Tag Archives: responsibilities

Putin’s Coming Invasion

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USAF General and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (NATO) from 2013-2016 Philip Breedlove, along with “former officials and analysts,” have posited a scenario for a partial invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The image below Breedlove’s supposition also is supplied by the WSJ. I’m disregarding Putin’s naval maneuvering in the Black Sea in this post.

The northern portion of Russian forces arrayed against Ukraine could easily drive due west through Belarus and arrive very close to Kyiv relatively unopposed. Ukraine’s best forces are tied down on the line of contact on the border of Donbas. So this northern thrust would bypass the most capable Ukrainian forces.
Such a thrust could be used by the Kremlin to put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and attempt to force concessions or perhaps try to bring about its collapse, former officials and analysts said.
A separate group of Russian forces in the east, General Breedlove said, could push into Donbas to support the Russian garrison there and Russian-backed separatists.
Still a third group of Russian forces in Crimea and southwest Russia could seize terrain along the coast and encircle the port city of Mariupol to cut it off from the rest of Ukraine.

I think Breedlove understates the case. If Putin is going to take that northern route, he won’t stop with merely threatening the government in Kiev; he’ll take all of Ukraine—which is what he wants, anyway.

Beyond that, a thrust up from occupied Crimea won’t be used merely to isolate Mariupol; it will form the other side of the pincer to be used in seizing all of the nation. The attack into the Donbas will serve only to keep the bulk of the Ukrainian military occupied there.

If this is the invasion plan, look, too, for the attack into the Donbas to proceed for a couple of days before the attacks through Belarus and up from Crimea go in; Putin will be looking to get those best forces fully involved and their destruction well in progress first.

In the end, too, the whole invasion and conquering affair will take just four to six days—far too fast for Biden-Harris’ “we’ll sanction the hell out of you if you invade” nonsense even to begin to do anything. Fast enough, even, to be well inside Biden-Harris’ decision loop of beginning recognize the invasion in progress, then beginning to think about applying those “devastating sanctions.”

Typical

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The Progressive-Democrat Jamaal Bowman now says his fellow Progressive-Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is a traitor for her continued verbal support for the Senate’s filibuster.

John Lewis is a hero, you [Sinema] are a traitor to his legacy, your constituents and our democracy.

This is typical of the Progressive-Democrat Party: either you support Party, or you’re a traitor, and separately, you’re also a racist.

Bowman’s rant brings to mind a couple of quotes. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the student to name the source(s).

It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realise that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of the nation, that the position of the individual is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole.

In every revolution, it has been the rule to brand political opponents as enemies…and so to justify completely depriving them of legal protection and property.

The…government will regard its first and supreme task to restore to the…people unity of mind and will. It will preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests…. In place of our turbulent instincts, it will make national discipline govern our life.

It is nonsense to suppose that a people wants to rule itself. It always comes to such ideas only when it is badly ruled.

Each activity and each need of the individual will be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good. There will be no licence, no free space in which the individual belongs to himself. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme.

And finally:

I will tolerate no opposition. We recognise only subordination—authority downwards and responsibility upwards.

Walensky Fails

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CDC Director Rochelle Walensky was asked on Bret Baier’s Fox News Sunday episode last Sunday,

Do you know how many of the 836,000 deaths in the U.S. linked to COVID are from COVID or how many are with COVID, but they had other comorbidities? Do you have that breakdown?

Walensky proceeded to weasel-word her answer and segued to the only talking point she could remember, that everyone must get vaccinated and boosted and get their children vaccinated, too, as soon as they’re eligible. Only toward the end of her off-topic response did she reveal her larger failure:

Yes, of course, with Omicron we’re following that very carefully….

And then she said she didn’t have even those data for the Omicron variant—they take “weeks” to gather….

However.

Why hasn’t she been following this matter, collecting these data, since the Wuhan Virus first arrived? Walensky has, or her staff has—or should have—2 years of these data, for the first Wuhan Virus (which, in truth, is Robert Redfield’s failure); a year or more for the Delta variant, which is on her watch; and more than “weeks” for the Omicron variant.

Beyond Baier’s simplified question, of sort-of necessity in a single segment of several in his program, however, there are four mortality categories of interest, and those four should be of interest to CDC:

  • Those for whom the virus was the sole cause of death
  • Those with comorbidities for whom the virus was the primary cause of death, but the comorbidities were contributing factors
  • Those with comorbidities for whom the comorbidities were the primary cause of death, but the virus was a contributing factor
  • Those with comorbidities for whom the comorbidities were the sole cause of death, and the virus was merely present.

The CDC is ignoring all of that.

Trespassing and Protesting

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Michael Taube is on the right track with his opprobrium of trespass on the private property of protest targets in the pursuit of those protests, and he’s correct in his opprobrium of those who do the trespassing.

But as is typical of Leftists (Taube was a speechwriter for former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who for all his Canadian-level conservatism was quite a bit to the Left), he insists that control from the center is the answer.

Unfortunately, neither Canada nor most US states have a clear legal distinction when it comes to protesting outside a person’s home or dwelling. Both countries need laws protecting the right to live and raise a family in a peaceful environment.

No, the “countries” should not have such laws. At least in the US, police powers reside in the States. Our Federal government already has too many police power-based laws, and we see the outcomes in the FBI’s misbehaviors, and in DoJ’s gun-running efforts (in the name of the greater good, no less).

American States, at least, already have trespass laws; although they may well need to strengthen sanctions on conviction. In any event, the Federal government needs to butt out.

Union Failure

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The Chicago Teachers Union has decided—carefully at the last minute—to not report for work for in-person teaching. They’ve decided to reimpose remote “learning” protocols out of their fear (or so they claim) of the Omicron variant of the Wuhan Virus. And this time it’s not just union management making the decision, it’s the rank and file:

The vote was approved by 73% of the union’s members, calling for no in-class learning until “cases substantially subside” or union leaders approve an agreement for safety protocols with the district.

School district leaders—even Mayor Lori Lightfoot—are terming the CTU’s job action a “walkout” and an “illegal work stoppage.” They’re right, and the CTU needs to be decertified and the teachers who won’t teach fired for cause (which would deny them unemployment benefits, even in Illinois). Let these…persons…refuse to work on someone else’s payroll. Allocate the funds presently sent to the schools closed by this union job action instead be used for vouchers for the parents to use to send their children to other schools and to generate additional voucher and charter schools in the city.

But the CTU’s misbehavior goes far beyond this. During and after the last bout of “remote learning,” it became clear that the practice severely damages children’s social development and their mental health. With this knowledge widespread, it’s now clear that the CTU is actively engaging in child abuse, and the union managers, along with the business that is the CTU, should be prosecuted accordingly.

There’s no excuse for this.