I can't say that India and the US were ever what I would call allies.
Ukraine / Russia - Actions and Reactions
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In related news, E.U. President and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited President Trump last week. Yesterday’s Financial Times featured an article headlined, “Donald Trump has ‘well-founded plans’ for Russia-Ukraine peace talks, Viktor Orbán claims.”
The article mentioned no meetings between Orbán and President Rutabaga. Where are Biden’s well-founded plans for Russia-Ukraine peace talks? Why does President Trump have to do everything around here?
☕️ SLOPED FOREHEAD ☙ Wednesday, July 17, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Convention news as a new Republican party emerges; RFK gets security and leaks a call with Trump; Vance redeemed by sarcasm and Ukraine article; roundup of major shooting developments; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Yesterday, the UK Independent ran this revealing headline: “Germany to slash military aid for Ukraine in deepening crisis for Zelensky.” ‘Slash’ is hardly fair; in point of fact, the article disclosed that Germany is not just slashing Ukraine aid, but halving it from a generous $8 billion in 2024 to a paltry $4 billion budgeted for 2025. What do the Germans know that corporate media doesn’t?
(Don’t start. Zelensky is not picking his nose in front of the Prime Minister. He’s just brushing off some excess cocaine.)
That isn’t nearly all the bad news for Ukraine. Ten days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article under a headline that could have been lifted from Coffee & Covid two years ago: “High-Tech American Weapons Work Against Russia—Until They Don’t.” The sub-headline added, “Moscow is learning how to defeat Western precision munitions in Ukraine.” By “learning how to defeat” Western weapons, the Journal meant “spanking us senseless.”
The U.S. Military, constantly drunk on champagne from the last Defense conference, which occur every six-point-three minutes, is laboring under two flawed philosophies: first, that “fewer, bigger, more expensive, higher-tech” weapons are the best types of weapons, rather than “more, cheaper, simpler.” The second intoxicated fallacy —outspend your enemy— is best explained in the context of historical narrative, but I’ll keep it brief so readers in Portland won’t doze off.
On the 4th of July, 1879, 5,000 British troops stared down a massive and terrifying army of 20,000 bloodthirsty Zulu warriors, brandishing razor-sharp spears that can be quite pointy at the business end and leave customers feeling quite depleted. But by the battle’s end, the British had won, with only twelve lives lost, who were mostly Brits that were relieving themselves in the brush and never saw it coming. But within a very short time there were 1,500 dead Zulus.
The Zulus, warriors trained from birth, were defeated by the Gatling gun, a newfangled death machine invented by Samuel “Don’t Stand In Front of It” Gatling just ten years before, and only then entering military service in Africa.
Ever since, the Battle of Ulundi has become a textbook example of how a high-tech weapons advantage can turn the tide. It was so easy! Our military embraced that singular philosophy in the modern era, and American soldiers have been equipped with the best technology money can buy, such as sun-dried tomato lasagna MREs that taste exactly like a camel rectum. Some military experts even argue that Reagan single-handedly beat the Soviet Union merely by inventing “Star Wars” space-based missile defense satellites, which for some reason you never hear much about anymore because they were mostly made up.
But the high-technology theory of war has some fatal flaws:
- In the same year of the Great Gatling Victory (1879), the Zulus also beat the British at the different, less textbooky Battle of Isandlwana, despite British Gatling guns. It turned out that traditional factors like geography, morale, and tactics can offset lopsided technological advantages.
- The Zulus had zero technological or industrial capacity. It wasn’t even close. Zulus lived in huts. Their concept of manufacturing, honed through thousands of years of survival in harsh desert conditions, consisted mainly of hitting things with rocks until they stop moving. The Zulus were a hundred years away from making countermeasures against machine guns. The British-Zulu advantage might be true for America these days against some poorly-governed third-world countries like Iraq. But we lack that massive industrial offset against peer competitors like Russia and China, which both have manufacturing and industrial capacities arguably exceeding America’s.
- The U.S. military’s primary defense contractors use lots of Chinese subcontractors for manufacturing US weapons, computer components, rare earth metals, uniforms, and Biden bobblehead dolls. Who will build our high-tech weapons if we are fighting against China?
Ahem. Russia has been deploying drones in active combat in Ukraine for over two years now. They are miles ahead of the US. Russia’s chief ally, China, which shares a common border with Russia, is the world’s manufacturing superpower. It’s ludicrous to think we can out-drone the Chinese, which can launch their drones right from the beach, and we’d have to send our drone by Amazon Express from 5,000 miles across the ocean.
Between Bloomberg’s “Hellscape” article and the Journal’s “rapid obsolescence” article lies a grand canyon of difference. Even if Admiral Paparo’s Hellscape boasts are simply “strategic messaging” —lying— having to resort to exaggerated or false claims about potential future capabilities is a sign of weakness, broadcasting the U.S.’s lack of confidence in its current deterrent capabilities.
Our politically correct generals are mired back in 1879, or generously in the era of “Star Wars,” and depend on private military contractors to invent a way for them to beat China in Taiwan. Something has to change.
But any way you slice it, it’s been nothing but bad news for martial law commander and former comedian V. Zelensky.
☕️ EXCUSES ☙ Thursday, July 18, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Trump accepts nomination today, defying skeptics; Biden calls in covid sick; bad news for Ukraine; terrible news for Democrats; Vance gives rousing VP speech; House GOP explores options; and more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Yesterday, just days after his phone call with post-nomination Trump, Zelensky’s tone seems to have … changed. At a minor press event somewhere, the martial law administrator said, and I am not making this up either, “We have to end the war as soon as possible ... of course, to not lose people's lives.”
CLIP: Comedian’s new routine (0:08).
My goodness! The empathetic former president is finally connecting with the plight of his citizens. Stop the loss of life!
Note: No media covered this press conference, and I couldn’t find any details. But I thought it was interesting enough to include anyway, since I found confirmation of Ukraine’s sudden and unexpected diplomatic tone in a Tass article headlined, “Top Ukrainian diplomat says Kiev ready for talks with Russia — Chinese MFA.”
It only took one phone call. And Trump’s not even President yet.
☕️ DELEGATION ☙ Wednesday, July 24, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Cheatle becomes 2nd best Director in Secret Service history; how Admin knew roof would be unguarded; democrats re-define 'voting'; Kamala lawfare begins; Zelensky tone change; Florida leading; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
The Washington Post ran a sad story yesterday headlined, “Russia, adapting tactics, advances in Donetsk and takes more Ukrainian land.” The sub-headline added, “The new offensive focus comes as Ukraine faces depleted forces, sweltering heat and turmoil in a potentially consequential U.S. election.”
The article’s despondent tone is best summarized in these two paragraphs:
Things are going great! Remember, this dire situation follows the $61 billion dollar aid package. Somebody help me out; what do you call it when you pour billions of dollars into a giant hole in the ground, drop mortars and gasoline on top of it, then drive a bunch of high-tech tanks in for good measure, then set the whole thing on fire?
I’m just asking.
The news about the problems on the battlefield was not surprising to anyone keeping up with the war. But it was surprising that the far-left Washington Post told its readers the truth about the Proxy War to Save Democracy.
☕️ SORRY NOT SORRY ☙ Monday, July 29, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
A quick roundup: media narrative swings on Biden and covid; smarmy non-apology for drag olympics; Butler SWAT team dishes on Secret Service; Proxy War stuck in the Ukraine mud; and more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Fox ran a story yesterday headlined, “FBI raids New York home of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter: 'Ongoing federal investigation’.” The sub-headline added, “The raid came a day after Ritter posted a photo of himself with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” So, be aware of the possibilities whenever you pose for selfies.
Ritter has been a thorn in the U.S. government’s paw ever since the former U.N. weapons inspector protested the Iraq War, and correctly predicted the U.S. would never find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He was right, and he won’t shut up about it. You know how people are, it’s “I told you so” this and “I told you so that,” until you want to drill a hole in your own skull with a cordless power tool.
Or you can sic the FBI on them. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Recently Ritter has turned his attention to the U.S. Proxy War in Ukraine, of which he has been a relentless public critic. His efforts have not gone unnoticed. Two months ago, FBI agents, citing vague directions from the U.S. State Department, stopped Ritter in the airport on his way to an economic conference in Russia and confiscated his passport, which has probably now been shredded and scattered from a military cargo plane somewhere over the lower Antilles. (We aren’t sure yet.)
Yesterday, the FBI raided Ritter’s modest home in Bethlehem, New York. It must thave been much less exciting for the agents than raiding Mar-a-Lago. As Fox noted, the raid came one day after Ritter met with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., although any connection between the two events remains murky. Your guess is as good as anyone else’s.
It’s not clear what they were looking for. The FBI won’t say, citing “ongoing investigation,” but Ritter told reporters the case involves alleged violations of FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act).
FARA is the same law the government invoked to prosecute General Mike Flynn during the Trump Administration (although General Flynn was only charged with ‘making false statements to FBI agents’). FARA is also the same law the government has not charged Hunter Biden with, even though the evidence is so clear that Hunter’s gun-violation judge even asked the government about potential FARA charges against President Cabbage’s son.
Presumably, FBI agents were looking for evidence in Scott’s home and the trunks of his cars to support some kind of FARA indictment.
So.
☕️ HIT MEN AND HEIFERS ☙ Thursday, August 8, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Multiplier orders! Good Mideast war updates: signs it might be cooling off; cows are back in weird heifer story; FBI raids Mar-a-Ritter; bizarre Iranian assassin story; great news from Bulgaria; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Hessian
Well-Known Member
Looking for independent news source: Have Ukrainians pushed a huge salient into the Kursk oblast?
Is this intended to be a bargaining chip for a truce swap?
If true...I would think this should be a lead story on the International desk....who is reporting??
EDIT: The Aussies have a decent summary:
Is this intended to be a bargaining chip for a truce swap?
If true...I would think this should be a lead story on the International desk....who is reporting??
EDIT: The Aussies have a decent summary:
Last edited:
So, the Ukrainians used a drone to strike at the Zaporizhzhya NPP. NPP—that’s Nuclear Power Plant.
The Russians call this nuclear terrorism, which sounds reasonable. The Ukrainians say:
Quite frankly, I’m not sure what the thinking behind this is. Perhaps a far fetched hope that Russia will reshuffle their entire (and successful) strategy to deal with these pinpricks?
The Russians call this nuclear terrorism, which sounds reasonable. The Ukrainians say:
Quite frankly, I’m not sure what the thinking behind this is. Perhaps a far fetched hope that Russia will reshuffle their entire (and successful) strategy to deal with these pinpricks?
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal dished up a steaming pile of deep-state horse hockey, an ‘exclusive’ with the wild and (literally) unbelievable headline, “A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage. But wait, it immediately got even better. The sub-headline claimed, “Private businessmen funded the shoestring operation, which was overseen by a top general; President Zelensky approved the plan, then tried unsuccessfully to call it off.”
Let’s check and see how well you guys have been following along. Take a quick test to predict where this article is going. Choose one of the following forecasts:
A. [_] The article was sourced from credible, verifiable individuals known to exist who were in positions to have personal knowledge about what happened; OR…
B. [_] The article was sourced only from loosely-identified, anonymous informants.
If you didn’t pick ‘B’, stay after class for a remedial reading assignment.
Now let’s use this piece of high fantasy as a guide for how to spot articles pre-written for media by the Operation Mockingbird department of some squiddly organization bearing an obscure three-letter acronym. This story might be the most obvious example to date; it’s like they aren’t even really trying anymore.
Ready? Let’s crack some cephalopods.
The Journal’s tall tale began with a tell: it described the story to follow as an “outlandish” —unbelievable— scheme, concocted in a bar using alcohol-muddied thinking. How relatable! Who among us hasn’t concocted wildly dangerous sabotage schemes after throwing back a few? In other words, it knew the story was a whopper and would be hard to swallow.
Prepare to throw the old canard, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” right out the window. Who needs evidence?
Here’s the Journal’s generic description of the highly-technical operation, with one key sentence highlighted. Think about that sentence while you’re reading the rest:
Haha, they couldn’t resist smuggling a little diversity into their fabulous fiction (“one was a woman”). Women can blow up pipelines too. And they even added a laugh track! But let’s focus back on that leading sentence: “Now, for the first time, the outlines of the real story can be told.”
Can be told. That sentence was a mistake made in haste. It wasn’t written by any independent WSJ journalist. The line implied some outside force or authority always stopped the story from being told before. But now, it has granted permission. The article never explained who or what that authority was. It raises murky questions that linger like octopus ink:
Who stopped the story from being told?
Why did they stop the story about ‘private businessmen’ being told?
Why did this invisible authority decide now the story could be told?
I’ll suggest we weren’t meant to know about the outside authority. It slipped into the article by accident, as the writer struggled to explain the story’s timing. That was an unintended gift, but it wasn’t necessary to understand the game.
The article continued by claiming that President Zelensky initially approved Operation Vodka, but the CIA “found out about it,” asked the former comedian to stand down, and Zelensky complied, ordering the saboteurs to stop. But former commander-in-chief Zaluzhniy —since fired and given a sweet, immunity-laden ambassadorship— went ahead anyway.
How exactly did CIC Zaluzhniy get involved with these ‘private businessmen?’ How did the CIA find out about the plot (the article says Dutch intelligence told them, but how did the Dutch know)? Why was Zelensky involved in the first place? Was it an official military op or not?
Both Zelensky and Zaluzhniy denied the story. So our belief must rest only on the Journal’s anonymous sources, composed of “four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot.” The WSJ never sourced any of the alleged “private businessmen” (and woman!). It sounds like Operation Vodka included a lot more than “private businessmen,” but the article never stretched to connect that dot.
Think critically. How did these ‘senior officials’ learn of the supposedly private operation? Even more importantly, why would they would disclose it? Why would they disclose it to a newspaper? Why now? The Journal never said.
In whom do we readers place our trust? The named sources who denied the story? Or the Journal’s inky anonymous informants, who don’t even match the profile of the inebriated private businesspeople it claims planned the attack? Is this story just a massive appeal to the Journal’s credibility? You can trust us, because.
Enter the German connection. Based on “no evidence” (see for yourself) they issued a warrant for a Ukrainian dive instructor in June:
No admissible evidence? Is this the same Journal that for years stubbornly insisted there was “no evidence” Ivermectin successfully treated covid infections? Now, apparently, “no evidence” is just fine when assigning blame for one of the most geopolitically significant stories in our lifetimes.
Arrest warrants are usually public information. Knowing who is supposed to be arrested is generally helpful for catching them. Pose for the mugshot! But the story never disclosed the alleged “Ukrainian dive instructor’s” identity. He could be any old octopus, for all we know.
Not only were the Journal’s claims completely unverifiable by actual humans, but the Journal even insisted verification would be impossible:
Uh-huh. So … how does the WSJ know there is no paper trail? Is it plausible every junior bureaucrat would meekly accept a verbal approval for a massive war crime, without even wanting an email for the file? Did the conspirators never ever discuss the plan and its complicated logistics in any text messages, emails, DMs, Word documents, or even a spreadsheet?
The remainder of Journal’s article was packed with convoluted, mind-numbing details and speculations that would be inadmissible in county court. But there was an even bigger hole in the story. Again, think critically.
If the Journal just broke an explosive exclusive resulting from terrific, Pulitzer-level investigative reporting, where are those details? Where is the Journal’s triumphant narrative about how it broke the story of a lifetime and solved a war crime that the World’s governments have been unable to crack?
As to how the Journal pulled off this exclusive, there was nothing but radio silence. No paper trail. Just the inky water left behind.
Here’s what the Journal’s “Exclusive Investigation” amounted to: Anonymous informants, implausibly precise and highly technical operations (by civilians!), unnamed perps, critical internal contradictions, vague and convenient claims that evidence does not exist, denials by named sources, lack of source transparency, unexplained timing, and an invisible investigation.
Great work, Wall Street Journal. By “great “work,” I mean deplorable hackery. So this article could only have been yet another spectral fairy tale planted by the subterranean security state. But why? And why now? What we’ve learned in the past about these kinds of fantastic one-off stories, which quickly sink into the Baltic without a geopolitical ripple, is that they were intended to discipline Ukraine, by showing the deep state’s whip hand.
What are they trying to force a recalcitrant Zelensky to do now?
Oh well. A least now the story “can be told.” Thanks for letting us know, I guess. We live in a time of media malfeasance and control beyond any nightmarish, tentacular villain Orwell could possibly have dreamed up following a drunken oyster-eating contest. Stay frosty.
☕️ S.P.E.C.T.R.E. ☙ Thursday, August 15, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
The WSJ's fake-news exclusive provides more rich material for learning to root out deep state plants; space weather is totally not normal but who cares?; the WHO declares the newest pandemic; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
In Proxy War news, yesterday the Washington Post ran a surprising story headlined, “Ukraine’s offensive derails secret efforts for partial cease-fire with Russia, officials say.” The sub-headline explained, “The warring countries were set to hold indirect talks in Qatar on an agreement to halt strikes on energy and power infrastructure, according to officials.”
Now they tell us. It was a ‘secret’ because media never reported it till now. Apparently, Ukraine and Russia were planning to meet, to discuss de-escalating their tit-for-tat energy strikes, which Russia is clearly winning, since the lights are still on in Moscow while most of Ukraine is sitting around in the dark.
As they say in Westeros, winter is coming. Astonishingly, WaPo admitted Ukraine is on the breaking point:
The same official explained, “energy is definitely critical for us; we’re facing free fall if there’s no light and heat in the winter.”
Facing free fall. Not literally. He meant it’s lights out, comrades. Game over.
Why would Russia want to agree to stop its effective infrastructure attacks? WaPo didn’t say. Nevertheless, the parties had been optimistic about a potential deal. WaPo’s anonymous diplomat said, “Kyiv and Moscow had both signaled their readiness to accept the arrangement in the lead-up to the summit.”
But then Ukraine invaded Russia last week. Now Moscow says “nyet.”
The Ukrainians seem to have missiled themselves in the foot again. Their ‘daring invasion’ into a small rural district in western Russia isn’t likely to produce any benefit, and has scuttled the delicate ‘secret negotiations:’
If the Ukrainians had somehow managed to grab the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant ahead of these secret talks, they might have held a royal card to play. But they never even got close.
Anyway, compare how the media treated these Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations —by burying the news— to the raft of headlines reporting on the Hamas-Israel peace talks. So let’s check in on those super-marketed talks, to find out whether the Biden Administration pulled off a better result down by the Red Sea.
☕️ IMPACTFUL ☙ Saturday, August 17, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Kamala economic plan lands with thud and ... media attacks? Headline editors struggle for words on Sun; secret Ukraine peace plan collapse; Hamas peace deal collapse; advice for Brit protestors; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Kinnakeet
Well-Known Member
Truth...F..K the ukraine
Clever: Israel Uses Phone Call to Lure, Delete Hezbollah Leader
Israel has long been known to have a great intelligence apparatus; being a small nation surrounded by people who want you dead tends to sharpen your intelligence-gathering skills. Now we are presented with another example of just how good Israel is at information-gathering, as on July 30th, they used a ruse involving a mysterious phone call to lure a Hezbollah commander out of hiding to a location where he could be (and was) deleted by an airstrike.
Once more we see further proof of the accuracy of the military aphorism, "There is no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable application of high explosives," and turning senior Hezbollah commanders into a pink mist is one of the best of all possible uses for that suitable application. It would be interesting to know just what was said to Fuad Shukr in that phone call: "We'd like to talk to you about your car's extended warranty. Would you mind just stepping up to the seventh floor so we may send you a renewal package? Yes, just stand by that window on the southwest corner." Whatever the message was, Shukr listened, resulting in the worst and shortest day of his life.
Two can play at the sanctuary state game. Late last week, President Putin issued a decree making Russia into a sanctuary country for people with traditional Christian values. You cannot make this stuff up; it could only happen in 2024.
In short, Putin’s decree waived certain Russian immigration requirements, such as demonstrating Russian language proficiency and passing a history test, for people applying for temporary residence permits. Applicants must come from countries “imposing destructive neoliberal ideological guidelines that contradict traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.”
Traditional Russian spiritual and moral values are anti-LGBTQ+, orthodox Christian values.
Even more entertaining, Putin ordered the Russian government to compile a list of approved countries with “destructive neoliberal values.”
Who wants to bet the United States appears prominently at the top of that list?
In classic Putin fashion, the move was not just virtue signaling. The overheated Russian economy is thirsty for skilled workers. The category of only ‘neoliberal’ countries ensures temporary workers will come from preferred, higher-income areas. The ideological character of the test causes applicants to self-select for conservatism; liberals won’t bother applying.
I wish we could do the same thing for Florida residency.
Putin has thrown down the bearskin glove and challenged the West to vote with their feet. As for me, I plan to stay and fight to the bitter end. How about you?
☕️ SANCTUARIANISM ☙ Wednesday, August 21, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
DNC delivers nothing but amusement; Biden lost a million jobs in the couch cushions; highlights of interim report on Trump shooting; Kennedy considers Trump endorsement; Russian sanctuary state; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com