Posts Tagged ‘russia’

Paul von Hindenburg

By John Ruberry

As president of the United States we have a man in the White House who has moved well-beyond his autumn years. That man of course is Joe Biden, who even when he was at his best was simply a mediocrity. 

Other men–no women that I can recall–who were just too old or sick to perform their duties have been heads of government. I’ll get to them in a bit. But the story usually ends bad for those countries. Sometimes, such as with the Soviet Union, that nation ceases to exist.

But back to Biden.

Much was said–but not on the Democratic protector networks CNN and MSNBC–about Joe Biden falsely claiming during a video conference last week with some Jewish leaders that he visited a Pittsburgh synagogue shortly after a deadly mass shooting in 2018. 

He did not. Biden merely called that synagogue’s rabbi the following year.

But as is often the case with Sleepy Joe, the story gets worse. In an attempt to bond with the participants on the call, Biden spoke of his daughter, who is married to a Jewish man, while–gasp!–off of the teleprompter. 

Imagine Superman after being buried in Kryponite–times 1000.

“There’s a psalm based – there’s a hymn – my favorite hymn in the Catholic Church based on a psalm, and it’s – it’s a psalm that talks about life. And – and so, I – I asked if that psalm – that hymn in the Catholic Church.

Biden then unsteadily recalled some lyrics but then he couldn’t remember the name of that song–or psalm–or hymn. Or whatever.

And then Great Grandpa rambled further into incoherence. 

You know the thing.

And they played – and I’m – my mind is going blank now.

What’s the song that is played where everybody is on the chair? 

Everybody, you know – what – what – I can’t remember it. 

Anyway. And that’s the song that was played. So, you know, I don’t know what the hell is going on here.

Yeah, Biden said, “So, you know, I don’t know what the hell is going on here.” And after exclaiming, “And I’m – my mind is going blank now. ”

You don’t believe it? Click here for the video.

I’ve heard enough. Biden has to go, and yes, that means Kamala Harris will be president. But I’ll take my chances–even though I may eat these words–with a cackling leftist over a faded mind in a frail body. Conservatives, even non-religious ones, believe in conversion. Although converting Harris into a moderate is the best outcome I can imagine. And yes, that’s a big stretch in the hope department. 

Back to the USSR:

In the last years of his life Leonid Brezhnev was clearly physically unwell. Since Soviet leaders didn’t do press conferences or give impromptu speeches, we don’t know about his mental health. His doctors, who probably are all dead now, didn’t talk. Brezhnev died in 1982, he was replaced by Yuri Andropov, who spent half of his 15 months as Soviet leader living in a hospital while he was being treated for kidney disease. Andropov’s successor, Konstantin Chernenko, a mediocrity like Biden, albeit without the jocularity or the gaffes, barely made it past a year in the Kremlin before dying of emphysema and heart disease. 

C’mon man! Who chooses a man suffering from emphysema to lead a government?

In 1985, the healthy Mikhail Gorbachev, took over. But the rot had set in and the USSR collapsed six years later. 

Here are some other sad examples of ill men in power. Paul von Hindenburg, a German World War I hero, wanted to retire after his term of office as president of Germany was winding down in the early 1930s. He was 84. But after Hindenburg ascertained that “the Bohemian corporal,” Adolf Hitler, would be elected as his successor, he ran again and defeated Hitler in a runoff race. A year later Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor. You know the rest of the tragedy. Some historians believe Hindenburg, who died of lung cancer in 1934, was senile late in his life. 

His titles varied but another World War I hero, Philippe Pétain, was the head of government of Vichy France. Pétain was 84–the same age as Hindenburg when he was reelected–when he took control of the Nazi puppet state. After the Nazi defeat Pétain was diagnosed as senile, which today is not considered a medical term. But was Pétain senile earlier? 

There’s a tragic example in American history of a man who was too ill to serve. As he was running for his fourth term as president in 1944, those close to Franklin D. Roosevelt knew he was a sick man and strongly suspected he would die before his next term in office expired. That is why Democrat leaders pressured FDR into dumping his leftist vice president, Henry A. Wallace, for someone more centrist. Good for them! Harry S. Truman was chosen.

Roosevelt died three months after his fourth inauguration at the relatively youthful age of 63. But not before getting swindled into condemning most of eastern Europe to communist totalitarianism for over four decades at the Yalta conference by a healthy Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. While no Americans were left behind millions of Poles were. Remember, Britain and France declared war on Germany to save Poland from tyranny.

It was an ailing Brezhnev who made the disastrous decision to invade Afghanistan.

Joe Biden never should have run for president in 2020. And those close to him, such as his wife, should have said convinced him to ride out the rest of his life as a has-been.

Biden needs to resign. Or the 25th Amendment must be utilized to remove him from office. 

And why am I the only person wondering if Biden’s doctor, Kevin C. O’Connor, who is now the White House physician, was being honest when he said in 2019 that Biden is “a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.” 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Mind of Russia & China

Posted: July 31, 2021 by datechguy in News/opinion
Tags: , ,

Once Senator Milton Young of North Dakoda said to him: “You people of the South are much more militarily minded than in the North.” “Milt”, Russell replied, “you’d be militarily minded too if Sherman had crossed North Dakoda

Robert A Caro: The Years of Lyndon Johnson , Master of the Senate 2003 page 180

There is no denying that both China and Russia (but especially China) has been our primary enemy for decades. I had military men during the height of the Cold War tell me that China was in fact our primary problem, but as we deal with what they are doing and why we have to keep two things in mind.

We look at all of these things through an American lens, but for a moment consider this lens that the Russians and Chinese use.

In each of the last two centuries Russia has been invaded by the premier military power of the age, Napoleon in 1812 and Hitler in 1941, and these invaders pushed deep into the country Napoleon even taking Moscow.

Driving them out took millions of lives and tons of treasure. While most ordinary Russians didn’t have a lot of use for the communists they knew what is was to be invaded and what it meant. This trauma was the single most unifying force within a country for a government that was oppressing its own people and was used to the hilt and I’m not even dealing with the trauma of losing wars to Poland and Japan AND Germany (remember before the Communist revolution Russia had surrendered to Germany) early in the last century.

Now the Russian empire is gone, the Soviet Union is gone and historic parts of even the pre-soviet empire are gone but you better damn well believe that Russia has not forgotten these things and that when Putin acts to subdue and compromise Europe the Russian people have in the back of their minds the idea that everything that slows them down means that much less of a chance that they will have do deal with this cycle again.

China is a tad different, you had the great attempt to carve up China in the late 19th and early 20th century which subordinated China for the sake of trade to foreign powers is an annoyance but like other colonial enterprises brought both technology and as evidenced by Hong Kong advancement, but if you want to find something that unites ethnic Chinese, both Communist and anti-communist its the memory of World War 2 and their occupation by Japan.

American and British POW can testify to the cruelty of the Japanese toward them during World War 2 but that pales compared to what China suffered during that time. Japan moved without mercy against and who stood against them or were even just in the way. This cruelty is in living memory and the Communist Party having murdered tens of millions of their own people has every reason to highlight these acts by Japan to keep their mind off of what they have done and are doing themselves. (This incidentally is why China’s move to threaten Japan, while foolish, is good PR internally because while Japan fell and was occupied, China didn’t get the revenge they wanted and I suspect will not forgive us for rebuilding them into one of the greatest technological powers of all time. You only have to look at their reaction to Japanese victories at the Olympics to see that this hatred is alive and well.

The Best part for both Russia and China is that what they suffered was so horrible that they don’t have to exaggerate it to sell it to the people. They’ve heard the stories from parents and grandparents and don’t need to state to color it.

Does any of this excuse the actions of Putin or Xi? Nope, but if you’re going to check their ambitions to surpass and subordinate us it’s useful to know what makes them tick and one of the things that makes them do so is the determination that NOBODY is ever going to do what the French, Nazis and Japanese ever did to them again.

I think half the battle for us is to (correctly) assure the people of both of those nations that nothing is farther from our mind.

Some major Russian features on a chart, because I didn’t know the Gulf of Ob was a thing, and you probably didn’t either

Maybe Democrats got it right. Maybe former President Trump really was a Russian puppet. If you were to compare the Arctic policy that President Trump pursued with what Russian “President-For-Life” Putin is pursuing, you would see some strong similarities.

In the Arctic regions of America, meaning Alaska, President Trump sought to overturn the former legal restrictions on utilizing resources in the region. Trump’s legal team struck down restrictions related to Pacific Walruses and began issuing drilling leases, only to have President Biden withhold those leases. Supposedly, this was done to protect the walruses, but lets be honest, its a communist plot. See, walruses were being trained by the US government to attack communists. They accidentally got released once and managed to sink a Russian vessel, which was covered up by blaming Russian vodka day drinking, something that is totally believable. When President Biden babbled on about walruses amidst his corn pop and lifeguard references, well, now you know why.

I mean, just LOOK at all the patriotism bursting from this defender of the US Constitution!! (Image from Eye on the Arctic)

On a more serious note, when we look at the Russian arctic, we see President Putin pursuing a policy that looks a lot like Trump’s policy. He’s developing Arctic infrastructure, building a huge terminal at Sever Bay. He’s dredging new or existing shipping lanes to let in larger vessels. He’s got more leases on the Yamal Peninsula then Alaska could ever dream of. All of these big projects are going to companies like Novatek and Gazprom, and if they sound familiar, its because these companies use the oil and natural gas as economic leverage in Europe.

Remember when Poland signed a 5 year deal with the US to get natural gas? You don’t? Oh, that’s right, that story got totally buried in 2017, because it was good news related to the Trump administration, and “orange man bad” won the day in the media. Searching for it now, it comes up on obscure media outlets, not the CNN’s and FOX News of the world. It also comes up on a lot of Russian outlets, because it was viewed as a big deal.

Russia has made no secret of its plan to lead the world in LNG and oil. Its a bit grandiose, and might not fully come to fruition. But they saw what happened in a Trump America. They watched how American LNG and oil exports diminished the importance of Iranian oil while strengthening the will of former Eastern-block countries against Russian influence. Iran got placed in a bind: if it pumped more oil, it would bring down the price, making Russia angry, while pumping less would threaten its financial sovereignty. For an America that seems to get bogged down in the Middle East all the time, this is a perfect way to leave the region, which is exactly what Trump did. Not bad for someone who gets made out to be a bumbling fool by the media.

So Russia took that page from Trump and made it their own. They’ve been eyeing the Arctic for a while, but now is as good a time as any, and with a (hopefully temporary) reprieve from the pressures of US oil and LNG exports, Russia can bounce back from low prices and COVID-19. While the US wrings its hands over environmental issues, despite having solid rules in place, Russia knows that the Arctic is savage. It suffered an invasion of polar bears, something I once thought possible only if National Geographic started making horror films. Maybe they were radioactive bears from all the nuclear testing the Russians perform in Arctic? Maybe they will begin attacking US outposts in response to the walrus attacks?

Let’s be honest, the current policy of restricting drilling is done to punish “evil” US oil companies. Even Norway is drilling more, because their welfare state depends on it. But restricting US oil and LNG output is short sighted. It takes away an effective tool of Middle East policy, where every nation and fake nation involved wants to paint you into a corner, and the only way to cut the Gordian Knot is with economics. It cedes more ground and influence in Europe to Russia, who is all about taking more influence and ground when it can. And for a growing China, it makes it easy for Russia to keep them in check with higher prices, even if only for a little while longer. While this policy appeases a certain political class of people, history will later reflect the foolishness of this choice.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

By John Ruberry

One of Joe Biden’s first acts as president was to end construction of the wall at the southern border, a project heartily championed by Donald Trump.

Instead a different kind of wall has replaced it.

The Trump of the late 18th-century, in regards to what we now call fake news, was Catherine the Great of Russia. Historical gossip has it that Catherine was killed as a horse was lowered on to her for carnal purposes. Not true, as is the milder version of her demise that claims she died of her wounds after her bulk–she indeed was quite heavy– forced the collapse of the outhouse she was using. 

A stroke is what killed the empress of Russia.

Besides the urban legend about the horse, Catherine is best-known for the term “Potemkin Village.” Her governor in southern Russia–and her onetime lover–Grigory Potemkin, supposedly built facades of prosperous villages that hid the reality behind the proto-Hollywood sets. One of abject poverty that Catherine otherwise would see as she toured Potemkin’s region.

Most modern historians believe that these Potemkin Villages were either a myth or a gross exaggeration.

What is not a myth is that the Biden-Harris administration is attempting to hide a crisis at the southern border. Not with wooden facades, yet there is a metaphorical Potemkin Village there. Those figurative walls were knocked down Friday when a group of Republican senators, led by Texans Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, visited a detention facility in Donna, Texas, one that Cruz said was built for 250 people but is now holding 4,000. 

Cruz brought his smartphone as you can see.

Joe Biden promised transparency as president. That’s not happening at the migrant facilities at the border, where the media is banned. “What is occurring here at the border is heartbreaking and it’s a tragedy,” Cruz said shortly after his visit. “It is striking that not a single one of these cameras is allowed in the Donna facility. We requested media to come inside and the Biden administration denied us.” 

A day earlier during his only press conference as president Biden was pressured, gently of course, about when the media would be allowed at the migrant facilities. He unsteadily answered, “This is being set up and you’ll have full access to everything once we get this thing moving.” Translation: The situation at these camps will embarrass the Biden-Harris administration and as soon as we clean it up–or we are able to hide the worst scenes at these facilities–we’ll let reporters in.

For now, as Kevin Bacon laughingly said during the riot at the end of the movie Animal House, “All is well.”

Expect four more years–whether Joe Biden or Kamala Harris is in charge–of such opaqueness. The lapdog media–which only bares its teeth when a Republican is president–will guarantee it. They are the contributing architects to the Biden-Harris Potemkin Village at the southern border–and others that are likely to come.

All will be well.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.