UK Defense Secretary resigns due to lack of funding for the military

 

UK Defense Secretary John Healey. NBC News/Getty.

The Secretary of Defense of the United Kingdom, John Healy, has resigned, citing a lack of funding for the military. NBC News. Healey was followed by Al Carns, another senior figure in the Defense Department. Both men complained that Keir Starmer's plan to fund the military fell well short of what the United Kingdom needs, citing international threats. Starmer had said he would increase funding to 2.5% of GDP by next year and 3% by 2035. Healey was considered a strong and competent minster and his resignation is a serious blow to Kier Starmer's leadership. 

My Comment:

The resignation of Healey, and to a lesser extent, Carns and other figures in the Starmer government is a very bad sign for Keir Starmer. Starmer was already in trouble for many other reasons, but having to deal with his defense minster essentially calling his plans unworkable is a very bad sign for him. 

Indeed, it's like the rats are fleeing a sinking ship. Starmer has been in trouble for awhile now, especially after last months local elections ended with Labor taking massive damage. He is one of the least popular world leaders in Europe and that's really saying something. 

Even Labor says that it's very likely that Starmer's government will face a vote of no confidence fairly soon, in a few months at most. There's a very good chance that Starmer will be unable to right the ship and I would be very surprised if he was still in power by the end of the year, perhaps even the end of Summer. 

As for Healey's complaints, they are correct. The UK's military is a joke. Their Navy was unable to send their carrier to the Strait of Hormuz because they simply didn't have any escorts. They still have the carriers and a nuclear submarine fleet, but the rest of their surface fleet is a joke. And it damaged their relationship with the United States, I don't think President Trump forgave them for not helping in Iran. 

But it's not just the Royal Navy that has problem, the Army isn't much better. They only have 75,000 regular troops, which is basically nothing, and around 150 tanks. In a hypothetical war with Russia, for example, that would be a drop in the bucket compared to Russia's military, or even Ukraine's for that matter. It's a far cry from what they had during World War II, and even the ad-hoc fleet that won the Falklands Islands war would be more formidable than what they have now. 

All of this is in the context of yesterday's post where Northern Ireland is burning because the immigration problem. I don't think Healey resigned because of the unrest, but it shows another reason why funding for the military is so important. Indeed, if a new round of The Troubles happens again, this time focused on immigration, the UK is entirely unprepared for it. 

Chaos in Belfast after the attempted decapitation of a deaf special needs man.

 

A burnt out car in Belfast. Fox News/Getty.

Chaos has erupted in Belfast Northern Ireland after the attempted decapitation of a deaf special needs man by a Sudanese immigrant. Fox News. The attacker, Hadi Alodid, attacked the victim, a 40 year old man, with a knife. Shocking video showed the man repeatedly stabbing his victim, who lost at least one eye in the attack. The video went viral and spread outrage and two nights of protests, arson and chaos have resulted from the attack. The suspect crossed the border with Ireland and was granted a five year asylum. Attackers burned homes that they believed were occupied by immigrants and clashed with cops. The incident comes on the heels of another major immigration related outrage in the UK, where an immigrant falsely claimed that his murder victim was a racist and the police believed it. 

My Comment:

Some context is probably necessary. This attack occurred in one of the roughest areas in Northern Belfast in the Catholic New Lodge neighborhood and the Protestant Tiger's Bay neighborhood. During The Troubles it was one of the areas with the heaviest casualties. Though the conflict is over, the neighborhoods are still divided and there are a lot of young men on both sides in paramilitary organizations. It's a major reason why this blew up so badly. 

These areas have been hit hard by immigration. Like I said, it was a rough neighborhood to begin with and that means that it was cheap to live there so a lot of immigrants did. They brought crime, higher prices and competition for jobs that hurt a neighborhood that was already in trouble. There was widespread, and justified, anger over immigration even before this attack. 

But the brutal and senseless nature of this attack was a major factor as well. The victim in this case was a 40 year old man who was already either deaf or mostly deaf and he had some other issues as well. He was described as special needs, a nice man that had some problems and had even tried to help Alodid when he moved in. 

Alodid returned his kindness with one of the more brutal attacks caught on video. I won't post it here but he is shown stabbing his victim in the neck, face and eyes and showing no remorse of it. If it wasn't for the heroic actions of bystanders, his victim would be dead. But even now, his quality of life won't be much, he lost at least one eye and it's still an open question if he will ever see again with his 2nd eye. Unless he recovers his sight, what kind of life can he even lead after this as a deaf and blind man? Attacking him and leaving him in this state was an act of unimaginable cruelty.  

As for the riots and attacks, it seems like they are very targeted. This isn't the chaos we saw in 2020's George Floyd riots, which targeted basically everyone. These attacks are specifically targeting the folks they are angry at, the immigrants and the police, rather than the general public. 

There is also quite a bit of support for the actions of the rioters. The usual voices are obviously condemning it, but a lot of folks are to the point where they think the UK can't fix things through voting anymore. More folks don't support the arson and violence, but are sympathetic to the cause and angry about immigration. 

My guess is that this will fizzle out, probably in a couple of days. I could see it lasting through the weekend though. But will the anger last longer than that? I am not sure. 

What I am sure is that the UK is heading to a very dark place. Voters no longer feel they can get what they want, less immigration, through voting. There has been some change, the rate of immigration is slowing down under labor, but it doesn't help with the millions of immigrants already there. Immigration has slowed, not stopped and the people in the UK aren't getting what they really want, deportation and remigration. 

Could we see some kind of civil conflict? It's certainly possible in Northern Ireland. The Loyalists and Nationalists still have some organizations, though finding weapons would be difficult. We could certainly see some kind of 2nd troubles, though this time with both sides now allied against the migrants and the government. 

But things could conceivably get even worse. Conflict outside of Northern Ireland is possible as well. Folks are absolutely tired of these kinds of murders, the grooming gangs and the endless stream of migrants, legal and otherwise. And there is even a small chance of an actual civil war. The next elections will be critical, hopefully Nigel Farage and his Reform Party will sweep and they will bring real change...  

Karmelo Anthony convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years for the killing of Austin Metcalf

 

Karmelo Anthony. ABC News/Frisco PD.

Karmelo Anthony has been convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison for the killing of Austin Metcalf. ABC News. Anthony stabbed Metcalf after being confronted for trespassing in a tent at a track meet. Anthony argued that the stabbing was justified self defense as Metcalf had shoved Anthony, but they jury did not agree. The trial did not go well for the defense with many students testifying that Anthony had been asked to leave and that he had threatened Metcalf before the murder. Another witness said that Metcalf had specifically told Anthony that he didn't want to fight him. The jury found Anthony guilty in just three hours and were able to sentence him the same day. 

My Comment:

The jury reached the right verdict as the evidence against Karmelo Anthony was extreme and incontrovertible. He entered a tent he had no right to be in and he refused to leave when asked. He made a threat against Metcalf for no reason and escalated the situation to the point where Metcalf shoved him. Instead of shoving him back or walking away, Anthony stabbed Metcalf and killed him in cold blood. 

Self defense didn't apply in this case. Not only was Anthony the aggressor, he had no valid reason to fear for his life. Metcalf even said that he didn't want to fight! And when Metcalf did shove him, Anthony responded with a massive overreaction in force. Stand your ground didn't apply and even by the rules of regular self defense, you can't stab someone who shoves you when you are in a place that forbids weapons and that you have no right to be in in the first place. 

Despite these being the facts of the case, Anthony somehow has supporters. If you are charitable you could say that they somehow believed that he wasn't the aggressor here, or they simply don't seem to understand the laws of self defense. To be fair, most people don't understand that, how else could people think that Kyle Rittenhouse wasn't justified after being chased, assaulted and having a gun pulled on him? 

But it's pretty obvious that this case was just about racism. Anthony wasn't the victim of racism, I doubt Metcalf would have acted any different if Anthony was White or any other race. But I am guessing most of Anthony's supporters just hate White people and think he should get off because he killed one. 

Indeed, they are complaining about an jury with no Black people on it, but they forget to point out that some of the Black jurors disqualified themselves by saying they wouldn't convict Anthony no matter what the facts of the case were. The three that passed that bar were rejected because they were all educators and the prosecution correctly argued that they couldn't be trusted to be impartial in a case that happened at a high school. 

Regardless, I am happy that justice was served in this case. I do think the sentence was fairly lite given that he killed someone, but it's fair under the laws of Texas. At the very least, he won't be getting out anytime soon. Supposedly, if he behaves, he could be out halfway through his sentence, but I really don't see that happening with the facts of this case. 

LA Mayor race called after ballot drop knocked Spencer Pratt out of the race.

 

Nithya Raman. New York Post.

The Los Angeles Mayor's race has been called with far left Nithya Raman knocking out insurgent GOP candidate Spencer Pratt. New York Post. Pratt was in 2nd place after incumbent Mayor Karen Bass on election day but late votes swung towards Raman. With 93% of the vote in, Bass leads with 34.7% of the vote, Raman with 28.5% and Pratt with 26.7%. Pratt, a former reality TV star, ran on improving the city and specifically the Bass's poor reaction to the Pacific Palisades fire, that ruined the neighborhood and even destroyed Pratt's house. The slow pace of the vote and disproportionate results favoring Raman has caused withering criticism among voters and has caused President Trump to open an investigation to elections in California. 

My Comment:

In a democracy, the appearance of voter fraud has the same effect as voter fraud. It causes people to lose faith in the elections and that is a recipe for disaster. People will accept the results of an election if they lose fairly, but if it takes weeks to count votes and those votes tend to support one candidate over another, than folks are going to be rightly upset. 

Was there fraud in this election? Right now it's not possible to know, largely because of how horrible California's elections are designed. They allow mail in ballots, and the only restriction is that they have to be mailed out by election day. They also allow ballot harvesting, and have weak signature verification laws and allow many suspect ballots to count. 

Given that it would be trivial for a small operation to absolutely change the course of an election. All you would need is a ballot harvesting operation that targets people that are ineligible or unlikely to vote, like at rest homes or on Skid Row. Did that happen? There are, of course, rumors, but without absolute proof we can't say either way. 

Nobody has any faith in the elections in California and everyone is assuming that Spencer Pratt will be kicked out by a late ballot drop in favor of Nithya Raman. The betting markets know this and are pricing it accordingly. https://t.co/PE2FYCYIz0

— Jeff H (@politicswarblog) June 4, 2026

Indeed, this is exactly what I predicted for the LA Mayor race a day after the election. Pratt was comfortably in 2nd place on election day and folks though he had a chance to stand for election in November. Remember, California has a "jungle primary" where the top two candidates run, regardless of party. That means in most elections, there is no GOP candidate to vote for and there was hope that in LA and the Governor's race there would finally be a Republican on the ballot in November.  But that hope was unfounded in Los Angeles, though it hasn't been ruled out for the Governor's race as of this writing. 

And I don't buy that this is how things have to be. Other states handle their elections a lot quicker and they don't allow the ballot harvesting and curing that California does. Indeed, a country as dysfunctional as India, with almost a billion voters, gets their results in a day. There is zero reason why California could not be as functional as India when it comes to votes. 

As for Pratt, he ran an impressive campaign, and if he had ran in anything other than a deep blue, one-party state like California, he could have won the general election, let alone the primary. He ran how Republicans should run in blue cities like LA, instead of focusing on Republican priorities, he tried to connect with the voters directly himself. He was almost a single issue voter, fixing LA's massive problem with mismanagement, crime and disaster recovery. That's a winning formula for blue cities that have been under the control of the Democrats for generations. 

I do think that this might be the "last straw" when it comes to California's elections. I know the Supreme Court has a case pending about the very issue of late ballots received after election day and a favorable and expected ruling would end these kinds of shenanigans right away. 

And there is also some motivation from the Trump administration to fix this. After the election in 2016, I had hoped that Trump would focus on election security but he was prevented from doing so by the Republicans in the House and Senate. I think this time he will have a freer hand as it's getting obvious to everyone that the situation in California is untenable.  

President Zelensky has sent a letter to President Putin asking for face to face negotiations to end the Ukraine War.

 

Ukrainian President Zelensky. BBC/EPA.

President Zelensky has sent a letter to President Putin asking for a face to face negotiation to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. BBC. Zelensky asked for a full ceasefire while the issue was being negotiated, a condition that Putin has repeatedly rejected. Despite asking for a ceasefire and an end to the war, the letter was disrespectful and defiant, and even mocked Putin's age. However, the more notable issue is that Zelensky acknowledged that the United States attention was on Iran, not the Ukraine war. For his part President Trump agreed that a face to face meeting would be helpful. 

My Comment:

It appears that Zelensky is feeling confident, probably because it's late spring and well past winter. Putin's war on Ukraine's energy was largely successful but it's a lot less relevant in spring and summer in Ukraine for what should be obvious reasons. Nobody is at risk of freezing to death in Ukraine in June. 

And it's not like there has been much movement in the war. The front lines are mostly static and neither side seems to be engaged on any major offensives. Ukraine has gotten more aggressive with drone strikes, just today they appear to have damaged or destroyed the Russian Corvette RFS Boiky in drydock in St. Petersburg. Those strikes may get headlines but they have not eroded Russia's ability to make war. 

Keep in mind that Russia's goal here is attritional warfare, they understand they have more manpower, weapons and supplies than Ukraine ever will and they just need to continue to keep up the pressure and Ukraine will eventually collapse. The only problem is that this strategy takes a long time.

It also seems that Ukraine has adapted as well. They haven't launched a major offensive in awhile and I don't think we will see any more major offensives from Ukraine unless something drastic happens. I think they finally figured out that throwing huge numbers of troops into Russian defenses was a dumb idea. Either that or their non-drone operator troop quality has dropped to the point where they can't actually do anything. 

Regardless, the timing of this is dumb. The time for Ukraine to try and cut a deal was back when they had a large amount of Russian territory during the Kursk offensive. But they didn't really try to end the war then, when they obviously could have used that territory to trade for their own. Now they control very little if any Russian territory so they have nothing to trade. 

It's true that Trump is obviously distracted by Iran but I think he mostly washed his of Ukraine regardless. I do think he wants to end the war but I also don't think he takes responsibility for the conflict. He, correctly, believes this was Joe Biden's war and it's going to be up to Ukraine and Russia to end the war. 

The problem I see is that I don't see any evidence of either side backing down. Russia won't give up all of the territory they have conquered and that's not going to change. At the very least, they will keep Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk and Ukraine has no realistic way to take that territory back. But Ukraine won't drop demands to be given back all of this territory and more, even Crimea, which had been taken by Russia before the war. 

Until one side loosens their demands I can't see this war ending. Even worse, I don't think anything at all will come from this letter. Zelensky's bad attitude isn't helping either. My guess is that nothing will come from this letter and that the war will continue.