Phelan's firing isn't what's actually most disappointing. I hadn't read about the guy previously. The most striking thing is that Trump appointed him with zero qualifications in 2025. He has no military experience. Ran an investment firm. Used to fly on Jeffrey Epstein's plane. Donated $ to Trump.
For Trump, his "allies in the Middle East" are "better" because they're willing to bribe Trump's son-in-law & other family members + give him private jets.
The only country in NATO that might have been open to bribing Trump was Orban's Hungary
Same reason Trump thinks Russia is better than Ukraine
And .. here come the Freedom of Information Act requests for Kash Patel records
DC watchdog group Democracy Forward has formally requested Patel's calendars & any messages from security detail that include words "drinking", "hungover", "inebriated"
democracyforward.org/wp-content/u...
Trump's economic platform during the election was:
1) tax cuts for billionaires
2) I will make your eggs cheaper
3) I will issue crypto coins + find other scams to get more rich from taxpayer money & corruption
And millions of people somehow believed #2 and voted for him, disregarding #1 and #3...
(but maybe not yet sufficient equipment reserves) to launch sustained mid-range strikes on all shipping by land through occupied Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. If the Kerch bridge is cut and military resupply to Crimea occurs through Zaporizhzhia, it will be in range of low-cost mid-strike UAVs.
I would guess that it would still be valuable to cut off the Kerch bridge. I think it's likely that much of the resupply of air defense missiles, fuel, air defense systems, radars, etc to Crimea is done over the Kerch bridge. I could be wrong.
Ukraine has the technical capabilities...
With all the Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries & oil storage sites in the past year, I cannot think of another image of a fire that appears to be so widespread at any Russian site. Usually a few storage tanks catch on fire. This time, there are fires across the entire site.
New kit / tactics?
Hey Fico, why don't you fly over occupied Crimea then over Novorossiysk, up over Rostov, and then to Moscow. That's a well known flight route that's also popular with various classes of Ukrainian aircraft.
You could try to spot if Russia has any remaining Buk or S400 systems from the plane window.
The strict monitoring will entail armed ICE agents screening everyone coming into the remaining polling sites in those cities.
With 5 hour wait times at remaining polling sites, voter turnout will drop 25%, and rural red voters will ensure that no Democrats can win in those swing states.
Let me guess. Trump is going to declare that there were election irregularities in Detroit, Atlanta, and Phoenix/Mesa -- all solidly blue cities in swing states.
Then he's going to announce that 70% of polling sites in those cities will have to be closed with strict monitoring of remaining sites...
My best guess is that the Kerch bridge won't exist in 2027. Within months, Russia will no longer have much air defense missile coverage in Crimea. Russia will run out of interceptor missiles & systems. Some will be used up and others destroyed.
Meanwhile, Ukraine will make flamingos + ballistics.
Ukraine needs a plan to mine the deep rear. Mine freight rail logistics and rail bridges inside Russia. Mine rail tunnels inside Russia. Mine roads around military airfields in Russia...
This is a mature and pragmatic approach. Stubb is communicating honestly to his constituents, to other citizens in the EU, & also to Americans. He's making it clear that Finland & the EU want to maintain economic + security relations with the USA, but they'll naturally buy/trade elsewhere if abused.
This doesn't mean that there won't be collaboration between opportunistic European far-right parties and the USA MAGA/CPAC crowd. The European parties will just want to keep it quiet because they believe it's a political liability at home.
But corrupt political + business deals won't stop.
he has been very-actively spewing Russian propaganda for years. There are videos of him chatting with Solovyov on RT. He has had ties to Russian government officials since the 90s. His propaganda is well crafted and clever. Maybe one day we'll learn how+why he became an agent of Russian propaganda.
I immediately determined that Mearsheimer was basically a phony who is unconcerned with historical truth when I first read his stuff in the 90s.
And Sachs...? Russian business interests? Kompromat photos with underage Russian girls from the 90s? Bribes? Contrarian narcissism? I cannot explain why..
Mearsheimer is like the Jordan Peterson or Curtis Yarvin of academic political science. He postulates contrarian frameworks to explain geo-politics that attract bro undergrads seeking to be edgy and contrarian. However, the frameworks are based on logical flaws & broad ignorance of historical facts.
Yeah, among countless other atrocities, Russia also targets Ukrainian civilians with mines.
Ukraine should do more to target Russia's war machine with mines deep within Russian territory. Use long-range UAVs (could use simple computer vision) to sprinkle mines on freight rail tracks within Russia.
Trump lies all the time, but part of the reason why Americans dismiss his lies is because he speaks in inconsistent, conflicting, vague and sometimes nonsensical soundbites.
JD Vance lays out his lies and also gaslights in complete sentences. His lies are obvious and memorable. He's very unlikable.
In the USA, our health minister snorts cocaine off toilet seats and dumps dead bear carcasses in city parks.
One huge benefit to this solution is that it's effective without using any regulated products.
Intercepting drones with explosive payloads or shotgun shells requires special licenses or approval to transport, import and export systems or components.
Less regulation for UAVs, sticks & fishing nets.
There's no certain strategic benefit to the Ukrainian military striking Putin's palace at Valdai.
However, there's likely more upside than downside to striking a few of the air defence systems in the outer ring. Putin would reallocate dwindling numbers of air defense systems from strategic targets.
Maria, could you please message Vance to suggest to him that he should travel to Slovakia to deliver speeches about how he and Trump endorse the government of Robert Fico and oppose all outside foreign interference into the politics of Slovakia?
They should produce 50 of them, donate them to Ukraine, and ask the Ukrainians if they can test their accuracy by seeing if they can all strike the Kerch bridge.
Iran probably also didn't agree for the USA to bomb its military bases, energy infrastructure, bridges, schools, political leaders, military leaders, ...
Both Russia and the USA are also both campaigning for Ukraine to give up the Donbas. They're also both campaigning to lift sanctions against Russian oil. They both supported lifting sanctions against Belarus (which gives Russia easy access to evade import+export sanctions)....
Any patterns here?
In the past, a USA Defense Department official would have been criminally prosecuted if he terminated a contract with one provider (Anthropic) in favor of another company (xAI) in which he owned $1M of stock. Now standard practice.
This is illegal self-dealing, but Trump will pardon him.
I guess the USA is still not quite as bad as Russia.
If this were Russia, the guy would fall out of a window within the next week for not calling it a "special military operation".
Still, if you analyze the amount of doublespeak + gaslighting from Republicans, you know we're on a dark path.
He might not be totally cut loose.
Putin might give him a nice apartment somewhere in Moscow and a dacha somewhere in Dagestan.
Are there any polymarkets bets on whether Orban will flee to Russia by the end of April?
After the JD Vance visit, Peter Magyar should be making speeches every day in Hungary about how a vote for Orban could mean that Hungarian troops would be sent to Iran to die in a ground invasion.
He should say voting against Orban means that Hungarians wouldn't be pawns of the USA or Russia.