brickhistory

Special Counsel Durham questioned in front of a grand jury a Georgia Tech contract data analyst as to why DoD - specifically DARPA - was using him to find out who hacked the DNC servers during 2016 campaign. Why was DARPA involved? I really, really, really hope some mid-level and senior-level governments heads eventually roll over this. The message to be apolitical as a government employee must be brutally reinforced or the misuse of government agencies/tools to harm political opponents will only continue and get worse.

Death on the Nile. The 69th remake of the Agatha Christie mystery. Pretty people dressed in pretty clothes on the Nile in late 1930s Egypt. No real action, no real skin (pity since Gal Gidot ((of course, she's in everything)) and Margot Robbie lookalike Emma Mackey are 9.5s...). Decent writing. Meh...ok date movie.

Clown show going on between various governments in NATO but not invoking NATO regarding sliding the Ukrainians some MiG-29s. Poland: We'll give you MiGs, send 'em to Ramstein, the Ukrainians pick 'em up. In return, you give us used F-16s. DC: Wha???!!! On a serious note, if this is some sort of a thing, where would the MiGs be based? Inside Ukraine and they are insta-HVAs for the Russians. Outside Ukraine and the host nation just joined the war. So, either a clownshow or some psyop thing that, again, I'm not smart enough to deciper.

That'll buff out...

Hay-sus Krist, this 'thing' won't die... Multiple political outlets have reported on the Clintons spooling up their "Clinton Global Initiative" machinery again. You know, that multi-hundreds of millions of dollars in donations for access to then-Senator, later SecState, later presumed POTUS heir apparent. When she crashed and burned in 2016, donations went down from the 10s of millions per year in, largely, foreign money - Russia/Saudi/Pakistan, etc - to the thousands. Now, the old band is getting back together. She's gonna try again.

Soooo, the Russia/Ukraine war spreads and involves NATO to include the US. How does that play out? How many ground divisions of various flavors will be required? How long will it take for the US to bring in serious numbers? How will the logistics flow? For how long? How about local ground and air defense of staging and flying bases needed to move/support kinetic ops inside Ukraine? How do the good guys tell the bad guys apart in an urban environment? Shedding a uniform is easy. Not everyone in Ukraine will welcome the intervention, particularly the further east the action might move. Would the Russians fight better if it becomes a direct fight of defense for them as opposed to being the aggressor against a smaller state? I.e., if this is NATO attacking Mother Russia, might the enthusiasm ramp up? Barring a full-on WWII level of effort in industry, increased shipping capacity, etc, etc, etc, this ain't happening. Which, by the way, would stretch us to the limit. And we would then be unable to respond anywhere else. Like Taiwan or Korea. Nor should it. Do you really believe that Old Europe - Germany/France/Italy, etc - is going to risk thousands of troops for this? Let alone the threat of catching airstrikes or a nuke if they are in the game? Also, those proudly proclaiming "I'll pay $6-7 per gallon" are awfully generous with those who aren't on the government dime at decent wages. Feeding any size family when the income is $20-30k or less becomes a no kidding fight to survive. Think of your airman who, unfortunately, got married at 18 and now has 2 kids and a spouse to try and feed/clothe/house when real inflation is taking 20% or more of his purchasing power. Another pretty immediate effect of this war is the supply of food - wheat/soy/etc - that has stopped. Egypt, as only one example, is a ticking bomb since they get 60% of their food from Ukraine. The Egyptian government subsidizes that purchase. Prices are more than skyrocketing. People get pretty cranky when they are starving. And that's just one country. Plenty of others almost in as bad of shape for feeding their people. Finally, this war going south for Russia (and I, again, hope it does), risks a nuke going off. If the war spreads outside the current conflict, the risk of that increases as does the number of targets on both sides. Blithely writing off those consequences as "meh" is dishonest. Go Ukraine; bleed Putin out, demoralize his forces, and the world should give you all the arms and supplies you can ever use, plus some. Anyone else pulls a trigger and this gets ugly everywhere.

Thank you for the reply. I genuinely mean that. The upper parts of your post replying to me weren't germane to the point from you I'm trying to understand so I cut them so I could just ask in response to the above: How?

No, sir, there is not, provided the action is against Ukrainians or Russians. I applaud the Ukrainians giving the Russkis a bloody nose and I hope they eventually hand Putin his ass. Please demonstrate what US vital national interests are concerned between Russia and Ukraine? What is the line you deem worthy of US blood and treasure?

Interesting Slavic phrase...

Nope, the suffering is only on the attacked side. Bleed out Ivan and this stops and won't happen again...

It's not taking disagreeing... G'night, folks. I'll be here all week. Tip your servers...

Something just seems "odd" with a couple of the most vociferous posters. I'm not smart enough to recognize the "why," but it sure does seem like it. Of course, we have a couple of posters who are happy with the self-inflicted COVID vaccine casualties that an enemy couldn't do much worse...

Having been to both Madrid and Chicago, I'd exchange them in a heartbeat. Shipping might be cost prohibitive, however...

Roger... And I found it easier to engage with you rather than the AS200 facts master. I only have a foil to battle the Claymore broadsword of buzzwords so I declined the battle...

I've written, repeatedly in this thread, that A) I will not be surprised if Putin has his ass handed to him, he uses a tactical nuke inside Ukraine. If third country parties use armed force against Russian forces, that prediction is doubled, but the mushroom cloud will be inside Ukraine. B) What nuclear nation would trade any of their cities for one in Ukraine should Putin take that action? If any outside nuclear nation retaliates against Moscow kinetically, especially nuclear, then the very large arsenal there will be used. Are you advocating trading Chicago for Kyiv? Are you advocating for the post-explosion effects that will result from such an exchange? Do not mistake my sentiments. If Putin pulls a small nuclear trigger, he's toast literally. His own folks will off him to try and contain this mess from WWIII with multiple nukes going off around the world. The best scenario, if this goes that far, is that Putin gives the order to light up one in Ukraine and the nuclear forces refuse the order. I don't see many scenarios where Putin comes out of this alive. The trick is to limit the number of other people that run advance for his trip to hell.

Who's nuclear forces will strike Moscow in your scenario? Think that answer through...

Vindman, is that you?

World class post right there. And not in a good way.

I wonder if any of the supporters of the storming of COVID Beach regret the needless casualties DoD suffered now that the world is going back to somewhat normal? I'm betting not.

Kinzinger has got to be sweating bullets since CNN was sold and the new owners have said they are moving away from opinion and back to news. 1. Proof will be CNN's actions. 2. With 50% of his cable network shows not likely to be wanting a token "republicans are bad talking skull, his post-Congress options narrow. 3. Blankets.

That's certainly one way to reply. Not necessarily the way I would, but it is one way. If Putin really is having his ass handed to him, he's fcuked. Either he wins or he, literally, dies. Combine that with the putting the Russian Empire back together fantasy, and there's some real bats in the belfry occurring. If he's got nothing to lose, a tactical nuke inside Ukraine is a real possibility. 1 in 4 or so odds IMO. I disagree with your analysis about world reaction. First, global markets will absolutely crash should a nuke go off. Crash into deep recession, if not full depression areas. And that's in the short term before the humanitarian clean-up begins. The crash will upend markets and the reserve currencies in use now. If a nuke goes off in Ukraine, not one nuclear power is going to respond with a mushroom cloud in Russia. Such a retaliation means trading a Ukraine spot for L.A. or London or Berlin, etc with the next salvo to be launched from Russia. Not gonna happen. China will watch this passivity when comes to such stakes and will plan accordingly, very confident that Taipei isn't going to be traded for LA. Middling countries will go as fast as they can to get nukes since the modern precedent has been set and that the only way to prevent such an attack on them is to have their own deterrent. There will be more proliferation, not less. I hope Ukraine continues to bleed out Russia. But Putin has lots more troops and equipment if he really decides to end this, but at the cost of weakening himself in other precarious areas of Russia. Will he gamble? Obviously, I don't know. But I don't believe he will go out without a bang at the tactical level. Or at least the order to make something go bang. Having that order obeyed might be a different story. One hopes so...

Please note the source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/21/fact-sheet-us-assistance-ukraine

And yet that aid, to include weapons, got there. And Russia didn't take any parts of Ukraine then. Unlike the last time Biden was point man for Ukraine and that administration sent blankets. That cost Ukraine Crimea. So far, Biden's given the ok to "a limited incursion." As well as cashing various 10% checks payable to "the big guy" from Hunter's Ukrainian adventures. So...I'll take what are anti-tank rounds for a $1000 over What are blankies for $500. Now do Afghanistan withdrawal planning...

Cyrano. Very good date movie (or if you really, really like Broadway musicals...not that there's anything wrong with that...) Advance spoilers: It's a musical. It's a tearjerker. Both were strikes I wasn't looking forward to, but I promised CinCHouse that I would take her. Outstanding movie and Peter Dinklage acted his ass off. No regrets.