Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

[Mazder]

Russia tried to launch an ICBM while Biden was visiting Ukraine to boast about the only thing that's mildly threatening about their dung-heap of a country. And they failed.

Were did ya hear that?

[Someone With Mass]

Were did ya hear that?

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia- ... ?r=US&IR=T

[Mazder]

Were did ya hear that?

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia- ... ?r=US&IR=T

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!

[Vol]

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia- ... ?r=US&IR=T

Oh wow. That's a rough one. And also kinda worrying, since I think Russia is supposed to have a notably larger stockpile than America right now. Makes you wonder if the entire US stock even works, I've heard the guys we assign to the silos and maintenance are, for lack of a better term, not the guys who expect to ever see them used.

[Vol]

Some interesting news today. Buckhead, a part of Atlanta, has been trying to split away from it for obvious reasons. Today the bill to do that advanced in the Georgia senate. I have zero idea how far along the process that is, but it's more than nothing, and honestly, peaceful balkanization is about the best outcome here. Naturally, Buckhead is also more huwhite and wealthy than the other areas, so if they form their own city, it would be a major loss of tax revenue for Atlanta, and especially the schools. Figures I'm seeing are around 50% of school funding comes from there, and it's fair to infer that like most American schools, especially urban ones, they're not very good to begin with.

Meanwhile, James Bond will be receiving the same treatment as Dahl, racial references and slurs, presumably other things, will be censored in a rerelease of the books. It reminds me of "Kid" versions of stories, where the intent is to express them to an audience who may not cognitively be able to grasp the full version, or when cartoons did homage episodes to classic literature, that kind of thing. Only this is for adults and the intent is cultural vandalism.

[Vol]

Hearing out of Bakhmut the Ivans are pushing in and a retreat has or will be ordered for the defenders. Any confirmation?

[Mazder]

Hearing out of Bakhmut the Ivans are pushing in and a retreat has or will be ordered for the defenders. Any confirmation?

So far it's all very hush hush, for OPSEC reasons.
It is known Bahkmut was going to fall at some point, and was going to be used to buy time for all other areas of defence so this is not new news, only a beginning of a shift of pattern.
We're still waiting for the spring for any realistic movement either way, material and the troops currently training in NATO countries need to come home first.

[Vol]

There was an article in the paper today on why the food supply needs to be revolutionized, because if it isn't the planet will warm 1 degree (Didn't specify F, C, or K) by 2100. Focused mainly on beef, chicken, pork, and the major grains needing to be drastically changed, whatever that means. There were no meaningful figures given, only that livestock farts are around 80% of "their share" of contribution to warming, which without context is actively duplicitous.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. A theory based on impossibly inconsistent historical data predicting extremely complicated climate trends decades out, there's some reasonable position to be had, you can read trendlines and try to correlate them to testable factors. Formalized pattern seeking to extrapolate observable phenomenon. And then at some point there was a sleight of hand, and now it's more crystal balls and sin, and people with actual power listen to this stuff. Give it a year or two, and we'll need federal licenses to grow backyard gardens or keep chickens, much less cows and pigs.

@Maz: How's the battle going? From what I've gleaned, it's as you said, and people are preparing for a big Russian offensive sooner or later, as their conscripts are trained up. Heard Wagner is doing yeoman's work with prisoner-conscripts catching bullets to soften up for their main soliders, then the proper army follows behind.

[Mazder]

@Maz: How's the battle going? From what I've gleaned, it's as you said, and people are preparing for a big Russian offensive sooner or later, as their conscripts are trained up. Heard Wagner is doing yeoman's work with prisoner-conscripts catching bullets to soften up for their main soliders, then the proper army follows behind.

Well according to the info I see, Ukraine has dealt a 1:5 ratio vs Russians in terms of deaths/casualties in the Bahkmut area. So the Russians aren't trading very well for the territorial gain, Ukraine is making it VERY hard for them.
And recently they dropped a hint that in about 2 months we should start seeing some kind of counteroffensive, which makes sense. It's when NATO tanks and other Equipment arrive and it's when their NATO trained soldiers arrive home.
So all in all despite the prolonged retreat it's actually all good for Ukraine right now. They're making very calculated decisions.

As far as Russia goes, their current numbers include the 300,000 "partial mobilization" troops. And recently they told Wagner they could no longer recruit from prisons. There is actually quite a bit of friction between Wagner and the main Russian Army. Wagner claims to have no back-up, lack of ammo supplies and is being restricted in all recruitment avenues. Even IF it's the case that the Russian Army is using Wagner as bullet sponges, this can only work for a finite amount of time, especially before the Ukraine offensive.
Especially when in the Bahkmut area the Ukrainians have reinforced with the 80th Air Assault Brigade. Despite their name having "Air Assault2 int he name, this unit is going to be getting Challenger 2 tanks form us Brits so...yeah the plans are falling into motion.

BUT there is still a big call that they're heading for Zaporizhzhia to be their main offensive area, to cut off Crimean supply lines.

[Vol]

I'm dubious of any numbers given by any source on causalities, but in this case, assaulting a fortified city, that's probably about right. Wonder if they're doing the old forlorn hope routine, "If you survive the vanguard, we promise you money and promotions." Our local paper was saying as of yesterday that Zelensky won't allow retreat from Bahkmut, and it's 75% surrounded, with only one road out the Russians, naturally, are bombing.

I talk to my grandma about this war sometimes. Nearly 90, and she still recalls the Nazi occupation of her hometown with great detail. Given everyone in this war is calling everyone else a Nazi, to lesser and greater truths, are civilians generally far away from the lines by now? With the grinding pace, would hope people have notice far in advance to bug out.

[Vol]

Oh, some tech-focused bank failed today. I can't figure out exactly why this means, but apparently there was a bank run out of nowhere from their clientele. This kind of stuff tends to roll downhill, so I'm sure all the rich folk will get bailed out, and small account owners get a handsome new toaster

[Mazder]

I'm dubious of any numbers given by any source on causalities, but in this case, assaulting a fortified city, that's probably about right. Wonder if they're doing the old forlorn hope routine, "If you survive the vanguard, we promise you money and promotions." Our local paper was saying as of yesterday that Zelensky won't allow retreat from Bahkmut, and it's 75% surrounded, with only one road out the Russians, naturally, are bombing.

I talk to my grandma about this war sometimes. Nearly 90, and she still recalls the Nazi occupation of her hometown with great detail. Given everyone in this war is calling everyone else a Nazi, to lesser and greater truths, are civilians generally far away from the lines by now? With the grinding pace, would hope people have notice far in advance to bug out.

It's odd.
The Ukrainians know Bahkmut is going to fall, it's all a matter of when, not if. So we think he's mainly doing it to add a longer time for Ukraine to build for big offensives in spring.
From what I could see, US intelligence told them they "can" hold Bahkmut, but they ultimately shouldn't. And it seems to me that they're ultimately following US intelligence's advice somewhat and using it as a long retreat to get the best of both worlds.

Most of the people in Bahkmut were informed ages ago that they should evacuate. But they said no. It's their home and they're staying sort of thing.

As far as casualties go, yeah I am still sceptical when any info comes out on it.
But I can say I am certain that it's going much worse for Russia than it is Ukriane.

Oh, some tech-focused bank failed today. I can't figure out exactly why this means, but apparently there was a bank run out of nowhere from their clientele. This kind of stuff tends to roll downhill, so I'm sure all the rich folk will get bailed out, and small account owners get a handsome new toaster

Apparently they were involved with FTX.
So crypto doing it's usual business of being a plague.

[Vol]

The Ukrainians know Bahkmut is going to fall, it's all a matter of when, not if. So we think he's mainly doing it to add a longer time for Ukraine to build for big offensives in spring.
From what I could see, US intelligence told them they "can" hold Bahkmut, but they ultimately shouldn't. And it seems to me that they're ultimately following US intelligence's advice somewhat and using it as a long retreat to get the best of both worlds.

Apparently they were involved with FTX.
So crypto doing it's usual business of being a plague.

From the maps I've seen, though they were Russian-biased, it looks like a full encapsulation is very possible. But I don't know what kind of logistics apply to a city-siege in this day and age, presumably the defenders have enough provisions to hold out until spring and then some. I'm sure the men in there would rather not have it come to that tho.

And another bank falls! Tomorrow should be an interesting day, see if any of the big guys take a hit, because the government's already promising to reimburse people who just lost their savings.

[Vol]

Apparently an American drone, "Reaper" model, was flying around the Black Sea, and a Russian plane took it down. Not clear exactly what happened, and probably never will be, but that'll make some people pucker up.

[Someone With Mass]

Apparently an American drone, "Reaper" model, was flying around the Black Sea, and a Russian plane took it down. Not clear exactly what happened, and probably never will be, but that'll make some people pucker up.

Some Russian dipshit dumped fuel in front of the drone and went so close to it that they damaged its propeller and forced it to crash into the Black Sea. The Russians said nothing of the sort happened, but we all know by now that the Russians always lie when they open their mouths.

[Vol]

The Russian statement was, in essence, "We didn't do it, but it's good it happened, and we'll do it again."

Also hearing Credit Suisse, a bank I know nothing about, is having some problems today. The reaper is hungry for bankers.

[Vol]

https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/sta ... 6324552706

So, uh, France is rioting again. Any Euros know what's up?

[Mazder]

https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1636479916324552706

So, uh, France is rioting again. Any Euros know what's up?

Macron is putting retirement up basically through France's version of executive orders.
France's people disagree.

That's about as much as I know.

[Vol]

It's a tough situation. I was talking to a friend last night about human longevity, and while this didn't come up, it seems very likely that while the _average_ age of death will waver around the current mark, for people in good condition and can afford it, making it to 100+ will become very common. And if regenerative medicine, that isn't demonic magic, takes off, even further beyond.

At least in America, our first version of public retirement benefits was meant to only be a few years before the claimant died (The first person to receive it was a woman who lived for decades after that, fun fact). With the world's birth rate collapsing, and people living longer, in good health, but not necessarily able to do any meaningful work anymore, this is going to be more common. The numbers don't make sense, and paying people to live for 40 years after working for 40 years is going to be a horrible fight. No one wants to give up what they think is owed, and government hates to reduce its own power, heh.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXzDKw4tS5Y&ab

[Vol]

Some giant bank called Credit Suisse, which seemed to be at risk following 2 US banks imploding, was just bought out by some larger bank. I have no idea what that means, only that anything high finance does it probably bad.

It appears Trump may be arrested this week. The NYC AG appears to be preparing to indict him on paying Stormy Daniels hush money. I'm not entirely clear on the specific crime, since NDAs are a thing, and this exact case was brought up in 2016, and dismissed, by the feds, but I recall it had something to do with how he paid his lawyer, Cohen, to handle it possibly violating campaign laws. Which would be a relatively small fine. But it's being rehashed on the state level, and it's obviously more about the visual of him being in handcuffs and put in a cop car than anything else.

Pax Americana was a funny thing.

[Vol]

Apparently Brazil, China, France, and Russia, I'm not totally clear, are starting to conduct trades specifically bypassing the US dollar. Which as I understand it, underpins the current world order, and our economy, as the global reserve currency. Not a finance guy, by the way. That seems very bad, on top of other very bad things.

Any of you have a better understanding?

[Mazder]

Apparently Brazil, China, France, and Russia, I'm not totally clear, are starting to conduct trades specifically bypassing the US dollar. Which as I understand it, underpins the current world order, and our economy, as the global reserve currency. Not a finance guy, by the way. That seems very bad, on top of other very bad things.

Any of you have a better understanding?

Not heard anything about France actually being involved with it (and it would seem kinda silly for them to tell the US to piss off and for them to trade more with China and Russia seeing as the EU has sanctioned Russia to hell) but Brazil is maybe opening that up with China, but no news on it for Brazil to Russia, or Russia to Brazil, etc.
It appears (from my quick google search) that it is more just China trying to trade with a lot of third party countries to bypass their dependency on the dollar.
Which is just China being China.
Once those nations realize that the Yuan is weaker than the Dollar then they'll come back.

Because while Brazil might be the strongest financial nation in South America they're not stronger than those that use the dollar.
Brazil's GPD in 2021 was 1.6 trillion dollars.
Russia 1.77 trillion dollars.
China's 17.3 trillion.

USA 23 trillion dollars.
The EU as a whole is 16.6 trillion dollars.
UK's is 3.3 trillion (as of 2021, it's probably closer to just 3 trillion now, if not 2.9 trillion)

That's not including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Norway, India (but they're on the fence), soon to be Ukraine, South Africa, Mexico and way too many small African nations to count that will all be Dollar aligned.

Yeah no contest who will win.
China has a LONG way to go to be a credible threat if we want to draw alliances. And even then, there is no wat to show if this would even work to bring any of the countries I mentioned into their fold unless they sanction us.

Maybe that would be the catalyst for the USA to get off it's arse and return to domestic production again but, hey, who knows?

[Mazder]

Oh also Trump's finally been indicted officially.

LOL!

[Vol]

Yeah no contest who will win.
China has a LONG way to go to be a credible threat if we want to draw alliances. And even then, there is no wat to show if this would even work to bring any of the countries I mentioned into their fold unless they sanction us.

Maybe that would be the catalyst for the USA to get off it's arse and return to domestic production again but, hey, who knows?

Ah, a thorough answer, thank you kindly. It's definitely a bad thing, for American hegemony anyway, and China is worse than us in a lot of ways, but it didn't seem as bad as I saw people making it out to be. Though they do ultimately have us over a barrel, so to do we them, so it's a bit of standoff, innit?

Oh also Trump's finally been indicted officially.

LOL!

Word from his lawyers is that he'll surrender next week. Apparently 34 charges related to paying Cohen to pay Stormy Daniels to not talk about an affair they allegedly had in '16. Weird case, because campaign finance is a federal issue, and they passed on prosecuting it. I guess the NYC AG found a legal theory to bring it up, and as they say, "You could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."

So it'll be interesting to see what their logic is, what the crime, what the punishment could be. As I recall from '16, and other campaigns with similar issues, it's a small fine. And in this case, related to the specific way Trump routed money to Cohen for the payoff.

[Mazder]

Ah, a thorough answer, thank you kindly. It's definitely a bad thing, for American hegemony anyway, and China is worse than us in a lot of ways, but it didn't seem as bad as I saw people making it out to be. Though they do ultimately have us over a barrel, so to do we them, so it's a bit of standoff, innit?

I dunno, I think it'll be ultimately good for US hegemony for them to not be as "USA FIRST" as they have been in the past.
If push comes to shove the USA still can be self reliant, no problem, the bad part of that would be where does the rest of the world turn if the USA closes off, and the only real answer would be to your enemies.
But we are well, well off from that world as the USA seems to be doing the right thing and building partnerships, even in the face of needing to return to a slightly less global outlook.
I've always been an advocate for "sustained global interaction" meaning that each country gets to the point of being self reliant for their needs and THEN all group up to become a stronger union.

It's odd because China KNOWS that they're a mid-level manufacturing base, able to do all the cheap to mid stuff, and then the USA can do all mid to high grade. But as soon as someone that is a little more USA leaning can come in and do low-mid stuff (such as India, Bangladesh, etc) they know they're going to have to either double down on military based expansion (which really they can't keep up with you in terms of actual fleet strength only numbers) or go and try to financial, which you guys have a hold on.
Plus they import a hell of a lot more than the USA does and rely on it a lot more. Don't forget that a lot of their population is on coastal cities. They've abandoned the farmland in comparison.

I think China is realizing that they can't sustain rapid growth and are just trying to stave off a collapse. They can do it, but it's going to cost them some pride. But it might take the death of Xi for it to happen.

Word from his lawyers is that he'll surrender next week. Apparently 34 charges related to paying Cohen to pay Stormy Daniels to not talk about an affair they allegedly had in '16. Weird case, because campaign finance is a federal issue, and they passed on prosecuting it. I guess the NYC AG found a legal theory to bring it up, and as they say, "You could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."

So it'll be interesting to see what their logic is, what the crime, what the punishment could be. As I recall from '16, and other campaigns with similar issues, it's a small fine. And in this case, related to the specific way Trump routed money to Cohen for the payoff.

I mean if it's anything approaching prison it won't really change much as he'll just be under house arrest under secret service guard.
Like unless this is going to set a major shakeup on if/how presidents could be actually jailed for their crimes then nothing much will change.

[TTTX]

I think China is realizing that they can't sustain rapid growth and are just trying to stave off a collapse. They can do it, but it's going to cost them some pride. But it might take the death of Xi for it to happen.

considering their population is going to collapse in the coming decades (there are more or less 37 million more men then women in china, having a 1 child policy really screwed over china in the long run) china is in for a rough time either way and to asia especially china being pridefull is their deal and they rarely will take a hit on their honor willing (they literally have a part of their modern history called the century of humiliation when the west interfered in their country, which to be fair was terrible).

[Mazder]

considering their population is going to collapse in the coming decades (there are more or less 37 million more men then women in china, having a 1 child policy really screwed over china in the long run) china is in for a rough time either way and to asia especially china being pridefull is their deal and they rarely will take a hit on their honor willing (they literally have a part of their modern history called the century of humiliation when the west interfered in their country, which to be fair was terrible).

Yeah the male orientated preference form the 1 child policy has really fucked them over.
And seeing as they really, really need to fight the aging population thing it's going to kick them in the arse.

[Vol]

If push comes to shove the USA still can be self reliant, no problem, the bad part of that would be where does the rest of the world turn if the USA closes off, and the only real answer would be to your enemies.

Sort of. Theoretically we can be, we have the means and resources to survive being closed off, at a major cost of luxuries and such. In practice, however, the cultural assumptions since WW2 have eradicated most of the actual means and population who could do those things. As in, the amount of patriotic, hard-working, diligent (mostly) men who'd rebuild and staff our factories and make those sacrifices to being self-reliant have been pretty successfully marginalized, both as socially and in numbers.

Which is a fancy way of saying that if we couldn't import food, we'd have millions of people starve rather than be field hands. The resources and knowledge is all there, but the side effect of intentionally destroying national identity is that people don't have a national identity to appeal to. The post 9/11 unity, which was then promptly exploited for a 20 year adventure in military contractors making a fortune, couldn't exist anymore, even if a Sino-Russian attack hit the mainland.

considering their population is going to collapse in the coming decades (there are more or less 37 million more men then women in china, having a 1 child policy really screwed over china in the long run) china is in for a rough time either way and to asia especially china being pridefull is their deal and they rarely will take a hit on their honor willing (they literally have a part of their modern history called the century of humiliation when the west interfered in their country, which to be fair was terrible)

The collapse of birthrates everywhere except Africa has been fascinating. I don't subscribe to Malthusianism, but the ability of modern culture, almost the entire world over, to destroy the will of people to _make babies_, when all our systems and futures depends on it, and it's something we're all inclined to do the moment we start puberty, is wild.

I blame the schools!

[TTTX]

The collapse of birthrates everywhere except Africa has been fascinating. I don't subscribe to Malthusianism, but the ability of modern culture, almost the entire world over, to destroy the will of people to _make babies_, when all our systems and futures depends on it, and it's something we're all inclined to do the moment we start puberty, is wild.

I blame the schools!

I blame social media.

[Vol]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/compani ... 64c6d&ei=8

lol

Now, mind you, the _fact_ of the matter, whether or not Dominion had faulty/tampered voting machines has never been established. As with most things in our twilight of the empire, asserting an opinion loudly enough is mistaken for truth. But Fox really screwed themselves over by having internal talks where they admitted they didn't believe it, because that torpedos the case, and now they take a blackeye for it.

[Vol]

Heard the Kremlin was hit by 2 drones yesterday. Obviously, impossible to know who did it, because no one would confess to it. Though I'm not a modern warfare sort of guy, an attempt on a head of state (Putin) for assassination is a remarkable escalation, even if failed, it seems to only happen when America is involved. How's the spring draw up going for the Ukrainians?

[Mazder]

The drones were not long range enough for them to be launched from Ukraine.
The most common theories are,

1) Russian partisans wanting regime change/threat.
2) Russian psy-op attempt.
3) Local Ukrainian sympathisers.

And TBH it could be any one of them.

And America is "involved" as they're providing Ukraine satellite and other forms of intelligence assistance.

Spring offensive is still in build-up phases.
Some absolute Ukrainian madlads crossed the Dnipro river by Kherson, took a teensy chunk of land to basically show Russia "yeah, fuck you, we can do this any time".
There are loads of trenches being dug in and around Crimea.

[Vol]

Russian false flag seems the most likely. To get that close to the Kremlin and not do much of anything would be a weird, very dangerous thing for Ukraine to pull off, and the US would do something sneakier. Though if I was going to stage a false flag, I'd go way larger. Blow something up. rally the country behind me in the rubble to justify a war, not that I'm suggesting anyone has done that in recent memory of course.

In much more humorous news, one of America's biggest beer producers hired a transexual social media personality for a minor online ad spot, to push Bud Lite. For whatever reason, this one pissed the Boomers off in a way none of the other progressive ad campaigns have, and they're boycotting Bud Lite. But actually being effective this time! Sales are down 14, 17, 20, 27% since the message spread to stop drinking that pisswater. Which they should've already, being pisswater, but there's something hilarious about angry older people leaving stacks of Bud Lite in stores and concession stands, over such a relatively minor "insult" as an attention seeking dude being in a short commercial. Like all that rage and frustration with the destruction of their culture, nation, and their children's economic prospects was channeled at last in boycotting a bad beer brand.

[Mazder]

Russian false flag seems the most likely. To get that close to the Kremlin and not do much of anything would be a weird, very dangerous thing for Ukraine to pull off, and the US would do something sneakier. Though if I was going to stage a false flag, I'd go way larger. Blow something up. rally the country behind me in the rubble to justify a war, not that I'm suggesting anyone has done that in recent memory of course.

TBH it seems that Russia doesn't have much in the way of false flag material.
Because even if something with civilians gets blown up it's not like the Ukrianians don't have a MOUNTAIN of worse stuff Russia has done to them.
Nothing short of an actual assassination attempt would matter to them and TBH Putin is the only real target worth anything in that festering country. And he's not going to let himself be put at risk, seeing as he's seen wearing bulletproof vests in PR videos (surrounded by his supposed closest allies/propagandists), so he's obviously afraid of an oligarch or two taking power, or at least trying to.

[Vol]

https://news.yahoo.com/bakhmut-fire-rus ... 19707.html

On that note. Not seeing this anywhere else though. Seeing people respond with "war crimes" makes me a little sad. Both for the, you know, loss of life in a conflict that didn't need to happen, and also the blindly optimistic way we see the world. As if any or our governments still appeal to transcendental principles for anything, such as justice, and some metaphysical court will punish evil for breaking the law, instead of it requiring a mountain of blood to drag anyone in front of a political court.

I don't know if Putin intends to be tsar, or if he's going to do the 20th century tyrant route of claiming all the power of a monarch without the title (Hitler, Mao, Stalin, etc.), but yeah. Good reason to be paranoid, kingslayers don't usually fare well, but it creates opportunities.

[Mazder]

Okay so local England elections happened on Thursday. They're almost done with the counting of the votes and it seems that the Conservative Party have taken a right royal beating.
In the lead up to it they have said that loosing 1000 local council seats would be their worst case scenario, but the expected to lose about 800.

As of right now with 1 council left to count they have lost 1,061 seats.
They have beaten their worst case scenario.

tory loss.JPG

Now this is not a death sentence YET but it IS a big deal.

They have lost outright control of about 60% of the local councils they held since last election.
To put it in perspective here is a gif on twitter showing the change.
And while, for a lot of them, there is no outright majority holder, removing the Tory's from power there is a great blow to their ability to canvas for the General Election (likely next year).

This is also an interesting time as this is the first election where voter ID was brought into affect (an effect that was handled so poorly that it was looking as an attempt for the Tory's to suppress the younger vote) and they still got pasted.
Apparently with the Coronation happening today there were a lot of people that just forgot about the local elections, which also in theory should've helped the Tory's, but hasn't.
A lot of tactical voting has happened this time around, basically a drive to just get the Tory's OUT. Which saw some parties getting much more of a voter share than they usually might. Especially the Greens.

The main worry is if Labour and Lib Dem fight over the voter share again in the General Election, It was the problem in the past. They need to either come together as a coalition, or to just come to an agreement to let Labour (the currently stronger of the two parties) to take the reigns.

Oh also the UKIP party is gone.
They've lost all their seats.
Bye Bye Farage!

[Vol]

Yeah, seems about right. Heard nothing good at all from their tenure after that big sweep that got them in power. Rather like the GOP when they get the swingback vote from the imagined centrists. Because the inertia in the west is resolutely towards liberalist nihilism, any election victory in contrast to that is on the most tenuous of grounds outside the vanishing strongholds.



Incidentally, Chile just swung back to the right, though I have no idea how their system works or what this means in context beyond the graph.

From what I hear over the pond, the Tories are what the GOP will be in a few years, the only acceptable outlet for the aging native population who don't want to deepthroat a neoliberal hellscape, so go for the neocon dick on whatever buffet of surface level social quibbles they care most about. Ann Coulter is a good example, wherein she's very focused on immigration, and what a fucking catastrophe has been forced on America by the American government and their minions, but cannot see past that. Or Bill O' Reilly, the super popular, well known pundit Fox axed, followed by Tucker Carlson. But Bill is stuck in the the Boomer version of Plato's Cave, where by gosh you better vote Republican and then somehow all the insanity and evil gets rolled back, and we can live in his childhood memory of what America was like. I imagine Tories play on that exact sentiment, because what else do you have?

They can never deliver on it though, because the great Nihilism gorilla is squatting on their roofs, ready to fling shit and airplanes at them in equal measures. Or just kill them, it's hardly a secret that all violence is allowed if it serves the right purpose. Over here we had that demonstrated just recently, where a severely mentally ill man, with a long history of violence, attempted murder, and general death threats/harassment, was choked to death by a huwhite man on a subway. The victim (in this case) being black granted him a second baptism, all his evils were washed away, and the man who thought he was saving passengers absorbs them. A sane state would have put the poor fellow in an asylum long, long ago, but the low-level terrorism was the point of it all, NY state wanted this, as much as the homeless man's family and grifters adore that he's dead by a huwhite man's hands. There's power and wealth to be made from that, public spectacles, symbolic parades, and of course grievous punishment of the heretic (no charges filed yet). One violence is allowed, the other is utmost wrong.

That's the nature of the GOP/Tories to the electorate. The whipped dogs that get to run free when their master is too tired to take them on a walk, but too conditioned to the cage to know what to do except run and bark a few moments, before laying down and waiting.

I forgot where I was going with this. Fuck the Tories, I suppose.

[Vol]

Hearing Bakhmut has finally fallen, or just about. Ukrainians fought like mad to the bitter end, it seems.

[Mazder]

So...

There has been a development in Ukraine.
Namely a bunch of Ukraine aligned Russians have invaded the Belgorod Oblast and have reached 10km (6.2 miles) in one day.
And Russia had....nothing past the border.

[Vol]

Eh? Ehhh? I saw something about Belo-cityname, but _that's_ what happened? That has to be some kind of insane suicide mission.

[Vol]

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... -backfired

Funnily enough, I'm more willing to trust a mercenary commander than any nation on this one. So the "literal convicts thrown into a meatgrinder" theory wasn't entirely false.

[Vol]

https://thepostmillennial.com/eric-adam ... aign=64483

I'm...not familiar with any incident of "weight-based discrimination" in housing, employment, or public accommodations, beyond obvious extreme edge cases. But as with most laws like this, the motte and bailey reins supreme. A lot of lawyers are gonna make a lot of money on this, same with the Disability Act that created a legion of professional building-standards experts.

[Vol]

Seeming more and more like Trump'll spend election season in courts. Already got one trial scheduled for the middle of it, could easily push enough cases through to keep him tied up during every crucial week, while Biden doesn't need to campaign at all. Only upshot in Trump's favor this go around is that he's fundraising for ballot harvesting efforts too, because that's a vital strength the Dems have, and insurmountable without an equivalent. Going to be a fascinating election season, next year, in the same sense watching the Vandals sack Rome was.

[Vol]

It appears the Ukrainian attack is on. Russian soldiers are reporting heavy attacks all along the front, lots of tanks and shelling. Might be probing for weaknesses, but clearly a massive step up in activity.

[Vol]

Whelp, more Trump indictments confirmed. 7 counts with regards to the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, seems to be focused on the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice, from what's been rumored.

Now, just because every other country where a sitting sovereign prosecutes his predecessor, and current greatest challenger, is inevitably a hellhole banana republic doesn't mean it is in this case. But it does imply the "peaceful transition of power" is a joke and one should cling to power as long and viciously as possible lest your enemies punish you. So, you know. Incentives.

[Vol]

Any news on the Ukrainian offensive? Haven't heard much, so I assume not much is changing beyond the usual horrors of war.

[Mazder]

Well in regards to Ukraine we have the beginning of the counter-offensive. This isn't the big, massive type of offensive we saw in the Kharkiv theatre, but it is significant.
For one the Russians are, purportedly, much more dug in. ad this is the first time Western weapon systems, such as Tanks, have been used against the Russian forces in their careers.

Now there was a big hurrah over Russian Telegram/social media of one tiny engagement of a Leopard 2 being "destroyed" but in reality it's tracks were only blown and it was towed away and repaired, it's already back in the fight.

The thing is we knew that eventually we'd see Western tanks burnt out eventually. I am prepared for the eventual first death of a Challenger 2. This is an inevitability. But the Vatniks taking 1000 pictures of the same detracked tank and claiming 1000 losses already is very telling of how they think the probing efforts are going vs how they actually are.



Now on to some pictures.

So this is the Southern Front, or the Zaporizhzhia front. (I'll be saying southern because Zaporizhzhia is annoying to type out every time for an english speaker such as myself) at the start of the month;

Southern Front 01.06.2023.JPG

And this is it now.

Southern Front 19.06.2023.JPG

Now you can see not "much" has changed in this area, but don't forget that this is the only confirmed changes seen by OSINT (Open Source INTelligence), and that any real confirmations happen after the fact.
And this is only after a few weeks.

Meanwhile let's head over to Bahkmut.

Bahkmut Front 11.05.2023.JPG

This is the front as of last leaving it back in mid-May. It looked like the Russians were trying to envelop those still defending the outskirts.

This is the Bahkmut front as of today:

Bahkmut Front 19.06.2023.JPG

As you can see in a month the risk of encirclement has been nullified and the Ukrainians are pushing back along the flanks, nearly undoing the advantage it took the Russians 5 months to achieve.
Yeah Bahkmut is still in ruskie hands but this looks like it will be reversed in short order.


Let's give the Ukrainians 5 months from now and see what they can do.

I still predict that the Southern offensive is the main line of attack to cut off the land bridge connection to Crimea and eventually retake that.
I live in hope that the closer they get to the sea the more likely they use a UK Storm Shadow missile to take out the Kerch Bridge.

[Mazder]

So tonight Russia hit Wagner forces with some artillery and their leader is not happy.
There are reports of 2 Wagner convoys heading back into Russia via Rostov, measuring dozens of kilometers.

It could be a Russian civil war on our hands.

[Vol]

So tonight Russia hit Wagner forces with some artillery and their leader is not happy.
There are reports of 2 Wagner convoys heading back into Russia via Rostov, measuring dozens of kilometers.

lol