Landscape with a Hunter – Valaam Island, Ivan Shishkin, 1867
Open Thread – Weekend 18 March 2023
1,548 responses to “Open Thread – Weekend 18 March 2023”
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P says:
March 20, 2023 at 3:17 pmQuiet Part, Out Loud – Polish Ambassador Warns If Ukraine Not Successful NATO Will Join War Against Russia
March 19, 2023 | SundanceStupid warmongers.
If that happens, and it’s not just being belligerent for no reason, there just maybe, that Poland seizes to exist once and for all.I don’t wish that on any nation but can’t understand the polish behavior in this conflict.
They can win territory if UKR is defeated.
No personal interest in this conflict, but baiting the Bear is a dangerous past time. -
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The muzzies don’t wear uniforms and hide behind other muzzies. So how do you tell innocent muzzies.
This is why the Geneva Accords afford no protection to un-uniformed combatants. Captured on the battlefield such combatants can be summarily executed.
The purpose of this is the protection of genuine civilian non combatants. If the ADF rules of engagement rule out executing un-uniformed combatants then they are putting genuine civilians at serious risk of being killed where insurgents mingle with the population.
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Building separate Trans Loos is not a bad idea.
At huge cost to the Aussie taxpayer for a tiny percent of the population. But I doubt that there’s any alternative, although the trans will be furious that we’ve removed their reason to be furious.
Label the individual loos offered to Disabled people as also available for Trans. They’d shriek of course, for they don’t see being trans for what it is – a mental disability. Too bad. Better than having your daughter having to fend off some male creep peering at her tampon string in a change room.
Separate them. Off course they won’t like it. As Cassie and others have said, it defeats their purpose to be seen as separate from real women. -
OMG, just watched two five-minute clips on “salute-gate”
Channel 10 daytime TV, & Das Projekt.
Takeaways:
The ladies speaking at “Let Women Speak” are “Anti-trans protesters” who are associates of out-&-proud Nazis.
The Trannys & the Groomers are “Counter protesters”
The blokes in generic black, marching badly, & giving a couple of Roman salutes are “Neo-Nazis” who “spread hate & violence”Or the opposite of what each of those groups actually did on the weekend.
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alvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity says:
March 20, 2023 at 10:17 pmOk I am a bit slow – 1 sec
Lol, yeah it’s really hard. Even my dog would take about two whole seconds to spot the “odd letter out”
I think in my case Colour Blindness helped, as the X stood out like a Dog’s Hind Leg!
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Jay Powell kicked over a log, now everything’s crawling out
The Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank announced tonight that the U.S. is going to loosen access to dollars for the rest of the world’s central banks, a repeat of a move made in 2009, also aimed at shoring up flagging confidence in the banking system.
It does feel like the contagion inside the system could be easier to contain than in 2008, because of how thoroughly the housing bubble and mortgage-backed securities had seeped into everything then. The toxicity this time seems to come from even simpler types of fraud, but it remains to be seen how pervasive it is.
Jay Powell hiking interest rates the past year is increasingly looking like a guy in the backyard kicking over a log, not prepared for everything crawling underneath. Think of quantitative easing and the loose money of the last decade as the rotting wood that hid and nourished a perfect ecosystem of corruption.
If we look at the banks that have failed so far, we see a few common threads emerging, with fraud and Ponzi-like thinking at the heart of them. The question now will be how much of this toxic stuff there is tucked away inside other banks. If it’s largely isolated to the shadier side of the finance industry, the backstopping by the globe’s central banks might be enough to contain it. We’ll see.
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to inculpate your grandfathers for war crimes in the last two World Wars
Pretty sure all but a handful of the grandpas (or in my case father) who served in WWII are dead.
I’m only concerned that completely unreliable witnesses aka Afghani guerillas and their families are given any credence.
Especially if there is compensation attached. -
A FURTHER PERSPECTIVE
Trump’s real crime is that he challenged and undermined the established political order.
“With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for who has committed it,
it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm — in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies.
It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.”
(Emphasis added)
— Attorney General Robert Jackson’s address to the Second Annual Conference of United States Attorneys, April 1940“Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”
— Lavrentiy Beria, Chief of Soviet Secret Police under Joseph StalinOn Tuesday, former President Donald Trump will be arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Reportedly, the charges will pertain to alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels which purportedly violated campaign finance laws. Alvin Bragg, the Soros-funded progressive District Attorney, has yet to explain the legal theory underlying the charges. But, given his alarming and astounding demolition of Manhattan’s criminal justice system, it will no doubt be a counterintuitive and inventive interpretation of the law.
No matter what charges are brought, it is clear that this prosecution will be just one more tawdry political hit job. Compared to the Hillary Clinton-concocted Trump-Russia collusion smear, the FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the two baseless impeachments voted by the House Democrats, and multiple tax audits, Bragg’s case — whatever its theory — would seem to be, in the immortal words of The Godfather II’s Hyman Roth, “small potatoes.”
But, however overreaching and flimsy his case may be, Bragg will have succeeded where others have failed. Charging Trump in an overwhelmingly progressive venue all but guarantees his conviction. The accolades and political rewards for Bragg will be incalculable.
Similarly, down in Atlanta, Fani Willis, the Democrat District Attorney of Fulton County, is reportedly sitting on a grand jury report concerning possible criminal charges against Trump for his interactions with state officials about the 2020 presidential election.
Imagine that. A candidate complaining to responsible officials about the conduct and outcome of an election. It seems that we are about to be told that such behavior is criminal.
Silly? Of course. But, in today’s woke and nakedly politicized world of criminal justice, any pretext will do as long as it can be used to harm those who challenge or offend the party in power.
So, when the media and the political establishment explode with joy and rapture as Trump is arrested, fingerprinted, mugshot and taken before a judge, keep in focus what is really happening.
His will be the first presidential arrest in American history, and, as such, it will mark a tragic and dangerous turning point on this nation’s descent into tyranny.
For Trump’s real crime was that he challenged and undermined the established political order. Against all odds, he conducted a hostile takeover of the Republican Party and drew to its banner millions of middle and working class voters. He gave those previously ignored and disenfranchised citizens a voice and acted on their behalf regardless of the consequences to the political and business interests of the Washington establishment. It is for that the Uniparty — Democrat and Republican alike — has hounded him and sought his destruction.
Trump has the resources and courage to withstand the onslaught. But the harsh lesson to others is clear.
To those who in the future may wish to challenge the power of the permanent political class, heed well what it is doing to Trump. This is the Uniparty’s playbook, and here’s its message: the vast wealth, emoluments, privileges, and power of government belong to us, and, if you get in our way, we will destroy you.
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A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family
By Miranda Devine
If Democrats really wanted Donald Trump to fade away, as they claim, then they would stop persecuting him.
Maybe they are so blinded by hatred that they can’t see that every time they use the heavy hand of the law against the former president, they just cement his status as MAGA martyr.
Or maybe they are so terrified of running against Ron DeSantis in 2024, that they actually want to martyr Trump to ensure he wins the Republican presidential primary ready for a repeat contest with Joe Biden.
In that scenario, Democratic prosecutors in New York and Georgia, and a partisan DOJ, play the role of picadors in a bullfight who soften up the bull with a thousand cuts before the decrepit old matador staggers out to finish him off.
Whether or not Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg really is about to arrest Trump this week, as has been reported, over trumped-up hush-money charges relating to a one-time assignation 17 years ago with porn star Stormy Daniels, Friday’s leak from the court could not have come at a better time for Biden.
The story that the first former president in American history would be charged with a crime, fingerprinted, put in a holding cell and maybe even perp-walked to humiliate him before the world is a dream come true for salivating Trump-haters.
Welcome WH distraction
But, more significantly, the story took the spotlight off the bombshell bank records released the previous day by the House oversight committee, showing $1,065,000 had been funneled from a Chinese energy company, through Biden intimate Rob Walker, to four immediate family members of Joe Biden: his son Hunter, brother James, and Hallie Biden, the widow of his late son Beau, who also is Hunter’s former lover.
Also listed as a recipient of the Chinese money, which was doled out to the four Bidens in regular small increments between March 6 and May 18, 2017, was an as-yet unidentified family member, listed only on bank wires as “Biden.”
Comer’s team has subpoenaed further bank records and is expected to reveal the identity of that mystery person this week.
In anyone’s language, that is a huge story.
Even The New York Times had to cover it, although with a typical “Republicans pounce” angle, and “balanced” by a story about an “investigation” by House Democrats into a supposedly missing gift to Trump from the Japanese Prime Minister of a $3,000 golf driver and $500 putter.
But the golf clubs are thin gruel against the impending exposure of the Biden family’s foreign influence peddling scheme, with then-VP Biden at its center.
So for the Democrats’ spin machine, it was time for a Trump scandal, always their tactic in a “break glass in case of emergency” moment like this, guaranteed to distract media attention, and keep voters in the dark about the real scandal swirling around Biden.
Enter Bragg, the Soros-funded, soft-on-crime DA who has been talking about Trump being indicted on something or other since at least 2019, and who made “Get Trump” a part of his election campaign.
His case is a joke. The allegation is that Trump falsified business records by concealing a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels which was made by his estranged former lawyer Michael Cohen in 2016.
Everything rests on the word of Cohen, a convicted perjurer, who testified before Bragg’s grand jury for three hours last Monday, and then again on Wednesday. Before that he had been in for interviews with the DA’s office at least 19 times.
But on Monday the grand jury will hear testimony from Bob Costello, a former legal adviser to Cohen before they fell out, who has acted for Trump’s some time lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and is a former supervisor with the Southern District of New York.
Costello will cite evidence contained in the 2020 book “The Fixers: The Bottom-Feeders, Crooked Lawyers, Gossipmongers, and Porn Stars Who Created the 45th President” that Cohen keeps changing his story about the Stormy Daniels payments and can’t be trusted.
Costello knows because he was an on-record source for the book and Cohen granted him a waiver of their attorney-client privilege to reveal what he had told him about his troubles when the feds first came knocking — and it’s nothing like what he’s saying now.
When prosecutors were told about the book Friday, they knew nothing about it, says a source, which doesn’t say much for their due diligence.
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LOTR is a very long fantasy novel, written as mentioned with Catholic themes.
If you don’t enjoy fantasy it probably isn’t your cup of tea.
I first read them when I was 18, and have purposely never finished the book so for the rest of my life I will always have something to look forward to.I’ve never watched or read the DA Vinci Code or Fifty Shades.
Nor do I intend to. -
Biden is vilifying efforts to protect children
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! — Isaiah 5:20I had thought that President Biden could not sink any lower than his bitter, Third Reich-style speech on Sept. 1, 2022, at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. That’s when he projected himself as a sweet angel of light while labeling MAGA Republicans as “extremist” and a “threat to democracy.”
But Mr. Biden outdid himself last Monday on “The Daily Show.” He came out for sexually mutilating children, disparaging those who would stand in the way of such horrors. As Dave Barry would say, I’m not making this up.
The self-professed devout Roman Catholic president, who backs abortion up to partial-birth infanticide, was lashing Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state legislature for acting to protect children from medical and educational quacks.
“What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, ‘close to sinful,’” Mr. Biden told show host Kal Penn. “It’s just terrible what they’re doing.”
I don’t think that word “sinful” means what he thinks it means.
A proposed Florida law (HB 1421) backed by Mr. DeSantis would bar doctors from giving minors puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones. It would ban cutting off girl’s breasts and castrating boys. It would prohibit penalties against health providers who decline to do such procedures.
Research shows that drug and hormone treatments pose serious health hazards to both males and females. And, far from preventing suicide, as the transgender lobby claims, surgeries often increase the incidence.Mr. Biden defended gender transition by saying, “It’s not like a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man’ or ‘I want to become a woman. I mean, what are they thinking about here? They’re human beings. They love, they have feelings, they have inclinations. It’s cruel.”
Hear that? It’s “cruel” to protect children from being drugged and mutilated before they have a clue about who they will eventually become.
The prefrontal cortex of the brain, which governs decision making and delayed gratification, does not fully mature until the mid-20s. It’s why we don’t let schools dispense an aspirin without a parent’s or doctor’s approval or let 15-year-olds vote, buy beer or sign contracts.
Upwards of 90% of gender-confused youth recover their natural sexuality by their late teens – unless they are waylaid by the trans cult, which is capturing a shocking number of young girls. Testimonies from “de-transitioners” who regret their sex change surgeries are heartbreaking. Mr. Biden would do well to hear them out.
Last year, Mr. DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” law, which the media mislabeled the“Don’t Say Gay Bill.” The statute, which became famous after Disney’s CEO attacked it, prohibits exposing schoolchildren to sexual lessons before the fourth grade and requires “age appropriate” materials from then on.
On the Daily Show, Mr. Biden said that the way to respond to Florida is to pass federal legislation “like we did with same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law and you’re going to be held accountable.”
Wonder how Mr. Biden is going to hold God “accountable” for creating males and females and natural marriage? Maybe he will shake his fist upward.
“Have you not read that He Who made them in the first place made them man and woman?” Jesus said, quoting Genesis. “‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will live with his wife. The two will become one’” (Matthew 19, 4-5).
In his bizarre Philadelphia speech, Mr. Biden actually lamented, “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.” That’s rich, coming from a guy whose Democratic Party is assaulting every societal norm under the sun.
In the final paragraph of that speech, Mr. Biden invoked God’s name no less than three times.
Blaise Pascal, the 17th century physicist and Christian philosopher, summed up such effrontery: “Evil is never done so thoroughly or so well as when it is done with a good conscience.”Pascal also warned against complacency in the face of evil:
“And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?”
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The Morning Briefing: Democrats’ Daddy Issues With Trump Aren’t Going to Work Out Well for Them
Well, that certainly was an interesting news weekend.
American Democrats are continuing their descent into a Trump-induced madness from which there obviously won’t be any return. They’ve escalated their insane war on Donald Trump to a point that has the potential to backfire in grand fashion.
They really didn’t think this one through. Then again, they haven’t thought any of their Trump tantrums through.
They’re blinded by rage and won’t stop until they get some red meat footage for the 14 viewers who still watch MSNBC and CNN.
Robert writes that the arrest of Trump that was originally planned for Tuesday may no longer be happening:
But now it turns out that the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has Trump in its sights, just may be stepping back from the brink: Business Insider reported Saturday night that Trump’s indictment is “on hold” until one more witness testifies Monday afternoon.
At first, it wasn’t clear who the witness would be, but Matt wrote last night that we now know his identity:
A source with knowledge of the “hush-money” investigation has confirmed to the New York Times that Rudy Giuliani lawyer Robert Costello, a former legal advisor to Michael Cohen, will be appearing before the grand jury on Monday with the sole intention of undermining Cohen’s credibility.
That shouldn’t be difficult to do as Cohen doesn’t have any credibility. It’s not likely that whatever Costello has to say will be enough to change New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s mind — he’s chomping at the bit to get his moment in the media as the guy who finally “got” Trump, no matter how fleeting the victory is.
Since the 2020 presidential election debacle, I’ve written on numerous occasions that the Democrats’ obsession with taking Trump off of the board only makes him stronger. Last December I wrote that, by referring Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, the House J6 Soviet Select Committee on Daddy Issues had opted to weaponize Trump with “political martyrdom.”
I have been consistently referring to the Democrats’ attempts to keep Trump off of the 2024 ballot as preemptive election interference. Catherine writes that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is now looking into whether it is.
Megan wrote a VIP column over the weekend that perfectly described what kind of effect arresting Trump will have. In it, she says that “ship-jumpers” like her will be “back on the Trump Train.” That will no doubt be playing out in large numbers across America. That’s plain to see for everyone but the Democrats:
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FBI Whistleblower Claims FBI Is Now a ‘Weaponized Apparatchik’ of the Biden Administration
Via Epoch Times:
There’s a growing divide between the rank-and-file officers of the FBI and upper management, according to FBI agent-turned-whistleblower Steve Friend, and it’s those at the top who are pushing a political agenda…
“There are a lot of agents that sort of share that sentiment and just want to drive the mission forward. Unfortunately, there’s a big disconnect between the rank-and-file and the management class…
“I think there’s an argument to be made that the FBI has now just become a weaponized apparatchik of the presidential administration,” he added, holding that public trust in the agency has diminished largely as a result of the perception of political bias.”
As I have previously documented, it’s incontrovertibly true that the national security apparatus, including the FBI, is now politicized and weaponized against what the intelligence community terms “domestic extremists.”
This amorphic designation — “domestic extremist” — refers to the populist right, anti-establishment grassroots activists who oppose the silent coup that the Deep State has waged against the American people for several decades. It simply means opposition to the growing technocratic tyranny but, of course, is couched in post-9/11 language of “terrorism” and its alleged threat to “national security.”
Where Friend may be wrong is that the intelligence community does not ultimately serve the Biden administration.
Biden is a disposable puppet who will be disposed of in due time when it becomes convenient. His current usefulness is his pliability and directability. He does not make decisions of consequence.
The true usurpers of power occupy the next level above even the elected portion of the executive branch — the proverbial “men behind the curtain,” which includes the likes of George Soros, Bill Gates, and their ilk. They operate across borders and are in the process of rendering the nation-state obsolete.
Let’s look, for example, at the curious case of current Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer invoking the Deep State to threaten the sitting president of the United States (Donald Trump at the time) into cooperating with the program.
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Was surfing teh webs, and found a recent ‘interview’ between the Aussie Cossack chap and Mr Bosi. Got seven minutes into two hours of Bosi’s assessments of other candidates in the NSW election. Highlights of those seven minutes:
1. He said Lyle Shelton was a ‘pedo protector’ and an ‘alleged Christian. Naturally, he said he was a true Christian;
2. He said Craig Kelly was unreliable, as although he went to the anti-vax protest he wore bright red shoes whilst doing so;
3. He said all militaries from all nations were ‘fighting a subterranean enemy’; and
4. Then went really long on Q, and all things Q.Click.
The comments were equally profound, including the usual pedos pedos pedos everywhere being hidden, that fish would be extinct within 24 years and that there were reports of chemtrails all along the eastern seaboard.
The upside was that Bosi was immaculately, and I mean immaculately attired. This was, however, spoiled somewhat by the very obvious Hair In A Can treatment.
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Moscow opens criminal case over Putin warrant
Russia’s investigative committee says the ICC prosecutor and judges acted “illegally”
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor and judges who issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin have become the targets of a criminal case, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Monday.
In a Telegram post, the committee said that it had opened cases against ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan, as well as judges Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez.
Khan sent a petition on February 22 to the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber to obtain warrants for the arrest of Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, whom he accused of being responsible for the “illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.” His petition was approved by the aforementioned judges.
Russia’s investigative committee has described the ICC prosecutions as “obviously illegal, since there are no grounds for criminal liability.”
It also pointed to the 1973 UN Protection of Diplomats Convention which grants heads of state absolute immunity from the jurisdiction of foreign countries.
The committee considers Khan’s actions a crime under Russian law for “knowingly bringing an innocent person to criminal liability, combined with unlawfully accusing a person of committing a grave or especially grave crime.” He is also charged with preparing an attack on a representative of a foreign state “with the intention of complicating international relations.”
The three judges are being accused of attacking a foreign state representative as well as attempting a “deliberately unlawful detention.”
Russia has disregarded the ICC warrant as having no legal basis, with ex-president Dmitry Medvedev suggesting it was a sign of the collapse of international law. He also described the ICC as “s**tty and wanted by nobody” and said it had a poor record of holding high-profile suspects accountable, explicit pro-Western bias and had failed to investigate US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Kremlin has officially reacted calmly to the ICC warrant. Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told RIA Novosti on Monday that there are already plenty of “openly hostile manifestations in relation to both our country and our president” and that taking it all “to heart” would not bring anything good.
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EU explosives shortage threatens Ukraine – FT
The bloc is struggling to further support Kiev with arms due to a lack of raw materials, sources told the outlet
The EU defense industry’s ability to provide Ukraine with military supplies has been hampered by a deficit of explosives, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing sources.
Several European officials and arms manufacturers told the outlet that the bloc’s military plants are suffering from scarce supplies of gunpowder and TNT, which could delay plans to boost shell production by three years. The sources also complained that this meant the defense industry would be unable to meet the soaring demand “regardless of how much money is thrown at the problem.”
“The fundamental problem is that the European defense industry is not in good shape for large-scale war production,” one German official told the outlet.
These concerns were echoed by Jiri Hynek, who chairs the Defense and Security Industry Association of the Czech Republic. He said, as quoted by the FT, that while building a new artillery factory “is very easy,” it is impossible to produce shells without raw materials.
The official proceeded to point out that “it’s not possible to increase, in a short time, nitrocellulose” production, which is the basic ingredient in gunpowder. “If I want to increase production of gunpowder I need probably three years,” he added.
To remedy the situation, the EU needs to find new sources of supply, according to Italian defense official Gianclaudio Torlizzi. He told the FT that the continent needs to approach countries that it had traditionally stayed away from. “Each European country wants to protect its availability of raw materials,” he explained.
EU officials have repeatedly voiced concerns about their dwindling arms stocks due to the bloc’s support of Ukraine. Last December, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell lamented that years of underinvestment had resulted in military stocks quickly running out. Against this backdrop, several key European officials have urged the bloc to switch over to a “war economy.”
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the New York Times reported that the US and its allies were running out of ammunition for Ukraine, which is burning through thousands of shells each day in the battle for the key Donbass city of Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine). According to the newspaper, Western officials worry that this process is “unsustainable” and could jeopardize Kiev’s planned springtime campaign.
Moscow has been warning Kiev’s Western backers that their military supplies would only prolong the hostilities rather than change the outcome and would make the countries providing such aid direct participants in the conflict.
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Ukrainian troops using 19th-?entury arms to defend key city – Telegraph
With modern weapons and ammo in short supply, Kiev’s forces are reportedly dusting off old Maxim guns
Ukrainian forces defending the Donbass town of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, are relying on Victorian-era Maxim guns, the Telegraph reported on Friday. Despite receiving tens of billions of dollars worth of US and NATO aid, Kiev is reportedly struggling with shortages of arms and ammunition.
“I have seen Maxim machine guns in stationary positions many times,” a Ukrainian soldier told the British newspaper. “Despite their age, it is a rather formidable weapon. The main thing is not to forget to add some water.”
Invented by Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884, the Maxim gun was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world. Firing a still-respectable 600 rounds per minute, the gun relies on a heavy water jacket around its barrel to prevent overheating. Sitting on iron wheels and weighing around 30 kilos before adding water or ammunition belts, it takes a crew of four people to operate.
Maxims were used by British colonial forces in Africa and by Imperial Russian forces in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. It was already considered obsolete by the First World War, with British forces using the lighter Vickers machine gun in its stead.
Sitting in Ukrainian armories since the country was a part of the Russian Empire, Maxims have been used on the frontline in Donbass since last year. While Ukrainian troops told the Telegraph that the Maxim is “a fairly effective weapon in capable hands,” some of Kiev’s servicemen have complained that they haven’t received newer gear.
“The Russians have artillery, armored vehicles, and their forces are five to six times greater than ours,” a sergeant near Severodonetsk told Radio France Internationale last July. “We only had machine guns and RPGs from 1986. A Degtyarov machine gun from 1943. And the Maxim machine gun from 1933.”
The US alone has sent Ukraine more than $37 billion worth of weapons and ammunition since Russia’s military operation began last February. With Western stockpiles dwindling, however, American advisers are instructing Ukrainian forces to conserve their ammo if they hope to mount a counteroffensive this spring.
Western military officials have also advised Zelensky against hanging on to Artyomovsk, which is nearly encircled by Russian forces at present. Kiev keeps casualty figures under wraps, but US officials believe that “upwards of 100,000 Ukrainian forces” have died since last February, with “many of these losses” taking place in the city, according to a Politico report earlier this week.
Although US officials have written off Artyomovsk as strategically insignificant, it is a vital logistics hub for the Ukrainian military. Control of the town would clear a path for Russian forces to push on towards Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, which sit along the last in a series of fortified lines built by Ukraine since the onset of its conflict with the Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014.
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NOTES ON THE TWITTER FILES (19)
1.TWITTER FILES #19
The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine
Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories”In this installment the authorities confront a crisis of disbelief in the teachings of Lord Anthony Fauci. As President Muffley almost says in Dr. Strangelove, “Gentlemen, you can’t disagree here, this is the Covid war room.” Actually, you can’t disagree anywhere. Say this for the authorities. Unlike Vice President Harris, they do not confuse “exasperate” for “exacerbate.” Their mania to suppress divergence from the teachings of Lord Fauci is beyond exasperating.
This installment presents the story of the Virality Project (VP). Miranda Devine gives us a helpful Reader’s Digest version here: “The Virality project, run out of Stanford, is a dedicated censorship operation to protect Fauci and suppress all negative data on COVID-19 vaccine. The mentality is that you are too stupid to be trusted with the truth.”
Taibbi summarizes his findings in tweets 8 and 9. He tells the story in chronological form in the subsequent tweets. As Taibbi suggests, he has opened a window onto the dystopia the authorities are working up for us.
Matt Taibbi
Mar 18, 2023
@mtaibbi
8. – This story is important for two reasons. One, as Orwellian proof-of-concept, the Virality Project was a smash success. Government, academia, and an oligopoly of would-be corporate competitors organized quickly behind a secret, unified effort to control political messaging.9.Two – , it accelerated the evolution of digital censorship, moving it from judging truth/untruth to a new, scarier model, openly focused on political narrative at the expense of fact.
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Gotta wonder about this shortage of modern weapons and explosives for the Ukraine! .. according to the media the ‘west’ is pouring weaponry into Ukraine at an incredible level yet now we getz reports of pre-war machine guns and a lack of explosives ……!
Sooooo, if the “west” is running short of portable, military equipment and “dynamite” type stuff how come this has never happened in the “3rd world” terrorist enclaves?
Never, ever hear ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah .. I meanz USA has soo much excess weaponry that the Taliban was able to re-equip it’s entire military for free with some left over to sell to the “maaates”, and all the other “we-ain’t-happy-with-democracy” groups, aren’t, complaining they isn’t getting enuf supplies of the explodie stuff …..!
Seems “1st world” supply problems could do with some lessons from “3rd world” terrorist logistics experts ….. time for LGB to have a “fireside” how-does-ya-do-it wiv the Mullahs, methinx … FFS! -
Knuckle Draggersays:
March 20, 2023 at 7:04 pm
As promsied earlier this morning – here is (ALP) Deputy Chief Minister Nicole Manison speaking to a sombrely-nodding media after the stabbing murder of a bottleshop attendant …
Compare and contrast the reaction after the Rolfe-Walker skirmish.
“Consequences will flow from this …” -
Eyrie:
BTW, watched a Youtube vid the other night on 75 Squadron RAAF defence of Port Moresby in 1942.
Introduced by Geoffrey Robertson but don’t let that put you off. Recommended.Link Part 1
Link Part 2
Link Part 3
I think I’Ve done that right, Eyrie. Couldn’t see a part 4. -
Top Ender:
This is the introduction to my Lethality in Combat, sans footnotes:
Every time we went on exercise, I was ‘killed’ and after the sixth time I was unceremoniously dragged off the field as a casualty, that helped me frame my emotions in regard to my chances of survival.
Still unsure of how I would have gone in real life. Hopefully I wouldn’t have disgraced myself. 🙂 -
Greg Sheridan is so overjoyed by AUKUS and the possibility of WWIII that he wrote an ebulliently grateful column today basically declaring Albanese the greatest Prime Minister in Australian history – possibly set for “several” terms (that is, a 15 to 20-year reign).
The only policy Sheridan cares about now is war. Constant, endless war.
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Old Ozzie:
“The fundamental problem is that the European defense industry is not in good shape for large-scale war production,” one German official told the outlet.
Guns or butter?
This is the price of the Illegal African Refugee Invasion. There’s not enough money for Home Defence.
They were warned.
Tough Titties, Deutschland. -
I can only give you everythang, baybee … 😕
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Nothing changes in the cottage, I tells ya! 🙂
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