She just a doll.
At People, "Kristin Cavallari Says She Is 'Really Proud' of Her Fitness Journey After Weight Gain ."
And, "Kristin Cavallari and Tyler Cameron Get Married and Share Steamy Kisses in New Uncommon James Ad."
Thursday, July 7, 2022
War of Attrition
At WSJ, "Russia’s Tactical Shift in Ukraine Raises Prospect of Protracted War":
Kyiv says it needs more Western weapons and help training new soldiers to turn the tide. KYIV, Ukraine—Russia’s steady advances in eastern Ukraine, relying on superior firepower and larger numbers of troops, are grinding down Ukraine’s military and setting the stage for a protracted war of attrition in which Kyiv needs more Western weapons and help training new soldiers to turn the tide. After early missteps, Russia has found tactics that are working. In the invasion’s opening phase, Moscow’s armies tried to make daring thrusts deep into Ukrainian territory. They largely failed and lost elite units in the process. Now, Russian forces are advancing by increments under the cover of artillery. Russia is massing “a very heavy concentration of artillery and armor in every square kilometer that we are unable to cope with,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told The Wall Street Journal. “This is giving them the advantage.” Ukrainian forces are seeking to slow the Russian advance, wearing them down and preparing to counterattack when they can bring more Western weapons to bear. Ukraine has landed some counter-blows in the past few days with long-range rocket launchers from the U.S. and other Western allies. But Russia’s tactical shift raises questions for Ukraine’s backers, who must now confront the possibility of a long, drawn-out conflict. Russia seized the city of Lysychansk at the weekend, completing the takeover of the Luhansk region, and is now bombarding Ukraine’s remaining strongholds in neighboring Donetsk. Despite narrowing its immediate objectives to taking Ukraine’s east, Russia’s strategic goal of controlling Ukraine remains unchanged. The secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said Tuesday that Russia is aiming to demilitarize Ukraine and force it to adopt neutral status, according to Russian state news agency RIA. Such statements suggest “that the Kremlin is preparing for a protracted war with the intention of taking much larger portions of Ukraine,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in an analysis Tuesday. Moscow’s success in the east recalls some of Russia’s previous wars. As in Chechnya in the 1990s, Russia is offsetting the shortcomings of its ground forces by using massed firepower. Ukraine is trying to impose high costs on the advancing Russians with fierce resistance, while also preserving troop strength by slowly falling back to more defensible positions as it awaits flows of heavy weapons from the West. It took Russia two months to take the city of Severodonetsk. Some Western leaders say they fear Ukraine won’t be able to win, despite its fierce determination, as the conflict further erodes the country’s economy and its military struggles against Russia’s advantage in sheer numbers. While the West has extended military aid to Ukraine, Kyiv says it needs more and warns that it will take time to train soldiers to use the multiple new weapons systems being delivered by the U.S. and its allies. In a report this week, the U.K.’s Royal United Services Institute think tank said Ukraine needs long-range artillery systems and electronic warfare equipment to counter Russia’s own advanced systems. The report said that Ukraine’s allies are capable of making up the shortfalls. But, in a nod to the complications of operating too many different weapons systems, the report said success “cannot be achieved through the piecemeal delivery of a large number of different fleets of equipment, each with separate training, maintenance and logistical needs.” Mr. Danilov said that the Ukraine army has used so many of its Soviet-era armaments and ammunition that it is gradually becoming a force that will have to rely on NATO weaponry. He said the arrival of U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or Himars, last month has enabled Ukraine to strike precisely at Russian targets beyond the front lines that were previously beyond the reach of Ukrainian guns. Mr. Danilov said nine mobile Himars and similar rocket-launch systems donated by the U.S. and its allies are now operating inside Ukraine with deadly effect. The Russians “are defenseless against them,” he said. “They are very worried.” A Himars strike devastated a command post in the east Ukrainian town of Izyum last week, and on Monday a top Ukrainian official confirmed that Himars were used to bombard Snake Island, a small but significant outpost in the Black Sea that Russia abandoned last week. But Mr. Danilov said Ukraine would need dozens more Himars launchers to shift the fighting in eastern Ukraine. For now, he said, Ukraine must fight a defensive war. The Royal United Services Institute report noted that Ukraine’s paucity of skilled infantry and armored-vehicle operators limit its abilities to launch serious counteroffensives. Russia’s artillery is also successfully targeting the Ukrainian military so that it is unable to mount attacks, the report said. Mr. Danilov said Russia’s own arsenal is showing signs of running low four months after launching its invasion, saying that it no longer has the strength to launch attacks on more than one front. Moscow has also increasingly been sending lower-precision Soviet-era missiles deep into Ukrainian territory, with less regard for whether they hit civilian targets, he said. Last week, one missile landed in a neighborhood in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, where Ukrainian officials said at least 21 civilians were killed. Mr. Danilov said the missile campaign was intended to blunt support for the war among the Ukrainian public, an overwhelming share of whom still say it would be unacceptable to reach a peace deal with Moscow by ceding territory lost to Russian forces. Mr. Danilov said that the high level of support for some kind of Ukrainian counterattack may be a rubbing point with some of Ukraine’s allies, who have pledged to support Ukraine until it wins, without specifying what victory means...
More:
The Ukrainian PM dropped the number in a presentation yesterday.
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) July 6, 2022
Ukraine's entire GDP is $150 billion.
One of the biggest shakedowns in world history, only second to COVID Mania.https://t.co/mVaZtPvToM
The Price of an Unpopular Argument
It's Glenn Loury's introduction to the video below:
Thousands of hours of new race-related content pop up every day on cable news, talk radio, podcasts, newsletters, and YouTube. If you’re tired of hearing partisan left-right talking head punditry, the digital democratization of the media has made pretty much any point of view on race in America—from the benign to the malignant—available to you, if you do a little digging. On The Glenn Show, I often say things that I nevertheless categorize as “unsayable.” But I haven’t been booted off Twitter (at least not yet). I haven’t been fired or jailed for anything I’ve said. People have gotten mad and said disparaging things about me in public, but that’s their right. So why does it feel like there are certain things “one can’t say” about race? Violating the progressive line on race can have less easily definable social and professional costs than a Twitter ban or the FBI knocking on your door. As John McWhorter points out in the following excerpt from our recent live event at the Comedy Store, simply stating the facts about crime and racial disparities can lead people to look askance at you or cut you off entirely, to regard you as politically untrustworthy or disreputable. To insist, as I do below, that the out-of-wedlock birthrate among black Americans is a scandal can invite the same response. There is every reason in the world to ignore an unpopular argument...
Small Business Is America (VIDEO)
It's Carol Roth, author of The War on Small Business, for Prager University:
Why I'm Giving Up Tenure at UCLA
Very much worth your time.
From UCLA Anthropology Professor Joseph Manson, at Bari Weiss's Substack, "The ideological takeover of my university has ruined academic life for anyone who still believes in freedom of thought'."
Why the Left Truly Is Evil (and Not Stupid)
At FrontPage Magazine, "'When a person shows you who they are, believe them'”:
In America this minute leftists can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt. They are pushing an agenda that is evil. They are hellbent on accomplishing it and they are saying so publicly. The late Charles Krauthammer was the person credited for the intriguing binary observation that “conservatives view the left as stupid,” but that “liberals view conservatives as evil.” We see evidence of that second part constantly. The vehement hatred of those who support America First is proven every day. The hatred burns so deeply in fact that they seek out ways to create out of whole cloth imaginative conspiracies of Trump working with Russia and double impeachments based on literally no evidence. They justify the advancement of ludicrous stories of deranged presidents lurching at steering wheels—even when one or more secret service personnel were present and are able to testify to the opposite. They claim pro-lifers hate women. They claim that parents who don’t want drag queens in their kids’ schools are bigots. And they especially despise people who are faithful to God, family, and nation. Nope, there exists plenty of evidence that the second part of Krauthammer’s theory is true. So what about the first half? Should conservatives any longer give the left the benefit of the doubt as to their policies? Should we innocently believe they are simply misinformed as opposed to radically devoted agents to an agenda that is not only anti-American but that in fact is… evil? New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz my long time friend and weekly guest on my show has consistently chided me on the air to take Krauthammer’s observation as true. Because I believe Karol to be immensely insightful and one of the most important voices of common sense in America—I usually try. Yet with apologies to Charles and Karol, I can no longer. Maya Angelou is famous for saying, “When a person shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Well this week (and honestly for the duration of their term in office) the Biden *Administration has been and is telling us exactly who they are. When asked directly by a CNN anchor on live camera, “What do you say to a family who can’t afford $4.85 a gallon for months, much less years?” Brian Deese a top economic advisor to *President Biden responded in essence by saying that the “stakes are too high” and that this is about “the future of the liberal world order,” and that they’d “have to stand firm.” In other words families who can’t afford to pay double or triple for the energy they need to merely survive must absorb the punch to the face and make the sacrifice for the greater good. And if we can’t do so, tough bananas our sacrifice will have been worth it all. He’s not lying or shading the message - he means exactly what he said and they are standing firm. They are willing to impose suffering onto the people they work for in order to bring about their newly enlightened, “we know better than you,” reality. This is Hitler gassing humans, Thanos snapping his finger, Stalin executing dissidents, and Bin Ladin toppling buildings—all for some greater good. And it’s not just energy, this group doesn’t care if babies have formula, your family has food, or if women bleed out from their monthly cycles. They don’t care if a boy exposes his penis to your daughter in her locker room, or if cashless bail states release criminals that just tried to rape or assault her. They accept all forms of racism so long as God fearing men ultimately get blamed for everything. They despise police—who are here to slow or stop evil in progress. And they help elect prosecutors who will refuse to hold evil people accountable. This is what the liberal world order looks like. But in order for them to bring it about they must starve the serfs and take away any resource that would prevent them doing rebelling. Hence no money or guns for you and me. Nope Charles and Karol, I’m taking a rare step in disagreeing with both of you. The left is evil—full stop. They are willing to kill, maim, bleed, assault, and starve you until you comply. And I think it’s time we take Ms. Angelou’s observation, call it what it is, and stop them. They are showing us who they are!
The Meaning of Patriotism
From Andrew Sullivan, "This July Fourth, two Republican women are keeping the flame of this republic alive":
To see what is in front of our noses is a constant challenge, and perhaps never more so in a time of such awful post-truth polarization. But what happened in the January 6 hearings this past week will, in my view, be seen one day as a watershed moment either in the history of this country’s revival as a liberal democracy or in this republic’s rapid collapse. Two women, Liz Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson, went back and forth, asking and answering questions, slowly, calmly, and methodically laying out a story of an actual attempt by a president of the United States to rally and lead an armed mob to assault the Congress to overturn an election. Yes, I just wrote that sentence. Hutchinson’s testimony added critical facts to the record: that Trump knew full well what the mob was intending to do in advance; and knew that they were armed: “You know, I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not there to hurt me.” He knew what he was attempting was criminal; tried physically to lead the mob in their rampage; and when he was foiled, egged on the attack, and refused to quiet or quell the mob for hours — even as it threatened to kill his own vice president. There is no way now to deny that Trump was behind all of it, uniquely responsible. In the face of this, so many Republican men have kept quiet, caved, slunk away, equivocated, or changed the subject. So many, like Tucker Carlson, have responded with smears and foul lies. So many have refused to testify, or dodged subpoenas. These sickening cowards wouldn’t vote to impeach after the grossest attack on the Constitution in history; and wouldn’t cooperate with the committee. But two Republican women faced our hideous reality this week — even if it meant the obliteration of their careers, and being subject to real threats of violence. And let us pause to note just how Republican these two women are. Cheney is the daughter of the former vice president, a man who once defined Republicanism; she represents Wyoming, the most Republican state out of 50; she’s pro-life, defended torture, never saw a war she didn’t want to start; opposed even her own sister’s same-sex marriage; and voted with Trump 93 percent of the time, more than the woman who ousted her from House leadership, Elise Stefanik. Hutchinson, for her part, was at the heart of the Trump world. She ascended from mere intern — working in the offices of both Ted Cruz and the House minority whip — to become the primary assistant to Trump’s chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows. If she dyed her hair blonde, she could read the news on Fox. Hutchinson had a lot to lose by testifying — as women seem to in general compared to men:[T]here is evidence that women suffer more direct retaliation as whistleblowers. One study in 2008 found that women who reported wrongdoing within their organizations experienced more retaliation than men who did the same. And, while higher-ranking men who reported wrongdoing experienced less retaliation, higher-ranking women were not as insulated.And notice the tone of the exchange between the two women. In a world of hyperbolic, pontificating males, Cheney asked clear, direct, empirical questions, and Hutchinson replied with the same attention to detail, the same surety of voice, the same care not to exaggerate, and to get things right. Yes, some of it was hearsay — but Hutchinson herself took pains to note when it was. And both, it seemed to me, understood their grave responsibility. This is the Republican Party I used to respect. This is the conservatism I believe in. A conservatism whose first tasks are the defense of the Constitution, the rule of law, and a belief in objective truth. Like Margaret Thatcher in her day, Liz Cheney has a steel stronger than most men, and similar courage. In her superb speech at the Reagan Library this week, Cheney also emphasized the feminine qualities that made this week historic:I come to this choice [between Trump and the Constitution] as a mother, committed to ensuring that my children and their children can continue to live in an America where the peaceful transfer of power is guaranteed.And she paid tribute to the women, often low on the DC totem pole, who rose to the challenge of citizenship, when so many powerful men failed:I’ve been incredibly moved by young women who have come forward to testify, some who worked on the Trump campaign, some who worked in the Trump White House, some who worked in offices on Capitol Hill, all of whom knew immediately that what had happened must never happen again … Little girls across the country are seeing what it really means to love your country, what it really means to be a patriot. And so I want to speak to every young girl who may be watching tonight. The power is yours and so is the responsibility.Listen to it all...
Monday, July 4, 2022
.jpeg)
It’s the 10th Anniversary of San Diego Fireworks Show That Set Them All Off at Once (VIDEO)
Wild.
From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "OH, THAT EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: It’s the 10th anniversary of the firework show where San Diego accidentally set off all 7,000 fireworks at once."
Happy 10-year anniversary to the greatest fireworks show in history, when San Diego accidentally shot off 7,000 fireworks at once.
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) July 4, 2022
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/qihO4zeXP3
Who Are the Real Insurrectionists?
It's Victor Davis Hanson, at American Greatness, "In truth, “insurrection” has been fueled by the Left since 2015":
For 120 days in summer 2020, violent protesters destroyed some $2 billion in property and injured 1,500 police officers in riots that led to over 35 deaths.
Because blue-state mayors and governors saw BLM and Antifa instigators as useful street soldiers, most of those arrested were never tried in court. Street thugs paid no price for declaring themselves de facto owners of downtown areas of Seattle, which police themselves conceded were no-go zones. Why did public officials in blue states ignore the violence? They were certain that it enjoyed majority support among their leftwing constituencies.
Indeed, some leftist icons cheered on the violence. Well after the failed attempt to storm the White House grounds, in June 2020, the Democratic candidate for vice president Kamala Harris warned us that protestors were “not going to let up, and they should not.” What did Harris mean by “should not?”—when she knew numerous protests that summer had ended in terrible violence? Was she reckless in the manner Trump was said to be by encouraging a demonstration on January 6?
The architect of the “1619 Project” Nikole Hannah-Jones assured the nation that vast destruction of (someone else’s property) was not a real crime. CNN’s Chris Cuomo gushed that violent demonstrations and riots were American traditions. Were these national voices urging calm during weeks of violent rioting and looting?
There were no investigations, no congressional committees, and no voices of outrage from the left-wing establishment over months of such carnage. Indeed, much of the organization of the violent protests was facilitated by social media that was apparently unbothered that the medium under their stewardship was used to torch and loot...
California Governor Gavin Newsom Fuels Presidential Speculation With Television Ad Buys in Florida (VIDEO)
I can't see the appeal, personally, He's been a terrible governor. California's shot to hell, especially in San Francisco, Newsom's bailiwick.
At NBC News Bay Area, "Despite saying he has no interest in running for U.S. president, California Gov. Gavin Newsom will start airing ads in Florida starting Monday. So, what will be in them, and what does this mean?"
And on Twitter:
We’re about to celebrate Independence Day -- but Freedom is under attack by Republican leaders in states like Florida.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 3, 2022
Banning books.
Restricting speech.
Making it harder to vote.
Criminalizing women and doctors.
It’s time to stand up. Don’t let them take your freedom. pic.twitter.com/cFI5UzgZzX
Leah Pezzetti's Fourth of July Forecast
It's going to be a little cooler than normal today, but beautiful and clear for tonight's July 4th fireworks.
Here's the lovely Ms. Leah, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Supreme Court Ruling on Roe v. Wade Further Polarizes a Divided Nation
You'd think it couldn't get any worse. We've been viciously divided for years, but yeah, the Dobbs decision was like throwing gasoline on the fire.
At the New York Times, "Spurred by the Supreme Court, a Nation Divides Along a Red-Blue Axis":
On abortion, climate change, guns and much more, two Americas — one liberal, one conservative — are moving in opposite directions. Pressed by Supreme Court decisions diminishing rights that liberals hold dear and expanding those cherished by conservatives, the United States appears to be drifting apart into separate nations, with diametrically opposed social, environmental and health policies. Call these the Disunited States. The most immediate breaking point is on abortion, as about half the country will soon limit or ban the procedure while the other half expands or reinforces access to reproductive rights. But the ideological fault lines extend far beyond that one topic, to climate change, gun control and L.G.B.T.Q. and voting rights. On each of those issues, the country’s Northeast and West Coast are moving in the opposite direction from its midsection and Southeast — with a few exceptions, like the islands of liberalism in Illinois and Colorado, and New Hampshire’s streak of conservatism. Even where public opinion is more mixed, like in Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, the Republican grip on state legislatures has ensured that policies in those states conform with those of the reddest states in the union, rather than strike a middle ground. The tearing at the seams has been accelerated by the six-vote conservative majority in the Supreme Court, which has embraced a muscular states-rights federalism. In the past 10 days the court has erased the constitutional right to an abortion, narrowed the federal government’s ability to regulate climate-warming pollution and blocked liberal states and cities from barring most of their citizens from carrying concealed guns outside of their homes. “They’ve produced this Balkanized house divided, and we’re only beginning to see how bad that will be,” said David Blight, a Yale historian who specializes in the era of American history that led to the Civil War. Historians have struggled to find a parallel moment, raising the 19th-century fracturing over slavery; the clashes between the executive branch and the Supreme Court in the New Deal era of the 1930s; the fierce battles over civil rights during Reconstruction and in the 1950s and early 1960s; and the rise of armed, violent groups like the Weather Underground in the late ’60s. For some people, the divides have grown so deep and so personal that they have felt compelled to pick up and move from one America to the other. Many conservatives have taken to social media to express thanks over leaving high-tax, highly regulated blue states for red states with smaller government and, now, laws prohibiting abortion. Others have transited the American rift in the opposite direction. “I did everything I could to put my mouth where my money was, to bridge the divide with my own actions,” said Howard Garrett, a Black, gay 29-year-old from Franklin, Tenn., who ran for alderman in recent years, organized the town’s first Juneteenth celebration and worked on L.G.B.T.Q. outreach to local schools, only to be greeted with harassment and death threats. Mr. Garrett moved to Washington, D.C., last year. “People were just sick in their heart,” he said, “and that was something you can’t change.” On abortion, history seems to be riffing on itself. Both supporters and opponents of abortion rights see a parallel to the abolition of slavery. As states like Illinois and Colorado vow to become “safe harbors” for women in surrounding states seeking to end their pregnancies, abortion rights advocates see an echo of past efforts by antislavery states in the North. But abortion opponents see themselves as emancipating the unborn, and often compare the Roe decision’s treatment of the fetus to the Dred Scott ruling in 1857 that denied Black people the rights of American citizenship. Conservatives are not resting on their victories: The anti-abortion movement, long predicated on returning the issue of reproductive rights to elected representatives in the states, talks now about putting a national abortion ban before Congress. Roger Severino, a leading social conservative and senior official in the Trump administration, invoked the struggle of Black Americans for equality, saying the 10 years that passed between the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision ending “separate but equal” segregation and Congress’s passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 mirrored the struggle ahead on abortion. “I cannot see us living in two Americas where we have two classes of human beings in this country: some protected fully in law, some who are not protected at all,” said Mr. Severino, now the vice president for domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank...
ABC Considers Jan. 6 Whistleblower Cassidy Hutchison For 'The View'
She's going to be a television rock star pundit.
Not sure how long she'd make on The View, though. The women on the show who've held the "conservative seat" previously --- Abbey Huntsman, Jedediah Bila, and Meghan McCain, for example --- have quit after having enough of Joy, Sunny, Whoopie, and the other left-wing nut-job on the panel. (*Eye-roll*.)
At Radar Online, "ABC Mulls Whether to Screen Test Jan. 6 Whistleblower Cassidy Hutchison As Conservative Pundit On 'The View'."
Bette Midler, Tipping Point
I don't know if we're tipping or not, though I wouldn't have thought old Bette would be sounding the tocsin.
On Twitter:
Tipping point? https://t.co/5B1wkJxssq
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) July 4, 2022
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
