Monday, March 04, 2024

19 more delegates for Nikki

Saturday, March 02, 2024

For every Ukrainian soldier he manages to kill, Putin loses three of his own troops (though often enough they're ex-convicts, ethnic minorities, or mercenaries from nations as unlikely as Nepal). His naval losses show the same disparity, and his Black Sea Fleet (a major reason for annexing Crimea in 2014) now stays far from Ukraine's coastline. Russian air crews are suffering as badly, with a warplane shot down almost every day. In the past two weeks, they've included 10 Su-34 fighter bombers, two Su-35 air-superiority fighters, and a huge Beriev A-50, which makes the second of the $350,000,000 surveillance and aerial control planes lost this year. (The US equivalent is the Boeing E-3 Sentry "AWACS".) For more, read Kateryna Denisova's story in the Kyiv Independent.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

A debacle in the making

Will the US abandon Ukraine?

Joe Biden's flight from Afghanistan was an embarrassment as bad as Saigon in 1975, and he keeps dithering in his support for the embattled Ukrainians. (They've needed American F-16s for two years and will get the first one in June -- from Denmark!) But it's Republicans in the House of Representatives who're setting us up for another national humiliation. The Wall Street Journal publishes an essay every Saturday on the question of the week, and today it's war correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov asking "Will the US abandon Ukraine?" It's painful reading. My first vote was for Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, and I've generally voted the party line ever since. If I couldn't support a nominee -- Nixon, Goldwater, Trump -- I'd vote for a third-party candidate along with whatever Republicans were on the ballot. But now those eight Republican nay-sayers in the House of Representatives are making a Democrat out of me. If we can't support a brave country against a revanchist dictatorship, really, what is the United States good for?

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Be a traitor to Russia for $51!

This handsome woman was born in Russia, trained as a ballerina, studied at the University of Maryland, became a US citizen, and worked as a spa technician in Beverly Hills. Her name is Ksenia Khavana.

Two years ago, when Vladimir Putin decided to gobble up his western neighbor, Ksenia donated $51 to Razom, an American charity dedicated to "a secure, prosperous, and democratic Ukraine" that I too have supported. Indeed, this morning I had Razom roll my PayPal credit card for another $51 in Ksenia's honor, because she unwisely returned to Russia last year to visit her grandmother and other relatives, and Putin's secret police arrested her for treason. 

You can't do anything about that, any more than you can free Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich or the former Marine Paul Whelan. But you can donate $51 to Razom this morning. Please do it! Thank you.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Alexei Navalny, 1976-2024

Shed a tear for Alexei Navalny, who died in Putin's Gulag yesterday. Perhaps not literally murdered, but done to death nevertheless by the Russian dictator after years of unfathomable bravery.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Perhaps we could put Egypt in charge of our southern border ...

DUBAI—Egyptian authorities, fearful that an Israeli military push further into southern Gaza will set off a flood of refugees, are building an 8-square-mile walled enclosure in the Sinai Desert near the border, according to Egyptian officials and security analysts.

Saturday, February 10, 2024

A hunger strike isn't much fun after a while

Some Brown University students went on hunger strike last week to protest the ill treatment of Palestinians and Hamas terrorists (impossible to separate the two) in the Gaza Strip. Yesterday they gave up. Their week-long fast compares rather pathetically with the sixty-six days Bobby Sands lasted in 1981, let alone the seventy-four days Terrence McSwiney managed in 1920. The Students for Justice in Palestine should have acquainted themselves with the Irish Republican Army: a hunger strike is a farce unless you're actually willing to die. And you get hungry!

Friday, February 02, 2024

The Black Sea is becoming a Ukrainian lake

This spooky photo, released by the Ukrainian military, shows the Russian guided-missile frigate Ivanovets under attack by "drones," though I confess I can't see more than one possible drone. See the story on the Kyiv Independent -- one of the first things I read every morning. Ivanovets is the third Russian warship sunk or disabled since the all-out war began two years ago this month.

Thursday, February 01, 2024

Who would have guessed?

The New York Times, which for years has reported the chaos at our southern border as nothing to be bothered about, today takes a look at the Biden administration's most recent notion: ask Mexico to enforce its immigration laws. To everybody's mystification, it turns out, that actually works! Concludes the NYT on this morning's email: "... Mexico’s recent efforts offer a reminder: Stricter enforcement of immigration laws really does tend to reduce migration flows." (Emphasis added.)

Perhaps Mr Biden's next brainstorm should be stricter enforcement of our immigration laws....

Monday, January 29, 2024

Trapping a Russian armored column

Fabulous videos on the Wall Street Journal show that Ukrainian troops have lost none of their ingenuity in ambushing the enemy, much as the Finns did in 1939-1940: Let the Russians advance in line, knock out the leader, disable tail-end Charlie, and destroy the rest at leisure. (Scan down the page to see the second strike, by a drone.) The war may be stalemated, but it's no less costly for the invaders.