1- IMO the Demo/Marxists are likely to retain control of the US Senate. McConnell is right.
2- The car bombing that killed the daughter of “Putin’s Brain” is an event much to be regretted but that kind of targeting error is inevitable.
3-The Chinese government has arrested Joseph Cardinal Zen for collusion with “foreign forces” I suppose they mean with the Vatican. Perhaps they could hire Adam Schiff as an adviser in prosecuting the case.
4-Governor Glen Youngkin has asked the Virginia General Assembly to reduce state taxes next year by $400 million saying that the state has collected too much money. This must drive the Democrats crazier. pl
Whatcha all think – would GOPe & Dems find a way to “legally” prevent Trump from being a presidential candidate?
Not that he did anything when he was POTUS to curtail their power and hands in the cookie jar. After all every hire he made was from the existing power establishment with the exception of Navarro and Grenell. That’s why it is bizarre the extent they’re going to disbar him from political office.
Sam
They will find a way and call it legal. I believe we are entering the Vortex phase, as Jack London described it. This is the beginning. There will be more of it. The Iron Heel is getting bold.
BA I agree the “iron heel” is emboldened and once so it won’t stop. This c/b one of the tipping points for public violence in America. BA you are not born and bred in America. Take it from me, once this place starts to “tip” there aint no righting the ship. I have no idea what form violence will/would take but it will happen.
Sam,
He did a good bit the ‘proper’ people abhored. Like the wall, referring to 3rd world shit holes, whether true or not. He suggested NATO members who weren’t paying their proper amount do so. He said quiet parts out loud that made Dems hysterical with rage, he was a good counter puncher. Also he had a list of judges to fill empty seats from and used it. He has no fear and the elite class knows it. Can’t let that catch on among the deplorables.
Sam,
It’s about the midterms and the left maintaining control of at least one part of the legislative branch. This will drive the news cycle at least through October, more than enough time to give momentum to “underdogs” and incumbents actually at risk of losing.
As you’re mentioning Adam Schiff Colonel Lang, yesterday I scrolled through the lot of a bunch of, what I think are called [in today’s parlance] “memes”[?].
In one there’s Mr. Schiff appearing very solemn in profile announcing:
“We now have proof Trump ripped the tag off his mattress in 1987.”
Another I figured TTG would likely get a kick out of was ‘Surgeon General’ Rooskie-style a new warning Russian packs of cigarettes now bear … oh heck:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/08/the-week-in-pictures-hornless-rino-edition.php
In other news – Jackie DeShannon died age 81.
JK –
Sad about Jackie. Wonderful singer. Saw her in person 50 years ago in Nashville.
JK/AR,
You sure about Jackie’s death?
If, say Zelensky’s wife taken out by a missile, do we call it targeting error or terror targeting?
Young
your choice
https://twitter.com/catturd2/status/1561378976475783169?s=21
Mitch doesn’t care if GOPe gains majority, as long as he can barter GOPe votes in the Senate to benefit the crony class. This is the problem the country faces as GOPe and woke Dems are two sides of the same coin providing an illusion of choice. Until voters decide the lesser of two evils is no longer their voting strategy not much can change.
Russia seeking close relations with the Afghani Taliban. They are angling to get military equipment left there by the US. The tit-for-tat will be to supply oil, grain (partially stolen in Ukraine), sunflower oil.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58265934
https://zmi.st/2022/08/16/russia-seeks-a-major-push-with-the-taliban-led-government-in-afghanistan-to-get-military-equipments-left-by-the-us-for-the-previous-government-of-afghanistan/
The botched assassination attempt on Dugin will confirm in Russian minds that Ukraine is a terrorist state. This materially strengthens the Russian regime. We’ll see how they use their enlarged freedom to act.
I have it from a trusted, unnamed source in the Russian government that Alexander Dugin actually set up his daughter’s death. That’s why he swapped cars with her just before leaving, he knew, of course. You can tell that by looking at his body language while viewing the scene, experts reveal. The reason is because the once patriotic Darya Dugina had fallen in love with a Ukrainian poet. This was more than her staunchly pro-Russian Empire father could stand. Ah love, sweet, but tragic.
cobo.
A love story in this rough world. Héloïse and Abelard, sort of.
Worth all the imaginary bullshit the press would like us to believe.
For your eyes only: beware of darkness, you are too good at this job.
https://twitter.com/rudyhavenstein/status/1561393809719644161?s=21
Right now there’s more coal fired electricity production in Germany than ever in the recent past. Of course Germans will not hold Merkel, her “conservative Christian” party and the Greenies to account. No different than here were the more you fuck up in government the higher you go. As along as you’re wholly onboard the prevailing groupthink orthodoxy and are aligned with the ruling class.
Oops. My report of Miss – Mrs? – Deshannon’s death was premature. Actually today’s her 81st Birthday.
So. In the interests of me making my sincere amends here’s something I did not know:
https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2022/08/when-ventures-played-surf-rock-with-air.html
Any ya’ll other former mil-fellows (fellowettes) here with youthful surprises?
(No cobo – an acid trip won’t count.)
Continuing the surf rock thread, the Beach Boys sitting in with the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East in April 1971: https://archive.org/details/gd71-04-27.sbd.murphy.2221.sbeok.shnf/gd71-04-27d3t06.shn
Love it :- )
JK –
Glad to hear she is alive and kicking. I’ve always been fond of your yarns, but sadly I’m going to have to downgrade your info reliability to an ‘F’ after the DeShannon debacle.
As a frustrated and perpetually bad guitarist I’ve always liked the Ventures. I saw this piece about the drummer gen’l (or is it gen’l drummer?) a few months ago. Gotta give it to the AF!
One of My Favorite Sunday Habits…Is To Read The Few Items I Find Interesting in the Sunday “Not News Paper”….Then Read the Funnys to My Wife…Then I Take Photos
Of Different Parts of the Funny Papers…And Send them To Family Members Young and Older.. They All Love This Hobby of Mine..and I Get Immediate Thanks And Responses..’LOLs” Thanks Dad…Thanks Gramps..It Makes My Day//
JT
So now it is proper to kill a philosopher for his ideas?
While lying about his standing in Russian society – it has always been marginal, lying about his connection to Putin – there was none, and lying about the essence of his writings.
Oh no! Salman Rushdie stabbed repeatedly. Oh, sorry, wrong guy. On a related note an allegedly big traffic jam leaving Kiev.
https://t.me/intelslava/35823
Since when are philosophers legitimate targets?
Jovan P,
He’s also a propagandist, a cog in the Russian IO machine. Although we still don’t know who considered him a target worth going after.
TTG,
and who gets to pick the targets?
Is it some IO with deep knowledge of the Russian history, society, literature? Does he have knowledge of the international law?
How does he persuade his chiefs that they should kill a young girl whose father happens to be a writer, painted (falsely) by the western MSM as some kind of ideologist, IO, or whatever?
JP It is much simpler than all that. Russia stops killing Ukrainians and Ukrainians will stop killing Russians. I’m astonished you are not equally exercised over the number of young Ukrainian girls killed by Russian rockets. If the issue is killing civilians wouldn’t you agree that Russia is getting more than their fair share. For some it is hard to keep in mind but Ukraine d/n invade Russia.
Jovan –
Putin or one of his insiders picked Darya as the target.
Unlike Putin, Ukraine does not target civilians. They have a hit list rich with military targets. BTW they just rehit the Antonovsky bridge to Kherson after RU engineers had patched it. They reportedly waited until a convoy of RU Army trucks with ammunition were crossing before taking it out again.
And they just blew up another ammo dump in Donetsk.
Plus RU pro-war telegram accounts just hours ago report “major explosion felt throughout Sevastopol” and “windows blown out, walls shaking”.
Ukraine is busy with real hitlists. No need to target a Nazified RU civilian. There are hundreds of thousands more like Dugina and her father. To believe that Ukraine would send in a mother-daughter assassination team along with their cat is asinine. Especially with the fake phot0-shopped ID card the FSB is saying that proves the killer was part of Azov.
Why would Putin target a hardliner for the war? IMO I don’t see what’s so difficult to believe about Ukraine installing a climate of fear among Russian officials and propagandists, so they know they can be got to. Seems likely Ukraine directed.
If I had to guess, she was killed by accident because they sent people who were not competent enough for the job, hence why they picked a lousy target, killed the wrong person still, and ended up getting caught.
Ever since he started criticizing Putin. Another bungled FSB hit-job, blamed on Ukr to attempt to justify a massive missile bombardment of civilian targets in. Kiev
Leith
You really think Putin tied to have Dugin killed because he was a PITA? I think the “who will rid me of this turbulent priest” hypothesis is well off. If that were the motive why Dugin and not Strelkov, for example, whose biting criticism of the SMO is much more explicit and more widely read?
I’d recommend the following short article to anyone really interested in Dugin’s views, published just a week ago. In it Dugin staunchly defends Putin’s Russia as a major bulwark against the apocalypse for mankind that would result from an ultimate victory of Western liberal globalism. I fully agree with his views on this and many contemporary conservative American thinkers would too. In this light his Hegelian millenarian viewpoint is forgivable and I can just ignore the Russian metaphysical destiny stuff. I do not agree with his espoused views elsewhere on the Ukrainian people.
Dugin is absolutely correct that the SMO represents the epicenter of a much wider civilizational war. There are many people who would want him dead for writing stuff like this, but I’d suggest Putin would not be on that list. I am only reading the man now because of the attempt on his life. It is a shame his daughter had to die to bring his writings to my attention, but such is the nature of martyrdom.
https://www.geopolitika.ru/article/svo-bitva-za-konec-istorii (in Russian, I used a Yandex automated translation)
Thanks for the reference. From the little sense I can make of him he’s a brilliant man who suffers from some form or forms of thought disorder. He can produce fascinating and apt observations with multiple references of seemingly remarkable sophistication and then break off into various degrees of incoherence, up to and including the absurd and ridiculous; sometimes, usually, regathering himself to continue again in reasonable fashion. From his Wiki it appears he was in trouble in his youth and early adulthood – I haven’t taken the trouble to delve into the footnotes referencing the incidents mentioned but that sort of track record is consistent with people I have known with significant to highly superior intellectual gifts who are also .. (pick the terms) troubled, misguided, lacking direction, parentless, persecuted, over stressed, in dire straits, all of the above etc. It seems like they probably went beyond normal student type stupidity and foolhardiness.
He takes the trouble to encounter and critique Fukuyama. (?!) That alone is not complementary to Dugin, the man (FF) is a ridiculous windbag unworthy of the time of day, hardly qualifying for half a paragraph in a parody by Jonathan Swift. He takes on the burden of figuring out, all by himself, the great unfigureoutable of unfigureoutables – i.e. everything. Sorry, impossible task. Should know that at least. He carries many of the signs described by Alice Miller in her books on the dramas and dilemmas, (due to absent, insufficient or downright perverse parenting) of the gifted child. Dad a Colonel General in the Soviet GRU who left mama and the children when he was three. (!?!) (Was gramps Darth Vader by any chance?) Good grief, I feel for the man. Born a mere decade after his country lost thirty million people in WW2? (Which came on the heels of their civil war, the revolution and WWI) His life has been a heroic struggle. I guess if pops was Michael Jordan or Muhammed Ali you might possibly not quite live up to their achievements in their respective endeavors, just maybe? It’s understandable that he fashioned himself into someone who undertook the world reforming tasks that he did – General Commander of the GRU order of magnitude tasks. A recipe for psychosis – meaning losing touch with reality in service of keeping ones self esteem, not evil. He’s not, as far as I can tell, to be judged, rather to be appreciated as an example for the human race. His daughter’s fate is an appalling tragedy. I hope he recovers and learns to go easy on himself. And the rest of us.
“the SMO represents the epicenter of a much wider civilizational war”
Here is one Western figure that agrees with that:
Jordan Peterson, “Russia vs. Ukraine, or Civil War in the West”
https://youtu.be/JxdHm2dmvKE
Barbara Ann –
Putin personally certainly does not need this excuse to up the ante in Ukraine. If he wanted a false flag he would have bombed a civilian apartment building or some such just as the FSB allegedly did 23 years ago to gin up support for the Chechen War and which brought Putin to power. But there are plenty of other potential suspects within Putin’s circle. Or from diehard nationalists outside his circle trying to force him to escalate. Or not. There are plenty of conspiracy theories out there. My favorite – the Chinese did it. There is even a suggestion by some portraying Dugin and Dugina as modern day Agamemnon and Iphigenia with Kiev as the prize instead of Troy. I hope he was not that much of a lunatic.
Best analysis I’ve seen is from Anna Arutunyan who writes for USA Today and Foreign Affairs. She lists several possibilities:
“1)Internal political rivalries within the nationalist/far right camp over philosophical positions, money, or Kremlin favor;
2)Kremlin-affiliated assassination (intended for Dugin) to remove an inconvenient figure (much like they might like to remove Girkin but can’t, for his nice krysha);
3)The Russian anti-war opposition, like the NRA (but not necessarily them);
4)A purely financial dispute.”
But no matter who, none of those would be officially blamed by the Kremlin. Better to make up a phony story about some Azovite lady car bomber.
As I recall, Russian FSB had planted, what they later claimed, was fake bombs in an apartment building. They then claimed it was a training exercise when they got caught.
IMO very likely the false flag was to plant fake bombs, but not to blow up the building, and when the bombs were exposed, the plan was to use that as an excuse to start the war with the Chechnyans, which is how things actually transpired despite their fumbling.
Berezovsky, who fled to London, had a TV station which aired a program and tried to paint the incident as an attempt to plant real bombs and kill innocent people. IMO I have a hard time any government would kill their own civilians so needlessly when simply exposing a failed bombing plot would have been just as sufficient. There were enough people who were killed up to that point by other bombings and I don’t see any reason to doubt the Chechnians carried those attacks out. Just look at the Boston Marathon bombers for evidence of how these lunatics are trained.
Notfakebot,
” IMO I have a hard time any government would kill their own civilians so needlessly ….”
Ruby Ridge and WACO come to mind. Out of control federal agents have consequences, regardless of which country’s government you are talking about.
It’s a provocation designed to get the Kremlin to over-react in retaliation. The thinking as I see it is not complex – Dugin and his ideas was/is/are seen as close to some highly nationalistic factions within the Russian military and security apparatus. Thus her (as would his) killing will cause tensions and potentially rifts. Many people think that this, coming on the heels of other recent dramatic activities, means NATO and DC (not the comix) want to widen the war.
When they cross philosophy w/propaganda and condone Russian rockets killing 29 year old Ukrainian women. JP, did you really expect Ukrainians to accept the murder of their citizens? Expect more of this effort to bring the misery of Putin’s “racial superiority” to the average Russian. Some bombs and death in Novosibiersk, St. Petersburgh, Moscow, and Ekaterinaburg would make the point nicely. You kill us we kill you. You stop, we stop.
” You kill us we kill you. You stop, we stop.” Simple as that. The Golden Rule in extremis.
A golden rule understood by all. I wonder, did Putin stop shelling Ukraine today?
Mr. Roche: How about answering a direct question:
If Mexico and Canada had been invited to join the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, and were in many respects de facto members of it,
do you think the U.S. would have stood idly by and said that was none of its business?
I think not.
The U.S. would not have permitted the WP to, effectively establish bases in countries immediately adjacent to it.
By any means necessary.
Bill, I know all too well your rhetorical tactics, as above:
pointing out what Russians have done, while ignoring what the Ukrainians have done.
E.g., Ukraine’s shelling of separatist regions, which killed thousands of civilians.
I try to take a more balanced view.
This really should not be our fight.
Kiev and Odessa are not Frankfurt, Bonn, or Bremerhaven.
Putin is not Stalin or Hitler.
And it is irresponsible to ignore the costs and harm
that our participation in this war
is causing for future generations of Americans.
People are once again talking about the possibility of nuclear war.
Over who controls Ukraine?
What a strange obsession.
What Ukraine has done is fight for independence from Russia since 1914. Are Germans in Bonn, Frankfurt, or Bremerhaven entitled to American support of their freedom but Ukrainians are not? Why don’t Ukrainians deserve freedom? Why is German freedom worth guaranteeing but Estonian or Latvian not. Perhaps Ukrainians are not equal to other Europeans. Maybe you agree with Prof of History and Ethnology, V. Putin, who informs us that Ukrainians are not a people, have no country, and are just an administrative unit of Russia.
What the Russians have done, most recently, to Ukrainians is invade their country, rain thousands of missiles into homes, bldgs and bodies, destroy their economy and kill their children. Personally I thought Ukraine s/h given up Crimea and the Donbass. But I also thought Lincoln s/h given up on the south and let them have their independence. As to a nation’s choice of allies there is a reason Ukraine has looked west for such relationships and not to Russia. Why? Care to answer that direct question? I can ask the same question about Sweden, Finland, the Baltics, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgars, Romanians, and Hungarians. Prof. Putin would say these smaller Slavs are “looking for love in all the wrong places”. Why do they have to look west for friendship when Russia is SOO close. A mystery no?
Several points seem worth mentioning.
1. Roche ignored the direct question.
2. “Why don’t Ukrainians deserve freedom?”
For many Ukrainians, their current situation is the antithesis of freedom, per this reporting from Sundance:
Zelenskyy is preventing legitimate political opposition to his regime.
Sure sounds like oppression to me.
See more in Sundancecs article for the suppression of free speech in Ukraine by labelling it, naturally, “terrorism”.
3. The primary reason the U.S. defended West Germ
Correct continuation of the above, prematurely-posted, comment:
3.. The primary reason the U.S. defended West Germany, and created NATO, during the Cold War
was not out of an abstract love of freedom worldwide,
but out of the American national interest.
If the human capital in West Germany had come under Communist control,
that would have posed big problems for the U.S.,
combining Soviet and German technology and industrial prowess in an anti-U.S. alliance.
OTOH, Russian control over its neighbors in Eastern Europe doesn’t change the geopolitical balance nearly as much.
4. Rather than “bearing any burden, paying any price”,
we need to start thinking about costs versus benefits, risks versus rewards.
E.g., the continued drawdown in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to compensate, in part, for the self-imposed cutoff of energy from Russia.
That drawdown only harms future U.S. energy independence.
Also, the reduction in the place of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
This will, in the future, affect all Americans.
Not to mention the very real risk of an expanded, and possibly unbounded, Russia/NATO conflict.
These are big picture issues which should be borne in mind.
5. Ukraine is not nearly the unified cou
5. Ukraine is not nearly the unified country that some imply.
For evidence of that, see Samuel Huntington’s analysis of Ukraine in his Clash of Civilizations.
He vividly demonstrates,
with a map showing different electoral choices,
the sharp polarization between eastern and western Ukraine.
The current war is largely a continuation of that dispute,
with the U.S. and Russia each choosing a side.
Don’t know if the newspapers I get are delivered in Colonel Lang’s area. I just finished this morning’s edition, dated 1709, London InGland. Shocking story on front page. A child was executed by hanging. His offense: Stealing a piece of bread.
I’m considering sending it to Chuck Schumer with carbon copies to AOC, Nancy Pelosi, and our Vice President Kamala Harris. Maybe the New York Times and WAPO. Hunter the Prudent and Joe the Benificent? The thing is, I was in a peculiar humor this morning and haven’t gotten over the urge to include in an accompanying letter: Hey Chuck, Nancy, Alexandra and Kamala: Do you know what race the kid was?
Think they’ll get it right?
Low lie the fields of Athenray where once we watched the free birds fly
But you stole Trevaleyan’s corn, so your sons might see the morn
Now you wait upon a ship down in the bay …
Low lie the ….
Does British “royalty” still regard the Irish as sub human, untermensch, savages? The Germans thought that of Jews and Slavs and today the Russians see Ukrainians in that same dim light. C’mon man, not all Russians regard Ukrainians that way. Really, ask a bunch in an unguarded moment what they really think of Ukrainians. The Brits sent “their ” Irish to Botany Bay; Lenin and Stalin preferred Siberia. Putin does too.
The Russians have allegedly found the killer of Dugina – and, if true, it was deliberate and not mistaken identity or collateral damage.
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1561674271948251137
Did they find him in Melania’s closet?
Biden got a little lucky with the economy. Delayed projects started up again and companies now spending their budget before end of year; however people now delaying major purchases and spending less. IMO economy is going to be bad start of new year.
Notfakebot,
Lucky with gas up 80% and food up almost 100%? That’s his doing. Forbidding people to work by declaring their business “non-essential” and later letting them re-open is not job creation nor being lucky. Unless you mean Heinlein’s version of luck:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/697618-throughout-history-poverty-is-the-normal-condition-of-man-advances
Hey, I’m with you on this.
They papered over the cracks on the dam before the flood. They’re lucky it didn’t break on them yet. Biden and the Dems would be under water if the economy had been in a recession by the time of the midterms.
Notfakebot,
just change definitions, like was done with ‘vaccine’ and ‘mostly peaceful’.