Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Victor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] A tragicomic story has unfolded in Lithuania. Four American soldiers traveling in an M88A2 Hercules tracked armored recovery vehicle went missing at a training ground near the city of Pabrade. The Lithuanians later found out where the vehicle was, but that didn't make things any easier for anyone.
It turned out that the transporter had sunk to rest at the bottom of one of the local swamps. The epic of extracting the "Hercules" with the soldiers' bodies dragged on for almost a week.
While the country's residents are amazed at how it was possible to fall so deep into the swamp, the Lithuanian leadership has practically declared a national day of mourning.
DIFFICULT TERRAIN
The disappearance of soldiers from the American contingent in Lithuania became known on March 25. The missing soldiers served in the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division of the 5th Corps of the US Army.
The soldiers were taking part in a planned tactical exercise, driving through the training ground, and suddenly disappeared. When their vehicle failed to return to base, a hasty search was organized. A day later, the population was informed that four Americans and their vehicle had fallen into a swamp.
The main and most frequently used firing range of the Lithuanian army is located in Pabradė. It is divided into sections, and the central element is the shooting range - this is more than 10 hectares of open space. Around it there is a hilly area covered with forests, abundant with streams, swamps and lakes. There is also a training area "combat in the city": there are buildings erected there that imitate urban development.
According to Lithuanian military expert Darius Antanaitis, the missing Americans were riding in a 70-ton recovery vehicle designed to rescue damaged equipment. Such a vehicle usually has a crew of three, but can accommodate four.
Antanaitis put forward three versions. The first was that the soldiers drowned together with the car. The second was that they got out of it, but drowned because they were wearing bulletproof vests and possibly carrying weapons. The third version, put forward by a Lithuanian expert, sounded simply astonishing: “the frightened soldiers reached the shore and are now hiding.”
Antanaitis added that traffic at the testing ground is carried out according to established rules: you can’t drive wherever you want, because not all the roads there are capable of supporting heavy equipment. “Nobody could order them to drive straight into the swamp,” the Lithuanian expert noted thoughtfully.
He assumed that the driver either fell asleep or mistakenly turned onto the wrong road in the dark. And he added with concern that "this story will undoubtedly be used by Russian propaganda." Indeed, the theme of "aggressive Russia" simply could not fail to arise in such a story.
At first, the Baltic news agency BNS reported that, according to unnamed Lithuanian experts, the special services of Russia and Belarus could be involved in the deaths of the four Americans. But then they abandoned the idea of promoting such a promising plot for local propaganda - apparently because, despite all their desire, they could not find even the most minimally convincing clues.
The theme of “evil Russians” began to be developed from a different angle.
A version appeared on some Russian-language Telegram channels that these Americans actually died in combat in Ukraine, but their bodies were specially taken to Lithuania in order to, so to speak, “legalize” their deaths. In connection with this, the Lithuanian media was seized with feigned indignation at the treachery of “Kremlin propaganda.”
SILT AND GAS MIXED
Lithuanian authorities have been busy but chaotic. "Inland Waterways Administration officials, hydrographers and dredger specialists with equipment designed for working in swamps are being dispatched to the scene," the Lithuanian government said.
They also announced that they were planning to use a powerful echo sounder to scan the bottom of the reservoir. And on Thursday morning, the head of the Lithuanian government Gintautas Paluckas, the Minister of Defense Dovilė Šakalienė and the US Ambassador Kara McDonald arrived at the scene.
Šakalėne haltingly explained that the armored vehicle was in a mud hole at a depth of at least five meters. The wife of one of the missing, Sergeant Edvin Franko, gave an interview to Lithuanian media - she said that her husband and his colleagues did not notice the water and drove straight into it. Readers immediately asked how the American could know such details?
Naturally, another question arose: why haven’t they been pulled out yet after such a long time?
According to Shakalene, the problem was complicated by the fact that the swamp in the search area is connected to a lake, and the muddy water made it impossible to see the car. "We managed to remove some of the silt overnight, but that is not enough - water from the nearby lake continues to flow in," the minister explained.
On Friday morning, Shakalene reported that hundreds of people and dozens of vehicles were working day and night to try to reach the armoured personnel carrier that had sunk into the swamp. “The plan is to attach cables, use pulleys and pull the vehicle to shore using military equipment,” she explained.
The minister justified herself by saying that at first it seemed as if the complicated scenario of the work could be avoided. "If everything had been simple, then probably the Americans themselves would have pulled out the car without our help," added the commander of the Lithuanian army, Raimundas Vaikšnoras. According to him, the second difficulty is that a gas pipeline runs near this place.
On the same day, Friday, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda arrived at the scene. The Lithuanian leader defended himself: “The situation is absolutely unique – you see what natural traps have been set up here and how difficult it is to carry out rescue work. ”
OFFICIAL GRIEF
The Lithuanian authorities have shown signs of deep grief all the time. According to Nausėda, who was visiting Paris the day before, “many leaders – prime ministers, presidents – have approached me not to offer condolences, because we are still looking and still hoping for a miracle.”
Nauseda expressed gratitude to Poland, which sent a group of soldiers and engineering equipment to help. A team of army engineers from the United States also arrived, and a little later American divers arrived.
"Such moments only confirm how strong we are when we are together, when we are in the NATO alliance," the Lithuanian president emphasized. According to him, it is very important to him that the Americans do not accuse him of anything and treat the incident with understanding.
And Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys recalled that Lithuania is currently celebrating twenty-one years of membership in NATO. Budrys assured US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Vilnius is ready to accept twice as many American troops as it currently has. It would be hard to pick a more inappropriate time for such a statement – now it sounds like an outright mockery.
On March 30, on the fifth day of the rescue operation, Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said that it was not going as well as she would have liked: during the night, a large piece of soil fell on the Hercules buried in the swamp and the progress already achieved was nullified.
A service for the rescue of American soldiers was held in the Vilnius Cathedral, attended by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other representatives of the Lithuanian elite.
Lithuanian media reported on the progress of the rescue operation every hour, convincing the population that there was no topic more important and pressing for the state than this.
On Sunday, Lithuanian Army Captain Indrė Pilkauskaitė reported that they were being hampered by dense silt. Closer to lunchtime, Commander-in-Chief Vaikšnoras trumpeted that they had attached the first cable to the sunken armored vehicle. And US Army Colonel Jim Armstrong said that in almost a quarter century of service, he had never seen a vehicle so bogged down.
Finally, early in the morning of March 31, the American armored vehicle was pulled out of the swamp. Three bodies were also found, and the search for the fourth missing person is still ongoing. Military police and American investigators are working at the scene.
The official press was given the task of portraying national grief - the media published blitz interviews with various representatives of the Lithuanian "deep" people, who told how sorry they were for the dead Americans and what inhuman gratitude they felt towards them for "defending Lithuania".
Sensible Lithuanians look at this with irony and skepticism: they understand that the state would hardly have raised such a pompous fuss if several of its own citizens had died in the swamps. Visiting soldiers are a different matter.
And here's a shocking detail: the head of the Lithuanian Foundation for Restoration and Protection of Marshes, Nerijus Zabletskis, said that the swamp in which the four Yankees drowned was not marked on state maps. That is, a NATO and EU country has still not bothered to make normal maps of its own territory.
[FoxNews] Government subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs), combined with a regulatory credit system for vehicle emissions, are leading to rising automobile and utility costs, a new report from the American Energy Institute (AEI) reveals.
Increasingly stringent Corporate Average Fuel Economy and greenhouse gas tailpipe emissions standards have forced gas-powered vehicle manufacturers to produce more EVs. As a result, this has siphoned auto manufacturers' resources away from gas-powered vehicle production and toward EV production, ultimately pushing the costs of gas-powered cars higher, according a report by the AEI.
If auto manufacturers do not produce enough EVs to meet state and federal standards, they are forced to buy into a credit system to offset their emissions production, inevitably creating another avenue where additional costs are transferred to consumers, according to the report.
Utility costs also see an impact, AEI's report points out. State and federal subsidy and rebate programs for EV charging infrastructure, while beneficial for utility companies' profits, lead once more to increased costs that are subsequently passed on to rate payers. Forty states offer rebates for in-home level two chargers, while at the federal level, rebate and subsidy programs for EV charging infrastructure received an investment of roughly $7.5 billion under former President Joe Biden.
"By distorting the market with regulatory credits, subsidies, and behind-the-scenes rulemaking, federal agencies are shifting costs from affluent EV buyers to working-class Americans — while straining a grid that’s already under pressure," said Jason Isaac, co-author of the report and the founder and CEO of AEI. "This isn’t about consumer choice or energy innovation. It’s administrative overreach that leaves Americans paying more to drive and to keep the lights on."
#1
Dept of Energy was established to get more energy not to reduce per capita use of energy. Another department that needs to be radically downsized as it lost its mission focus.
[FoxNews] Trump not 'fully aware' about 'serious' DOGE spending cuts, Harry Dent says
How on Earth did such a stupid fellow get a BS in economics from Wharton and grow a multi-billion dollar international empire? That said, it seems to me that Mr. Dent and Mr. Musk are substantially in agreement.
With Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reportedly on track to save hundreds of billions of dollars annually, one outspoken U.S. economist explained how cutting costs can paint a harsh reality for the economy.
"Trump is not fully aware of how these serious (and needed) cuts in federal spending will very likely tip the economy back toward recession," Harry Dent told Fox News Digital. "Secretary of the Treasury Bessent is warning there may be some pain, but the $2 billion intended cuts would be 7% of GDP and enough alone to cause a recession."
I thought the economy already was in a recession. Also, according to the internet, in 2024 the American GDP was over $29 trillion. Did Mr. Dent misplace his decimal point? I realize economics is considered a branch of philosophy rather than an actual science, but this seems a tad egregious, even for a non-math type. (When I ran the numbers past Mr. Wife, he asked, “Was he smoking dope?” which is another possible explanation.)
"Such a recession would be worse than most economists think as our economy has been stretched beyond compare with $27 trillion in combined fiscal and monetary stimulus since 2008, and still rising $2 trillion or so a year from record deficits despite monetary stimulus being pulled back," he noted.
Or is could be better, when all that inflating is balanced by deflationary cuts in government spending. Many things are possible — what matters is the most probable.
"It’s good to make such cuts, but naïve to underestimate the economy’s ability to absorb them at this time."
The farther down the road the can is kicked, the higher the cost when it stops. The end point is total collapse, and we can’t go back in time to when the cost would have been less, so right now this minute is the very best we can do.
Though DOGE’s mission to cut federal budgets, fire employees and gain access to potentially sensitive information has received widespread criticism from politicians and average Americans alike, the department is claiming its measures have netted $115 billion in savings.
Thus far. The projection is for accelerating savings as DOGE gets deeper into the files.
A combination of canceling contract leases, stopping fraudulent or improper payments and canceling grants is reportedly what led to the figure, according to DOGE’s website.
The estimated $115 billion in savings will save an average of $714.29 per taxpayer, based on the 2022 figures of 161 million individual income taxpayers.
Dent encouraged Musk to make budgeting decisions with a fine-tooth comb, as he sticks to his outlook that an economic downturn will hit the U.S. economy between 2025 and 2027.
But thereafter freeing up the funds that had been flowing to government spending will be available to the private sector, and the private sector always, always, always gets a better return on better targetted investments, right? So we have that to look forward to.
"My expertise was turnaround management. The secret of that is not just slashing costs, okay? You go in, it's always in the fixed costs. The background overhead is where 90% of the waste is," Dent told Fox Digital in a recent interview.
You mean like Welfare/Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare payments going to illegals and imaginary people? The DOGE team has already started working on that.
"I like change, and I can make 10 times the change in half the time if something's failing than if it's sailing along and you got to fight inertia, and people don't want this. And the change is always disruptive," he added.
A Harvard Business School graduate, the now-economist’s first job after college at consulting firm Bain & Company was similar in principle to Musk’s role at DOGE, he pointed out.
"You have to go in there and find out what's really causing those costs and cut those fixed costs. In other words, you have to do a surgical cut," Dent said.
"I could go into a healthy business and cut 20% in a heartbeat out of their fixed cost. And I can go in an unhealthy business, what I used to [do], and cut 50% of the fixed cost and that makes you lean and mean," he expanded. "That's what we need."
Though it seems to Dent that Musk – for the time being – is "mindlessly" making government savings moves,
…that sounds like he’s a reflex anti-Musker, rather than reasoned disagreement…
"it’s better than nothing."
"We don't need to say, 'We're just going to cut this whole department, we're just going to cut 50% of this department,’" the economist posited. "That's not the way to cut costs. And so I would say Musk, with all his experience, did not get a lot of it in the turnaround side like I got. And I didn't intend to get it, but I got it in spades."
"And anybody [who's] been around in turnarounds would tell you that you cut selectively to make yourself healthy. You don't cut out of panic to keep from just dying," Dent continued.
Stern Magazine is calling for mass conscription of German youths to join the army, including to ensure the defense of "freedom and diversity." The reaction to the article has been harsh to say the least, with hundreds of negative comments directed at Stern.
The article, entitled "Others no longer defend us? Then we must do it ourselves!" claims that "the USA no longer wants to protect Germany. This brings a bitter realization: Our unbearable complacency must end."
The solution? Start drafting German youth to fight the future wars. The author, Tilman Gerwien, a German male noticeable well past the age of someone who might typically be drafted, says that the days of a "dollhouse-like Bullerbu" are over and "we have to grow up." He details the left’s traditional stance against conscription, which saw German youths demanding American troops leave Germany, was "not only a matter of conscience, but also a lifestyle." He noted that at demonstrations against NATO, "people hopped around in peace-loving spirits, chanting ’Out of NATO, into fun!'" All of this has to end, according to Gerwien.
There is no way to know if Gerwien was ever a part of these previous protests or ever shared those sentiments at one time, but it is notable that he is now old enough to not have to face the draft himself. Lucky him.
He is a part of the trend of the German establishment left suddenly becoming gung-ho in recent years, especially since Putin invaded Ukraine. The old Green Party ideals of removing NATO from Europe and pursuing an anti-war agenda have been jettisoned. In this sense, much of the establishment left has become outright hawkish. With Trump now in office, the hawkishness from this German establishment has now gone into overdrive, with the Greens joining forces with the CDU to promote a defense-oriented Germany.
Will Germans fight for the "New Germany?"
Of course, the "New Germany" does not exactly have people lining up to fight for it, and that is a real problem for the establishment. Much of the conservative youth no longer see a Germany they would lay down their lives for, and in fact, the "New Germany" openly despises these AfD-voting youths, and maybe even sending them to the front would solve this "problem."
Meanwhile, the left-wing youth is coddled and mostly pacifist. This "Spiegel/Stern left" may like the idea of soldiers going off to fight on their behalf, but they don’t actually want to do the fighting themselves. The old notions of "honor" and "heroes" have been widely mocked and denigrated by the German elite, which Stern acknowledges,
So, who will fight?
Well, in the end, there doesn’t have to be a "reason" for conscription. Youths in Germany, just as in Ukraine, will be forced to the front for the likes of Stern’s editorial staff when push comes to shove, but it’s a nice thought for these journalists that these youths will at least think they have something worth dying for.
So, what should they die for? Stern addresses this problem, as the very atomized and multicultural society it promotes reduces the will for Germans to die face down in some trench at the frontline.
The magazine writes, "Taking all of this into account, Germany faces a tremendous challenge. We must dare to embrace more ’heroism’ — and less hedonism. More communal commitment and less responsibility-avoiding individualism. And be careful not to lose sight of what we want to defend: freedom and diversity. If the pendulum swings too far toward individualization, we become defenseless. If the focus is too strongly on defense, the ghosts of the past are awakened, keyword ’national community.’ It’s important to find the balance."
See, Stern doesn’t want right-wing people who love their country fighting a patriotic war at the front. This could lead to people voting for the AfD, and then... Hitler will come back. This is the logic of Der Spiegel, Stern, and many others.
They instead want iPhone-wielding hipsters who love diversity dying in the trenches. These iPhone-wielding youths should be at the front to defend guys like Gerwien so they can go to Vietnamese restaurants, attend book readings from African authors, and enjoy art installations from Brazilian LGBT activists.
German youth should die for all the above, not for the "German people," or the "German flag," or "hearth and home" or any of that other fascist nonsense that typically united nations and led men to lay down their lives for each other and their families.
Stern also appears relatively sure this youth will indeed be dying as well, saying they "will have to take up arms at some point."
"At the very latest, when conscription comes into effect, ’they’ (the Bundeswehr) will be all of us — even if only because our children and grandchildren will have to take up arms at some point," writes Stern. "This raises the question: What are we prepared to fight for and, when push comes to shove, to die for? The fact that we are being asked to answer for the first time in decades is the true ’turning point.'"
However, as Stern writes, German youths are not just fighting for diversity, but also for "freedom."
Notably, if you have any problem with "German freedom," such as Germany’s harsh free speech laws, then your freedom should be curtailed with a visit from the police, as is increasingly the case in Germany.
Of course, freedom and democracy are tied together, and German youths should be fighting at the front to defend a government increasingly intent on banning the second most popular party in the country, the AfD, which just hit a new polling high this week at 23.5 percent. But freedom also means banning political parties, and we must all fight for the right to ban political parties whose opinions we do not agree with, especially if that party is opposed to the war in Ukraine, which all German youth (future soldiers fighting for diversity) should support..
It all sounds very confusing, but "freedom and diversity" certainly sound good as long as we don’t look at the details.
It is also worth noting that despite Germans being called to "defend diversity," the cover of Stern is remarkably lacking in diversity. It’s two White people, a boy and girl.
Considering Germany’s youth are becoming more and more diverse, one would think that it would have been the perfect opportunity to feature a Black or Arab person. Go to any clothing store in Germany or any other Western country, and the classic motif of the Black male paired with the White female is ubiquitous. However, as those on the right often point out, when the threat of real wars start, the White males suddenly start appearing more and more frequently in the recruiting ads of the armed forces.
Laughably, the Stern call to action quotes military historian Sönke Neitzel, who told the magazine in support of conscription: "What are we waiting for?" "That 100 percent of the population is in favor of it?" He claims people won’t like it, but it simply has to happen.
Well, maybe they could at least wait until there is 20 percent of the population supporting such measures? A new Forsa poll shows that only 17 percent of Germans are willing to take up arms and die for their country. In short, Stern’s vision of an army of conscripts ready to die for Germany sounds a bit like Hitler at the end of the war, who was completely separated from reality and moving armies around on the map that did not exist.
Of those 17 percent, how many of them are older people or women who actually would not take up arms or even be forced to take up arms should the call to war come?
As Remix News reported in the past, the Ukrainian army has had something the German army did not, which was a patriotic, hardcore, right-wing element that was willing to "die for Ukraine." Not all of these soldiers were neo-Nazis, but many certainly were. A huge number of these soldiers are already dead, and the war may be coming to an end. Ironically, Ukraine may end up more like Germany in the end with the death of these soldiers, as calls by Ukrainian business leaders to accept the mass importation of migrants to replace the soldiers lost are becoming more of a mainstream idea.
Germany’s push for conscription will continue, with hundreds of billions being directed into weapons purchases. The only problem is that Germans are not going to want to fly these fighter jets or drive these tanks.
As the X comments note, Germans do not seem especially enthusiastic. One user writes: "Why should you fight for a country that you can’t even be proud of?"
Another responds: "You’ve failed with your miserable war training and war mentality. Only 17% of Germans want to defend Germany with weapons in hand, according to the latest Forsa survey. You won’t have my children, you miserable indoctrinators and arms industry lobbyists!"
Another asks how old the boy on the cover of the magazine is: "Shouldn’t the question be: Would you give your child? How old is the boy on the cover? 17? Man, man, man... This is on the level of ’Jesus would have been vaccinated.'"
Some do not even want people to buy Stern, period.
"No—don’t fight! And don’t buy that stupid state propaganda magazine either," wrote another.
Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed ||
04/01/2025 08:12 ||
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#1
The Stern article is behind paywall...
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/01/2025 9:22 Comments ||
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#2
Rather than drafting their reluctant youth who have been thoroughly indoctrinated against war and nationalism, why not just get rid of the army? Without soldiers and guns for fighting, we can all live in peace and harmony. Wouldn't that be nice?
#4
In 1989 the Bundeswehr had 509,000 troops. Never more. Nobody felt threatened by it.
That said, I don't think we need the draft. We need a lean competent professional military acting in concert with other major European nations like France, Poland, U.K., Italy. Nobody will invade Russia. We just want to keep Russia out.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/01/2025 11:00 Comments ||
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#9
They instead want iPhone-wielding hipsters who love diversity dying in the trenches.
Those that survive will no longer be what they began as. Though, to be fair, that's anyone whose seen a friend die brutally in front of them. Me included.
I kind of wish there were a 130-year-old Ernst Junger still alive in Germany to write a response article to Tilman Gerwien's. That would be a hoot.
#11
I kinda feel like it's too late for Europe, the frog is already in the pot and the water is heating up. Their leaders are deliberately destroying their cultural identities by dilutions with muslim colonizers.
Given that, I feel like the only way out is likely to be the nightmare fuel that Europe used to be capable of that they lack the spine for now. Things like the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre. Unless there's a second coming of Charles Martel or someone like him to lead the charge against the invaders Europe has invited to pillage them.
[ZeroHedge] Back in 2022, Ukraine’s President Zelensky posed for a photo shoot wearing an olive green t-shirt emblazoned with a bizarre design that read, “Come to the dark side … Dominate or Die.” At the time, I wondered who thought it appropriate to even come up with such slogans, let alone have Ukraine’s president wear it on his chest. The photoshoot was arranged by a British PR team. At the time, a short documentary report about this was published in social media (here’s a YouTube clip).
Who thought this up?
Dennis Small, an editor at the Executive Intelligence Review, commented as follows:
“Let’s remember, Zelensky is an actor … he’s being given lines to read. The people providing those lines to Mr. Zelensky are two public relations (PR) firms in London who are working with Ukrainians to craft the message coming from Zelensky, which is largely directed to the West.”
The Clarion call, “come to the dark side” was probably passed down to Zelensky through these channels. He obliged and addressed the Western public with that message on his chest. Imagine how the Western media would have reacted had Vladimir Putin worn a t-shirt like that. But if Zelensky invites you to the dark side, that’s all perfectly good and wholesome and there’s no need to question that message. I do believe, however, that this was a very significant moment that should not have been overlooked.
EUROPE’S IDIOT WARHAWKS
European Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen has announced her ReArm Europe plan with up to €800 billion of military spending. Soon to be German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing for unlimited borrowing for infrastructure and defence spending. Even before assuming office, he won German parliament’s approval for a €500 billion fund to finance defence projects. But this is only the start: Merz is pushing through constitutional amendments that would remove fiscal restraints on debt and unleash a massive boost to military spending. Ultimately, the figure could rise up to €1.7 trillion. It would more than double Germany’s debt to GDP, from 62.4% currently, to about 125%. How much money is €1.7 trillion? It’s about €20,400 per man, woman and child in Germany.
Over in France, Emmanuel Macron wants to send troops to Ukraine and boost France’s nuclear arsenal. He’s dreaming about hypersonic missiles that could carry nuclear warheads toward Russian targets. Across the channel, Keir Starmer is obsessing about military conscription, scotching up a “coalition of the willing” against Russia and providing ever more financial and military aid to Ukraine. He even said that Britain’s deployment of troops to Ukraine is already “operational,” whatever that means.
WEAKENING, EXHAUSTING RUSSIA
But what is the point of all this busywork? Even European leaders are not so delusional as to think that they can reverse Ukraine’s defeat or vanquish Russia with their weak militaries. Instead, they simply want the war to continue, hoping to weaken and exhaust Russia with the view of toppling Vladimir Putin’s government. Well, let’s see how that’s going…
Russia has been fighting the war in Ukraine for more than three years now. When the war started, the Armed Forces of Ukraine were the largest and most powerful army in Europe. The estimates of its size vary, but in an interview with the German TV network ARD, Zelensky said that, "...We have 880,000 [troops]. We have a million-strong army.” In February 2022 that force was fully intact, all trained up and armed to the teeth. They also had full support from the collective West. Together with the United States, they were united behind Ukraine with their arsenals full of weapons and ammunition. Then, as soon as the conflict began, they hit Russia with a nuclear sanctions package, determined to collapse her economy.
But none of it worked; Russia didn’t weaken: instead, it got much stronger. In a recent talk at Hillsdale College, former Navy Seal and founder of Blackwater Worldwide, Eric Prince delivered a sobering message: “First of all, don’t listen to the idiot politicians that say, yeah, we've degraded the Russian army. No,” said Prince, “we have chewed up a lot of material. The Russian army has gotten infinitely smarter.”
THE RUSSIAN ARMY GOT INFINITELY SMARTER
For example, "The thing that the Russians are very good at is electronic warfare," which has negated the effectiveness of the most advanced Western systems, such as Javelin missiles, HIMARS and Copperhead guided artillery shells. Such weapons often became ineffective within weeks of their use in the battlefield: “It works for a week or two, and the Russians figure [out] how to jam the navigation or the command link, and the stuff goes blind.”
Meanwhile, all the bright minds at NATO haven’t been able to figure out how to fight the Russians. A report published by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) acknowledged that Russia's evolving tactics are leaving NATO strategists at a loss.
Is that because they don’t know how to fight Russia, or they don’t know how to better fight Russia using the Ukrainian army?
In a nutshell, the Russian military is combining infantry operations with drones and gliding bombs in a sort of "offensive triangle" that paralyzes enemy troops behind the front lines. Infantry and artillery action prevent them from maneuvering; drones continuously attack and wear down the trapped forces and the gliding bombs finish them off with precise hits at their fortifications. If the Ukrainian military chooses to hold static positions, they become targets for gliding bomb raids; if they opt for 'flexible,' mobile defense, they expose themselves to attacks with artillery and drones.
SHARPENING ITS SWORD…
Contrary to Western media's trash talk, Russian military has not been degraded. If anything, it has been significantly upgraded. The Russians have been very strategic and methodical in learning from their operations. Battlefield experiences have been systematically fed back up the command chain in order to study the army's weaknesses, and potential improvements to its operations. Eric Prince offered another telling example:
"If you shot at a Russian with artillery in March or April of 2022, it would take them an hour and a half to shoot back accurately. Now, about two minutes, which means if you shoot at them, you better be in your vehicle and hauling ass because they're going to get you otherwise."
I was trained as an artillery marksman in the military; for a well-trained, coordinated team, two minutes is enough to fire off perhaps four or five rounds but with no time to adjust the aim. Hitting a target with the first round can only happen by luck: normally you fire, get feedback if the shot was too long, short, off to the left or right, and then adjust the aim accordingly. Unless you’re shooting smaller calibre mortars, two minutes is only enough time to fire a few rounds, hope for a lucky strike and run.
If what Eric Prince said is true, the implications are actually quite staggering. It means that the Russian troops have been able to largely neutralize one of the most important and most effective means of modern warfare. And let’s not forget Russia’s logistical operations and unmatched industrial base producing a massive abundance of ammunition.
[Powerline] Democracy is imperiled across what used to be known as the Free World. In France, Marine Le Pen, who likely would have won that country’s next presidential election, has been prosecuted and found guilty of embezzlement, and barred from running for office for five years—until after the 2027 presidential election, in other words.
As I understand it, Le Pen and her party used funds from the European Union that were supposed to be paid to third-party contractors to fund positions within the National Rally itself. There is no suggestion that Le Pen, or anyone else at the Rally, enriched herself or himself. I have not seen any legal explanation of why that conviction would preclude her from running for office.
In Romania, the presidential election was abruptly canceled as final voting was about to begin, apparently because populist candidate Călin Georgescu appeared likely to win.
In Brazil, former President Jair Bolsonaro is charged with attempting a coup, after some of his supporters "stormed" government buildings following his 2022 re-election defeat. Bolsonaro was out of the country when the alleged "storming" occurred. The current prosecution seems designed to prevent Bolsonaro from contending for the presidency again in 2026. Does that sound familiar, or what?
In Germany, the entire political system has been distorted to achieve a single goal: keeping the Alternative For Germany, that country’s second-leading vote-getter, from any role in government.
And, of course and most significantly, here in the U.S. the Democratic Party brought three ridiculous criminal prosecutions against Donald Trump, hoping to send him to prison and block him from another presidential run. Happily, the Democrats failed.
What the targets of all of these anti-democratic prosecutions and political machinations have in common is that they are populists. They all challenged the corrupt and incompetent ruling groups in their countries, which are now desperate not just to stop them, but to stamp them out. The problem faced by these generally left-wing establishments is that national populism is popular with voters. So, unwilling to take any risk of losing power, ruling coalitions have struck hard against the populists, democracy be damned.
These events have been illuminating. Liberals love to talk about democracy, but only as long as they are winning. As soon as it appears that they may lose, democracy goes out the window. The only legitimate government, they believe, is a liberal government. It seems, therefore, that a liberal government is always a tyranny in waiting. A valuable lesson that should be absorbed by voters in all Western countries, next time they have an opportunity to vote.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11151 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Next time they have an opportunity to vote? The liberals can always declare martial law like Zelensky did and there won't be any next time.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/01/2025 11:42 Comments ||
Top||
[PJMedia] You too can be reimbursed for up to $200, and all you have to do is protest Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk from the comfort of a Tesla dealership. It isn't clear whether the offer from the left-wing Indivisible Project covers the cost of spray paint, keys, or bail, but money is fungible — so wink-wink, nudge-nudge, comrade.
"Indivisible Project can reimburse groups for eligible expenses associated with your Musk or Us actions, up to $200 per group, per congressional recess!" the group's website reads, followed by a link to get the reimbursement form.
But here's the kicker. Since gaining social media attention, the page has been removed — curiouser and curiouser — but the form is still online. I suspect the people who make their living this way, or at least enjoy a nice side gig or three, are involved with various online groups where direct links to reimbursement forms can be shared.
Indivisible Project's parent organization — more on that in a moment — was founded and is run by the husband-wife team of Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin. Greenberg is your typical NGO type — nice upbringing, good schools, brief Capitol Hill career (with Tom Perriello [D-Va.] and at State). She followed up with the creation of an online anti-Trump publication called "Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda," and the establishment of the Indivisible Civics organization.
While DataRepublican doesn't show Indivisible Civics receiving any taxpayer money, it has received $5,424,005 from somewhere, with about half of those funds going to wages and salaries and another 10% to benefits.
But here's where it gets fun. The fine print disclaimer at the bottom of the since-deleted signup page reads, "Indivisible.org is a joint website of Indivisible Project and Indivisible Action. Indivisible Project is a registered 501(c)(4). Indivisible Action is a Hybrid Polítical Action Committee. They are separate organizations."
That's legalese for "the parent organization (Indivisible Civics aka Indivisible.org) is legally and financially shielded from any stupid stuff people do with the money and encouragement of the new organization (Indivisible Project)." But again, money is fungible — so wink-wink, nudge-nudge, comrade.
Back in the '80s, we called that "plausible deniability."
I haven't been able to find anything about where Indivisible gets its funding. What I did find was The American Prospect's Peter Dreier saying that Indivisible's goal is to "save American democracy" and "resume the project of creating a humane America that is more like social democracy than corporate plutocracy."
And the way to do that is by paying agitprop protestors with mysteriously sourced dollars to try and frustrate the will of the American people as expressed in the last election.
Kash Patel and Dan Bongino both fail to understand the severity of the compromise underneath them. Hence the "95% honorable" quote by Patel recently (interview with Gowdy).
♦ The core issue is that institutional corruption is the status of the FBI. That is challenging to deal with and simply cannot be addressed (in any reasonable timeframe, or effect) from the top of the leadership pyramid.
The various downstream field offices of the same institution (there are hundreds) will keep Patel/Bongino flush with busy work and positive investigative outcomes for them to announce on television. [see VA recently] That approach purposefully satiates a reviewing audience yet leaves the process under them without oversight.
Corrupt FBI officials continue operations as needed (influence selling, evidence burying, pay-to-play investigative outcomes, DC monitoring, money laundering, trafficking, drugs and generally willful blindness to their outside group partners) and simultaneously push specific attention-grabbing info up the ladder toward leadership offices in DC.
[As decades of top-down corruption took over, it slowly permeated the field offices. Most of the really good FBI officials; those who did not want to follow a path paved with the need to join the internal corruption; took up FBI positions in foreign countries. The good guys, the SMEs are overseas now, having long left the domestic rank and vile behind them.]
Kash Patel and Dan Bongino would likely make excellent FBI special operation compliance officers and internal auditors. That’s where the real impact can be delivered [think Elliot Ness approach].
However, as leaders of the institution, the function of their role — as outwardly prestigious as it might seem, essentially isolates them with busy work. They must assign the role of compliance and audit review below them, to the same internal silo operators who have previously been identified as working within a corrupted institution.
You might note that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noticed this need very quickly, because he was/is a subject matter expert in large institutional leadership. Bessent has experience, Patel and Bongino do not.
Secretary Bessent hired/promoted/moved the IRS whistleblowers into strategic position; to become the heads of an internal compliance and audit team, reporting almost exclusively to Bessent himself.
Bongino and Patel would have been good in similar roles within the FBI organization. However, as heads of the agency they can affect very little operational change. Yes, they can steer the ship, but it is the chief engineer who determines the speed of the vessel. The mechanics within the FBI will simply control the speed and wait out the leadership.
Kash and Dan will then play a long game of whac-a-mole, removing each identified agent stalling as they are discovered. This will take more years than they have.
Contrast that FBI approach (Patel, saying everyone is awesome) with Treasury (Bessent, saying there’s an institutional problem here), and you will understand the visible absence of accountability.
♦ The issue is not Patel or Bongino’s intent or motivation. The problem is their ability.
So far, the duo has not publicly admitted the severity of the corruption they sit atop; let alone announce a plan to deal with it. Ergo the intellectually honest person who understand the silo operations, only expect soundbites and pretenses.
Or, think of the problem like President Trump and Elon Musk (DOGE) to the total executive branch. President Trump is the tip-top of the silo. Elon Musk and DOGE are the compliance/audit officers, reviewing each agency — taking action and reporting back to the principal, President Trump.
Both President Trump and Elon Musk are familiar leading massive organizations (high competence, high motivation). However, even with their incredible large institutional skillset, both Trump and Musk need to break down the responsibilities using DOGE. Musk hires highly competent highly motivated DOGE members to do the actual compliance and audits.
Again, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino do not possess the same executive leadership skills (they are low competence, high motivation). The pair of FBI directors need high-direction and high-support to overcome their competency challenge.
If the institutional corruption within the FBI was being addressed, we would not need to be told the institutional corruption within the FBI was being addressed. We would be able to visibly see it.
Ex. If Treasury was saying 95% of IRS employees were honorable and good, Secretary Bessent would not be removing tens-of-thousands of IRS agents.
The FBI reportedly has around 48,000 agents/employees.
Step one begins as President Trump, Elon Musk and Scott Bessent each noted. First, admitting there’s an institutional problem. Patel and Bongino are denying they have an institutional problem.
I/We want to see Kash Patel and Dan Bongino succeed. However, it takes large system executive leadership skills to execute any effective reform strategy. Patel and Bongino would be excellent compliance officers, unfortunately that’s not the role they have been assigned to.
Trump's ban has now been delayed because the State Department continues to miss deadlines to submit a report detailing recommendations for restrictions.
[IsraelTimes] Mass evacuation orders in Rafah are first act in multi-week operation, as Israel gives terror group last chance to free 11 living hostages and gain truce before IDF retakes Strip
The renewed ground operation in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... is entering its next stage.
On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation orders for the entire Rafah area in the southern Gaza Strip, telling residents that the military is "returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terror organizations in these areas."
It’s no idle threat.
The army is initiating a multi-week operation that will see massive Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on evacuated areas before IDF forces push further into Gaza from the buffer zones it currently holds, expanding them and reducing the territory held by Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... and populated by civilians, The Times of Israel has learned. The major pushes will come simultaneously from the north and south of the Strip.
The evacuation area covers a large swath of land between Rafah and Khan Younis, where the IDF has so far not operated with ground forces.
The operation will result in a significant amount of territory along Gaza’s borders falling into Israeli hands.
It will not require the call-up of additional reserves, though reservists will take part in the campaign. Elements from four divisions will push into Gaza if Hamas does not give in before then.
No aid will be going in, at least not in the early stages of the military push into Gaza.
For four weeks, Israel has shut off all sources of food, fuel, medicine, and other supplies for the Gaza Strip’s population of more than 2 million Paleostinians, citing Hamas’s refusal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal and release more hostages. Israeli officials insist they allowed enough aid in during the two-month ceasefire to last Gaza for several months, while accusing Hamas of hoarding supplies for itself.
The United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... warned this week that Gaza’s bakeries would run out of flour for bread within a week, saying that agencies have cut food distributions to families in half, markets are empty of most vegetables, and many aid workers cannot move around because of Israeli strikes targeting terror sites.
The growing campaign is still not a return to full-blown ground maneuver, though Israel is expecting Hamas to carry out attacks on troops in some areas. The "maximum pressure" operation is meant as a last effort to push Hamas to accept Israel’s demands for a hostage deal, The Times of Israel has learned.
The security cabinet on Saturday night voted to increase pressure on Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Israel’s demands haven’t changed much from what it calls the "Witkoff proposal," after US President Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... ’s Middle East envoy.
It insists that Hamas release 11 living hostages on the first day of a 40-day ceasefire. One of the hostages is to be US citizen Edan Alexander, as Hamas has indicated to the Americans that it is ready to free him as a goodwill gesture.
On the fifth day of the ceasefire, Hamas will have to give Israel information on all the remaining hostages, and lay out exactly who is alive.
On day 10, Hamas will be required to turn over half of the slain hostages it still holds.
Israel is willing to engage in talks on ending the war, but will insist on achieving its war aims — the disarming of Hamas and other Gaza terror groups, the exile of Hamas leaders, and a new governing structure that does not include Hamas.
The IDF will also hold on to a buffer zone to protect border communities.
However,
if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... Israel has yet to receive a response from Hamas after it sent its conditions to the mediators on Saturday, the Prime Minister’s Office has told The Times of Israel.
If Hamas continues to dig in its heels and refuses to meet Israel’s demands, the IDF will eventually issue emergency orders for large numbers of reservists to retake the Gaza Strip and defeat Hamas in the field.
Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, 24 of whom are still believed to be alive. The 35 confirmed dead include a soldier killed fighting in the 2014 Gaza war.
Israel reached a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas in January, but after the deal’s first phase expired, Israel halted the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza on March 2 and resumed military activity in Gaza on March 18.
Since resuming operations in the Gaza Strip on March 18, the IDF has said it is targeting senior Hamas political officials and mid-level military commanders, along with the terror group’s infrastructure, including weapon depots and rocket launchers. Members of the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... and other terror groups have also been targeted.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[REGNUM] A tragicomic story has unfolded in Lithuania. Four American soldiers traveling in an M88A2 Hercules tracked armored recovery vehicle went missing at a training ground near the city of Pabrade. The Lithuanians later found out where the vehicle was, but that didn't make things any easier for anyone.
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
