Coffeesforclosers

No ***** Newt. Iran couldn't have cared less about a Ceasefire. Now they do. It's like somebody killed off their proxies, smashed their military and assassinated a bunch of the generals. Funny how that worked.

That's AC Milan kit with the Pats logo glued on it. Very low effort.

Interesting point. But it begs a question. Is continued war required to keep Russia on this vector? If it is, you've made an argument that this "pointless slaughter" isn't pointless from an America First POV.

Ron's been reading my posts.

"Our final deal is done, save final approval with President Xi and Me". " The USA and China have reached and agreement..." Those are some pretty terrible misspellings of "Ongoing Negotiation".

What a gesture it would be if the President, or Elon Musk, took a rounding error on their net worths and paid for the parade themselves?

Moulds and Aaron Schobel would have been 1st Team AP multiple times if they'd played for any other drought era contender. Had he not played on some horrendous Defenses, Schobel would have been a 120+ sack guy and an HOF'er. Talk about a no drama professional.

Here's the thing. Air Forces and drone swarms are great and all. However to sustain this war, Ukraine and Russia are operating conscription based recruiting regimes, feeding recruits into training programs with 4-12 week training cycles. They're sustaining the equivalent of 1-2 battalions per week KIA/WIA/MIA. Of course their are exceptions, like Azov or the VDV. How do the USMC or Army operate in an environment like this using the All-Volunteer model where every infantry recruit gets 16 weeks of just Basic. Nevermind specialist schools or AIT? How do you execute doctrine if your maneuver battalions depend on peacetime trained specialists, but are losing a squad or a platoon a day just sitting on the contact line?

Hey now! Someone did! There's pictures floating around the Internet of completely enclosed and armored hangars. Complete with armored doors! But the captions are all in Mandarin... The tally is up to 22.

Oddly enough, if any single power is responsible for Russia staying in the fight, it's North Korea. Russia's vaunted industrial mobilization has lagged quite a bit. The Norks supply 30-50% of ALL of Russia's small arms and artillery ammunition is OSINT is to be believed.

Initial OSINT analysis says Ukraine destroyed or damaged 15 Russian strategic bombers, AWACS and heavy cargo lifters. So we're a bit of a ways from the 41 claimed in public, but still quite the coup.

I'll keep reiterating a point BMan made two-ish years ago. The war will continue so long as one side thinks it can win outright or thinks that any kind of fighting is better than the most likely peace deal. The game we're playing right now is the diplomatic equivalent of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush telling the military to get this whole Iraqi insurgency sideshow wrapped up so we can move on to what's really important. Which is why the war goes on and on and every day we look more foolish and weak.

Pro Russian mil blogger Rybar would like to remind us that Russia no longer has the capacity to manufacture the types of bombers that were attacked/damaged/destroyed in this operation.

Great, now he and Vivek can start a club for ex-Whiz Kids.

It's like a Game Day Thread. If you read two pages of griping about Soft Zone! We're up by 10. Fire McDermott! We're up by 7. If you see 13 seconds references and Beane flak, the score is tied. Fire McBean, Soft Zone and 13 Seconds all at the same time? We're down by a score to a worse team before the half.

Yeah, we can point fingers all day. In fact that's what our elites are counting on us to do. The fact of the matter is the deficits keep on exploding, regardless of who is in office. There are no adults left to put in the room.

Ah, Bummer. Ukrainian GRU is usually much more efficient at this sort of thing.

I ignore Donald's rhetoric (he's a professional salesman and pitch artist after all). I look at his actions. His words are populist, transformative and unconventional. His actions/policies are fairly similar to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He's looked into Putin's eyes and seen his soul. He's for supply side economics. He thinks deficits don't matter. He makes a stink about DEI/Affirmative Action/Political Correctness. And so on, and so on. All the tariff shenanigans are just the virtue-signaling and grandstanding. W would have executed the same things quietly via smoky backrooms using the Bretton Woods architecture. But then he wouldn't have gotten as much credit or burnished his personal brand. He has successfully repackaged and sold the Country Club GOP's agenda, because JEB! and his ilk were too hooked on West Wing re-runs, and because Donald's part of the Country Club.

Replace the onside kick with a round of bare knuckle boxing. The first team to draw blood or get a knockdown/KO gets possession. Don King some how ends up with 25% of the ticket receipts.

We're living in W's third term.

Of course. But Trump said he'd fix the problem really fast and easily. He's been at it for four months and so far all we have is a trade deal with one of the most corrupt countries on the planet, so I'm told. And of course we have to get this done for humanitarian reasons you know? But at 5k dead per week, apparently there's no rush? And after pledging to stop the hopeless slaughter, our big threat is to walk away from the conflict...which is a benefit to Russia and does not stop the killing... So exactly the level of bungling, aimless, strategically bankrupt diplomacy we've been practicing since 9/11 so far. But hey, maybe time will prove me wrong. I know we're preparing for the great war against China and we're all hard headed realists. So obviously there's no benefit to China's greatest ally feeding itself into a wood chipper. What we actually have to do is try and bribe Russia out of China's orbit with a combination of Ukrainian land and American trade! And what could possibly go wrong funneling investment and land to a corrupt petro-state with terminal demographics and a hatred of the West?

The Germans must be near their wits end to say this out loud, via somebody with a defense minister's influence and status. But fundamentally he's right.

About as childish a response as you can get.