that anyone will use a nuke are low, but as I pointed out previously, they are rising all the time. The whole concept of using nuclear weapons being unthinkable was something implanted by propaganda to make sure, first and foremost, that the United States never took advantage of its overwhelming superiority in that area. I still doubt that Putin will use them – he can put into uniform about 3 million soldiers and that should be more than sufficient to deal with Ukraine. But you never can tell – there are stories rolling around that US and NATO special forces are boots on the ground assisting the Ukraine on the battlefield. If they are, it is likely intel that they are providing – data on Russian strength and intentions obtained from our satellites and human intelligence capabilities. If this is so, and if such manages to route a significant Russian force thus opening up Russian territory to Ukrainian invasion, things could get dicey very fast.

It is a very delicate situation right now and I very much doubt that our political or military leadership has a clue how to end it. They want victory, of course – or at least something that can be presented on TV as a victory (our Ruling Class lives and dies by how things appear on TV): but nobody – not NATO and not us – wants to put in the real effort necessary to secure a victory. Its all just a hope.

But Putin isn’t hoping – he’s trying to win. Like all Russian leaders he’s confronted with the fact his Russian people simply aren’t good at things which require organization and timing. So, he seems to be turning to the tried-and-true Russian method of just pounding his way through to success. You hope that Ukraine has produced a general who can confound Putin’s plans – and swiftly, but without seeming a mortal threat to Russia. And you hope that nobody at State or DoD is contemplating something like a covert attack on Russia’s military infrastructure by American forces.

I don’t know how it will come out – but literally anything is possible given the level of stupidity and ignorance our leaders have. Let’s just pray for peace – that somehow God grants us mercy and this war just blows over.