Niall Ferguson @nfergus
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"This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait."--George H.W. Bush on August 5, 1990. Full quote from Jon Meacham's biography. Future history students will be asked why this stopped being the reaction of a Republican president to the invasion of a… Show more
7:43 AM · Feb 20, 2025

JD Vance @JDVance
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This is moralistic garbage, which is unfortunately the rhetorical currency of the globalists because they have nothing else to say.

For three years, President Trump and I have made two simple arguments: first, the war wouldn't have started if President Trump was in office; second, that neither Europe, nor the Biden administration, nor the Ukrainians had any pathway to victory. This was true three years ago, it was true two years ago, it was true last year, and it is true today.

And for three years, the concerns of people who were obviously right were ignored. What is Niall's actual plan for Ukraine? Another aid package? Is he aware of the reality on the ground, of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans or their even more depleted industrial base?

Instead, he quotes from a book about George HW Bush from a different historical period and a different conflict. That's another currency of these people: reliance on irrelevant history.

President Trump is dealing with reality, which means dealing with facts.

And here are some facts:

Number one, while our Western European allies' security has benefitted greatly from the generosity of the United States, they pursue domestic policies (on migration and censorship) that offend the sensibilities of most Americans and defense policies that assume continued over-reliance.

Number two, Russians have a massive numerical advantage in manpower and weapons in Ukraine, and that advantage will persist regardless of further Western aid packages. Again, the aid is currently flowing.

Number three, the United States retains substantial leverage over both parties to the conflict.

Number four, ending the conflict requires talking to the people involved in starting it and maintaining it.

Number five, the conflict has placed--and continues to place--stress on tools of American statecraft, from military stockpiles to sanctions (and so much else). We believe the continued conflict is bad for Russia, bad for Ukraine, and bad for Europe. But most importantly, it is bad for the United States.

Given the above facts, we must pursue peace, and we must pursue it now. President Trump ran on this, he won on this, and he is right about this. It is lazy, ahistorical nonsense to attack as "appeasement" every acknowledgment that America's interest must account for the realities of the conflict.

That interest--not moralisms or historical illiteracy--will guide President Trump's policy in the weeks to come.

And thank God for that.
1:39 PM · Feb 20, 2025//

People cheered Vance's statement.

David Limbaugh called it "one for the ages."

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said:

Amen. Thank goodness we have a President and Vice President who put America first and acknowledged what has always been the reality in Ukraine. We should pursue a peaceful and realistic outcome, not death, debt, and war.

White House reporter Charlie Spiering said Ferguson "laments the loss of Republican neocons like George H.W. Bush." //

What Ferguson said he took issue with was he thought they were conceding too much off the bat, based on what he was reading, including taking NATO membership off the table, conceding territory, as well as a peacekeeping force that could include China.

I earnestly hope that the Trump administration can negotiate an end to this war. But if we end up with a peace that dooms Ukraine first to partition and then to some future invasion, it will be a sorry outcome. To repeat, I agreed with most of your criticisms of Europe at Munich. I would add that the Europeans have talked for “strategic autonomy” for too long without making a serious attempt to achieve it.

But you and President Trump campaigned last year with a slogan that dates back even further than George H.W. Bush’s words that I quoted. That phrase was “peace through strength.”

I would note a few things. Ferguson is assessing things based in part on what he is reading. He's not aware of what's going on in the private discussions.

Further, I think Trump has already made his "peace through strength" clear.

stickdude90
9 hours ago
Remind me again why we spend so much blood and treasure to protect these blowhards...

jri500 anon-fv7m
6 hours ago
Bill Clinton and his buddy, Bernard Schwartz (LORAL Space) GAVE China our ballistic missile gyroscope guidance technology. Just gave it to them because liberals couldn't stand the fact that the US was the world's lone super power at the time. China's missiles couldn't reach orbit. Clinton moved the gyro technology from Defense to the Commerce department, and put a CIA satellite on a Chinese rocket. And when that rocket crashed, the Chi Coms sifted the wreckage and reverse engineered our gyros. When Clinton took office, China had zero (0) nuclear missiles capable of hitting the US mainland. When he left office, they had 20. //

Dieter Schultz stickdude90
6 hours ago edited
Remind me again why we spend so much blood and treasure to protect these blowhards...
I think you might be looking at the US being forward deployed and allied with nations around the world... through the wrong lens.

Yes we're spending money stationing forces around the world and, yes, some... maybe a lot of these countries... don't appreciate or deserve our protection but... look at it from the point of view of avoided costs.

But, we can't understand avoided costs unless we consider what isolationism might really cost us in the bigger scheme of things.

We were, mostly, isolationists between 1910 and 1940... not spending money with alliances and forward deploying our forces. Because of that the bad guys in the world didn't believe we'd respond as they gobbled up other countries. What they did believe, and what Churchill said so elegantly in some of his writing, was that if the US allowed its natural allies to fall, the position that the US would be in, strategically, would be difficult in the extreme.

So we stayed out of the areas but, when we were finally forced to act the costs in treasure and lives of our youth was great... far, far greater than they would have been if the Germans and Japanese really believed we would fight to stop them.

Since the end of WWII we've made a lot of mistakes and many of those mistakes have cost us 10s of thousands of our youth and untold treasures but, even with Russia's aggressive moves in the world, we haven't had a repeat of the carnage, loss of life, and expenditures of the country's treasures.

But, we should ask ourselves, even if we've helped protect people that didn't seem to appreciate and value our sacrifice, if, like happened to us leading up to WWI and WWII, would we have likely gotten sucked into another one of the continent's or world's battles and cost ourselves 10 or 100 times the loss of carnage, loss of life, and expenditures of our treasure anyway?

I see the discussions about forward deploying our forces around the world much like the Chesterton's Fence and we should ask ourselves, why that fence was needed in the first place?

Many in this country just want to tear down that fence but, as Chesterton might see it: "If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’”

Mrs. deWinter
6 hours ago
One thing that struck me reading Trump's statement here in this article is how much information President Trump gives the public about his phone call with Putin. The details, the ideas, the goals, the reasons, the strength. When Biden made calls, we barely knew about them, and there were no details given. The transparency of this new administration is so welcoming and a relief. We know who is in charge and we know what they are doing.

In the ever-evolving landscape of energy logistics, Russia is exploring an unconventional approach that could redefine the transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Imagine this: massive nuclear-powered submarines quietly carrying LNG beneath the icy waters of the Arctic, bypassing traditional shipping routes and geopolitical hurdles. This ambitious idea, proposed by Russian experts, might seem like something out of a science fiction novel, but it reflects a bold strategy to navigate a challenging economic and political environment. //

The proposed submarine model would weigh a staggering 180,000 tons and boast a draft of under 14 meters, making it capable of navigating areas that conventional LNG carriers cannot. The ability to traverse beneath the Arctic’s frozen expanse presents a tantalizing opportunity to shorten shipping times and bypass traditional chokepoints. //

The design isn’t just impressive—it’s revolutionary. Equipped with three Rhythm-200 nuclear reactors, the submarine would rely on 30 MW electric propellers, allowing it to reach speeds of 17 knots (about 31.5 km/h). At 360 meters long and 70 meters wide, the vessel’s size rivals that of the world’s largest oil tankers. More importantly, its operational capabilities would cut transit times between Arctic gas fields and Asian markets from 20 days to just 12.

This innovation isn’t solely about speed. These nuclear-powered giants could safely operate year-round, including during the harsh Arctic winter months when sea ice renders many traditional shipping lanes impassable. //

Russia’s largest LNG producer, Novatek, recently announced plans to acquire 16 ice-class LNG carriers. Yet sanctions and technological barriers have stymied progress, highlighting the difficulties of expanding Arctic shipping routes. By turning to nuclear-powered submarines, Russia hopes to sidestep these roadblocks while reinforcing its sovereignty over the Arctic.

Christmas Day, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight JS-8243 crashed while attempting an emergency landing at Aqtau Airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan. There were 67 passengers and crew aboard; at least 38 died in the crash, and the body count may climb as hospitalized passengers succumb to their injuries. Russian aviation authorities blamed the loss on a massive bird strike, but the intact tail section bore the tell-tale marks of a hit by a missile fired from an SA-22 Greyhound (Russian name: Pantsir) surface-to-air missile system. Read the background in my post: Azerbaijan Airline Crash Was Most Likely Caused by a Russian Missile.

Despite warnings from the Kremlin not to speculate on the cause of the crash, Azerbaijani officials have told the media Flight JS-8243 was brought down by a Russian missile. //

It was the drone attack, not fog, that prevented JS-8243 from landing.

Near Grozny, the plane was hit by a Russian missile. The plane asked to divert to airports at Makhachkala or Mineralnye Vody, but permission was denied, and it was told to land at Aqtau Airport. Essentially, it was forbidden to land in Russian territory. As the plane left the Grozny area, it was subjected to GPS jamming and other electronic warfare effects. "According to data, the plane’s GPS navigation systems were jammed throughout the flight path above the sea."

By now, the plane had lost steering, and the pilot and co-pilot were managing direction and altitude by using engine power. This is what the flight looked like with altitude changes. //

By any standard, the flight crew on JS-8243 were heroic. By keeping the fatally damaged aircraft in the air and accomplishing a controlled crash near the Aqtau Airport, they saved nearly half the people on board. //

flyovercountry
11 hours ago
It needs to be said over and over, the reason why the Russians denied landing anywhere except Kazakhstan is the hope the airplane, and evidence, would be at the bottom of the Caspian Sea.

The Russian ship Ursa Major sank in the western Mediterranean Tuesday after a series of explosions just above the waterline, and the Russians are blaming "terrorism." The 16,000-ton freighter was 12 days into a 42-day voyage from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok carrying two desperately needed cargo cranes for that port, two 45-ton hatches for a Project 10510 icebreaker that was under construction when three engine room explosions rocked it. Two of the 16-man crew were reported missing and presumed dead. The ship was under US sanctions authorized by Executive Order 14024, imposed in August 2022, for activities related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. //

Terrorism would be code for a Ukrainian attack.

In my view, the description of the incident does not match the video, so it is possible the description was manufactured out of whole cloth or based on bad information from the crew. We'll never have imagery of the alleged holes in the ship's hull. The fact that the Ukrainians haven't boasted about the operation makes me skeptical of their involvement. All that is certain is that Russia lost one of its largest freighters carrying critical cargo for operations in Vladivostok. //

Min Headroom
9 hours ago edited
I have no trouble believing that the Russians managed to sink their own ship, although if the hole(s) really are inward facing this seems unlikely.

A 19” inward facing hole above the water line might suggest some sort of drone strike, but if UKR isn’t crowing about it that seems unlikely too.

But this gets me to the thing I don’t understand: how does a hole above the water line sink a ship in very little time?

So what I’d go to is a flawed narrative, which Russians excel at, and no real information besides the ship is sunk, valuable cargo and all. //

Louise1 Min Headroom
3 hours ago
There might also be holes on the port side, which weren't visible because they were below the water line.

Finnish commandos boarded and seized an oil tanker Thursday that is believed to have temporarily disabled the Estlink-2 power line connecting Finland and Estonia. The vessel in question, the Cook Islands-registered Eagle S, was traveling from St. Petersburg to Port Said, Egypt. The Eagle S is thought to be part of Russia's "shadow fleet" that smuggles Russian crude oil to market. //

This is the fourth time power or telecom cables crossing the Baltic have been damaged by deliberate actions. In October 2023, a Chinese container ship damaged a gas pipeline and two telecom cables between Finland and Estonia by dragging an anchor across them; see Chinese Container Ship Suspected of Deliberately Damaging Estonia-Finland Gas Pipeline. In November 2024, a Chinese ship disabled a 745-mile cable linking Germany and Finland and a 135-mile cable linking Lithuania and the Swedish island of Gotland, again by dragging an anchor across them. In this case, the Danish Navy detained the ship but it doesn't appear to be in any danger of consequences: see Denmark Detains Chinese Ship Suspected in Cable Cutting Incident. Authorities from Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Denmark were finally allowed to board the vessel after a month-long standoff, but they were not allowed to investigate. They are only allowed to observe the Chinese investigation. This goes to my point yesterday as to why we must reach some sort of agreement with Denmark on Greenland because the Chinese own too much of Denmark's economy and, I believe, government to be relied upon to keep China from controlling that vital Arctic region; see Trump Trolls Canada, Denmark, and Panama for Christmas but Behind the Fun He Makes Serious Points. //

In addition to the AIS data showing Eagle S making very curious maneuvers over Estlink-2 and the absence of one of its anchors, the documentary evidence has the profile of an oil smuggler. //

The obvious collaboration of Russian-controlled and Chinese-registered vessels to damage the telecom and power grid running beneath the Baltic Sea threatens NATO and the EU. NATO must take this hybrid war being waged underwater seriously and develop equally serious strategies for combatting it. What can't be tolerated is China stepping in to block investigations and legal actions by affected countries. //

Mildred's Oldest Son
6 hours ago
As the article says, all of these undersea pipelines/cables/internet connections are well charted. The Russian/Chicom/Iranian/whoever, et al are testing the responses to cutting these important, international connections. So far, the west is on the defensive.

In the early days of Russia's war on Ukraine, President Joe Biden boldly declared he was ready to seize "ill-begotten gains" of the region's oligarchs.

But in the years before Moscow twice invaded Ukraine, Democrats enriched themselves politically and personally from such oligarchs and businesses in the region while empowering Vladimir Putin with energy and technology deals that still haunt America today.

GALTean
5 months ago
russians threaten with nukes??? Must be a day ending in Y...seriously how many of their nukes would even launch and go bang WHEN they are supposed to and not immediately or not at all? After seeing Ivantech in action in Ukraine and my time in the cold war going up against the soviet crap...I would say that most may be painted telephone poles.

streiff GALTean
5 months ago
the last Russian nuke test was 1990. So there's 30 years of Russian maintenance and quality control at work on those warheads.

Dieter Schultz streiff
5 months ago
I've noted this before...

There's been some discussion here and elsewhere that Russia's nuclear arsenal and delivery vehicles are largely past their useful designed lifespan. One news site suggested that Russia ended the inspection of their nuclear arsenal four or five years ago, in large part, because they didn't want western countries to discover the sorry state of their arsenal.

Laocoön of Troy streiff
5 months ago edited
You know...it just occurs to me that Russia could put to rest any doubts about their nukes by doing an above-the-ground public nuke test at their Semipalatinsk Test Site. Of course, suitably observed and recorded by their usual Western media allies. It would exponentially increase their leverage in terms of their threats. But so far Putin hasn't gone there. Why?

streiff Laocoön of Troy
5 months ago
for the same reason the USSR didn't invade Western Europe, they know how f***ed they are and we have too many centers of influence with a financial/power stake in making the threat larger than it is.

The obvious question was, who did it? Four suspects emerged: the United States, Ukraine, an undetermined party probably involving Poland, and Russia. But, as stated in Putin’s PR Machine Throws up Smoke as the Nord Stream Pipeline Explosion Investigation Begins, my personal view is that Russia was the most likely culprit.

1. The pipelines were not producing income; they were costing money to operate.
2. The war forced Nord Stream customers to find other sources, and it was unlikely that Nord Stream would operate again.
3. It made it clear to Germany what the price was for helping Ukraine.
4. It avoided breach of contract financial penalties that would hit Gazprom if Germany desired to re-open the pipeline, and Russia refused.
5. The repair cost of the pipelines was insured.
6. Breaching the pipelines at the deepest part means that the shortest area would be flooded, and the damage would be the cheapest to repair.
   In my view, the bonus was that the explosions took place in Scandinavian fishing grounds, and the first explosion was in the vicinity of a new Norway-Poland pipeline which gave it a “nice pipeline you’ve got there, it’d be a shame if anything happened to it” flavor.

Two days after the Cuban foreign ministry claimed that the island's regime discovered a human trafficking ring responsible for impressing Cubans into military service under Russian command in Ukraine, The Intercept posted excerpts from documents hacked from an email account belonging to a Russian military officer.

Deputy Defense Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, speaking at the daily Pentagon press briefing, identified the missile as " an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile" based on an existing ICBM design. She also confirmed that Russia had alerted the Pentagon to the launch in accordance with nuclear risk reduction protocols. //

The fact that this was not an ICBM indicates that the strike was not Putin signaling an increase in escalation. Russia has used missiles in the same class since the early days of the war, particularly the Iskander IRBM. //

Russia's use of the existing nuclear risk reduction channels to warn the US of the launch indicates that Putin is concerned about how the United States and NATO perceive his actions. //

Now that we know what the missile was, we still aren't sure what we saw in the video.

The video shows the same attack twice, probably to make it longer. The first problem is that there are no explosions at impact. A MIRV has a lot of kinetic energy; what is missing from the video is evidence of chemical energy. There seem to be about 17 individual warheads. If we use the Iskander as a proxy, this would reduce the throw-weight of each to about 100 pounds.

Compare this video with that of US MIRV tests at Kwajalein Atoll.
https://youtu.be/3ZM3y5qpMgY
https://youtu.be/Eh96NdcgE2Y

The lack of damage and casualties reported from Dnipro also hints that the warheads were purely kinetic, which begs the question of their guidance system.

Had this sort of attack been allowed since the early days of the war, there is a good chance the conflict would have concluded by now. The insanity of allowing Russia to use weapons made from US components to strike deep inside Ukraine while forbidding Ukraine to use American-made weapons to strike military targets supporting Russia's invasion did nothing to prevent escalation and simply ran up the body count on both sides. Even as late as it has started, it increases the chances of President Trump bringing this war to a close in a way that does not resemble the Afghanistan fiasco and further damage US credibility. //

DaleS anon-isiz
6 hours ago
Tell us how the life of Americans was affected by Italy's conquest of Abyssinia in 1935. It wasn't, really, was it. If the outraged nations had stuck together and forced an ignominious withdrawal, it would've cost some money, perhaps even some blood -- not from us of course, as we limited ourselves to mere words. But as it was, all it was some remote Ethiopians losing their lives and their freedom. Hardly worth worrying about for a freedom-loving patriot, don't you think?

But it didn't end there -- not because Italy started WW2, but because every other aggressive nation on the planet saw clearly that the West was weak, and victories could be won cheaply and with little interference. It is in the interest of the United States, and every other non-expansionist country in the world, for wars of conquest to fail, and the quicker they fail, the better. Millions died worldwide, and hundreds of thousands of our own soldiers were killed. All in a war that never should have happened.

If the West turns away and Russia prevails, aggressor nations will be doing the risk/reward calculations for their own shopping list.

It's also worth remembering that Ukraine is only in this mess because our President convinced them good relations with the US was more important than keeping a nuclear deterrent. If Britain and the United States had been willing to guarantee Ukraine's boundaries back then, there would be no war in Ukraine. //

Carey J anon-isiz
11 hours ago
Today, it's give me Kyiv or I nuke the world. Tomorrow it's give me Warsaw, or I nuke the world, Next week, it's give me Berlin or I nuke the world. You don't stop aggression by throwing its victims under the bus. You stop aggression by making it clear that the aggressor will die, if he persists. In this case, you make it clear that Vlad, personally will die, in the first hour, that the Russian-majority regions of Russia will be devastated, and that Kadyrov's Chechen Orcs will rape their way through the radioactive ruins of Moscow and St. Petersburg, if he goes nuclear. Mutual Assured Destruction kept the nukes in the silos, in the First Cold War. I see no reason it won't work, in this one.

We supported MUCH worse bästards than Zelenskyy, during the Cold War. Syngman Rhee, Ngo Dinh Diem (before we assassinated him), Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein (before we deposed him) Shah Reza Pahlavi (before we dumped him, and ended up with Khomeini). The enemy of my enemy is my friend (or at least my ally). "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." - Edmund Burke. //

Carey J Froge
7 hours ago
I'm not prepared to bet NYC that they don't. But I don't think Vlad the Defenestrator is willing to bet Moscow and St. Petersburg that they do.

any North Korean troops that do come out of this with real-life combat experience and do return to North Korea will be the first Nork soldiers with real combined arms and large-scale combat experience since the Korean War. These troops could be valuable as a training cadre for any future North Korean operations — say, against South Korea.

The Spanish Civil War, we might note, served a very similar role in providing both German and Soviet troops with real-world combat experience.

The statement by DoD notes that there is as yet no confirmation that the North Korean troops have entered into combat operations against Ukrainian forces, but there's literally no other reason to move them into the Kursk region. While their most likely fate will be "cannon fodder," 11,000 fresh troops could make a difference for a while; but it's important to note that the DoD estimates Russia is losing 1,200 troops a day in the conflict, meaning that any numerical advantage provided by this influx will be eliminated in less than ten days.

Like a lot of competitors in the global launch industry, Russia for a long time dismissed the prospects of a reusable first stage for a rocket.

As late as 2016, an official with the Russian agency that develops strategy for the country's main space corporation, Roscosmos, concluded, "The economic feasibility of reusable launch systems is not obvious." In the dismissal of the landing prospects of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, Russian officials were not alone. Throughout the 2010s, competitors including space agencies in Europe and Japan, and US-based United Launch Alliance, all decided to develop expendable rockets.

However, by 2017, when SpaceX re-flew a Falcon 9 rocket for the first time, the writing was on the wall. "This is a very important step, we sincerely congratulate our colleague on this achievement," then-Roscosmos CEO Igor Komarov said at the time. He even spoke of developing reusable components, such as rocket engines capable of multiple firings.

A Russian Grasshopper
That was more than seven years ago, however, and not much has happened in Russia since then to foster the development of a reusable rocket vehicle. Yes, Roscosmos unveiled plans for the "Amur" rocket in 2020, which was intended to have a reusable first stage and methane-fueled engines and land like the Falcon 9. But its debut has slipped year for year—originally intended to fly in 2026, its first launch is now expected no earlier than 2030.

Overnight, Israel carried out air and sea strikes against an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ammunition dump on the Russian naval base at Khmeimim/Hmeimim, Syria. The attacks avoided Russian-manned facilities and were timed to coincide with the arrival of a suspected shipment of weapons from Iran by the sanctioned Qeshm Fars airline.

Russian and IRGC air defense systems were used, but video demonstrates their ineffectiveness to attacks from air-launched and sea-launched weapons. //

Shortly after the attack, Russia began evacuating diplomats and citizens from Lebanon and encouraged the 1.5 million Russians living in Israel to leave the country "while such opportunities exist." //

Russia has a decision to make about its adventure in Syria. It has shown that it is unable to either prevent attacks on its areas of interest or to credibly defend those areas when they are attacked. By allying itself with Iran, its reputation is inextricably attached to Iran's fate. If it continues to let IRGC thugs snuggle up to its facilities, inevitably, Russians are going to be killed, and then the Kremlin will have a whole new level of humiliation to contend with. //

Laocoön of Troy
2 hours ago
Word of caution:

"... Russia ambassador in Tel Aviv recommended that citizens in Israel consider leaving the country "while such opportunities exist." He said this in an interview with TASS. ..."

Evacuating your nationals from territory and nations you are preparing to go to war with usta be a sign of impending hostilities. We've done it, the old Soviet Russians have done it, and the Putinist Russian Federation have done it. If that holds in this instance are we looking at direct hostilities with Israel by the Russians? Are the Russians that stupid or desperate?

This bears watching.

Zelensky arrived in Pennsylvania on Monday, a hotly-contested election battleground state, courtesy of a U.S. taxpayer-funded C-17 Globemaster. What followed looked and sounded much more like a campaign stop than a diplomatic event, leaving onlookers to wonder exactly what the real purpose was. //

Vladimir Putin was never going to start a broader war with NATO because he knew he would lose. The Russian military is largely antiquated, poorly trained, and even more poorly led. He invaded Ukraine under Joe Biden for the same reason he invaded it under Barack Obama. Namely, to seize territory he sees as ethnically Russian. There is no larger plan for world domination if for no other reason than the reality that such a plan would be impossible to carry out.

Regardless, what Zelensky said and did on Monday is simply insane. He flew over to the United States at the behest of the Biden-Harris administration to trash their political opponents in a battleground state. //

Is Zelensky going after Trump and Vance because Democrats have prodded him to do so in exchange for taxpayer-funded support? Short of someone spilling the beans on what has been said behind the scenes, we may never know, but it sure seems like it. The appearance of impropriety is extensive, and the practical aspects of using government resources to have Zelensky come essentially campaign for Democrats six weeks before a major election is highly inappropriate. I get that there will be no impeachment inquiry into this, but in a government that wasn't eaten up with corruption, there would be. //

Frankly Speaking
6 hours ago
Let me get this straight. Ukraine is at war with Russia, yet both Zelensky and Putin have endorsed Kamala...

Kathy Hochul joins a growing list of prominent Democrats plausibly compromised by the Chinese Communist Party, up to and including Joe Biden and Tim Walz. //

The Chinese have compromised the Democrat Party in ways Democrats dream the Russians have infiltrated Republicans.

Two indictments this week shook the nation, revealing the lengths to which foreign adversaries have gone to compromise the integrity of the American political system. One indictment, however, was not like the other. In fact, one was far worse in just about every way imaginable. //

Yet the Russian interference effort to buy off a couple of oblivious influencers pales in comparison to Chinese operations that are targeting elected leaders who are actually in office.

Another indictment unsealed this week revealed the far more devastating details of a foreign rival compromising one of the most powerful governorships in the country. On Tuesday, the former deputy chief of staff for New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul was charged with a laundry list of offences, including crimes under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Federal prosecutors say Linda Sun, whose 14 years in the state government also included time under Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was actually working on behalf of the Chinese government. Sun was charged along with her husband, Chris Hu, for myriad financial crimes compromising the governor’s office in the nation’s fourth most populous state.

Trump War Room

@TrumpWarRoom
·
Follow
President Trump UNLEASHED:

"I'm talking now. DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR?"

🔥🔥🔥

9:47 PM · Sep 10, 2024

People enjoyed that one, especially when, with Trump going there, if she was planning it, she no longer could use it.

anon-klg1 Leontine
18 minutes ago
Trump said Harris went to negotiate with Russia and 3 days later they invaded Ukraine-

Harris said that wasn’t true - but that doesn’t mean it isn’t.

ABC asked Harris if she’d ever met Putin AND SHE DIDN’T ANSWER THE QUESTION. Starts talking about meeting Zelensky 5 times and then goes into some meaningless word salad.

And they just let her not answer. Didn’t pin her down at all as to whether this happened.

If - as Trump said- Harris was sent to negotiate with Russia and right after that they decide to invade Ukraine—- that’s important for people to know.

To see them not even clarify that point when they’d asked, iirc, repeated follow ups about January 6th, and whether Trump thought the election was stolen, was literally jaw dropping for me….and I didn’t think I had any illusions left about the MSM-

That‘s beyond just bias —- it’s covering for extreme incompetence —- it’s failing to even examine a candidate —

Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that I think the bias has gone so far-( to the point of outright irresponsiblity) that it will be off putting to more than just Republicans and will likely backfire on the Dems.

But Iran? If Iran were to obtain a nuke, either by building their own or just buying one from North Korea or Pakistan, that might very well be the flashpoint. This is a line that has not been crossed since 1945, and was Iran to torch off a nuke in Haifa - or New York - that would almost certainly plunge the world into conflict.

Watch Iran. Watch the least stable players. Hopefully, reason will prevail, but as von Clausewitz famously said, "Only the dead have seen the end of war."