A few quick shots, some serious, most unserious. Serious first.
George Will wrote another great piece July 26th on America’s problem with the manufacture of weaponry and its attendant detail, which goes to the root of US preparedness, which is small now compared to any time since WWII. He pushes that fact up against Putin’s misjudgment of his own military’s effectiveness. It’s terrible.
I have written previously about Russia’s military incompetence, but I wonder, cynically, if they are failing because of a lack of diversity, or trans enlistment, or that climate change has not been identified as Russia’s number one threat? Just a thought.
Yes, Russia is a corrupt third world nation of political sycophants who only survive history’s roller coaster because outsiders can’t handle the winters.
While we are piling on, Lawrence Freedman of Kings College London wrote a piece on the 25th called “Russia Edges Closer to a Reckoning.” A thoughtful and brilliant work, much more thorough than your speaker/writer now, but he does not mention two elements that are huge to Russia’s apparent reckoning.
First, calling Putin a war criminal publicly, as Joe Gasbag Biden has done in concert with most of Europe, was an unnecessary blunder. Putin truly has no way out of this. So he either loses outright and withdraws, or there is an historic uprising of the Russian masses. Yeah, I know, ain’t gonna happen.
Now the unserious. Hunter Biden’s plea deal falls apart. God Bless America, for sure, but he has become, glaringly, a 900-pound albatross to Daddy Gasbag’s reelection campaign. The Biden cartel is likely to double down and claim political victimhood, or, and you heard it here first, Hunter takes the fall for all of it, immunizing the Big Guy. He pleads nolo contendere, asks for the mercy of the court (he is a struggling recovering drug addict, after all), forgoes a trial and becomes a recluse before a lengthy prison term. All to protect Daddy and the newfound unearned untaxed wealth from suspicious international sources for specious reasons.
But that would require him to have a scintilla of honor. He doesn’t, but I don’t see him ratting out the old man, either.
One caveat: it’s really all for nought. Gasbag Big Guy will either resign or not seek re-election. He is a mess and it is very sad, but a party that won’t let Diane Feinstein retire in order to repay Adam Schiff’s kamikaze Trump impeachment is capable of worse elder abuse. You can bank on Harris becoming number 47, too, one way or another.
More unserious. Kennedy and DeSantis. I like DeSantis, and I hope Kennedy does some damage to Biden and Trump. But it looks like another unforced error on the part of DeSantis who gave a left-handed complement to RFK Jr, who we know is bat crap crazy, folks, by stating he might put him in charge of precisely the agencies that RFK Jr has been making stuff up about. DeSantis is a policy wonk who can’t focus on the 50-meter target: securing the Republican nomination. We might be looking to Pence, Haley, Scott, and Christie for better leadership and handling of an unfriendly press.
More unserious: The Florida kerfuffle on AP history curricula and the allegations of “whitewashing” slavery. This should be resolved with the professionals in academe, and those who supervise them. If we take pride in our history then we must acknowledge all of it, even the shameful.
But we shouldn't dwell on it. It’s like telling stories about dad when he was broke a window before the kids were born, only the kids are on social security and mom and dad are dead. Stop wallowing in the negative. Stop living in the past. Living in the shadow of a distorted false history of the American ideal is unhealthy, mostly for the purveyors of this negativism. They can’t dig themselves out of the hole they started.
For the record, the only privilege I have consciously enjoyed in my lifetime is the privilege of my parents’ sacrifices. I can never repay.
More unserious is adding to the Washington nuthouse a congressional hearing being held on UFOs.
These are all distractions from important subjects.
The unserious vacuum filled with media crapola is not feeding one child, building one home, helping a poor kid is a public school to read, fixing one bridge, helping our allies, or providing for the national defense.
But it is fun watching the Biden cartel splinter. It is inevitable. I say Hunter takes the fall, and soon.
Peace. Out.