Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War / Putin Uses His Last Chip

Putin Uses His Last Chip

by | 237 Comments

This post is in: 

I am sure Adam will cover this in far greater detail with much more insight than I have to offer, but Putin has declared a partial mobilization:

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accelerated his war effort in Ukraine on Wednesday, announcing a new campaign that would call up roughly 300,000 reservists to the military while also directly challenging the West over its support for Ukraine with a veiled threat of using nuclear weapons.

In a rare videotaped address to the nation, Mr. Putin stopped short of declaring a full, national draft but instead called for a “partial mobilization” of people with military experience. Though Moscow’s troops have recently suffered humiliating losses on the battlefield, he said that Russia’s goals in Ukraine had not changed and that the move was “necessary and urgent” because the West had “crossed all lines” by providing sophisticated weapons to Ukraine.

The speech was an apparent attempt to reassert his authority over an increasingly chaotic war that has undermined his leadership both at home and on the global stage. It also escalated Russia’s tense showdown with Western nations that have bolstered Ukraine with weapons, money and intelligence that have contributed to Ukraine’s recent successes in reclaiming swaths of territory in the northeast.

As with everything, I may be talking completely out of my ass, but this doesn’t strike me as something that is going to have any immediate or short term impact on the battlefield, or even medium term. Putin’s goons can be out on the street hunting down conscripts by this afternoon, but that doesn’t mean anything. It will take time to organize all of the new cannon fodder, sort them from those who are fit to serve (if they are even going to bother), train them, equip them, then send them to units. That takes time. A lot of time. One of the reasons the American military was so amazing in WWII is because of the speed with which we were able to spin up massive armies of well trained, well equipped soldiers in such a short amount of time, and even then we need to keep in mind that the frame of reference for “quick” is measured in years. After Guadalcanal, the 1st Marine division spent basically a year in Melbourne Australia before being redeployed because it took that long to refit and re-equip and spin up forces to join them in the island hopping campaign. It took several years to build up the force that would eventually land at D-Day. Remember, Europe had been at war for 5-6 years before the first American set foot on Omaha beach.

So it will take time to get these troops in place. The second issue is to equip them, and the question is, with what? The Russians are a paper army- there are a few modern weapons platforms like the t90 tank, and similar items, but those go to the show units and are not in widespread deployment. Assuming they do try to spin up some units, what are they going to equip them with? Basically, Soviet era t-62’s, which don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell on the modern battlefield. Russia does not have the capability to spin up production of modern weapons, they don’t have the economic might, they don’t have the resources, and they don’t have the chips.

So where that puts them is this- they are going to have a bunch of poorly trained, probably unhealthy and unfit to serve (in America, only 25% of the population age meets current requirements to serve, and I assure you it is not better in Russia), unmotivated, and equipped in 60 year old tanks and carrying Mosin-Nagants. There still we be no NCO corps or any changes to the disastrous officer corps, and they are so drunk on their own kool-aid they still do not recognize their own weaknesses (it’s the fault of the west supplying weapons, not because they are incompetent fuckwits who are bad at war) that there will not be any.

So they are cannon fodder. In the short term, it will mean nothing on the battlefield. In the medium term, over the next 6 months to a year, it will mean nothing. And in a year, it will probably mean nothing. The largest impact will be in Russia, where news of what is going on will begin to break through over there, and once a bunch of babushkas stop getting phone calls from their kids in the Donbas, there will be political unrest. Putin’s dreams of restoring Soviet glory notwithstanding, the average Russian mom doesn’t want to re-enact human waves of their kids swarming unarmed across the Volga, picking up the weapon dropped by the man in front of them, advancing five yards, and getting killed. These guys are going to get sent through the woodchipper.

The only question is how many of them will have to die before Putin is deposed or falls out of a window.

Reader Interactions

237Comments

  1. 1.

    cain

    Putin is running out of time –

    Adam’s assessment was spot on yesterday – this announcement is pretty much what we had discussed. Even though it is out there – I still think it’s crazy to have a referendum about Russia and before they are even voted on that Russia is declaring this a defensive war because they are attacking “Russia” on land that was Ukraine’s 6 months ago.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    The only question is how many of them will have to die before Putin is deposed or falls out of a window. defenestrated.

    Fixed for literary effect.

  6. 6.

    sab

    WWII Weren’t our suddenly available massive troops two years in training? Roosevelt hoped we would need them so they got trained.

    My Dad was in senior year of high school when Pearl Harbor was struck. He enlisted in Navy because he hoped they would have to build a boat and train him about it before he was deployed.

  9. 9.

    Shalimar

    Has anyone reported where Putin’s address was recorded?  It seems like the most effective retaliation for any nuclear escalation would be to make sure Putin himself is eliminated.

  10. 10.

    MattF

    Note that ‘Russians with military experience’ have seen the dysfunctional Russian military with their own lying eyes- one may assume that a substantial fraction do not want to revisit the experience. Also, radioactive battlefields are a bummer.

  11. 11.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: The comedy tropes now require that at least a few wealthy Russian men be caught trying to board a flight in women’s clothes.

    But yes, this, coupled with the huge surge in ticket-buying reported elsewhere, suggests that not all Russians are completely behind Putin’s mobilization.

  12. 12.

    Shalimar

    @cain: “Let’s lose so badly that they invade us” is a strategy.  And Putin is such a massive liar he can’t even be honest about Russia’s boundaries.

  15. 15.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Shalimar:

    It seems like the most effective retaliation for any nuclear escalation would be to make sure Putin himself is eliminated.

    The biggest reason why Putin’s threats of nuclear retaliation are meaningless, I’d say.  As important as conquering Ukraine and reestablishing the Russian empire is to him, his life is more important – and he personally would be one of the first to die in a nuclear war.

  17. 17.

    The Moar You Know

    Draft ’em, hand ’em all the stuff that’s been in storage since WW2, and hope sheer numbers can get it done.  My bet is on “pretty unlikely”

    What happens next depends on whether we make very clear to him what the consequences are.  Right now, he thinks the West is weak and won’t retaliate to a nuclear first strike.  He may be right about that.  I hope not.

  18. 18.

    Gin & Tonic

    Reports that the queue at russia’s only open land border with the EU ( in Finland) is 35 km in length and growing.

  19. 19.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ve lost track of the umpteen investigations in progress.  Is this the one about reporting different valuations to the banks and to the tax authorities, or the one where the CFO has admitted to tax fraud?

  20. 20.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    his life is more important – and he personally would be one of the first to die in a nuclear war.

    I agree his threats are probably meaningless, but for a different reason. Doing so would mean giving up his cushy lifestyle that modern civilization affords him. I don’t think he’d die in a nuclear war; these guys have bunkers they could hide in for months or years. I imagine if he were serious, he’d live in the bunker just in case

  21. 21.

    Sasha

    All Putin needs to do is hope that the GOP captures at least one house of Congress. I can all but promise you if that happens that Ukraine will not receive any more significant, essential aid.

    (And if Putin can hold out and get his catspaw reinstalled in 2024, then Ukraine will really be fucked.)

  22. 22.

    Anonymous At Work

    Putin’s other problem is that the military’s structure won’t accept conscripted officers leading conscripted men into a human wave.  As American cops have shown, it’s easy to disable audio and video surveillance equipment soldiers might have to monitor their willingness to follow the rules.  Such units would then be “under heavy fire” and unable to advance, and quite possibly always requesting permission to “regroup in the rear”.  Creating an even flimsier and mockable paper tiger.

    Ukraine should start printing pamphlets on proper surrender procedure to drop over Russian forces now, to be prepared.

  30. 30.

    The Moar You Know

    I wonder what the technical term is for the second line of “reliable” soldiers who shoot the ones in front of them who are trying to flee.

    I know that the Soviets had such a thing in WW2, and I think the Nazis may have as well, but am wondering if it had/has a formal name.

  31. 31.

    Old School

    @Ken:

    Is this the one about reporting different valuations to the banks and to the tax authorities, or the one where the CFO has admitted to tax fraud?

    Seems like both.

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    So some of the coverage of his speech noted that there’s another part of the mobilization: people who are already in the Russian army with fixed-length enlistment contracts are being told “fixed-length now means for-the-duration”. That obviously takes effect immediately, and will of course do …fascinating things to the morale of the men who were likely counting the days left on their contracts.

  40. 40.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @The Moar You Know:

    Top Republicans have been visiting Ukraine all throughout this conflict, assuring the UKR government of their support.

    They would catch holy hell from pretty much everyone if they did that, especially with the discovery of evidence of war crimes

  41. 41.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    BREAKING: NY AG lawsuit sues Trump, Trump Org, Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric, along with Allen Weisselberg (former CFO) and Jeff McConney (Controller), alleging civil fraud in the inflated valuations of Trump properties.MORE: they are referring criminal matters to SDNY and IRS.

    — Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) September 21, 2022

    Only the best people​

  42. 42.

    misterpuff

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  I don’t think he’d die in a nuclear war; these guys have bunkers they could hide in for months or years. I imagine if he were serious, he’d live in the bunker just in case

     

    From most of the videos we’ve seen of Pooty lately, I get the sense that’s where he’s living even now: claustrophobic spaces with low ceilings and no windows (for multiple reasons ;) ) that afford maximum security from external (and internal) threats..

  43. 43.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Frankensteinbeck: I meant for a massive airdrop.  Get a few million pages behind Russian lines.  Possibly with something about how “senior officers are like enemy bosses in video games: Their weak spot is a bullet between the eyes.”

    I remember reading that a precipitating cause of the 1917 Russian Revolution was Germany letting massive amounts of POWs return to Russia, where they resisted attempts to be put back on the front lines.  Not saying past-is-prologue here exactly but Ukraine should definitely prepare how to use unwilling Russian conscripts against Putin’s government as well as prepare defenses against their military use.

  44. 44.

    Doug R

    They’ve lost 54,000 trained soldiers and their best equipment.

    Who are they going to send, the St. Petersburg Keyboard Kommandos? Give each one an AK-47 and ship them to the front? I think they’re doing more damage right where they are.

  45. 45.

    lee

    @sab:
    Just FYI:
    Guadacanal was 7 August 1942. By most accounts the Navy/Marine leadership were worried it was too quick. We landed in Africa a few months later in November.

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @Miss Bianca: It is however comparable to the queue of lorries in Kent for the Dover Channel crossing.  The cause of this queue is totally inexplicable, except that it certainly wasn’t caused by Brexit.

  50. 50.

    Gvg

    They didn’t have the competence to feed their troops in the first part of the invasion. I would expect a mass call up to be a similar fuckup, plus that might remove a significant part of their healthy workforce that keeps their economy such as it is going, which would cause more problems at home and be quite visible. In WWII we planted the seeds of womens liberation by asking women to work in factories. How is that going to work in Russia where they deride our western values? The Soviet era seemed organized and I don’t mean that in a nice way, but this era still has all the barbarism but none of the organization. I don’t think this is going to go well.

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    An important point to remember about US mobilization in WWII is that it didn’t start with Pearl Harbor.  The US had started rearming well before that, including our first peacetime draft.  So even with a running start, it took a long time before the US military was really ready to fight.

  52. 52.

    Mike in NC

    New York AG James is now holding a press conference regarding the Trump Crime Family. Today would be a good time for them all to board that plane to Moscow. Hopefully it’ll have a defective engine and go down south of the Azores.

  53. 53.

    brendancalling

    OT, but Leticia James is finally speaking, and she’s spitting fire. The walls of Mar-a-Lago must be covered with ketchup right now.

    As for Putin, he can go fuck himself. Putin khuylo.

  56. 56.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Chiming in/repeating that I just don’t see how Putin expands his army logistically.  He can’t supply what he has, which is why Ukraine completely routed them (is still routing them?) during the offensive.

  57. 57.

    hueyplong

    @Gvg: Agree.  Hard to imagine them getting the logistics of an 18-65 mobilization right after seeing how their 72 hour conquest of Kyiv went.

    Seems like the effect of the announcement itself is the main thing.  Trouble is, I don’t see that as being what he thinks it’s gonna be.  The kneejerk reactions of several higher ups has literally got to be “Putin’s gotta go.  Now.  This is out of hand.”

  58. 58.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @brendancalling:

    @Gin & Tonic:

    If this is the case, then how badly would UKR’s war efforts be hampered? I know we’re not the only ones supplying them military aid. Could something like what happened with Indivisible and the saving of the ACA work against a potential GOP House? Could pressure campaigns against them be effective?

  59. 59.

    Gvg

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Uhuh.

    They usually return to the excuse of fiscal conservatism. They claim it’s costing too much and it’s an open ended war etc. Forget Afghanistan or Iraq that they supported…..they are already bring this up and trying to weaponize it against democrats. And their are voters it works on all they time every time period. Probably every country in history. A lot of people just can’t bring themselves to care about their own little corner of the world and don’t really believe the rest of the world will bother them if they ignore it. Also many people are natural tightwads and hate spending money.

  60. 60.

    The Pale Scot

    @MattF:

    one may assume that a substantial fraction do not want to revisit the experience

    That’s my figuring’/ And half of those guys are probably in the Russian mob, they ain’t going no wheris

  61. 61.

    H.E.Wolf

    In June 1918, my grandfather was conscripted by the German Army as soon as he turned 18. It didn’t augur well then, either.

    Per his account, some 70 or 80 years later (he lived to 104): “They were going to send us to the Balkan Front [after Basic training], but the Balkan Front surrendered. Then they were going to send us to the French Front, but Germany surrendered.”

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Excellent! Evaluating what we already know from my seat in the non-lawyer peanut gallery, it sure seemed like the state had a great case against these grifters. I’ve learned from bitter experience not to expect rich, corrupt and obviously guilty shitweasels to get their comeuppance from our legal system and I’m not counting chickens now, but this is mighty encouraging!

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think that many Senate Republicans will still vote to authorize military aid to Ukraine. A solid  majority of Republican House members will oppose aid, and I think that if they are in the majority their leadership will try its best to keep funding legislation from a floor vote. They won’t neccesarily succeed, though.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    “The only question is how many of them will have to die before Putin is deposed or falls out of a window.”

    John, I’d say quite a few of them. Just because vlad is old guard Russian. An authoritarian deluxe if you will. As long as he’s in power Russia will be run very similar to how Stalin and those before him did, if not in structure, in reality, one man in charge of whatever the hell he wants to be in power of. But Russia is changing, even if vlad is not. A number of the elite have seen that being in the world is far better than thinking they should run everything. They have seen the world and it is better than their history. They have the ability to get rid of vlad and make their country better, more involved in the world, rather than trying to overcome the rest of it. They know that their power is economic, not military. They know they can succeed and he can not, because they are the ones who benefited from not actually building the military that vlad wishes and likely thought he had. They are suffering from vlad’s war, economically. And that in the long run will win out, in a world ruled by economics rather than guns.

  66. 66.

    hueyplong

    @Mike in NC: Because every drop of Schadenfreude is precious, I demand that all announcements against Trump be made by women, and women of color is best of all.  You know that twists the knife for him just a little bit more.

    On that subject, this would be a fine time to see news that civil suits against him for his many rapes/assaults are progressing.

  67. 67.

    Mike in NC

    @rikyrah: Saw a photo yesterday of the so-called leaders of the pro-Russian separatists in Donbass (?). A bunch of stocky guys all over the age of 50. Putin only hires the best!

  68. 68.

    lee

    My thought on the topic at hand is that their current active military is going to start shipping out to Ukraine. Some slotted for combat and some logistics.  If they are able to ship enough then some of the current logistics folks are going to get moved to combat units as their replacements arrive.

    This will immediately up count their combat units and maybe improve their logistics.

    Then the new batch starts getting trained and equipped.

    So the near term will see a benefit (maybe) and the long term (maybe). As Cole pointed out: They don’t have the modern armor they will need to be effective.

  69. 69.

    James E Powell

    @sab:

    He enlisted in Navy because he hoped they would have to build a boat and train him about it before he was deployed.

    My dad & his brother enlisted in the Navy because they heard the food was better. They were just kids.

  71. 71.

    lee

    Oh another tidbit I read yesterday.

    18-25 males only make up about 6% of their total population. This is why they are calling up the geezers.

  72. 72.

    sab

    @Geminid: Usually you are my go to guy on what is happening. On this I think you are naive. The Republicans care about and support nothing but their own party. Ukraine can fuck itself, because slightly less of half of Repugs even claim to support it.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    These exist. They’re little cards with instructions for a Russian soldier to show it to a Ukrainian soldier and an explanation of how he will be treated humanely as a POW.

    My grandfather had a story about the equivalent in WWII.  It was a “good conduct pass” that promised any German soldier who presented one when surrendering would be treated humanely. He said they knew they were effective because A) having one was a court martial offense for German soldiers and B) the German soldiers who surrendered all had them.

  74. 74.

    feebog

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  If Republicans take the House, most likely it will be McCarthy with the gavel. It doesn’t matter how much support individual Republicans give Ukraine, McCarthy will listen to the crazies like Boebert and MTG,

  76. 76.

    J R in WV

    @Anonymous At Work: ​

    Ukraine should start printing pamphlets on proper surrender procedure to drop over Russian forces now, to be prepared.

    They are already doing that, they have low-yield bombs full of leaflets about how to surrender, promising safe POW status. Don’t recall where I saw them, but see them I did. Probly on Twitter, probly a link from a comment here. (sic ;~) )​
     

    Oh, well. I oughta just stop commenting with facts, I’m probably the 33rd guy to describe the surrender leaflets….

  78. 78.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Not really? In a full-scale nuclear exchange, not all of the nukes are going to go off or be on target. Besides, I’ve read that after around 6 months to a year (even as soon as 1 month) the harmful radiation would be gone and that it’d be perfectly fine to exit the bunker. Civilization would still be largely destroyed and hundreds of millions dead, but hardly a slow suicide

    I’ve also read that the nuclear winter scenario promoted by Carl Sagan and the like would not be as severe as previously believed

    Speaking of, how relevant do you all think the messages of the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s and the various anti-nuclear war films of the period such as The Day After, Threads, etc remain today?

    IIRC, the films didn’t really focus on the precipitating conflict itself in great detail and certainly didn’t portray any side as morally superior to the other.  Of course that’s not true today in the example of Ukraine vs Russia. The point was the horror of global thermonuclear war and it’s consequences on broader society and average individuals

  79. 79.

    sab

    @James E Powell: Korea,  Dad re-enlisted in the Air Force because he was medical and wanted to do that and not be infantry.

    My oldest sister’s father-in-law was Chinese and doing the same medical job in his army as my dad was in our Air Force. Small world. Why we should try to get along.

  82. 82.

    Nicole

    Good on AG James.  Gonna go watch her announcement now.

    Someone on Twitter recently posted a 300+ long thread about Trump’s long history of run-ins with the law, and what I took from it is that he might have actually faced some consequences some years back if Eric Schneiderman hadn’t liked hitting women he was sleeping with.  So Trump continued to do damage and get away with it because Trump knew and Schneiderman was terrified of getting outed.  Which, of course, he eventually was anyway.  Good.  Because neither of the two women who have served as AG since he quit seem to have Schneiderman’s problem.

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    @Doug R:

    I think we have to remember that Russia is 140 million people and a lot of them do not want to be casket fillers. A lot of Russia has seen what the rest of the world looks like today and they’ve seen what happens when the rest of the world shuts off the spigot because of one man and his need to be the main story in history books of the future. Russia is half our size population wise, the people at the top of the food chain are literal billionaires, while the average salary is $20K, and vlad is talking about owning other countries for his ego. vlad is running out of time, and I’d bet he knows it better than anyone else, even if he’s incapable of admitting it.

  85. 85.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: Congress authorized a military draft after the fall of France in 1940. It was due to expire in October, 1941, and a popular slogan among some draftees was “OHIO- Over The Hill In October.” But Congress extended the draft with a one vote majority in the House.

    After war broke out in 1939, the Roosevelt administration took quiet steps to ready the nation’s infrastructure for war. One result of this program was a new rail tunnel under Afton Mountain near Waynesboro, Virginia that opened for business in 1941. Waynesboro was the site of a big Dupont Chemical plant that worked three shifts during the war, producing explosives for bombs, artillery shells and torpedos.

  86. 86.

    sab

    @sab: Rob PortmanI ( Ohio senator) headed the Ukraine in Congress coalition, and yet he voted against impeaching Trump the first time, when Trump held up armed support for Ukraine when Ukraine didn’t invent stuff against Beau Biden.

  87. 87.

    Ksmiami

    @feebog: that’s why Biden, Pelosi and Schumer should authorize a massive extra defense budget w money allocated to Ukraine… Rt now. they can say we need to shore up our defense capabilities as well as give Ukraine everything they need. Republicans will whine , but they’ll cave for defense contractors

  89. 89.

    hells littlest angel

    “I’m calling more people into active service because the Ukrainians have gotten really good at killing our soldiers” may not fire up the Russian people in the way he thinks it will.

  90. 90.

    Paul in KY

    @Roger Moore: My dad (member of Patton’s 3rd Army) said surrendering ‘regular’ German soldiers were all well treated. Generally, surrendering SS troops were shot.

  91. 91.

    RSA

    @Old School:  65?  Yikes!

    Right? These are the maximum ages at which you can join the military in the U.S.:

    Marines: 28.
    Army: 35.
    Navy: 39.
    Air Force: 39.
    Space Force: 39.
    Coast Guard: 31/40.

    (The Coast Guard lets older people join the reserves.)

  92. 92.

    Bupalos

    Putin’s dreams of restoring Soviet glory notwithstanding, the average Russian mom doesn’t want to re-enact human waves of their kids swarming unarmed across the Volga, picking up the weapon dropped by the man in front of them, advancing five yards, and getting killed. These guys are going to get sent through the woodchipper.

    Apart from a degree heavy in political history, I’ve been mainlining the various avenues that technology provides into current Russian culture…and I’m not sure this is as true as one would think.  A quote I heard from an ordinary young Russian who was cooperating with Ukrainians to bring news of Russian deaths to Russian families comes to mind: “The average Russian mother has a TV for a brain.” While we always need to be careful about artificially putting “enemies” further outside our own human experience than is warranted, we also need to understand Russia really is different. It’s easy to miss the reality that “public opinion” in Russia is so battered by repeated historical trauma and a near total absence of social trust that it simply isn’t the same animal. More than one real expert has questioned the idea of whether what Russians do in response to evolving events and reporting or “reporting” can be called forming opinions at all.  The most fundamental, driving, motivating truth in Russian society is “It is not my fault and there is nothing I can do.” People will give this response to questions where it doesn’t even make sense, it is a kind of defensive substitute for thinking

    Can this go so far as to countenance the meaningless slaughter of one’s own children in the name of a madman’s bitter dream? I don’t know. But don’t sleep on Russian nihilism.

  93. 93.

    RAM

    Just one quibble, John. They’re not getting figuratively drunk on their own Kool-Aid. They’re mostly all actually drunk on their own vodka, missile fuel, antifreeze, or what other alcohol they can beg, borrow, or (mostly) steal.

  94. 94.

    Roger Moore

    @Geminid:

    A solid majority of Republican House members will oppose aid, and I think that if they are in the majority their leadership will try its best to keep funding legislation from a floor vote.

    Absolutely. The modern perversion of the Hastert rule lets a Republican Speaker refuse to hold a vote on anything that can’t pass using exclusively Republican votes.  That gives a handful of Republican representatives and a cooperative Speaker kill anything.  IIRC, there’s a procedure for a large majority to force a vote even if the Speaker doesn’t want to hold one, but getting enough Republicans to vote against their speaker that way would be tough.

  95. 95.

    Ruckus

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Quit trying to make sense here, it’s a waste of time as far as vlad is concerned. He is a desperate quasi dictator, in a country that is slowly becoming less than reasonable about being his main (and almost only) remaining toy.

  99. 99.

    lowtechcyclist

    The only question is how many of them will have to die before Putin is deposed or falls out of a window.

    I’d say it depends on how many of the cannon fodder come from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other reasonably affluent cities where everyone already has indoor plumbing and washing machines in the home are hardly a rarity.

    Up until now, from what I’ve heard, Putin’s largely pulled his cannon fodder from the poorer provinces, and left Moscow in particular untouched.  If that changes, my WAG is that he could find himself on the wrong side of an upper story window.

  101. 101.

    wmd

    Russian population demographics suggest that this is going to cause problems.  Maybe some pension costs will convert to death benefits, but losing a lot of 18-30 year olds means there won’t be an experienced work force going into the 2030s.

  102. 102.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Old School: I am in my late 50s and if called up by the US army, I could easily do a number of staff jobs.  Every person like me doing a desk job would free up an officer or senior NCO for more active service.

  104. 104.

    J R in WV

    @James E Powell:I enlisted in the Navy in Roanoke VA in March, 1970 a week or two before my Draft Physical was scheduled, back then there was a draft card lottery, based upon your birthday. My birthday got a mid-two-digit number, I don’t actually recall the exact number, maybe 78? March was a shitty time to start boot camp in Great Lakes NAval Station…

    If I was drafted, I had a good chance of going into the Marines and seeing active combat in a swamp in SE Asia, even though I need thick glasses to see my hands. In the Navy, I figured I stood a god chance of not seeing combat, and sure enough, I did not….

    Really, except for the traditional military BS and  couple of abusive lifer POs it wasn’t too bad… but otherwise I learned a lot, met some great guys — Saw beautiful Pascagoula, MS, spent a lot of time in Key West back when it was a shrimper and Cubano town rather than the cruise ship hosting site it is today. SCUBA on a reef was great, and I could rent a boat from the Enlisted Club for $19. So glad to have that in my memories, would not do it again.​

    ETA: And on my ship the food was generally safe to ingest, but not always. Some cooks were put on report because everyone on a midnight watch got food poisoning late one night. I wouldn’t touch it, green salami? Nope. I had beef jerky and hot tea that night, most nights. I spent a lot of money on jerky strips just because the food was so irregular, sometime OK, other times, OMG !!!​

  106. 106.

    Geminid

    @sab: Naive in what way? I’m saying that Republican leadership won’t necessarily be successful in keeping legislation that funds aid to Ukraine from getting a vote on the House floor. This may come down to how small or large his majority is, as well as events between now and next year.

    If Kevin McCarthy is Speaker, he’ll have a very fractious caucus to deal with. He and his team whipped against the Infrastructure bill and the Chips bill last month, but that did not stop substantial  defections on both bills. Being in the majority will give McCarthy a lot more power, but it still won’t be absolute.

  108. 108.

    Bupalos

    @hueyplong:

    The kneejerk reactions of several higher ups has literally got to be “Putin’s gotta go.  Now.  This is out of hand.”

    When I do the moral calculation of the “higher ups,” knowing who they are and where they came from, it’s very hard to see just what it would be that would look more threatening to them than sticking it out with Putin.

    Are ordinary Russians going to storm the Kremlin?

  109. 109.

    Paul in KY

    @oldster: It’s a fine weapon. Just on the modern battlefield, going in with a 98 year old bolt action rifle isn’t going to make the troops optimistic about their future success

    Also, has the weapon been properly maintained? Needs to be cosmoleened when stored for many years, etc.

  115. 115.

    Geminid

    @James E Powell: I think that if Republicans take the House this November McCarthy will be the next Speaker. If they don’t, McCarthy’s press conference the next day will likely be his last as Minority Leader. I really want to see that press conference.

  117. 117.

    rikyrah

    @Ruckus:

     

    I think we have to remember that Russia is 140 million people and a lot of them do not want to be casket fillers.

     

    Despite the control that Russia has over its media…

     

    the response to Vlad’s speech was EVERY FLIGHT BEING SOLD OUT.

  118. 118.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    The AG's suit claims "Mar-a-Lago was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at around $75 million.."A statement valued rent-stabilized apartments in the Trump Park Avenue, collectively worth $750,000, as valued at nearly $50 million" https://t.co/SPDVJRS4GO
    — Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) September 21, 2022

    When did fraud become illegal?

  121. 121.

    CaseyL

    @Bupalos:

    Can this go so far as to countenance the meaningless slaughter of one’s own children in the name of a madman’s bitter dream? I don’t know. But don’t sleep on Russian nihilism.

    Yes; yes, it can and, in fact, has. There are numerous stories of people in Ukraine calling their families in Russia during the early days of the invasion to say they were being attacked, and being told by their own families that they were lying.

  123. 123.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Sasha: ​
     

    All Putin needs to do is hope that the GOP captures at least one house of Congress. I can all but promise you if that happens that Ukraine will not receive any more significant, essential aid.

    The cessation of aid probably would take awhile to happen. The reconciliation bill that’s in Congress now would include DoD funding for FY 2023 (10/1/22 – 9/30/23) and the Rethugs would have to be even dumber than I give them credit for to shut down the government this close to an election. So Biden should be able to keep drawing down that $40B from that bill earlier this year.

    It’s possible that the GQP might try some dumb-shit stuff like trying to fund the government through November. But it wouldn’t get very far because they don’t control either house of Congress, so they’re going to have to vote up or down on the Democrats’ bill, and that’ll be for the full year.

  125. 125.

    cain

    @Shalimar: ​
    @cain: “Let’s lose so badly that they invade us” is a strategy. And Putin is such a massive liar he can’t even be honest about Russia’s boundaries.

     

    He’s probably re-drawing all the maps now. :-) Bet you could pick up a geography book from earlier this year and see that Russia’s border does not include the territories he just took – which seems like an admission that he’s told his own people what the borders were.

  129. 129.

    cain

    @The Moar You Know: and what happens afterwards? He would have killed off two generations of men. What will the country look like then? They’ll be even more weakened and they won’t be able to maintain the territories they have and it will prompt more aggression from neighbors.

  130. 130.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Paul in KY: ​

    That’s because the SS massacred unarmed U.S. and British POWs during the Battle of the Bulge and during the Luft Stalag III escape.​​

  131. 131.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Anyway:

    To answer your earlier question, the Indivisible model was basically calling up, faxing your Rep’s and Senator’s offices about protecting the ACA, mounting an intense pressure campaign on them

  134. 134.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: I think a discharge petition reqires a simple majority to bring legislation to the floor. The majority is almost always able to enforce strict party disciple to prevent defectors in this situation. But like I said above, a lot will come down to the size of McCarthy’s majority, if he in fact has one. I could see a few Republicans like Dan Crenshaw defecting on this issue.

  137. 137.

    Bupalos

    @brendancalling: I’m not sure this is going to line up quite as neatly in American politics. Maybe I’m more sensitive to it in the NEOhio area, but there are a LOT of Republicans in the United States that very strongly identify with Eastern Europe. I’ve seen more than 1 instance of a Ukraine flag flying in yards that flew Trump flags.

    While there really is a fundamental “traditionalist” alliance between Putin and the Republican party at the elite level, Russia has not managed to break through much at the grassroots level making that equivalence. These old Republican farts grew up with Russia=Commie and they aren’t dialed in enough to understand the Russia=MAGA (=kleptocracy+fascism)

  138. 138.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    If that dumb pig had been a touch less greedy, he might have gotten away with it — lots do, so I hear. But that’s ridiculous.

    I’ve heard people say that as Manhattan developers go, trump is small potatoes, and prosecutors haven’t wanted to risk exculpatory precedents when there are bigger criminals to go after.

    Who those criminals are, and when they’re going to be prosecuted, I have not heard. (I do believe the Kushners are a lot richer than the trumps, in spite of Jerrod, and that must grate on The Beast)

  140. 140.

    divF

    @Roger Moore: The procedure in the House is called a discharge petition, and requires a simple majority to sign off. If McCarthy’s majority is sufficiently slim, the dems might be able to pull it off.

  141. 141.

    MomSense

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Honestly I don’t think the calls did much.  It came down to McCain wanting to give the middle finger to Trump and his Senate GOP enablers.  You also had senators like Chris Murphy who were friendly with him and McCain signaled to him right before he went to the Senate chamber that Chris would be happy.

  144. 144.

    Bupalos

    @feebog: Disagree. If there is a Republican move to defund Ukraine, I think there will be a ton of really near violent energy to prevent that. Sufficient to keep R leadership from bothering with what is not a core issue for them.

    This isn’t really a primary motivating issue for their crazies, it’s too socially complicated for them by the countervailing equation among these know-nothings of Russia with communism.

  145. 145.

    Bill Arnold

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’ve also read that the nuclear winter scenario promoted by Carl Sagan and the like would not be as severe as previously believed

    There is a large body of modeling literature over the past 4 decades, with steadily improving models. Some current papers/models are suggesting that the northern hemisphere would lose a few(maybe several) growing seasons, potentially killing a couple of billion humans through starvation; that’s assuming no other issues with supply chains, etc caused by thermonuclear war.
    There is of course always argument. Like with global heating, proper experiments would be unethical.

  146. 146.

    Ksmiami

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not sure there’s an apples to apples comparison here… the NCO ranks are kept deliberately weak and incompetent in Russia because a talented officer corps would threaten Putin…

  149. 149.

    Anyway

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    To answer your earlier question, the Indivisible model was basically calling up, faxing your Rep’s and Senator’s offices about protecting the ACA, mounting an intense pressure campaign on them

    Never heard of calling legislators and mounting a pressure campaign referred to as the Indivisible model.

  150. 150.

    Bupalos

    @Gin & Tonic: You guys want to provide some citations here? Last I checked it was basically the most bipartisan thing to happen in US politics in the last forever. With more R’s saying the US should be doing more rather than less.

    I mean at least at the polling level. I haven’t paid too much attention to individual pols.

    You sure you aren’t just making an assumption that since Republicans are your enemy they must be against anything you are for? I admit that’s often a decent assumption…

  152. 152.

    oldster

    @Paul in KY:

    Some are older than 98 years!

    “…over 37 million units produced since 1891….” says Wiki.

    But you are surely right — it’s not a weapon for the modern battlefield. (Except in the hands of a *very* skilled shooter, who would still be better equipped with something else.)

  153. 153.

    RaflW

    @brendancalling: I wore my “Just say Nyet to Moscow Mitch” tee shirt to dinner in beautiful downtown Whitewater, WI last night. Alas it garnered no comments, but it still very much captures my feelings about the RUSpublican party c. 2022.

    (eta: Downtown Whitewater is quite lovely. And the one fancy Italian place on the quaint old storefront main street is quite good – and has two outdoor tables. It was a perfect summery evening to dine al fresco. Tomorrow we head home to Mpls, and it seems, autumn).

  157. 157.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Bupalos:

    While there really is a fundamental “traditionalist” alliance between Putin and the Republican party at the elite level, Russia has not managed to break through much at the grassroots level making that equivalence. These old Republican farts grew up with Russia=Commie and they aren’t dialed in enough to understand the Russia=MAGA (=kleptocracy+fascism)

    This is wrong, isn’t it? Before Trump was even in, they were working hard at portraying Putin as a superior alternative to Obama, and my impression was that it was getting traction among US religious conservatives particularly. Putin was “strong”, he “loved his country”, he was everything that is a code word for “white” and would defend Christendom from the Muslims and we needed a leader more like him

    …There’s also the post-Cold-War libertarian mythology of Russia as a new Wild West full of traditionally feminine babes for the taking.

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:

    I enlisted in fall 1969, over 2 yrs after my draft physical. I just could not stand going home after work any more and dreading that envelope being in the mail. They gave me a 4 month delay to actual reporting. They announced the draft lottery shortly after my enlisting and my number was 15. So at least one decision in my life that actually worked out…. And yes when I took my physical 1/3 of the draftees were going into the Marines, which meant carrying an M16 in Vietnam because you hadn’t signed up for 3 or 4 yrs. Raven has said that when he took his physical that 1/2 of the draftees were going into the Marines. Overall, and at the end of it, a 4 yr navy enlistment was about as good as it got, self preservation wise. I got to see a lot of the world, find out how shitty an unreasonable portion of humanity can be first hand, and walk away at the end of it all. My experience at the VA shows me that not everyone was so lucky.

  160. 160.

    Bill Arnold

    @Anyway:

    Yeah, that’s worked so well against Rs (in recent congresses)

    Has divide and conquer ever been seriously tried against Republicans? I mean, by non-RW opponents of Republicans?

    (Giving J. Biden a bit of credit here for MAGA Republicans vs Normal Republicans. A bit crude but it will probably work, some.)

  162. 162.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Maybe, but a lot of that got demolished when Putin attacked Ukraine. Lots of stories of Ukrainian flags flying in Red areas. It helps that they’re white, sad to say

  163. 163.

    RaflW

    @Bupalos:
    Republican senators opposed to Ukraine aid were: Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), John Boozman (Ark.), Mike Braun (Ind.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Mike Lee (Utah), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.).

    Yes, the bill passed 81 in favor. The above mix MAGA boils and erstwhile less-insane Senators will be emboldened and drag quite a few more RUSpubs with them if the chamber tips R. Especially if the House also flips (FSM I’m just hypothesizing here, okay?!).

    They’ll feel their deranged oats and go for the isolationism we’ve seen hinted at by various attacks on Biden and his aid packages that more (ahem) mainstream Rs like Cornyn have floated.

  164. 164.

    WaterGirl

    I thought it was nice of Putin to time his announcement so that President Biden could address it during his remarks at the UN today.

    Do we think Putin was clueless about timing?

    Or did he think we would all be quaking in our boots at his announcement.  I imagine the ones quaking in their boots are the Russian males, aged 18 to 65.

  167. 167.

    Anyway

    @Bill Arnold:

    Has divide and conquer ever been seriously tried against Republicans? I mean, by non-RW opponents of Republicans?

    Don’t we always try that against Susan Collins and the Alaskan senator — our track record isn’t great, sad to say. Rethugs march lock-step with their Koch and Mercer overlords.

  169. 169.

    Kent

    Apparently the Letitia James announcement is up.  I think we need another thread

    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/09/21/nyregion/trump-fraud-lawsuit-ny-james

    The lawsuit accuses the former president of profiting from a ‘staggering’ fraud.

    Donald J. Trump, his family business and three of his children lied to lenders and insurers for more than a decade, fraudulently overvaluing his assets by billions of dollars in a sprawling scheme, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who is seeking to bar the Trumps from ever running a business in the state again.

    Ms. James concluded that Mr. Trump and his family business violated several state criminal laws and “plausibly” broke federal criminal laws as well. Her office, which in this case lacks authority to file criminal charges, referred the findings to federal prosecutors in Manhattan; it was not immediately clear whether the U.S. attorney would investigate.

  170. 170.

    RaflW

    @WaterGirl: Putin will use Biden’s speech to ‘affirm’ his fantasy that he’s fighting directly with NATO. But of course whatever Biden planned to say / will say at the UN will be used that way, so the timing is still just a sign of Putty’s desperation, IMO.

  172. 172.

    germy shoemangler

    Michael Flynn says the globalists are trying to figure out how to alter our DNA with covid shots to control us, but that will fail so they will then turn us into cyborgs by “putting components of robotics into us.” pic.twitter.com/qIkMxHYYKR

    — Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) September 21, 2022

    When Dr. Strangelove opened in 1964, the New York Times panned it, in part because the NYT found it so implausible, even insulting, to portray an American military general as a paranoid whackjob. https://t.co/7xRdLuu2zb

    — David Burbach (@dburbach) September 21, 2022

  173. 173.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @RaflW:

    Just show them that picture of the hand of a Russian war crime victim wearing that cloth bracelet with the colors of the Ukrainian flag. WAR CRIMES happened there

  174. 174.

    RaflW

    @Anyway: I’d really hoped for a divide and browbeat vote on same sex marriage in the Senate before Nov. 8th, but whoever got to Schumer (Collins, maybe? Manchin?) got that delayed. Grrrr.

  175. 175.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    UNITED NATIONS (AP) —

    Delivering a forceful condemnation of Russia’s seven-month invasion, Biden said reports of Russian abuses against civilians and its efforts to erase Ukraine and its culture “should make your blood run cold.”

    ***
    Biden called on all nations, whether democracies or autocracies, to speak out against Russia’s “brutal, needless war” and to bolster’s Ukraine effort to defend itself.

    “We will stand in solidarity against Russia’s aggression, period,” Biden said.

  178. 178.

    RaflW

    @Omnes Omnibus: Is he on the forensics team, by chance? Or a Purple News journo?
    (Kidding – I haven’t met any students, but just got acquainted with the prof who’s bailiwick is those programs.)

  179. 179.

    Ruckus

    @matt:

    It is. And yet those at the top seem to be doing just a bit better than OK. Now their top billionaires may not be worth the same as ours, but they aren’t doing too shabby. Their entire county seems to run on grift and corruption, while ours is just an unreasonable proportion. vlad makes approx $145K/yr and yet “owns” a Black Sea villa worth a ruble or two. The corruption in Russia seems to be the standard way, screw everyone, while ours is screw those that don’t care, which isn’t as bad, although…… someone is still getting screwed.

  181. 181.

    lowtechcyclist

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I’d say it depends on how many of the cannon fodder come from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other reasonably affluent cities where everyone already has indoor plumbing and washing machines in the home are hardly a rarity.

    This guy seems to have the same take:

    I said today in several interviews: it was ok for Russians when Ukraines got attacked and killed, and the Russia’s ethnic minorities were those who killed and died amid invasion. But as soon as the privileged Muscovites are threatened with mobilization…

    It’s accompanied by a video clip of a street protest in Moscow, very upper middle class-looking crowd, too.

  182. 182.

    topclimber

    Like Cole, I have no particular military insight in this matter, but assuming Russia is switching to a predominantly defensive mode, partial mobilization may buy some time. Bodies in trenches will survive longer than those spent on fruitless attacks. So it might a winter’s worth of time to train troops and improved logistics.

    Russia can no longer attack Ukraine to any real effect. But I fear they can hunker down for a long time in the occupied East. How long they stay depends on Russian politics and whether Western sanctions bite as hard as we hope.

  183. 183.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: My nephew was on the soccer team as a Freshman, but that was the Covid year when they played no games.  The time commitment was too close to Div 1 for the amount of plying time he anticipated getting.  You can’t study, party, and play.  Gotta pick two out of three.

  184. 184.

    germy shoemangler

    Ex-Putin Ally Plunges to His Death ‘From a Great Height’ at Moscow Aviation Institute

    Anatoly Gerashchenko’s passing comes amid a string of untimely deaths for senior Russian officials. https://t.co/WsMrTWqz0h

    — Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 21, 2022

    Meanwhile on Russian state TV: State Duma deputy Andrey Gurulyov threatened Britain with nuclear strikes.

    Host Olga Skabeeva said that Russia should have conducted a nuclear strike on Monday, since many important people were in attendance for the Queen's funeral. pic.twitter.com/qRBbiPo52L

    — Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 20, 2022

  186. 186.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Before Trump was even in, they were working hard at portraying Putin as a superior alternative to Obama, and my impression was that it was getting traction among US religious conservatives particularly. Putin was “strong”, he “loved his country”, he was everything that is a code word for “white” and would defend Christendom from the Muslims and we needed a leader more like him

    Can’t forget about his keeping them homosexuals and all those other perverts in their place.  That goes over big with the fundagelicals.

  187. 187.

    The Moar You Know

    When Dr. Strangelove opened in 1964, the New York Times panned it, in part because the NYT found it so implausible, even insulting, to portray an American military general as a paranoid whackjob.

    @germy shoemangler: I guess the NYT has been bullshitting people forever.  MacArthur had put on his public demonstration of insubordination and nuclear insanity a decade beforehand, and been justly fired for it.  This was not a foreign or shocking concept to anyone at the time.

  188. 188.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RaflW:

    but whoever got to Schumer (Collins, maybe? Manchin?) got that delayed. Grrrr.

    Sinema, of course.

    But a drive to get at least 10 GOP senators to support the bill appears to have fallen short, leading to a delay until after the November midterm elections.

    “We’ve asked Leader Schumer for additional time and we appreciate he has agreed,” Sens. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat; Susan Collins, a Maine Republican; Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican; Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat; and Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, wrote in a joint statement released Thursday afternoon.

  189. 189.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: A lot of men in their 50’s served in the Second World War. The Army generally excluded its older officers from combat units. One exception was General Teddy Roosevelt Jr. He was about 60 years old when he helped lead the 4th Division onto Utah Beach, Normandy, and died of a heart attack a few days later.

    I think publisher Ralph Ingersoll was 50 when he was drafted into the Army in 1942. Ingersoll persuaded the Army not to put him in public relations and got assigned to the Engineers instead. He ended up on General Bradley’s 12th Army Group staff, but not before he had a brief stint as second in command of Task Force Raff. Major Edson Raff was tasked with taking a force inland from Utah Beach and linking up with the 82nd Airborne Division. They did, but it took them 36 hours instead of six.

    Ingersoll also was part of a team investigating the Slapton Sands disaster, where German E-boats torpedoed  three LSTs carrying Engineers on a landing exercise. Over 500 troops perished but there was one very urgent question: had the Germans captured any “Bigoted” officers? Bigot was the code name for information about the broader Overlord plans, and this information was limited to a few officers. Fortunately, Ingersoll’s team was able to establish that the bodies of all “Bigoted” officers had been recovered.

    After the war Ingersoll published a very good book about these and other experiences, titled Top Secret. The title was somewhat exagerrated, but Ingersoll did present a critical account of command decisions made during the Allied invasion of Europe. Ingersoll spent most of 1943 on General Devers’ staff in London and the experience soured him on the British miltary staffs. He was also very much a Bradley man.

  192. 192.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    Notice that SFB was listed in the Forbes 400 for a long time as being worth somewhere around 15 billion and then SFB told some press that he was worth a billion more. Forbes had been taking his word for it and they did the simple math and gave him a worth of 3 1/2 billion. And now we see that is inflated by a significant margin because he’s lied about what his properties are valued at, and not little lies. Monstrosities of lying. He’s toxic sludge, no matter how you look at it. He could have been worth what he claimed if he’d just invested reasonably the money he stole from his siblings. But no he is incapable of anything even close to resembling human or even reasonably close to a half step above pure shit.

  193. 193.

    lee

    @The Moar You Know: Right now he is mostly killing off the citizens of the outer states which have always been abused by Russia.

    This move has the potential of killing off ethnic Russians. They narrowly escaped a population implosion a while back. This might actually cause a population collapse.

  197. 197.

    Mike in NC

    @The Moar You Know: Blocking Detachments were depicted in the Battle of Stalingrad film, “Enemy at the Gates”. Hapless Soviet conscripts — many unarmed or having only a few bullets for their rifles — were throw against the dug-in German positions. If they tried to retreat they’d be shot down by their own side (NKVD).

  199. 199.

    Bupalos

    @Matt McIrvin: Oh Putin’s online orcs worked overtime trying to break through, to be sure, and I’m not saying this initiative didn’t make big inroads. The whole genre of the White Power Hour and CPAC boosting Orban and doing the “what did Putin ever do to me?” schtick is testament.

    But on the whole I think that remains at the elite/activist level. Talk to actual Trumpers, auto mechanics, plumbers, guys with backhoes  and my experience is they will absolutely equate Russia with commie repression and unfreedom. China is the primary foil here, but Russia is still right there. It hasn’t worked at that visceral level. I heard lots of “we shouldn’t be wasting money doing foreign wars” stuff IRT Afghanistan or Iraq and I’ve heard absolutely none of it with Ukraine. No moral equivalency of the Greenwaldian stripe either.

  200. 200.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @The Moar You Know: I wonder what the technical term is for the second line of “reliable” soldiers who shoot the ones in front of them who are trying to flee.I know that the Soviets had such a thing in WW2, and I think the Nazis may have as well, but am wondering if it had/has a formal name.

    The term is “Blocking Unit” and  as for the rest, sufficient to say the movie Enemy at the Gates isn’t a primary source.

  201. 201.

    WaterGirl

    Timing is everything.

    Who else thinks that Tish James had all of this ready to go, and waited for just the right time to make this public?

    Any thoughts on how/whether this might influence the corrupt judge, the 11th circuit, or the so-called Supreme Court?

  202. 202.

    Anoniminous

    @The Moar You Know: ​
     

    They were called “Blocking Detachments” and, despite the usual fro-fro about the NKVD machine gunning everything in sight, they were a gathering and collection point for soldiers whose units had been shattered by the Wehrmacht. Glant has the full story in his 5 Volume Trilogy* “Stalingrad.”

  206. 206.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Speaking of Russian military equipment, there are claims the Russians have stripped St Peters burg of it anti aircraft missile batteries for the war . Considering St Petersburg’s vulnerability to NATO that’s interesting.

  208. 208.

    Paul in KY

    @oldster: I had a beautiful Mauser model 88 that shot 8 mm rounds.  Was made in Danzig, Prussia in 1898. The steel was gorgeous.

    Was stolen from a cousin I was keeping it with about 32 years ago.

  210. 210.

    Geminid

    @RaflW: Maybe Tammy Baldwin was told by Republicans favorable to the measure that she had their votes but only in the “lame duck” session (“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed in the 2010 lame duck session). Baldwin and Schumer may have decided that getting the measure passed was more important than utilising it as a club in the midterms. There is no lack of other votes that Democrats can club Republicans with.

    It’s possible Schumer consulted with Senators Warnock, Kelly, Hassan and Cortez-Masto on this matter. He’d give a lot of weight to their opinions because their reelections are critical for a Democratic Senate Majority. That factor might explain why the Senate has not voted on DC Statehood legislation.

  212. 212.

    dibert dogbert

    Re: Guadalcanal Marines

    I have a childhood memory of one of the marines at our kitchen table.  Later read as an adult that they were sent home and reassigned to non combat duties.

  213. 213.

    patrick II

    From the time Ukraine started doing well in this war, it was going to come down to Putin and nukes. They are his security blanket. It is why I appreciated Biden’s slow boil of weapons upgrades.  Too quick and Putin would not be in the political hard place that has developed with both war news and sanctions starting to have their effect in Russia. So, will he or won’t he?
    Biden thinks and hopes not.  Fiona Hill thinks he would, but I read her opinion a few months ago and perhaps time and circumstance have changed perspective.​

  216. 216.

    trollhattan

    @Bupalos: For that we’d need to know how many R politicians are taking Russian money and favors. To my knowledge they don’t post that on their Instagram accounts. Okay, Rand Paul probably does.

  217. 217.

    MCA1

    @Bupalos: Well put.  It has always been thus, probably because there is zero history of self-governance there, other than the decade it took for the remnants of the Soviet Union to be converted to a kleptocracy.

    Having never had any stake in their own or their nation’s political fortunes (other than that one time they revolted and ended up going from a monarchy to a dictatorship), the Russian populace is utterly disengaged from civics and politics and instead generally displays either extreme cynicism or nihilism.  The concept of even desiring a better or more responsive or less corrupt governance is a waste of time for them, because those things are just bitter pipedreams.  As such, they’re completely zombified when it comes to the messaging they get from Putin and the rest of the government, and thoroughly propagandized.

    The only conceptualization many Russians have of their own place in the political cosmos is pride in being part of a great empire.  That’s consoling, and helps them forget the part about never having participated in any self-determination.  The cognitive dissonance between that identity and knowing that Russia is no longer a great power in reality drives a lot of what we’re seeing psychologically.

  218. 218.

    trollhattan

    @patrick II: In case it’s not discussed upthread, the reason Putin’s rushing the annexation referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia is to give him pretext for declaring these captured territories “part of Russia” and thus, Ukrainian attacks on them become not liberation but invasion.

    I don’t believe he’s going to unleash nukes, but it’s certainly not an option he’s abandoning either.

  219. 219.

    Paul in KY

    @Omnes Omnibus: Killer! That weapon will probably be operationally ready to go 300 years from now

    Mine had an imperial crown engraved into the metal just in front of the breech.

  223. 223.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: Have you been following the protests in Iran? Those are brave people. In Russia you can get beaten and/or arrested. In 2019 Iran’s security forces put down protests with machine gun fire. Reuters estimated that 1500 protesters were murdered.

    The protests in Iran were precipitated by the death Friday of 22 year old Mahsa Amina, who was detained and beaten into a coma by Tehran’s “morality police.” Popular chants include “Death to the Dictator!” and “I will kill the ones who killed my sister!”

    Among other news sites, Iran News Wire has been posting video of protests that have broken out all over the country.

  224. 224.

    Layer8Problem

    @rikyrah:  Well, perhaps some of those TV-brained Russian mothers supporting Putin can step up to the plate and volunteer for front-line service.

  225. 225.

    WaterGirl

    @Geminid: I have not been following the protests, but I am aware of the horrible murder of the woman who was murdered by the “morality police”.  Horrifying to know she died, even more horrifying to think of what she went through before she died.

  226. 226.

    RaflW

    @Geminid: Yeah, it is preferable to actually secure the bill. And horrible people like Ron Johnson are getting caught saying they’re against it now, despite previous public utterances of tepid support.

    The right is certainly calcifying around opposition to virtually anything socially popular. Let’s hope (and work to ensure) voters are fully aware, without a Senate vote.

  228. 228.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: Iranians are outraged. There was already a lot of anger towards the regime, but Ms. Amini’s murder really set them off.

    The regime’s response may be complicated by the absence of the hardline President Raisi. He’s in New York now, scheduled to address the UN General Assembly on Saturday. Also, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini is recovering from a serious gastrointestinal surgery.

    One report I read said Khameini had suggested that the morality police lighten up some, but when Raisi became President earlier this summer he encouraged a crackdown. Raisi earned the name “Hangman” for his role in the secret trials and executions of thousands of political prisoners in the late 1980s.

  229. 229.

    Gravenstone

    @germy shoemangler: When Dr. Strangelove opened in 1964, the New York Times panned it, in part because the NYT found it so implausible, even insulting, to portray an American military general as a paranoid whackjob.

    Yet they had the living examples of MacArthur and LeMay (among others) as known, vocal whackjobs at the time the movie came out.

  230. 230.

    Jay

    @Ksmiami:

    NCO ranks are poor in the RUA because they are 2 year Conscripts for the most part, treated the same as the ranks, (abuse, theft, treated like garbage). There are few NCO Conscripts that switch over to Contract Soldiers.

    In NATO Militaries, it takes 2 years to train up a basic Grunt. NCO candidates 4 years to Corporal, sometimes 10 years to SGT.

  231. 231.

    The Pale Scot

    @Bill Arnold:

    The un-modeled consequences are all those nuclear power plants the will fail and pump way more radiation into the atmosphere than the warheads do.

    Future so bright…. etc

  232. 232.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Jay: That was something I actually read in a Tom Clancy book (either The Hunt for Red October or Red Storm Rising) – that back in the Soviet days, the Red Army relied on junior commissioned officers for the sort of tasks for which a Western military would rely on long-term NCOs.

    In the latter book, a Soviet general speculates on a 20th-century war becoming a bogged-down battle of attrition, and concludes that in that case, the Soviets would win, because “we have many more young men to kill.”

    Something tells me that the war for Ukraine is not going to be that kind of conflict.

  233. 233.

    Tony G

    I, for one, am confident that hundreds of thousands of Russian family will be happy to sacrifice the lives of their sons for the greater glory of Comrade Putin.

  234. 234.

    Captain C

    @The Moar You Know:

    I guess the NYT has been bullshitting people forever.

    I don’t remember if the link was posted here or elsewhere, but I recall a few weeks ago seeing a FTFNYT editorial from 1863 about how the Emancipation Proclamation was problematic and probably not good for the enslaved people it freed.  They’ve always been like this, even when, especially when, their own reporting contradicts their editorial stance.

  236. 236.

    Dopey-o

    @Frankensteinbeck: The biggest reason why Putin’s threats of nuclear retaliation are meaningless, I’d say.  As important as conquering Ukraine and reestablishing the Russian empire is to him, his life is more important – and he personally would be one of the first to die in a nuclear war.

    NATO is not going to retaliate with nukes, no matter what Putin does. Adam Silvermann is much better equipped than I am to answer, so I look forward to his comments.

    I would imagine that a Russian tactical nuke would be followed by dozens of Putin’s friends’ deaths, slowly quickly circling in on Putin.

  237. 237.

    Another Scott

    @patrick II: I don’t think it’s going to go that way.

    VVP wants the threat of nukes to keep the West and Ukraine from fighting him.  That’s why he wants to have his sham referendum to declare the invaded parts of Ukraine as parts of russia.

    “Stop fighting me on russian land or we will use nukes!!11”

    Trouble is, of course, Ukraine has been consistent that they will never give up in fighting to kick VVP off their land.  A nuclear threat will not change that.  And it won’t change the West’s support for liberating Ukrainian land, either.

    So, what would he use a tactical nuke on, anyway?  And how would he deliver it (airspace over Ukraine is not friendly to VVP)?  And is he really sure that it would work?  The last russian nuclear test was before the implosion of the USSR…

    I’m also reminded of Biden’s answer in February when he was questioned on why he was so certain that VVP was going to invade again.

    “We have a significant intelligence capability.”

    VVP knows that.  Preparations to use nuclear weapons are not easy to hide.  It would be a significant escalation and wouldn’t happen in isolation – NATO and the USA would respond to overt actions to put such weapons on alert.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

Comments are closed.