The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

An Administrative Note

Posted on | April 13, 2023 | Comments Off on An Administrative Note

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Silicon Valley delenda est.


In The Mailbox is going on hiatus until (at least) April 19. I’m putting in around ten hours a day in the tax mines, which leaves me just enough time to eat, sleep…yeah, that’s about it. See you when the Death March to April 18 is over.


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Category: Taxes

Pentagon Leak Confirms Ukraine Suffering Shortage of Trained Manpower

Posted on | April 12, 2023 | 1 Comment

Forget the media coverage focused on how the leak of classified material happened and speculation on who might be responsible for that leak. I’m sure the FBI will figure that out, just as soon as they’re finished prosecuting people for “parading” in the Capitol and posting funny memes on Twitter. What’s really important is the contents of the leak, as it pertains to the war in Ukraine. When last I updated the Ukraine situation in February, I remarked:

Once the Russians evacuated Kherson and retreated to the south (or east) bank of the Dnieper River, that front stabilized, as the Ukrainians apparently are unwilling and/or unable to mount an offensive across the river. Meanwhile, to the northeast, the Ukrainian offensive east of Kharkiv ground to a halt in October, after driving the Russians back across the Oskil River toward Svatove and Kreminna. At the time, I had hoped that Ukraine would be able to sustain the momentum of its offensive, but once they’d captured Lyman and Kupiansk, they seemed content to hold what they’d gotten, rather than push for a further advance. And thus the situation seemed to settle down into a winter stalemate, as neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians had the wherewithal to mount any major offensives.

After Ukraine’s success last fall, I was perplexed by their lack of further advances, as maintaining momentum in such an offensive is crucial. Once you score a breakthrough, the opposing forces become disordered and demoralized if the pursuit continues; however, if the attack is paused, the opposing force can rally, establishing new defensive positions and reinforcing with fresh troops. Or to quote Stonewall Jackson:

“Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.”

The failure of the Ukrainians to maintain the offensive after their September breakthrough around Kherson was perplexing, and what I deduced was that there must be a manpower shortage. Despite the obvious urgency of the situation, Ukraine was failing to recruit, train and equip forces in sufficient numbers to establish reserves that could be used as reinforcements for further offensive operations.

The leaked Pentagon documents confirm my deduction:

US intelligence reportedly warned in February that Ukraine might fail to amass sufficient troops and weaponry for its planned spring counter-offensive, and might fall “well short” of Kyiv’s goals for recapturing territory seized by Russia, according to one of a trove of leaked defence documents.
A document tagged as “top secret” quoted by the Washington Post said that Kyiv was facing significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” and was therefore only likely to achieve “modest territorial gains”. The document is a snapshot of the situation in early February, and it is unclear how far Ukraine, with the support of NATO member states, has been able to make up the shortfalls since then.
Another document, dated 23 February and seen by the Guardian, gives an overview of the progress of building 12 “combat credible” new brigades to lead the counter-offensive, equipped with a target of 253 tanks and about 1,500 other armoured vehicles of different kinds. Three brigades were to be generated by the Ukrainians alone, while the remaining nine were to be established with the help of the US, allies and partners.
The planned brigades were a long way from readiness at the time of the documents, with five yet to begin their training. Six of the brigades had half or less the equipment they needed to hand.

What has the Biden administration bought with the billions of dollars of aid it has shipped to Ukraine? Talk of equipment shortages is one thing, if we’re talking about heavy equipment like tanks, artillery, etc., but surely there can be no shortage of basic infantry gear — rifles and bullets and such — to explain the inability of Ukraine to assemble and train “combat credible” brigades, can there? Whatever the difficulty NATO may have in providing Ukraine with heavy armament, there ought to be plenty enough equipment available to outfit troops as light infantry, and if shoving lightly-armed troops into a combat meat-grinder is a less-than-ideal tactical situation, the Russians have clearly been willing to do so at Bakhmut and other places, so what’s the problem in Kyiv?

And, while we’re asking questions, what’s the problem in Washington? Jim Geraghty is blunt about what the leaks reveal about Biden:

President Biden’s rhetoric regarding Ukrainian resistance to the invasion increasingly appears to be wildly overoptimistic happy talk, designed to assure Americans that he’s managing the NATO coalition just fine, the military aid to Kyiv is arriving in a timely fashion, and Russia really is diplomatically and economically isolated. . . .
It is bad that this assessment leaked; it is bad that this assessment of Ukraine’s abilities in the spring offensive are so modest or grim; it is bad that apparently lots of foreign-policy experts have doubts about the administration’s approach but are afraid to say so publicly; and it is bad that Biden’s public assessment of the war in Ukraine is the same rosy-eyed, unrealistic optimism that characterized his assessment of Afghanistan, inflation, migrants crossing the border, and the Chinese spy balloon. The president is always telling us that things are going great and that we have nothing to worry about, and a little later, we learn that the truth is the opposite.

You don’t have to be a “foreign-policy expert” to have doubts about Biden, who has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates once remarked. And as Obama said, never underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.



 

 

Category: Military, Ukraine

Who Hates Cops?

Posted on | April 11, 2023 | 1 Comment

Dakota Kurtis Means

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?”
— Romans 13: 1-3 (KJV)

When the Apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the early Christian church in Rome, the entirety of the Mediterranean world was under the yoke of the Roman empire, specifically under Nero, who was about to embark upon a persecution of which Paul himself would become a victim. Thus his admonition to be subject to “the powers that be,” as ordained by God, must be contemplated quite seriously. Even if we are ourselves subjected to wrongful persecution, Christians have a duty to emulate Jesus in complying with governing authority. And if this is our duty as Christians, what are we to conclude about cop-haters like Dakota Means?

A Portland rioter who was previously given probation for assaulting a federal contract worker was given 12.5 years in jail for killing his 3-month-old infant child.
Dakota Kurtis Means, 23, was given the sentence after pleading guilty to one count of first-degree manslaughter and one count of first-degree criminal mistreatment, according to Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt.
Means, who had previously been sentenced to time served and given probation after pleading guilty to threatening a federal officer, was found responsible for the death of Hunter Means, his young child, in April 2021, just months after he was released in January 2021 for his other crime. . . .
Prosecutors said that Means violently shook his son, resulting in the young child hitting his skull on something causing brain trauma. . . .
During the investigation, Hunter’s mother said that Means treated her “like an animal” and had been “really physically violent” to her. . . .
Means intimidated a federal contractor with a paintball gun outside the Mark O. Hatfield United State Courthouse in Portland in August 2020 and spent 60 days behind bars before being sentenced and let out on probation.
During the incident he brandished a paintball gun, cursing at the contractor and saying that it was “going to be an AR” next time.

Among other things, I’m reminded of the fact that, when Kyle Rittenhouse was defending himself against the BLM/Antifa rioters in Kenosha, all three of the people he shot had criminal records. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The kind of people most likely to participate in anti-police riots are bad people. This goes back to what I began saying after my first-hand encounter with an angry mob of “Occupy” protesters in 2011: Bad causes attract bad people.

Even if a decent law-abiding citizen were sympathetic to the left-wing causes espoused by such people, one look at that crowd of ne’er-do-wells would suffice to convince you to avoid associating with them.

They are bad people with bad motives, and nothing good is likely to happen to anyone who associates with them. Stay away from such trash, and let “the powers that be” deal with them.



 

 

Category: Crime, Democrats, Oregon

In The Mailbox: 04.10.23

Posted on | April 11, 2023 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Your Car Is Spying On You – Well, If It’s A Tesla, It Is
EBL: Easter Sunday, Mount Tambora and the Year Without Summer, and Prayers for Police Officer Nickolas Wilt
Twitchy: Swalwell Takes A Swing At Jim Jordan On Crime & Accidentally KOs Democrats, Hot Take – TX Gov. Abbott Endorses Murder Of Black People, and  Megan Rapinoe Signs Petition Against Protecting Women’s’ Sports
Louder With Crowder: It all makes sense when you hear “declining” Bud Light’s woke VP attack customers as “fratty and out of touch”, LA will celebrate Easter with *checks notes* a drag march protesting laws that ban mutilating children, and Crowder & Alex Jones Explain Why New Super Mario Bros. Movie DIDN’T Bomb This Weekend
Vox Popoli: Who’s Isolating Whom?, Amazon Doubles Down Again, The SDL Replies, and Jesus Christ Is Risen
Stoic Observations: Wouldn’t You Pay To Watch Walter Cronkite?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Holy Saturday
American Conservative: War Without Conditions, also, Where Is the Manifesto?
American Greatness: TX Governor Promises to ‘Swiftly’ Pardon Army Sergeant Convicted of Killing BLM Rioter, Walter Reed Issues Cease and Desist Order to Priests and Friars Preventing Them From Providing Religious Services During Holy Week, and Fiddling America Away
American Power: Matt Taibbi to Use Substack Notes, We Are In a Jacobin Revolution of the Sort That in 1793-94 Nearly Destroyed France, and No One Has Done More Damage
American Thinker: To Rightly Grasp the Resurrection, One Must First Understand Sin, A Hiccup in the Prosecution of the J6 Defendants, Alvin Bragg Has Opened Pandora’s Box, and Is It Time to Panic Yet Over the State of America?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship offers seafood, coffee, and other foodstuffs to Belarus that are severely scarce in Cuba, Irish politicians launch effort to bring Cuban slave doctors to the Emerald Isle, Cuban dictatorship seems oblivious to the REAL consequences of London court’s ruling, and 14,000 ‘humanitarian parole’ Cubans have entered U.S. in past 3 months, while thousands of arriving rafters are deported
BattleSwarm: An In-Depth Look At The RPG-7, also, Russia Running Out Of Soldiers And Shells?
Behind The Black: Report recommends Congress allow full regulation of commercial human spaceflight, Exploring the cratered southern highlands of Mars part 4, The Earth hangs above the Moon, and Pushback: Catholic college moves to end its need for any federal funding
Cafe Hayek: Boudreaux and Irwin on the Repeal of the Corn Laws
CDR Salamander: How Many Cruisers Did The PRC Build In The Time…,
Da Tech Guy: A classified duh, 35 Years Ago Today Plus Tips 34 (Errands Together) and 35 (Let them Sleep) on how to stay Married 35 years, and If the Choice is between Motivating the Left and Saving Kids or De-Motivating them and Letting Kids Get Slaughtered I’ll take the former Every Time
Dana Loesch: Monday Grind – Neil DeGrasse Tyson & The Problem Of Groupthink
Don Surber: Welcome To Your Nightmare, Democrats,
First Street Journal: You will drive an electric car, and you will like it!, also, Oh, look! Helen Gym Flaherty is getting much of her financial support from people with no connection to Philadelphia!
Gates Of Vienna: No Christianity Allowed!, Abduction of Children From Sweden Video #5, The Tomb is Empty, and Éric Zemmour: France is First of All a Soul
The Geller Report: ELECTION INTERFERENCE? ABC Blurs Out “Text Trump” Banner During Speech To Curb Fundraising, Biden Invites Expelled Tennessee Insurrection Democrats to the White House, and After Meeting With China President XI, French President Macron Urges Europe To Turn Away From America
Hogewash: A Runaway Black Hole, A New Ride, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, and Blue Straggler Stars
Hollywood In Toto: Why Air Speaks Volumes About Nike’s Kaepernick, Mulvaney Deals, Banshees McDonagh Blasts ‘Dangerous’ Woke Censors, and Megyn Kelly on MeToo’s Collapse: ‘We’re Back to Where We Started’
Legal Insurrection: The King’s College Struggling to Raise Funds to Stay Open for Another Year, University of Chicago Activists Seek One Billion in Reparations, Rebekah Jones’ Son Arrested Over Alleged School Threats, She Claims Gov. DeSantis ‘Kidnapped’ Him, Bud Light/Budweiser Boycott Growing After Designating Trans Influencer Dylan Mulvaney Brand Ambassador, CUNY Has a Serious Anti-Semitism Problem, and Democrats’ Forever War On Justice Clarence Thomas Ramps Up
Nebraska Energy Observer: Saturday – just for you, also, He Is Risen!
Outkick: Riley Gaines To Tucker Carlson After San Francisco State Campus Attack: ‘This Will Not Silence Me’, Masters Fans Rail Against ESPN, Others For Ignoring Phil Mickelson, 5 Dallas Maverick Players Sat In Critical Game And The Team Was Then Eliminated From The Playoffs, Indy’s Brady Ware Hits For Cycle, Throws No-No In Same Game, Golf Influencer Grace Charis Copies Paige Spiranac’s Topless Green Jacket Masters Look, and Charles Barkley Unleashes On PGA On Masters Weekend
Power Line: Germans Have Given Up On “Green” Energy, Biden Having Difficulty Making the Trans Run on Time, Can the Democrats’ Structural Advantages Be Overcome?, and What Do Voters Make of the Trump Indictment?
Shark Tank: State Rep Barnaby Compares Troons To “Demons & Imps”
Shot In The Dark: Acceptable Losses, also, Clear Priorities
The Political Hat: Education In England: Stripping Naked In Front Of Kids
This Ain’t Hell: DoD role-playing captures…Delta pilot, Racism dog whistle blown, Classified U.S. military documents leaked, Russia is suspected, Putin Supporter Hacked, and Rumble Case Video
Transterrestrial Musings: Dylan Mulvaney, Fedora Upgrade Issue, Restoring The Norms, and Our Need For A Miracle
Victory Girls: Veterans Furious Over Kirby Presser On Afghanistan, also, Bud Light VP Wants “Inclusivity” In Marketing
Volokh Conspiracy: Two (Wrong) Mifepristone Court Rulings in One Day, also, Law School Free Speech, Wokeness, and “The Etiquette of Equality”
Watts Up With That: How Climate Reductionism is Itself Causing Bad Science, Biden’s Gift to the Climate Movement – A Deep Economic Recession?, and UCLA’s Daniel Swain and NPR’s David Romero Collude to Flood Our minds with a River of Climate Fear Mongering!
Weasel Zippers: Joe Rogan Slams “F*cking Crazy” Articles About “Misgendering” Nashville Shooter, Occasional Cortex Tries To Explain How “The Courts” Work – Failure Ensues, and Kamala Harris Ignores Nashville Victims’ Families During Recent Trip
The Federalist: From John Wayne To John Wick, American Cinema Loves The Noble Outlaw, ND Republicans Must Override Gov. Burgum’s Veto Of Ranked-Choice Voting Ban, Election Integrity Group Says, Congress Wouldn’t Be So Dysfunctional If Democrats Read Their Own Bills Before Passing Them, Perry Verdict Shows Urgency To Confront Blue City Prosecutors, and Biden Is Still Covering Up His Deadly Afghan Withdrawal
Mark Steyn: Kill the Wabbit: What’s Opera, Doc?, Looney Tunes and Ask Me Anything, Tal Bachman – Reflections at Easter and Passover, and Coronation Showdown

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Category: Linkagery

Louisville Bank Shooter: Trump-Hater Livestreamed His Murder Spree

Posted on | April 10, 2023 | 2 Comments

Today I was trying to get together my tax forms while the news was breaking about the shooting at a bank in Louisville and, as usual when such incidents happen, was wondering: “One of ours or one of theirs?” While most mass shootings have no real political angle, everybody has become accustomed to the blame game surrounding such incidents, and my hunch (once it was reported that the target was a bank) was this had to be one of theirs, because Republicans generally like banks.

We don’t know the motive yet, but . . .

The suspect in a Monday morning massacre at a Louisville bank has been identified as a 23-year-old former varsity hoops star and finance grad-turned-banker who livestreamed the horrific attack.
Louisville Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel identified the suspect as Connor Sturgeon, who worked at Old National Bank’s downtown Louisville branch.
Gwinn-Villaroel said Sturgeon was livestreaming as he opened fire at about 8:38 a.m. in the Old National Bank Building, which houses the bank and a variety of other businesses, killing four people and injuring nine more, including two police officers. Sturgeon was killed after exchanging gunfire with officers, she said, but it’s unclear if he was killed by police or by self-inflicted gunshots. . . .
Two now-defunct Twitter accounts that appear to belong to Sturgeon included tagged photos of him on the athletics track and the basketball court as a 6’5’’ junior on Floyd Central’s basketball team. More recently, he hosted a basketball-focused podcast with two buddies and tweeted about the NBA in between posts in support of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, as well as some criticism of police violence and of then-President Donald Trump.
Citing sources, local network WAVE3 reported that Sturgeon was fired from Old National Bank last week.

Sturgeon’s friends say he suffered multiple concussions while playing sports, and wondered if that might have had something to do with his descent into murderous madness. And speaking of mentally damaged people, Joe Biden quickly issued a statement:

How many more Americans must die before Republicans in Congress will act to protect our communities? It’s long past time that we require safe storage of firearms. Require background checks for all gun sales. Eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. We can and must do these things now.
A strong majority of Americans want lawmakers to act on commonsense gun safety reforms. Instead, from Florida to North Carolina to the U.S. House of Representatives, we’ve watched Republican officials double down on dangerous bills that make our schools, places of worship, and communities less safe. It’s unconscionable, it’s reckless, and too many Americans are paying with their lives.

You see how this works? Regardless of the fact that the killer was clearly a Democrat, still Joe Biden must always blame Republicans.



 

 

Category: Crime, Kentucky

Rule 5 Sunday: Elena Santarelli

Posted on | April 10, 2023 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Originally spotted on the r/ToplessInJeans subreddit (NSFW), Elena is an Italian model, TV peronality, and actress.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #2042, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Gun-Free Zone Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: MAGA Loomer (In or Out?), Frankie Avalon, Exodus: Gods & Kings, Yvonne DeCarlo, Abba, Debra Paget, Alexander Nevsky, Rabbit Hole, Babylon, Sanna Marin Loses, and The Vikings. 

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Christian Serratos, Like We Have a Choice, Fish Pic Friday – Fish Huntress Amy, Thursday Tanlines, Some Wednesday Wetness, Flotsam and Jetsam – Today’s The Day, Tattoo Tuesday, The Monday Morning Stimulus and Sunday Sunrise

FLAPPR: Big Naturals Need Support!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Crazy Nietsche – Der Freie Geist

Posted on | April 10, 2023 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Crazy Nietsche – Der Freie Geist

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.

Rule 5 Sunday: Sanna Marin
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
Flappr
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Chicago Votes for More Crime
The DaleyGator
First Street Journal
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Escaping the School Trap
357 Magnum
EBL

‘Adult Film Actress’
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: So Let It Be Written, So Let It Be Done
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

What Joe Biden Wants
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

Brain-Damaged John Fetterman Gets ‘Democrat Helper’ Served by CBS News
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

#WaxMyBalls Update
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.03.23
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Making History (Not in a Good Way)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.04.23
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.05.23 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.06.23 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.06.23 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

NY Prosecutor: ‘We Know Incarceration Doesn’t Really Solve Any Problems’
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

Crazy People Are Dangerous: Teen Psycho Tranny Arrested After Planning Mass Murder at Colorado Middle School
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.07.23
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending April 7:

  1.  EBL (17)
  2.  357 Magnum (16)
  3.  A View From The Beach (13)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Disaggregating Data on ‘Gun Violence’

Posted on | April 9, 2023 | 1 Comment

One of the things that liberals love to do is to discuss trends without examining the relevant context. Suppose we’re talking about childhood poverty, and the liberal wishes you to be concerned about an increase in this problem. Would it be helpful to know how the data are different between, say, single-parent households and married-parent households? Or how would the data look if we broke it down by race, or by immigration status of the parents? Isn’t it likely that some significant part of the trend in childhood poverty is caused by an enormous influx of impoverished Latin American immigrants, many of them here illegally? Yet even among immigrants, aren’t children less likely to grow up in poverty if they’re living in a two-parent married family household?

On this issue, as on so many other issues, you cannot understand what’s happening and why it’s happening if you do not disaggregate the data, breaking it down by demographic categories. A remarkable example of this was provided by Steve Sailer on the recent increase in homicide among teenagers:

This is absolutely breathtaking. Despite the fact that blacks are 14% of the U.S. population, they accounted for seven times as many teenagers killed by gun violence in 2021, and nearly all of the increase in homicides in the 15-19 age group between 2019 and 2021. Sailer was able to extract this information from the CDC database, and perhaps others (including Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell) could have done the same thing, if they had tried, but of course, they didn’t try. Because they don’t care. They just want to scare people with a number about a trend, without providing the context necessary to understand the trend.



 

 

Category: Crime, Media Bias
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