Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[DaGeezer]

I mean she could continue being Hawaii's Rep for about as long as she wants (possibly) or give herself a bunch of exposure running a pointless Presidential campaign and transition into tv. Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy were both more powerful members of Congress than she ever was and both quit to become media people, more or less.

"The View" is always looking for that one person who is reasonable. Tulsi might be good for that.

[Hannibal]

I mean she could continue being Hawaii's Rep for about as long as she wants (possibly) or give herself a bunch of exposure running a pointless Presidential campaign and transition into tv. Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy were both more powerful members of Congress than she ever was and both quit to become media people, more or less.

She isn't a Rep anymore. And she never will be now.

[CGVT]

Nor should she be. For any party

[DaGeezer]

What did you Ohio guys think of the Ohio Senate debate last night?

https://www.foxnews.com/media/twitter-erupts-jd-vance-slams-tim-ryan-immigration-claims-border-policy-led-girls-rape-ko

[CGVT]

Vance got his ass handed to him

[DaGeezer]

From the WSJ:


Putin’s Annexations May Cost Him Crimea

Suddenly the peninsula is merely a small part of a portfolio of provinces that he claims as his own.

By Casey Michel

Queue Vladimir Putin hopes his formal annexation of four regions of Ukraine will help him salvage victory. It matters little to him that none of the annexed areas are fully occupied by Russia, or that Ukraine continues to gain ground against listing Russian forces. For Mr. Putin, the so-called annexations let him claim success to reassure an increasingly nervous domestic audience. While there’s a certain logic to his claims, they are shaping up to be another strategic blunder.

One can see why Mr. Putin thought this was a good idea. The supposed annexation brings these lands under Russia’s nuclear umbrella. Given how often Mr. Putin has rattled his nuclear saber in recent weeks, this is a dangerous development. More broadly, the annexation is a way for Mr. Putin to assert that he is returning “historic” lands to Russia. Mr. Putin is spinning it as a victory, preening during Friday’s annexation announcement, “There is nothing stronger than [these regions’] determination to return to their true historical homeland.”

OPINION: FREE EXPRESSION

But no other government has recognized the annexations, and the Kremlin’s hold on these areas grows more tenuous by the day, undercutting its claims of victory. Most troublesome for Moscow, Mr. Putin’s so-called annexation threatens to unwind Russia’s only serious success in Ukraine—its taking of Crimea.

For years, Mr. Putin and his defenders have proclaimed that Crimea was the mantle of Russian civilization—an area where Russian culture and Russian heroism originated. “Everything in Crimea speaks of our shared history and pride,” Mr. Putin said after Moscow’s 2014 move to annex the region, which it has since held militarily. Those opposed to Mr. Putin’s rule also parroted such talking points, echoing Moscow’s belief that Crimea was somehow exceptional. Even jailed Kremlin opponents like Alexei Navalny refrained from calling to return the peninsula to Ukraine.

A sotto voce consensus emerged in the West after Crimea was taken. While no Western government recognized Russia’s claim to the region—the few governments that did were autocracies like Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela—there was also little appetite to support Ukrainian efforts to retake it. Even after Mr. Putin launched his February offensive, there has been constant Western hand-wringing about whether to support Ukrainian military moves to reconquer Crimea. Everyone conveniently ignores that a majority of Crimeans backed Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Now, though, Mr. Putin has broken the illusion of Crimea’s singularity by lumping it in with his newly annexed lands, which no one abroad would recognize as Russian. And few Russians have the same attachment to them; I doubt many could find the freshly annexed Zaporizhzhia on a map. Mr. Putin has reduced Crimea to one small part of a portfolio of provinces that the revanchist maniac claims as his own. This will make it far easier for the Ukrainians to argue that they need to reclaim all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, from Russian forces.

The West’s timid concern about the potential dangers of returning Crimea to Ukrainian rule will likely cease. Mr. Putin’s claim to the region is now indistinguishable from his annexations of Kherson or Luhansk, which every Western nation still considers Ukrainian land. Kyiv won’t get complaints from the West if it takes Crimea and may well get the arms to do so if it asks.

That reality is something the Kremlin, wrapped up in its own paranoia and propaganda, doesn’t seem to have recognized. But the logic is inescapable. Moscow’s claim to Crimea has been revealed as an irredentist despot’s attempt to flatten and brutalize a piece of Ukraine. Crimea should be returned to Kyiv’s control and the sooner the better. Happily, the only thing standing in the way is the Russian military, and we all know what that means.

Mr. Michel is an adjunct fellow with Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative and author of “American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History.”

[Dr. Strangelove]

What did you Ohio guys think of the Ohio Senate debate last night?

https://www.foxnews.com/media/twitte...-girls-rape-ko

Didn’t watch it

[Jeff Buchanan]

An interesting piece appeared in my NYT's news feed this evening. The Hunt to Arm Ukraine Leads to Difficult Choices. For the better part of this 8 mo. old conflict with Russia, Ukraine has relied mostly on it's now dwindling supply of Soviet era weapons augmented in part by NATO weapons. The Ukrainians are trained in large part to only be proficient in the operation of their soviet style arms. Much smaller numbers of Ukrainian soldiers have been trained to operate the NATO stuff. Yes, they need more of that to continue to win back territory seized by Russian forces and to hold on to what they have already won. But what they really need is more soviet style arms.

Surprisingly, there is plenty of it around in various corners of the world as Russia is a major arms supplier to these places. One of those places is Cyprus. Cyprus has a long standing beef with Turkey over control of lands and claims on both sides (greece/Cyprus and Turkey) remain unresolved. Both Greece and Turkey are NATO members and have generally condemned Putin's invasion of Ukraine.The US embargoed the sale of arms to Cyprus years ago in an attempt to tamp down military clashes in that country.

Apparently there has been some back room diplomacy going on involving the US, Turkey and Greece to allow Cyprus to transfer a good portion of their soviet style stuff to Ukraine but Cypriots fear that if those weapons are not replaced with more modern, NATO style stuff, the Turks will try to take advantage. The US officially lifted the weapons shipments embargo last week, allowing a willing Cyprus to transfer weapons to Ukraine. The deal? They get replacement NATO arms. Transfer could be delayed until Cyprus feels secure that the replacements they need are assured or, already delivered.

Arms manufacturers of NATO and other modern weapons are already stretched to their limits filling orders from various countries that have pledged ammunition, weapons and weapon systems to Ukraine as well as building replacements for donated arms and ammo in the countries doing the pledging. Production capacity is limited and to spin it up takes months if not years. Ukraine needs the stuff now. The up-side is that Russia has, by some estimates, expended 70% of it's stocks of "precision" weapons - and these are turning out to be not very precise at all. At this point, while there are plenty of AK47 bullets, AK47s are in short supply in the Russian army due to corruption with those kinds of arms filched by officials in the Russian based arms industry and sold on the black market. Tank and artillery rounds are abundant but due to staggering losses of those weapons, there aren't enough tubes to use it all and what the Russians do is fire indiscriminately. They hit non-military targets with little tactical benefit to bombardment. Wasteful and not efficient.

Just another wrinkle of logistics complexity in Putin's war and one that is not entirely in Putin's control when it comes to keeping his forces armed so his campaign can continue. Putin's resupply is limited in comparison to the scale of stuff the west can get it's hands on to resupply the Ukrainian campaign. Every commander knows his campaign will succeed or fail based on the effectiveness of the logistics supporting it. My take is that Putin's campaign is going to be harder to successfully prosecute than Ukraine's and the reason is logistics.

[CGVT]

Bwahaha

https://www.theonion.com/sean-hannit...utm_source=_fa cebook&fbclid=IwAR2VMwn1fYGyFadW7RZ7klDDeJCBPZQDfl 7lMjLekCkxZBGtpOVLoOVQGAE

Sean Hannity Plays Voicemail From His Dad Calling Him A Piece Of Shit To Demonstrate Healthy Father–Son Relationship

Today 1:20PM
Alerts
NEW YORK—Contrasting the message with the one received by Hunter Biden, Sean Hannity reportedly played a voicemail from his dad calling him a piece of shit Monday to demonstrate what a healthy father–son relationship sounded like. “Hey, Sean, it’s Dad—I called you to tell you I hate you and I’ll always hate you,” stated Hannity’s father in the 25-minute recording, which the Fox News host praised as exemplary of the kind of traditional conservative values he was raised with. “You’ll always be a disappointment. You were a shitty kid and are a shitty adult. You are nothing to me. You are less than nothing. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you. That’s a promise.” At press time, Hannity was playing a voicemail from his ex-wife to demonstrate what a successful marriage sounded like.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Ukraine: I wrote yesterday the logistics constraints on Russia's armed forces are becoming a significant obstacle to Putin's prosecution of his Ukraine Campaign. ISW analysts are reporting that the ongoing barrage of cruise missiles and attack drones launched at Ukrainian cities are not going to change the tactical situation on the ground or contribute to a reversal of Ukrainian gains on multiple levels. Russian forces lack two important components of effective use of these kinds of modern, smart weapons: (1) Good targeting data. (2) High weapons precision.

Because of the lack of these components to achieve tactical and strategic success - things that are not happening as a direct result of the recent bombardments - Putin's aim is directed at the psychological impact on the Ukrainian population of the bombardment. If there was good targeting data and missiles and drones that were actually precise in hitting those targets, Ukrainian artillery encampments, troop concentrations, C&C units, logistics hubs and ammunition storage facilities would be in the local RUssian commanders sights. Instead, were' seeing indiscriminate, sledge hammer destruction of residential areas, power and water facilities. The tip of the sword that is Ukrainian combat power and the ability to sustain it remains in tact.

The massive bombardment approach being taken by the Russian armed forces is believed to not be some major change in strategy as a result of the game of musical chairs Putin appears to be playing with his local commanders. Press reports have played-up the reassignment of Syrian War commanders, ostensibly more brutal, is behind the new bombardments. Ukrainian Intelligence services have reported these plans emerged in late September and early October, well before the shuffling of a slew of new Russian Generals into Ukraine. The emergence of these bombardment plans instead coincides with an uptick among the pro-war, right wing nationalists, criticising, in some cases, Putin's prosecution of the war directly. The bombardments, therefore are an attempt to assuage this cohort. That the attacks are being praised by the milbloggers are evidence that Putin is aiming to regain the support of this segment of Russian society and is having some success doing it. That will fade as events in the battle space reflect a lack of Russian successes compared to gains made by the Ukrainians.

The losses of previously Russian occupied Ukrainian territory in the eastern theater and southern theater to Ukrainian forces continue. Putin has tried to gloss over this fact, project an image and develop a narrative that speaks of success. He tries to carry on as usual, chumming up with Asian buddies to make it look like he is unphased by events on the ground. The reality is different. Whether he fully understand this, IOW, what kind of feedback and advice is he getting or is willing to listen to, is a key question. Does he perceive a need to develop an off-ramp? Is he doubling down in response to the actual receding success in an attempt to reverse momentum? Those questions remain unanswered - at least what we know about them in the public domain.

[Hannibal]

There's very little point in debates now. Especially for Dems versus Rs in a Senate battle, since most guys are going to vote party lines on anything that matters.

[Mike]

I was looking at the RCP polls today and Ohio and Georgia both stand out to me. DeWine is +18.2! and Vance is +1.4. When folks actually fill out their ballots, I have a very hard time believing that the Senate candidate from the same party will run 16 points behind the runaway winner of the Governor's race. I know Vance isn't a great candidate but there can't be that much ballot splitting.

Likewise in Georgia, Kemp is +6.3 but he's had a similar lead throughout the campaign and isn't in any real danger. Conversely, Walker is -4.2. The recent abortion stuff with Walker isn't going to help him but will he really run 10.5 points behind the governor of the same party?

RCP still predicts a 2 seat pickup for the Rs: Laxalt in Nevada and Walker in a runoff on Dec 6. I'm not sure Walker even gets to a runoff but I'm guessing they are applying my logic that he won't run over 10 points behind Kemp.

[iam416]

Ohio is more red than Georgia. DeWine definitely carries huge independent vote numbers. And his opponent has basically run zero ads.

Ryan has run way more ads than Vance, at least in the Columbus market. And he's yet to say the word "democrat" in any of them. I'm not kidding. He has repeatedly says he "agrees with Trump" on trade/China. But won't say he's a "democrat".

But, yeah, independents don't explain the 20 point difference.

In Georgia, I can buy independents explaining most of the gap.

[Mike]

Also just noticed that RCP was significantly off in favor of Biden in 2020. If that scenario repeats itself in '22, figure on a few extra points for the R's in contested races.