Monday, March 18, 2024

Russia will create a "buffer zone" in Ukraine as a war goal.

 

Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Fox News/AP.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin says that they will create a buffer zone in Ukraine to prevent attacks on the Russian homeland. Fox News. Putin said the buffer zone is needed to prevent Ukrainian strikes and cross border raids. Such strikes have increased in pace as Ukraine has suffered defeats on the battlefield. They have launched drone strikes on targets inside of Russia and have attempted to raid across the border. Putin has been vague on his goals on Ukraine but has said that establishing a buffer zone is a war goal now. 

My Comment:

I don't know if this is new information or information that the media is just reporting now. I had known for awhile that Putin wanted a buffer zone in Ukraine but I have no idea where I had heard it. Probably on social media? But it's not surprising. 

Russia's war goals are pretty obvious, as they think that Ukraine represents a major threat to them and could be used to launch attacks against Russia itself. Given the events of the last few weeks, I think it's pretty obvious that they are correct. Given that the Ukrainians keep getting long range weapons, I think the Russians would have to push Ukraine back away from the borders of Russia. 

They would have a long way to go. In order to prevent the kinds of border strikes and cross border raids that the Ukrainians are doing the Russians would have to take the entire border region with Ukraine, up to the Dnieper river. And now they probably have to go past it, as both Kiev and Odessa would be able to threaten the border, with Odessa being a threat to Crimea. 

Can they do it? Yes, but it will probably take some time, unless Ukraine collapses quickly. Though Russia is on the offensive, they are hampered by mud season, which makes large scale offensives difficult at best, impossible at worst. That means that Russia will probably be limited to the smaller scale probing attacks that are showing quite a bit of success, but not the major breakthrough that would threaten these larger cities and take back some of the territory they lost in 2022. 

I do think it's bizarre that the western media acts like Putin's motives are hard to read. It's obvious he views Ukraine as a military threat and is especially sensitive to the threat posed by right wing groups in the country. Given Russia's history with the Nazis, that is not surprising at all. Putin also doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO and does not want it to be able to threaten to restart the war as well. Taking the buffer zone area would help in those goals as well, given the economic importance of the region. 

Finally, I probably should mention that Putin easily won Russia's elections. That is not surprising, though not for the reason that the media claims. They claim that Russia's elections are fixed, but I don't find them any worse than America's. Plus, given Putin's popularity and polling saying most Russians are in favor of the war against Ukraine, it would have been shocking if he didn't get the win at the ratio he did... 

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Media takes Donald Trump's words out of context. The bloodbath hoax explained.

 

Donald Trump at the Dayton Ohio rally. Newsweek/Getty.

The Trump campaign and Republicans are blasting the media after they falsely claimed that America would have a bloodbath if he didn't win in 2024. Newsweek. Trump was making the comments at a rally in Ohio. In context, Trump was referring to the auto industry. Trump said that he was going to put an 100% tariff on foreign cars but said if he didn't win it would be a bloodbath for the country, and then continued to talk about cars. But media headlines have removed that context. Republicans, including Senator J.D. Vance who was at the rally, have blasted the reports. 


If you can't or won't watch the above video, here is the entire quote in context:

 If you're listening, President Xi—and you and I are friends—but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you're building in Mexico right now you're going to not hire Americans and you're going to sell the cars to us, no. We're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you're not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected, now if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole—that's gonna be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. But they're not going to sell those cars. They're building massive factories."

My Comment:

This is not the first time the media has completely lied about what Donald Trump has said. After all, Joe Biden based his whole campaign on the Charlottesville hoax, aka the "fine people" hoax. In that case they deliberately lied saying that Trump had called White Nationalists "fine people" when in fact he was condemning them and pointing out there were good people on both sides of the issue of confederate statues controversy (which is dramatically more credit then I would give the iconoclasts that destroy artwork). 

The difference now is this got debunked in real time on X and other social media. There isn't a post pushing the hoax on X right now that doesn't have dozens of comments condemning the articles put out by the media and showing the actual context. X has also added community notes to many of these articles, providing much needed context. And Elon Musk himself has checked in on the controversy. 

It's also clear that bloodbath is a pretty common term. Indeed, there are a lot of videos out there showing how often the media uses the term. It's not a serious term, in none of those cases was the media saying that there was actual violence, just like Trump obviously wasn't talking about real violence in his speech in Ohio. 

 

So why would the media lie like this when it's so easily debunked? Well it's because they know that they won't get challenged about it outside of social media. There are still millions of people that get their news from broadcast and network news and those folks will have no idea that this is an obvious lie. They won't ever get the context to the speech and they will have no idea of the truth. 

That alone explains why Trump was so hated despite the fact that he was a pretty decent president. You would never know it if you only got your news from the media. And they lie so blatantly but how are people supposed to know without an X account, or an account on another alternate social media site? 

Of course the media isn't the only villain here, the Biden campaign is also doubling down on this lie. They put out there own statement condemning Trump's misattributed words and they have absolutely no shame in doing it. Why would they? Their entire 2020 campaign was based on the "fine people" hoax so why not try it again in 2024? 

If there is any good news about this is that at least people who are on social media are able to see through this nonsense. It's possible that it will percolate out beyond that, which is a huge change from 2020 when it was pretty much impossible to see anything critical of the Biden administration percolate out to the greater population. 

Thursday, March 14, 2024

French President Emmanuel Macron doubles down on sending troops to Ukraine...

 

French President Emmanuel Macron. Politico/Getty.

French President Emmanuel Macron has doubled down on the idea of sending troops to Ukraine. Politico. The statement occurred during a TV interview where he was asked to explain comments he had made saying he would rule out sending combat troops to the war zone. Macron argued that Ukraine must win the war and it was an existential threat for Europe. Macron argued that everything was on the table with the only exception being France being in the lead of any offensive against Russia. Macron's comments are controversial to say the least, with many of his NATO partners disagreeing with the idea of sending troops to Ukraine. Most of France is against him as well, with 68% of French people surveyed said Macron's words about sending troops a wrong. 

My Comment:

Macron's statement was worse than Politico is reporting as he also said there is no point in negotiating with Russia, despite the fact that a negotiation is the only way this war ends without Ukraine losing. Indeed, the entire speech seems utterly unhinged. 

From what I understand is that the basic plan is that NATO troops would be deployed to the border with Belarus in the and Odessa on the southern coast. Doing so would free up border Ukraine units and would perhaps reconstruct their reserves. It would also supposedly deter the Russians from again opening up a 2nd front on the Belarus border and would keep Belarus from joining the war in the late stages of the war. And they want to keep Odessa because it's the only port that Ukraine has. 

France would likely not be able to accomplish these goals by themselves. They have a small army compared even to Ukraine and though their units are good, they are not large enough to secure the entire border with Belarus. They would need support from other NATO countries and there is zero evidence that most of the alliance would go along with it. 

I also think that it would be insanely optimistic that Russia wouldn't target NATO troops in Ukraine. I think they would and it's pretty obvious that they would. Though Macron says this war is existential, he doesn't actually mean it. Putin and Russia as a whole absolutely know it is for their part and if that means blowing up French troops then that is what will happen. 

France also doesn't have the logistics to actually accomplish this mission in Ukraine. The supply lines aren't really secure due to Polish farmers blockading the roads into Ukraine, meaning they would either have to resolve that situation somehow, which has already completely vexed NATO, or they would have to ship everything through Odessa and that would invite a naval clash with the Russian Black Sea Fleet, a clash they probably wouldn't win, despite Russia's depleted fleet. 

There is also the question of what the French would be fighting with. All of NATO has depleted their weapons stocks and it's not like France is going to go into a full war mobilization. Even if they do it would take a very long time to get French military production up to full speed and they still wouldn't even be able to match, let alone beat Russia's massive weapons production. 

I generally think that this is just a bunch of nonsense from Macron. He's trying to distract against domestic issues and is desperately trying to save face in a very misguided adventure in Ukraine. He's far behind in the polls right now and will likely lose the next election. He wants to drum up support for his unpopular Ukraine policy and by doubling down he is hoping to get some more of the 68% of the French against his comments.

What is bizarre about these statements is that he is making them now. Everyone knows that even with western support Ukraine will lose the war. The real question is how long it will take. I think even if NATO sent troops it wouldn't matter. Russia has the advantage in troops, ammo and technology and is in a war footing. NATO has no advantages and the Ukrainian Army is on the verge of breaking... 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Does Donald Trump have a chance in 2024?

 

Donald Trump. 

As you are probably aware, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have won their respective primary campaign races and we are looking at a rematch of the 2020 race. This was not at all surprising as the race essentially had two incumbents. Biden may be the one in the White House but there was no question that Trump still controls the Republican Party. 

With the rematch confirmed, the obvious question is if Trump can win the White House in 2024. Trump essentially won in 2020 but was denied the White House due to voter fraud. He absolutely should have been President but will 2020 happen again?

I think there is a strong argument that this election will be different. The threat of voter fraud is still obviously still around, but I don't believe that it will be the deciding factor like it was in 2020. Indeed, I believe there was massive fraud in 2016 but since that race was a lot less close in the swing states, it was impossible to find the votes Hillary Clinton needed to win. 

Plus, the Republican Party seems to be taking things a lot more seriously this time around. They are using some of the same tactics, like ballot harvesting, to make this more equitable. And some of the worst abuses have been corrected or countered. There is also the fact that the Democrats don't have the excuse of the Coronavirus pandemic to change laws at the last minute where there was almost zero time to counter or adjust to the new situation. The GOP had four years and I think they have done something. 

Another factor is that Joe Biden was more of an unknown factor back in 2020. Biden was a non-entity as a VP and a Senator and people mostly voted for him because they didn't think he was Trump. But now we know how absolutely abysmal Biden has been, it's enough to make Trump look really good in comparison. 

This is reflected in the polls that mostly show Trump ahead of Biden, especially in the crucial swing states that handed Biden the election in 2020. Trump is ahead in all of the major swing states in most polls I have seen and there is even a chance that non-traditional swing states could be in play as well. Biden just isn't anywhere near as popular as he once was. 

Biden has also angered many of his own party with his failures. The Gaza issue alone has thousands of his voters turned off. Many of those folks won't forgive him and I think the Democrats have lost many Muslim Americans forever. And more than a few people are angry and various other failures Biden has had. 

I also have seen polling that traditional groups that usually go for Democrats, like young people, minorities and even college educated men are running away from the Party. The Democrats are not in a position to lose any part of their coalition but many minorities are sick of their actions. It was a historical accident due to the civil rights movement that conservative blacks, Hispanics and Asians were on the same side as the Democrats and that appears to be going away. 

There is also the elephant in the room that is the fact that there is an actual third party candidate running, along with a few minor candidates. RFK Jr. is a legit candidate that is taking about 10% to 15% of the vote, and Cornel West and Jill Stein are in the mix as well. And there are rumbles that the No Labels group will be running a candidate as well. Of these only RFK Jr. takes votes from Trump, the rest take from Biden and even RFK Jr's support mostly come from former Democrats. 
 
Another factor is that the legal crusade against Trump has absolutely turned people off from Biden and gained support for Trump. None of the legal cases against him are on solid ground and the lawsuits against him happened in obvious kangaroo courts. Everyone knows what is happening to him could happen to any of us and the only real way to protest against it is to vote. 

A lot could change between now and November. Indeed, it's a real question if the election itself, let alone the Trump vs Biden matchup, will even happen given how much could happen. Biden could mishandle the Ukraine conflict so badly that we all end up getting nuked.

But without something crazy like that happening, I do think that Trump has a good chance of winning. Could Biden turn it around? Possibly, but I honestly don't know how. It would really have to be something amazing at this point or vote fraud at the level where it becomes extremely obvious for Biden to win as thing stand right now. 

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

RFK Jr is considering Aaron Rodgers and Jesse Ventura as running mates.

 

Aaron Rodgers (right) and Jesse Ventura. NBC News/Getty.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr is said to be considering New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota Governor, actor and wrestler Jesse Ventura as possible vice presidential candidates. NBC News. Both men were mentioned by his campaign along with other unknown candidates on a "short list". Neither men commented on the story when asked. Ventura was a former Reform Party governor but was only for one term. Rodgers was the Quarterback for the Green Bay Packers and won a Super Bowl before being traded to the New York Jets where he sat out most of the 2023 season due to injuries. Rodgers and RFK Jr bonded over opposition to vaccine mandates and he has endorsed RFK Jr. for president. 

My Comment:

These are... odd choices for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to pick. Jesse Ventura isn't a household name anymore. He hasn't really been in the news since he was Governor and no longer really seems to act. People in Minnesota remember him, and anyone that liked Wrestling in the 80's or the movie Predator, but other than that is he really that relevant? I think RFK Jr. is more famous them him. 

Ventura and RFK Jr. do have similar beliefs though. Ventura was a centrist with the reform party and I think he is skeptical of vaccines like RFK Jr. is. I would think that they are on similar wavelengths. Further more, he has political experience and has his term as governor as an argument to vote for him. 

But my problem is that he just isn't relevant anymore. This is the first time I have thought of Ventura in years. He's just not a known figure in politics anymore. Indeed, he barely counts as a celebrity. I really don't think that anyone who wouldn't already be on board with RFK Jr. is going to be convinced because a one term governor that used to be a wrestler and actor is on the ticket. I don't think he's going to hurt RFK Jr. either, but regardless, it's an odd pick. 

Speaking of odd picks, the Aaron Rodgers one is a lot stranger. Rodgers is known for only a couple of things. First of all, he's a great QB, one that had great success in Green Bay. Second, he's kind of a prima donna that got into trouble with the powers that be over his stance on vaccines. Given that RFK Jr. is mostly known for vaccine skepticism, it's not totally out of left field, but it's an odd choice. 

Indeed, other than him being a vaccine skeptic and being upset with the Democratic Party due to their criticism of that fact, I have no idea what Rodgers political beliefs even are. My guess would be some kind of centrist but if you asked me what he thinks on the economy, foreign policy or gun rights, I would have no idea. 

He also doesn't have any political experience whatsoever. I guess being a QB shows that he could be a decent leader, but that's about it. But he doesn't have any experience with politics and I can see him getting into trouble very quickly. To be fair, just because he has no experience means that he will be bad as a Vice President, but it is an argument against him. 

It also brings up the question of practicality. How is Aaron Rodgers going to run for Vice President if he is an active quarterback for the New York Jets? Though there are questions about Rodgers and his injury, as far as I am aware he will be the starter for the Jets in 2024. I don't see how he could possibly campaign for RFK Jr while being a QB, which means that he would probably either have to retire or refuse to run. 

Does Rodgers bring anything to the campaign at all? I think so. He's a well-spoken man and it's unquestionable that he would get a few votes in Wisconsin and perhaps New York if he ever actually plays for them. But he's also controversial and a lot of people hate him for football and non-football reasons. I don't see him as a serious candidate and if RFK Jr. does pick him I would be surprised. 

Indeed, I would be surprised if either of these men ended up as RFK Jr's pick. The only reason I take it seriously at all is because the campaign mentioned it. But they also mentioned that there were other people under consideration and I think that it's more likely that a third person will be picked over Aaron Rodgers and Jesse Ventura.