Why Do Banks Fail? Three Facts About Failing Banks Liberty Street Economics
High growth doesn’t tell the story of the US economy FT
Wall Street Took Over a Vital Sign Language Service—And Started Union Busting Workday Magazine
Climate
New global climate finance draft poses challenges for developing world Business Standard
Climate change is increasing hurricane wind speeds, study finds Axios
Pacific Northwest reeling from bomb cyclone; atmospheric river targets California USA Today
Almost half of Spain’s flood victims were aged 70 or over, data shows Euronews
Syndemics
USDA: California Announces 63 More Infected Dairy Herds (n=398) – More Poultry Outbreaks in 7 States Avian Flu Diary
Human Cases of Bird Flu Confirmed to Be Occurring Undetected in The US Science Alert
Five Years On: A Covid Retrospective Nate Bear, ¡Do Not Panic!
India
Three Bank of America bankers in India depart over alleged client tips FT
Sri Lanka’s president makes U-turn on IMF bailout Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Top war-crimes court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and others in Israel-Hamas fighting AP
Biden calls ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders ‘outrageous’ Anadolu Agency
* * * Israel’s ‘Day After’ Plan for Gaza Is No Secret if You Know Where to Look Haaretz
* * * Israel’s state prosecution indicts main suspect in Netanyahu’s office leak scandal Anadolu Agency
* * * Tehran to launch ‘new and advanced’ centrifuges in response to IAEA censure France24
The Koreas
South Korea’s Dockyards: A New Factor in Korea-US Military Burden-sharing The Diplomat
Ukraine Is Now a Proxy War for Asian Powers RAND
New Not-So-Cold War
What I Am Talking About… Andrei Martyanov, Reminiscence of the Future…. Videos.
Russia fired experimental missile at Ukraine, says Vladimir Putin FT
Ukraine Fires US Missiles at Russia Risking Wider War Joe Lauria, Consortium News
‘New’ Russian missile used against Ukraine not hypersonic, defense officials say FOX
* * * Thunderbolt from the Skies: Putin’s Doomsday Weapon Puts NATO on Final Notice Simplicius, Simplicius the Thinker
Biden’s ATACMS Gambit on Ukraine Could Blow up in America’s Face The National Interest
New Missiles Won’t Change Ukraine’s Broken War Math Foreign Policy
* * * Using Missiles as Diplomacy: Ukraine & Russia w/John Mearsheimer (video) Daniel Davis / Deep Dive, YouTube
Glenn Greenwald: Dangerous New Escalation in Russia, & Our Blackmailed Politicians (video) Tucker Carlson, YouTube
* * * Russia targets three of Ukrainian largest energy company’s five operating thermal power plants over the weekend Ukrainska Pravda
Analysts outline three scenarios for Ukraine’s winter blackouts BNE Intellinews
* * * Hybrid warfare? China sabotaging Baltic Sea cables would be ‘super surprising’, experts say France24
* * *
The New Great Game
After a slow start, the Georgian protests are gathering momentum BNE Intellinews
Systematic election violations in Georgia aimed to secure ruling party victory, say local NGOs JAM News
South of the Border
Lula and Xi sign dozens of trade deals as Brazil-China ties deepen Al Jazeera
Brazil’s Federal Police indict Jair Bolsonaro, two generals and 34 others for coup attempt El Pais
Venezuelans Debate 30-Year Plan for Popular Democracy in Historic Bloc Congress Venezuelanalysis
Trump Transition
Ex-Trump deputy press secretary: No Treasury pick yet because ‘it’s a long list of folks’ The HIll
* * * Michael Pollan Is Not Endorsing RFK Jr. Poliitico
We’ve got a bigger problem now Closed Form. MAHA.
* * * Democrats strike deal to get more Biden judges confirmed before Congress adjourns AP
Our Famously Free Press
A Legal Showdown Over Press Freedom The Free Press
Spook Country
The FBI and DHS leaders won’t testify publicly about national security threats before the Senate AP
I Don’t Own a Cellphone. Can This Privacy-Focused Network Change That? 404 Media
Healthcare
How Stem Cells Stay Young The Scientist
Book Nook
Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: “I Loved Him. He Was My Safety.” Vanity Fair
Leaving Cormac: Life Lessons From My Correspondence with Lee McCarthy Literary Hub
Digital Watch
How Google Spent 15 Years Creating a Culture of Concealment NYT The deck: “Trying to avoid antitrust suits, Google systematically told employees to destroy messages, avoid certain words and copy the lawyers as often as possible.”
What you need to know about the proposed measures designed to curb Google’s search monopoly AP
Zeitgeist Watch
Clonazepam, popular anxiety-reducing drug, recalled nationwide for ‘possibly life-threatening’ error FOX
Guillotine Watch
Billionaires Are Bad: Revisiting 50 Shades of Grey in the Age of Mega-Rich Creepers Literary Hub
Class Warfare
Michigan Nurses Win the Largest Union Election in Years Labor Notes
The 51st: Building a worker-led newsroom from the ashes of DCist Editor and Publisher
General Strike 2028 Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
How Native Americans Guarded Their Societies Against Tyranny JSTOR Daily
Antidote du jour (Romano Gianluca):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
134 comments
Comments are closed.
I really hope that the misleaders of the West hear him now.
” we will in advance suggest that civilians and citizens of friendly countries residing in those areas leave danger zones. We will do so for humanitarian reasons, openly and publicly, ”
– as opposed to the terrorstates in NATO
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75614
I hope so as well but I doubt those dumb*** mother family bloggers will.
What evidence could be presented that they may introduce themselves to the reality we live in?
Now would be a good time to look up the website of your country’s parliament and government and to start sending emails. I have a nice bottle of wine to support me this weekend keyboard-warring for peace.
US
https://www.house.gov/representatives
EU
https://the-president.europarl.europa.eu/en and MEPs https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home
France
https://www.elysee.fr/en/
https://www.info.gouv.fr/contact/premier-ministre
UK
https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons
Germany
https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/service/contact/contactform
https://www.bundeskanzler.de/resource/blob/1833748/2157584/59796a789cbd9dabb0e2f78b46a3d11b/2023-01-13-organigramm-bk-en-data.pdf?download=1
https://www.bundestag.de/en/members
Thanks. From your link, …. Because there are no means of countering such weapons today. Missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10, which is 2.5 to 3 kilometres per second. Air defence systems currently available in the world and missile defence systems being created by the Americans in Europe cannot intercept such missiles. It is impossible.
I wonder if this means that any interceptor missiles need to achieve a speed of at least mach 10. Sounds like a tall order.
No, because they’re moving towards you. You can just put a rock directly in their path and it would be enough. Getting it there to exactly the right place, when you have maybe two to five minutes to do so is the part that is practically impossible.
This is true. It’s basically a limitation of radar physics – at these speeds they can either have a good measurement of the target speed or range to target, but not both. Unfortunately both are needed to place that rock on the path of the incoming missile.
Third thing needed is that the incoming missile does not veer while the rock is being put in it’s place.
A radar uncertainty principle?
George Galloway is getting out front, stating that the UK would be hit first:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK6rbIsV6Bg
Excerpts:
Silence from so many in Washington about the wreckless and spiteful behaviors of Biden and others.
Combine that with the refusal of Wray and Mayorkas to testify in front of the Senate and that adds to the dysfunction and malevolence. The latter is reportedly angling for some type of immunity as part of an early exit. Rich, considering what he and so many others in his sphere enabled on borders and in cities across the country.
Politicians with memory loss about who elected them, and why. Not a banner period for the country as it slides further into low-trust territory.
You should mark your calendar for July 4th, 2026. That will be the Semiquincentennial – the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. It should be a time for thought and reflection about America’s place in the world but as Trump will be running things then, it would just be a circus of celebrations with a bunch of clowns front and center-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Semiquincentennial
I think we will be able to safely conclude by then that America failed. Cause: bufoonery (Morris Berman)
He is right about Biden not being fit to be president. Someone should make a portrait of Joseph Biden using only vegetables to reflect his vegetative state, like the Giuseppe Arcimboldo portrait of Rudolf II that consisted of multiple fruits, vegetables and flowers. Here is a picture of Vertumnus.
“Biden’s ATACMS Gambit on Ukraine Could Blow up in America’s Face”
A gambit is an act to give you an advantage. This is not what Biden did. No amount of western missiles will change the course of the war but what Biden did was to have the US military attack Russia itself. I ask you. What was the advantage there? All it did was to ramp up tensions with a nuclear power for no gain whatsoever. You even have Pentagon officials saying that the US is ready for nuclear war. Col. Douglas Macgregor was talking to Judge Napolitano and he was ropeable about this. Then Biden went further and also authorized shipments of illegal anti-personnel mines to the Ukrainians. And I think that this was Biden telling Putin that even though the war is lost, that he will see to it that as many Russians will be killed and wounded as possible-
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2d1lj3nwqo
So don’t forget that grandpa has nearly two more months to keep this up and push the Russians into a nuclear corner. If the US still had napalm stocks he would be sending them as well. People were having hysterics how Trump had the nuclear football back in 2016 so how do these people feel about grandpa having that nuclear football right now?
>So don’t forget that grandpa has nearly two more months to keep this up and push the Russians into a nuclear corner. If the US still had napalm stocks he would be sending them as well. People were having hysterics how Trump had the nuclear football back in 2016 so how do these people feel about grandpa having that nuclear football right now?
Doesn’t matter, TDS ( and submission to the MIC), overwhelms any and all possible moments of reason and common sense, microscopically minuscule they may be. Even when that means the possibility of the extinction of most human beings in the northern hemisphere of Planet Earth.
I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing the proverbial glue…or was it those Magic Markers back in the day as well?!?
America as we turn slowly into 2025….
Two Cormac McCarthy links this morning, thanks!
Charming fellow.
Here’s an excerpt from the LitHub article about his second wife, Lee McCarthy:
“Lee will eventually leave and head West, telling her version of the split in a poem I heard her read again and again. Transported back to “the front porch of a farmhouse near Pigeon Forge,” she says: “You don’t act as if you want a wife and baby. You act as if you want to be single again.”
“I guess that’s right,” the man says. I picture Lee packing a suitcase that she drags to the porch where Cormac waits.
“But what will you do?” the man in the poem says to Lee, “Be a whore?”
Aren’t we all, in some small way, charming fellows? The long quote you hoisted seems a common story of the disintegration of a marriage. I seem to remember acting less than noble when my first marriage was heading for the dumpster.
McCarthy wrote much about how good and evil coexist within us all, and the struggle to consciously choose the former and not fall back to the latter.
mrsyk:
I read the article by Vincenzo Barney, “Secret Muse,” about Augusta Britt.
It is an excellent look into how writers work and how writers’ lives intrude into their work and how one’s life is fodder for one’s work. The excerpts from Cormac McCarthy’s letters are wonderful to read — for his emotions, for his command of the English language.
[But then I still write many letters and still think of letters as part of the art and skill of being a writer.]
Barney also doesn’t fall into the usual trap of so-called literary and theater critics — running an agenda and engaging in psychobabble. There isn’t much sensationalism in this article.
One thing that intrigues is the age difference. One has to set aside one’s puritanism. Also, I write from Italy, where the age of consent is 16.
I am reminded of the French writer Colette, whose life was always fodder for her fiction. When she was roughly the same age as McCarthy at his meeting with August Britt, Colette was busy seducing her stepson Bertrand de Jouvenel, who was then about 17. This event likely led to one of her masterpieces, Chéri. (There is some evidence that she also had a love affair with a young noble/athlete who was over 21, who may also be the source of the character, Fred, of Chéri.) Her third husband, her great love, Maurice Goudeket, was 17 years younger than she was.
I was reminded in reading the profile of Augusta Britt how much the U.S. of A. is segregated by age.
The one detail in an article otherwise so life affirming is McCarthy’s unfortunate ties to the various intellectuals at the Santa Fe Institute. Those are the only section of the article tinged with sadness. Maybe McCarthy should have hung out instead at the Plaza and eaten Frito pies.
“He felt he’d wasted the last years of his life,” (re institutes)
That was a great article. I choked up a little at the end where Augusta recounted her recent dream involving McCarthy.
Regarding the age segregation, one of my favorite experiences was stumbling into a Greek wedding years ago. Pretty much everyone in the town was in attendance, and everybody ate and drank and danced well into the night, children and grandparents and everybody else all together. You definitely don’t see that type of thing often in the US. I chalk that up to the Puritan sensibilities of the country’s founders which we haven’t quite rid ourselves of yet. As Mencken noted of Puritanism – it’s “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”.
Happened to me and my girlfriend at the time in Poros when we were traveling Europe in 1983-84. We were met with smiles from people in a lorry saying wedding! Helped into the back of the lorry and taken up into the hills for a glorious night of merriment!
We live in a post Lolita world…
Whoa, I’ve just met Augusta Britt. What a story. It appears we (Cormac McCarthy readers) are all in her debt.
Then, sometime in the ’80s, McCarthy sends her the manuscript for All the Pretty Horses. “The first thing I see, obviously, is the title. And I thought, Oh my gosh. I started reading it, and it’s just so full of me, and yet isn’t me. It was so confusing. Reading about Blevins getting killed was so sad. I cried for days. And I remember thinking to myself that being such a lover of books, I was surprised it didn’t feel romantic to be written about. I felt kind of violated. All these painful experiences regurgitated and rearranged into fiction. I didn’t know how to talk to Cormac about it because Cormac was the most important person in my life. I wondered, Is that all I was to him, a trainwreck to write about?
I see the overly starched crowd are up in arms over the impropriety (Vanity Fair under fire for ‘glorifying’ Cormac McCarthy’s sexual relationship with underage ‘muse’), all while packaging it as click bait.
I also appreciated the extra insight into his writing provided by this article. It appears he was human after all. I might just take the plunge and read Blood Meridian finally.
You should. It is very high on my list of “great American novel”, up there with All the King’s Men, Underworld, a few by Twain. The Judge Holden character has got to be one of the most memorable ones in American literature (although that may be because I just read it in the last year – my memory isn’t what it used to be!). Read it, and you’ll have a better understanding of why war will likely always be with us.
You only have to read it once. Not because it is not objectively a great novel. But because the unspeakable horror ought not be stomached two times.
Turns out McCarthy actually lived the great American novel. Nice list by the way.
Yep the PC crowd on bluesky are similarly outraged.
re: Biden calls ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders ‘outrageous’
Come to think of it, there should be an ICC arrest warrant for Biden for state sponsorship of the genocide. I wonder why there isn’t?
One suspects that part of JRB’s umbrage is the implication that he is accessory to crimes against humanity. I suppose that he may be thinking, channeling a famous predecessor, that “when the President does it, it isn’t a crime against humanity.”
I take a small bit of comfort from the thought that JRB, and the people who arranged for him to be the 2020 D nominee, will not be remembered favorably by the writers of future histories of this time.
Yes, and let’s hope it’s not because there’s no future.
Imo There will be a future, the question is whether we get to see it.
Trump has to think long and hard about this. He’s protected, for now, being President-elect. However, the minute he is sworn in he becomes responsible for enabling Netanyahu’s genocide as well. If one of his first EO’s isn’t to cut off the supply of lethal aid, then he goes down in history with Genocide Joe.
It is outrageous that it has taken this long to not get very far.
As far as a warrant for Biden, see:
US Hague Invasion Act Becomes Law at Human Rights Watch.
They don’t want to be invaded as prescribed by US law.
I was amusing myself with figuring out how many individuals can properly found to have committed serious warcrimes or worse and I think the Chinese are going to have to re-open their Uyghur deradicalization centers to house and process them all.
Perhaps with some jobs training and the appropriate ideological reorientation, someone like Jake Tapper can be rehabilitated into being a sanitation engineer and not think racist thoughts every time he sees an Arab.
United States ratified the Genocide Convention only after granted immunity from prosecution without the consent of the US government.
“Ukraine Is Now a Proxy War for Asian Powers”
They keep on talking about these North Korean troops, supposedly in Kursk, and the latest estimate for their number has now reached 10,000 men. So where are they? Are they the world’s masters in the arts of camouflage? But I think I know where they are. Back during the Korean war you might have a battalion of Chinese troops moving near a village. But when word was received that a US plane was in the area they would rush into that village and cram themselves into those huts. You might have scores jammed together into just one hut. Meanwhile the US pilot above would be looking down and saying to himself ‘Nope! no enemy troops here.’ So maybe they should be paying attention to all those houses in all those settlements in Kursk for them. /sarc
Ah, now I understand why the Ukrainians have been so intent on conquering town supermarkets in the Kursk region. You can cram more North Koreans there than in your normal dacha.
My thinking on the elusive DPRK soldiers in Russia is that the ingenious Kim Jong-un deployed the secret Chinese human shrinking science first mentioned in Vonnegut’s Slapstick.
The dastardly orientals are so small that they just look like a green mist in their tiny uniforms. They can use the slightest gusts of wind to fly to the front and deploy their useless (or highly advanced and very scary) weapons to wipe out the last traces of democracy in noble, scrapy little Ukraine, our firewall against the Moscovite tyranny that intends to depose Queen Ursula and enslave rule-based Europe for a millenium.
They are all inside one clown car. The cunning plan is to sneak it into Zelensky’s garage, and dismount into the piano room, in order to catch him with his pants down.
P.S, While on a subject of fitting Asians in a vehicle, here is an oldschool USA military take on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2RgGJ-4jmQ&t=73s
This tank holds three men. Japanese size.
“COMMENT: After a slow start, the Georgian protests are gathering momentum”
I got an idea. There are a lot of despondent Democrats right now after losing that election, right? So what if the Georgians helped organize a sit-in protest on the Mall until the Republicans are forced to let the Democrats keep power? It’ll be great. They can have tents and toilets and everything. You could have the Ambassadors from China, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, etc. come down and make speeches how those protestors have to fight for democracy so that the right side wins because freedom. You could ask all those Democrat protestors how could the Republicans have possibly won the election as every respectable person they knew voted Harris. That it must have been rigged. Biden might even go along with it if it mean that he stays in the White House. Sounds like a plan to me.
material related to the Dnipro missile attack:
Andrei Martyanov with Nima on “Dialogue Works”
48 min.
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/11/nima-and-yours-truly_21.html
As I understand the main goal was to demonstrate to WH personnel that in case WWIII breaks out they will die too. Because no bunker is safe any more and RU will find and kill them. So better negotiate. There is nothing to gain from escalation.
However I doubt that an attack on NATO installations on NATO territory – as Zakharova apparently suggested – would help resolve this. Because if an Art. 5 event happens media here will go berserk and make it difficult for governments to negotiate for real. So I don´t quite want to believe that would happen as the next step. But I can be wrong.
Ian Proud suggested the same scenario as Martyanov.
According to this Meduza report RU did inform US about the attack on Dnipro in advance:
https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/11/21/russia-pre-notified-washington-about-missile-strike-on-dnipro-through-nuclear-risk-reduction-channels
Dmitry Stefanovich with a short ad-hoc thread on Twitter about Dnipro:
“Please welcome – Oreshnik (Hazel)”
https://nitter.poast.org/KomissarWhipla/status/1859703757078135101#m
And on Nov. 20th CSIS had this 2-part panel on the situation from US POV:
Report Launch: Project Atom 2024
https://www.csis.org/events/report-launch-project-atom-2024
part 1 is 3 hours
part 2 is 2,5 hours.
part 2 contains a keynote by Rear Admiral Buchanan from US-StratCom.
on Buchanan:
https://www.stratcomds.com/2024/speaker/1245200/rear-admiral-thomas-buchanan
The speech is hard to listen to practicing the art of saying something without expressing anything.
However I liked the dishonesty of the term “integrated deterrence”. Take your own guess what that means.
I believe it´s a nice way of justifying regime change and US state terrorism making it part of national security.
There is a Q&A however afterwards.
That´s more revealing.
e.g.:
TC 32:30 Buchanan says in essence that Stratcom believes a nuclear war is winnable if the US afterwards remains the hegemon and has still forces to deter with. It is a convoluted statement but worth to take in.
TC 52:00+ he is scaremongering. He says Americans should be ready.
Ready for what?
Ready that things “can turn bad”.
And then he tries to defuse that statement again.
Nice try. I am sure it was registered by the audience in the intended way.
Additionally in between however he admits all the bad news from industrial US we are getting, without matter of fact admitting it once.
He says, we need to build SSBNs faster (than China, and cheaper, too, I think he means to say) and that the armed forces are about to employ more welders and craftsmen building ships! (in a panel on CSIS!!! imagine that.)
And he constantly praises USA pre-1939/41 when they still could build “things”. And they need to get back to that.
Altogether in public not a word uttered about backing down, about changing anything about how the world works and how the US behaves.
Instead more of them same, i.e. 2-front war. And that the US population should prepare for hotter war than the Cold War.
So yeah, it´s all pretty fucked up.
For the rest 4,5 hours I have had no time yet. But I assume it´s just a bunch of genocidal maniacs who have learned NOTHING. USA USA USA!
How are you supposed to talk to these people without a machine gun in your hand. To quote Martyanov who likes to quote Al Capone.
re: Capone on an OT-note!
from Wiki on Brian De Palma´s crime thriller “The Untouchables” (1987)
“Robert De Niro was De Palma’s first choice to play Al Capone, but it was uncertain if he could appear in the film because of his appearance in the Broadway play Cuba and his Teddy Bear. He also wanted to gain about 30 pounds (14 kg) to play Capone; according to De Palma, De Niro was “very concerned about the shape of his face for the part.”[1] De Palma met with Bob Hoskins to discuss the role in case De Niro could not appear. When De Niro took the part, De Palma mailed Hoskins a check for £20,000 with a “Thank You” note, which prompted Hoskins to call up De Palma and ask him if there were any more films he didn’t want him to be in.[14][15] Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando were also considered as options in case both De Niro and Hoskins proved unable to perform the role.[5] De Niro’s research for the role of Al Capone included reading about him and watching historical footage.[16] He had one extra scene written for his character, and contacted Capone’s original tailors to have identical suits and silk underwear made for him. He was paid $1.5 million for the role.”
“Thunderbolt from the Skies: Putin’s Doomsday Weapon Puts NATO on Final Notice”
Not to be missed is the section near the bottom marked-
‘Victor Orban’s thematic speech at the Eurasia Forum in Budapest today puts a finishing touch to underscore developments’
Orban really puts recent developments into a formal context and you wonder if he has talked about this with Trump. In short-
‘The five-hundred-year era of dominance of Western civilization is over’
And this coming from a western politician. No wonder the EU leaders hate him so much as this is the last thing they want to hear.
‘The five-hundred-year era of dominance of Western civilization is over’ – Victor Orban
[ Astonishing understanding and honesty for a Western leader. Truly an impressive diplomat, to be able to understand a past self-destructiveness of Hungarian leaders during the 1930s and ’40s and knowing that legacy must be forever discarded. ]
“Truly an impressive diplomat. Astonishing understanding and honesty for a Western leader.”
Is it April Fools Day already?
“Truly impressive” in this way? “The mafia-like character of Orban’s regime explains his behavior.
A criminal organisation, whether private or public, has three crucial needs: sources of money, the ability to launder it, and impunity for its members. The last requires neutralizing law enforcement, which Orban is finding much harder to do at the European Union level than at home. Over the past decade, Hungary’s mafia state has mastered the first two imperatives – looting and laundering money.”
https://balkaninsight.com/2019/06/21/hungarys-mafia-state-fights-for-impunity/
Or this way here?
https://apnews.com/article/hungary-orban-arrest-warrant-netanyahu-2b25696df9b6d8a6624a8c4243ce3368
Apparently the world is in urgent need of more mafia states, more corrupt authoritarian strong men posing as populists, and more PR Kool Aid for its thirsty citizens.
Your tone is out of line. But you are giving me an excuse to identify a new disorder: Populist Derangement Syndrome.
Orban is in fact heads and shoulder in terms of the caliber of his commentary above any EU leader I can think of. We are supposed to see you as credible when you effectively maintain that he is worse that Ursuala von der Leyen, Scholz, Habeck, Baerbock, Macron, Starmer (or Truss or Sunak or Bojo)? Having said that, Meloni is pretty good.
Balkan Insight is funded top to bottom by neoliberal/neocon NGOs. The idea that Hungary is a money laundering center is rich. Nicholas Shaxxson, in his definitive Treasure Islands, in fact described how US and UK banking complexes are the biggest money launderers. A country with a very minor currency is not at all well suited for money laundering. And on official money laundering scores (which lump in corruption, when that is a separate category), Hungary’s score is similar to the Switzerland of Central America, Costa Rica’s, and higher than Hong Kong’s.
I agree it is poor for Orban to say he won’t execute the ICC warrant, but your argument around that amounts to halo effect thinking, of seeing people as all good or bad. That is a cognitive bias. And many doubt that the EU countries that say the will honor the warrant will actually do so if, say, Netanyahu’s plane were to make an emergency landing.
1. TONE: “the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc.”
2. ATTITUDE: “point of view, informal: truculent or uncooperative behavior”
3. In other words, you appear to be unhappy with my attitude and my point of view as you interpret it. My attitude and/or my point of view is irrelevant to the evidence that is publicly available. Apparently that same evidence is creating cognitive dissonance for yourself, as it appears to be contrary to your personal beliefs and what you have invested in them, if in fact your response is an honest indicator.
4. A deliberate and calculated reliance on intellectually third-rate, emotionally inflammatory pejoratives (“Pejorative is an adjective that describes something that has a disparaging, derogatory, or belittling effect or force. In modern English, pejorative is used to describe words or phrases that express disapproval or suggest that something is not good or is of no importance.”), i.e., “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a pseudo psychiatric diagnosis, in order to shut down or discredit an opposing evidence based reply has an interesting historical precedent that you should be well aware of and therefore should know that it is simply an intimidation tactic.
That is, for example, “Speaking to Reuters during his detention, Umerov described how the entire experience reminded him of the Soviet-era practice of punitive psychiatry, when dissidents and activists were locked away under trumped-up mental health diagnoses in an effort to intimidate them and other dissidents into silence. “It is all an attempt to keep the population in a constant state of fear,” he told Reuters. “If the Mejlis [self-governing body] deputy chairman can be charged and punished, then everyone else should just shut up.””
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5224961/
You can research the entire history yourself, further noting that the admirers and apologists for authoritarianism and its methods most certainly reveal the form and substance that is their personal hierarchy of values,
5. Another reality demonstrating the use of intimidation by the cult of the authoritarian strongman, “A crack in the system emerged after the 2014 election, however, when one of Orban’s most loyal oligarchs, Lajos Simicska, defected and briefly led his media outlets in an anti-Orban campaign ahead of the 2018 election. Threatened with assassination, Simicska turned over his companies to Orban loyalists and fled the country.”
6. You state that, “Balkan Insight is funded top to bottom by neoliberal/neocon NGOs.” Do you have “neoliberal/neocon” Derangement Syndrome? You have failed to discredit in any credible way, the multiple analyses that exist demonstrating the Orban/Hungary reality. Again, for example,
https://transparency.hu/en/news/cpi-2023-results-annual-report/
https://jordanrussiacenter.org/blog/sociology-of-corruption-patterns-of-illegal-association-in-hungary
7. “but your argument around that amounts to halo effect thinking,” How so? Explain in detail. Provide evidence.
8. “We are supposed to see you as credible . . . ?
The available evidence speaks for itself. How you choose to interpret that same evidence is up to yourself, as is always the case.
RE: Systematic election violations in Georgia aimed to secure ruling party victory, say local NGOs
First of all, the article is extremely vague as to the details of the alleged fraud. One thing they cite is “organized transportation of voters” to the polls. I don’t know about Georgian law, but in the US that is not illegal, and the article doesn’t claim it’s illegal in Georgia. If it were, you’d think they’d mention that. They cite security cameras “positioned to compromise ballot secrecy”. Well where exactly were these cameras? If they were actually recording people marking ballots, that’s a problem, but that is not what’s claimed. Lots of other allegations about “violations” and “altercations” with no mention of which side was doing the violating and altercating.
One of the “local” NGOs is the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy. After searching for all of about 3 seconds, this comes up, which was eminently predicatable: https://www.usaid.gov/georgia/news/isfed-launches-election-monitoring-under-usaids-elections-and-political-processes-program
Yes, that’s a notice from USAID’s website about their cooperation with this NGO. For those not familiar, that’s the US spooks. The “local” NGO is a CIA asset. That’s who’s running the show in Georgia – organic protest my sweet Aunt Fannie.
It’s a big interweb and I’m quite sure Georgians are well aware of who runs USAID and what their purpose is. Perhaps some of these vaguely documented altercations were Georgian citizens giving the spook-backed “election monitors” what for.
We read here recently that in this country of little more than 3 1/2 million souls, there are some 25,000 NGOs. That’s just a little less than 1/150!
What’s the tl;dr on Oreshnik? StT brags about being long-winded and in any case I don’t have a sub.
Russia combat tested a hypersonic ballistic missile with a relatively flat trajectory and multiple maneuverable warheads capable of striking anywhere in Europe without any possible defense, explicitly in response to Western countries firing missiles into Russia proper, and promised further tests in response to any future western strikes on Russia. These tests used conventional warheads but can deliver nuclear. Putin gave prior warning and said civilian warnings will precede any future strikes. He specifically called out the US, UK, and France.
If you’ve seen the video, that was all one missile.
Thank you. MoA has some information now too.
Deep Dive Defense explains pretty well how little is known about the missile, what educated guesses can be made and what it means if those guesses are correct.
I think that part of the deal is that Ukraine will now be a testing ground for these new weapons.
So, Kiev is no longer safe. I expect to see a drop-off in the Western politicians trekking off there to be seen and get social media likes.
Further “tests” indeed.
… gulp. Thanks. I wish I could forward this concise explanation to family and friends, but alas. They don’t want to know, it will confuse/anger/bum them out such that I will just show up at family gatherings all smiles while my gut churns.
I wonder what happens if you start to say something to them, pause, and then say “nah, I know you don’t want to know” whilst signing scare quotes in the air with your fingers.
Cory Doctorow:
Trump won the election because white men, especially young white men, voted for him, but he couldn’t have done it without the votes of white women, and Black and Latino men. These voters may even conceive of themselves as being in favor of women’s rights and of the rights of racial minorities, but they still voted for Trump, because some facet of their identity – their maleness, their whiteness – mattered more to them than everything else.
Is this projection, or an excercise in mind-reading?
What a tool.
I love what Glenn and Tucker had to say about libs who think they “own” the voters when those same voters go against the libs preferences. How dare they!? It’s funny cause it’s true.
Lots of projection going on these days. One middle aged white guy involved with the immigrant community in some capacity was interviewed about the election in the local paper. He said that while he hadn’t heard many immigrants say anything about the election one way or the other, still their fear of Trump was real. I had to wonder how he knew that if they hadn’t said anything to him, and why the paper would print such nonsense. Maybe talk to some recent immigrants directly to get a quote instead of using second hand speculation from the TDS afflicted white PMC guy? Amazing how these people can pretend to seem so caring and yet they still manage to come across as the paternalistic jerks they claim to oppose.
Due Dissidence guys, utube, ~17+ minutes.
Socialist Gets CANDID Post-Election Takes From NYC Trump Voters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW05qljWIpg
I wonder if they are using those special Russians chips, just in case Israel launches ‘new and advanced’ Stuxnet.
Whatever they do, they need to import a big batch of Russian shovels.
re: Pollen doubts RFKs qualifications for HHS. oh.
Xaxier Becerra is gonna be all over this. / heh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_Becerra
Becerra, code name Basura.
Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?
This is pretty desperate.
More like run-of-the-mill stuff. Blatant lies, like this one, have been their modus operandi since forever (hence The Empire of Lies moniker). Back in the days before smartphones, stuff like this would have passed without a hitch. Something, something, old dogs new tricks.
Even now, people buy Ghost of Kiev, and Snake Island Defenders, and that Klitchko showed them downed Kinzhal (which does look a bit sluggish compared to this doomsday device).
I saw the video this morning shown on Dima’s Military Summary of the missile in flight and the large plasma envelope surrounding it. That was very impressive and combined with the strike video, sobering. I was surprised to learn that Michelangelo got it wrong – God has six fingers.
The flashes of light you might have seen in Dima’s video or elsewhere were hand held sparklers. You can get them every 4th of July. I’m hoping to get on the guest list of MSM experts.
I guess TPTB thought it was a better look to not be able to shoot down a slower missile.
They want people to know they COULD have handled a supersonic one.
In baseball parlance, they can hit the fastball, but not the curve.
I suppose the tell is putting the “U. S. defense officials” statement next to a NASA definition of hypersonic = speed.
Thats not the defense meaning of hypersonic, which is a maneuvering vehicle at hypersonic speeds within the atmosphere.
All ICBMs reenter at hypersonic speeds (much higher, actually). Typical reentry velocity is > 20k ft/sec, or > 13,000 mph. IRBMs are lower, depending on flight path and range, but still way over that NASA speed limit.
“Hypersonic” has been turned into a propaganda term, kind like ‘gluten-free’ for shaking funds from gullible Congress critters and getting favorable press from useful idiots who can’t be bothered with grade school math.
The impressive bit from that video are the multiple RVs per ‘flash’. Pure speculation here, just from observation. Part of the offense vs defense calculation has been the use of decoys and chaff to make the interceptor’s job harder, but these are only partly effective as they’re typically very light, so as soon as they hit the upper atmosphere, they fall behind the heavier RV. All those impacts in the video were simultaneous, implying they were more or less the same mass, so assuming they were decoys, they’d be almost impossible to tell apart. Other reports said the Russians used an older ICBM model for the booster, and repurposed it into a shorter range role. If so, then it’s got the throw weight to lob a much heavier payload(s). I’ll bet a lot of folks in DC are inspecting that video frame by frame.
NASA was just thrown in as a buzzword-authority (like “experts say”, or “scientists say”). Videos were made at the ground level, and they show the fastest thing ever fired in anger. For these US defense officials, that’s not even worth a speeding ticket. I guess, if it was a US missile, they would have told Fox News that they have aready recovered driver’s licence and a speedometer stuck at “Ludicrous Speed”.
Bonus Joke: U.S. defense officials defining hypersonic missile, is like U.S. defense officials defining peace, or victory. They have never seen any of those in real life.
thanks, cfraenkel
Agree with your comment, but one OT quibble, please, if I might.
Celiac disease is real and for some people ‘gluten-free’ is not propaganda, but a real need.
Speaking for a family member who has to be very careful about gluten…
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/celiac-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20352220
It’s also responsible for some cases of eosinophilic esophagitis.
Hey it wasn’t supersonic guys!
Whew. That’s a relief.
But wait…didn’t they still fire a missile in response to Ukraine firing a missile?
Yes but it wasn’t Supersonic.
Ummm….okay?
Regarding the Covid retrospective of Nate Bear:
All resistance to a proper public health response to Covid has been rooted in the profit motive — all of it. From the haste to reduce the period off work after a diagnosis from initially 10 days, to 5 to “when symptoms subside” (never mind asymptomatic spread) all the way to a refusal to take seriously the need to improve indoor air quality infrastructure paralleling the great public works efforts which eliminated the scourge of waterborne diseases all across the Western world over 150 years ago.
All. Of. It.
I agree. If the current crop of politicians, officials and greedheads had been in power 150 years ago, we would not have clean water in our homes or elsewhere. The investment in clean air fell to our generation and our leaders failed all of us.
The same kind of people were in charge back then. They won on airborne diseases but had to give ground on waterborne.
There’s never been a time when this wasn’t a fight against the powers that be.
Around 150 years ago, Civil War happened (and Lincoln was the Trump of 1860). Just sayin’.
I seem to remember a footnote from a CDC presentation on response strategy that Lambert flagged stating that focusing on ventilation was not economically feasible. This was early days of the pandemic, mind you, when maybe we could have mounted a real response.
Doctorow’s Pluralistic article about unions led me to a few observations.
The assertion about unions voting with near-unanimity against Trump could use some backup as the anecdotal evidence and press reports around the time of the election was not as compelling.
Shawn Fain of the UAW is an electrifying speaker and motivator to the members and public. His directness resonates!
Teacher unions need to do a better job of listening to their teachers, parents and students or face irrelevancy and down-votes. Declining achievement trends mean failures on various levels, compounded by shorter careers for teachers. Talk to current and recently retired teachers to understand more of what they are up against and what could be done for them and for their students. Not just about money, but that certainly helps.
“South Korea’s Dockyards: A New Factor in Korea-US Military Burden-sharing”
It is true that South Korea has an ace up it’s sleeve with their productive dockyards. But what if Trump demands that the South Koreans rebuild one of the dockyards in the US itself to build ships with? And why wouldn’t he? He ordered the Taiwanese to build a foundry in the US to build chips with – though it has not worked out so well that. But I would not put it beyond Trump trying to try to make American ship-building great again by having the South Koreans re-build an American dockyards.
American reliance on South Korea for shipbuilding, munitions, and electronics is so risky when you think about it. The place is basically a small island like Taiwan and it’s technically in a state of war with its nuclear armed only neighbor.
The genius of outsourcing all out most vital and sophisticated needs to teeny countries on other side of the Pacific!
What’s even more winning is that South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are places that are rapidly greying out. Birth rate has collapsed and young people just don’t want to have children any more. War is a young man’s game and win or lose, those places won’t even be able to rebuild after a big war. China just has to play the waiting game and it’s pretty much over.
Despite all the saber rattling, there won’t be a war in East Asia because the demographics look terrible.
‘Birth rate has collapsed and young people just don’t want to have children any more.’
It may be that because neoliberalism has such a hold in many countries, that many young couples simply cannot afford to have children. Come to think of it, young Chinese have the same problem in their hard capitalist system too. What they have in common is extreme forms of capitalism, which as an after effect, puts a crimp on young people being able to lead normal lives and being able to form families.
For all of the very intelligent people that we have in this community, and indeed that we can read in adjacent communities, I did not see anybody suggest that Biden/Blinken would be so petty and vindictive as to accelerate the conflict with Russia during the transition. In hindsight it’s arguably kind of obvious that they would, for example they were vindictive enough to sink Kamala Harris, but what I think happened is that most normal and sane people have trouble projecting what really horrible people can plan.
It was suggested by readers. But since many worried about the way the election would go many comments mused over something like this more under the label of “October” surprise, not post election-escalation.
Another scenario outlined by readers was a possible WWIII to upend a normal election outcome. That was suggested early summer aIready when chatter intensified over a possible coup by Dems.
On the other hand I asked myself tonight if the Trump win had anything to do with this. And for the moment I doubt that. This escalation of events would have happened any way. By RU and US.
The instantaneous pivot to “surviving until the inauguration” suggests that this wasn’t a sudden realization: Job #1 was keeping Harris out. Job #2 is a direct extension of Job #1: keeping Team Biden from blowing up the world.
I suspect most here anticipate a lot of chaos and second-level lawfare post-Inauguration but why talk about it now when we are on the cusp of nuclear war? If we make it all the way to Trump 47, then I’ll worry about the next round of issues. That is a rather large “if” in my opinion.
When General LeMay was named vice chief of staff of the Air Force in 1957, Power became commander in chief of SAC and was promoted to four-star rank. General Thomas Sarsfield Power (June 18, 1905 – December 6, 1970) was a United States Air Force officer who served as commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command from 1957-1964.
General Thomas Sarsfield Power speaking on Nuclear War with Russia at a high level meeting:
“At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!”
Professor William Kaufmann from the RAND Corporation, losing his patience, noted: “Well, you’d better make sure that they’re a man and a woman.” At that point, Power stalked out of the room. The briefing was over.
Having been briefed by another famous member of the RAND Corporation, Herman Kahn, on the genetic effects of nuclear weapons, Power replied: “You know, it’s not yet been proved to me that two heads aren’t better than one.”
It seems the u.s. Brass continues to adhere to strategic thinking of depth and quality that might be admired by the late General Power of SAC.
Putin and missile diplomacy. The Duran gave an account of Putins speech warning the West they might be the next target of Russian new and unstoppable missiles. The speech was sane rational logical and fact based. Then it occurred to me – Western Neocons don’t do sane rational logical. It’s a language they don’t speak nor understand. They wont even hear a word he spoke. So what language do Neocons speak and understand? Sadly the best answer I could come up with, is Russia’s largest and most powerful bomb nuke or otherwise delivered by hypersonic missiles to Washington DC, London, Paris. And maybe every single US aircraft carrier. THAT might be the only language the Neocons understand.
My model for these people is that they assume that American power is limitless, with one caveat and that is willpower. If America wills it, it can happen. They themselves are perfectly safe since no neocon has ever gotten fired from anything. I think that that might be the path for them to see reason, but it cannot come from an external agent such as Russia or China, it needs to come from within the USA, if they start losing access to patronage, they’l reflect and think differently.
We have a clue…”Russia Lists US Missile Defense Base In Poland As ‘Priority Strike Target’.” Those Angis missile bases. Another one Romania I believe. Should have been take out long ago IMO.
Rather them than the UK, although as a property owner and a law abiding ratepayer, I say that purely out of self-interest. But, then, from Russia’s point of view, if Kiev, why not London? That would clarify and focus a few minds. And, as the icing on the cake, why not a direct hit on Germany’s Foreign Ministry?
So, we are Japan circa 1930 now? Amerika-Damashi can conquer anything!
I liked the moment in the video when Mearsheimer says “what planet Starmer lives in?” (not verbatim)
Planet Zion.
Re: Google anti-trust
Too bad all these moves are being proposed for the benefit of “AI” companies. It’s all about getting their hands on information for the new and improved crapifications.
After years and $4 billion in stolen from passengers, DoJ finally reigning in corrupt DEA cash seizures at airports.
https://viewfromthewing.com/justice-department-stops-deas-airport-searches-after-3-2-billion-seized-from-passengers-without-charges/
I am nominating this article from The Hill as the most unhinged offering for the day:
World War III is now Trump’s to lose
The title alone is…noteworthy. As for the rest of it…
Excerpt:
“Future historians likely will not judge him based on his two impeachments, felony convictions or his ever-present hyperbole, but rather whether or not he wins World War III.”
Great catch. But I’m bewildered that they think there will be future historians around should WWIII occur.
Cue Tom Lehrer: “I feel that, if any songs are going to come out of World War III, we’d better start writing them now.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YDFqoReof6A
I must say, that is quite the article. FTA:
Wow! I hope there are some sane heads left in DC.
It is trivial in a way but telling in how divorced from reality the author is: “CNN reports that “butter, some meats, and onions are about 25 percent more expensive than a year ago,” and that “some supermarkets have taken to keeping butter in locked cabinets.””
Gilbert Doctorow, reporting from St Petersburg, “I have spoken briefly in earlier Travel Notes about my visits to the neighborhood supermarkets in various price categories from Economy to Premium. I reconfirm here that they are all very well stocked including with exotic fruits that you would imagine are sold only in the most exclusive. In our Economy standard Verny supermarket, they offer not just the sharon fruit (rock hard as usual) but also the fragile, shall we say voluptuous genuine persimmons that presumably are imported from Iran, along with the salted pistachios that are ubiquitous here and some very good stalk celery and iceberg lettuce.
I will go one step further: these Russian supermarkets seem to have better stock control than our leading Delhaize (the Lion) chain in Belgium (now Dutch owned) which frequently runs out of this….”
Thanks! Unhinged indeed!
“Trump may be tired of “Russia, Russia, Russia,” but that is the stark reality he will face after he returns to the White House. Russia is not going away, but rather Russia is coming for him and our way of life .”
Our way of life, and our precious bodily fluids. Jack D. Ripper, FTW!
The whole world is coming for their way of life, because they don’t want to finance it any more.
The Hill probably copped it when Private Eye rejected it as merely year 8 satire.
[Family blog!]
We’re just sleep walking right into this! Un [family blogging] believable.
Santo & Johnny “Sleep Walk” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rwfqsjimRM&t=40
Biden unilaterally starting a shooting war with Russia with the complicity of the Military and with no push back from our congresscritters is clarifying.
And the UK jumps right in with no notice to Parliament.
This behavior is reckless to the point of Insanity, and there is NO pretense that this is lawful.
Maybe we will get lucky….
I was thinking about this too. You’d think congress would exercise some authority here. Their collective silence is deafening.
– ‘A Legal Showdown Over Press Freedom’ – The Free Press
In my view some of our most important – and endangered – legal protections concern freedom of the press and the related need for protection of sources. So why does this article bother me so much? Perhaps because depending on which side you are on, in this case “press freedom” could be seen as a smokescreen for actually protecting government secrecy and the suppression of evidence about leaks against a targeted defendant.
I also strongly support “humanitarian” protection of civilians from repressive governments. But I’m not too dense to recognize when “humanitarian intervention” is used as a smokescreen for imperial war-mongering. I guess the moral is beware of simplistic labels meant to trigger knee-jerk emotional reactions.
Clonazepam is dangerous, regardless. The body develops a tolerance to it, and it is very difficult to get off this family of drugs, without a slow taper. Even then, you’re in for a rough ride. You can’t quit from the smallest dose, so you need a doctor (lol) to give you a script for valium to taper further. Good luck with that. Quitting from a 0.5 mg tablet is going to leave you laid up in a bad way, even cutting it into tiny 1/4th parts is a bad time.
I quit Clonazepam cold turkey, after I was prescribed it for about a year during a very difficult time in my life, without any understanding of the consequences. I had no idea what I was in for. I slept for a total of 9 hours over the course of 5 days – if you could call it sleep – and then went to benzo withdrawal syndrome hell for somewhere between 6 and 9 months. I didn’t know what was happening and it was absolutely terrifying. There are no words to describe it, except to say I’d definitely have killed myself if there was a gun in close proximity, and it took every bit of mental fortitude I had to prevent myself from harming myself or others. It seriously fucks up the fight or flight part of your brain, pain regulation, sense of balance, everything. Benzos are no joke, and apparently 10 times harder to quit than heroin. I will never fear anything ever again after making it through that. It was seriously fucked up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_withdrawal_syndrome
Regarding the “What is considered the earliest dystopian novel?” from the Daily Mail
Why Jack London’s “Iron Heel” is ignored by the Daily Mail is beyond me. Orwell credits it as being an influence on him, and the Iron Heel is easily a dystopian novel that was written decades before “We.”
The Iron Heel is also an appropriate novel for our times. When the worker-candidate wins the US presidential election, the head corporate guy says (in effect), What makes you think we’ll let you take office?
Keir Starmer
https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1859682871876911310
I’m determined to deliver growth, create wealth and put more money in people’s pockets.
This can only be achieved by working in partnership with leading businesses, like @BlackRock, to capitalise on the UK’s position as a world leading hub for investment.
Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside Concordia University amid Quebec-wide boycotts
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/pro-palestinian-protesters-gathered-outside-concordia-university-amid-quebec-wide-boycotts-1.7118804
New footage of the Russian Oreshnik in flight:
https://x.com/HJB_News__/status/1860035900442653004
And another, closer view of the warheads coming in:
https://x.com/igorlachenkov/status/1859561766646071673
Here you can see how each of the MIRV’d warheads is actually a group of them (mini-MIRVs?), spreading out to hit a number of targets at once. All enveloped in plasma.
Nothing is going to stop this kind of attack.
The talk at MoA suggests another “demonstration” in the Ukraine, and a next escalation would be to hit missile bases in Poland or Romania.
The text in the footage says it’s city of Satpayev in Kazakhstan. Yesterday Russians launched Soyuz MS-29 mission (cargo to ISS) from Baikonur, about 100 km west of Satpayev. The chances are the footage is of that launch, not the Oreshnik.
Looks cool, in any case.
group -> cluster
mini-MIRVs? -> submunitions
Thank you both for correcting me on this.
Mach 10 is 7,400mph.
Maybe the US defense officials missed out on 2nd grade math.
I guess hypersonic is what US defence officials think whilst, to the Russians, hypersonic is as hypersonic does. And we wonder why the US is incapable of fighting wars that it can win…
Going a bit too geeky here, pardon that.
Mach number actually varies a bit depending on the altitude:
Mach number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_number#
It would be interesting to know exactly what data America has on these missiles, but it’s obvious Russia purposely used these in a manner such that America and the West has the hard data.
What hard data? These guys haven’t even seen the videos (not to mention estimating velocity of the objects on them).
We have an urgent NATO meeting with Zelenskyy next tuesday (called by the incumbent, link in Spanish). He will be calling for WWIII of course. There have been reactions by Tusk and Scholz to the tune of “serious risk of global conflict”. So, is there any chance that Zelenskyy will manage to drag a few, some, or all idiots to full confrontation with Russia? My best guess is nope, yet one must never underestimate the level of idiocy of our leadership.
Prof. Ted Postol Assessing Russian Attack on Ukraine by Hypersonic Missile
The first 11 minutes are skippable. Not the rest.