In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

There's a lot of new opinion across the spectrum that something's changed. For instance, at CNN : A top legal analyst at CNN said it is possible President Biden’s son Hunter Biden could be indicted by the U.S. government following an investigation into his foreign business dealings. “This is a very real, very substantial investigation of potentially serious federal crimes,” Elie Honig said Wednesday morning on the network. “We are seeing federal prosecutors in Delaware do exactly what you would expect to see federal prosecutors do in this situation.” Honig said it appears the investigation into Hunter Biden’s business overseas is “gaining steam.” Another take on CNN's report suggests there are questions about an issue that caught my eye more than a week ago: WATCH: Even CNN confirms that Hunter Biden is under investigation for “money transfers,” “business activities in China,” “Burisma,” and the "source" of the funds he used to pay his tax bills. pic...

Yesterday morning I opened my phone to find a headline in the UK Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Living her best life! Hunter Biden's wife Melissa Cohen, 35, flaunts her toned body on Ipanema Beach in Rio as her husband faces grand jury probe into his murky finances thousands of miles away . I've got to think Hunter's second marriage is one of the under-reported events of our time. Hunter Biden's wife Melissa Cohen was spotted going for a swim on a beach in Brazil while her husband is thousands of miles away facing a grand jury probe into his murky finances and business deals. . . . The mother-of-one appeared to enjoy the waves solo in her yellow top and navy blue-patterned bottoms, but several Secret Service agents were nearby at all times, costing US taxpayers thousands. South African-born Melissa is in town for the Orphaned Starfish Foundation's benefit for the LGBTQ+ community, orphans, indigenous children and victims of trafficking and abuse. She is the guest of...

There's been a lot of reaction to President Brandon's multiple gaffes over the weekend in Poland, which I've discussed here, as well as to his more recent attempts to claim they weren't gaffes at all. For instance, Doocy: "The big things you say on the world stage keep getting walked back." Biden: "What's getting walked backed?" Biden: You told troops they are going to Ukraine, the U.S. would use a chemical weapon, and called for regime change in Russia. Biden: "None of the 3 occurred." pic.twitter.com/cwZPzANIoC — Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 28, 2022 Elsewhere, When Biden was asked by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy to clarify his assertion that Russian President Vladimir Putin would trigger a “response in kind” if he used chemical weapons, the president grew indignant. “I’m not gonna tell you. Why would I tell you?” he replied. “You gotta be silly.” When Doocy told Biden the world wanted to know what he meant, he dismisse...

Over the weekend, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Kuleba said of the meeting with US representatives in Warsaw , "Today is a real opportunity to thank the United States for everything it has done for Ukraine so far. We thank every nation – not all assistance is reported in the media, but I know what every country has done, and we thank every one of them. But no one has done more for Ukraine throughout this time than the United States," the foreign minister stressed. Yet Ukraine President Zelensky remarked on the same day, NBC: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thinks Biden is “all talk" and lacks the courage to respond to Russia pic.twitter.com/2M4FxC0fSc — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 27, 2022 The story at the Red State blog observes, That’s the correct take, regardless of whether one personally thinks the US should be more involved in Ukraine at the moment. If Biden weren’t trying to present himself as a savior, “uniting'” the world against R...

I had drafts for a couple of other posts prepared and ready to go today, but almost as soon as I put yesterday's post up, President Brandon let me know I wasn't done : He came, he saw, he confused. Joe Biden’s call-to-arms speech in Poland was long on soaring rhetoric about the virtues of democracy but woefully short on what more the West will do to help Ukraine defeat the Russian invasion. But by the time he got to the finish, most of that was forgotten. What mattered most and what will be remembered for a long time was a single line the president of the United States said about the president of Russia: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” In the context of the speech and the slaughter of Ukrainian civilians, it’s impossible to understand that line as anything other than a call for regime change, a move that would dramatically raise the stakes with Russia at a time when Biden has been at pains to lower them. I'm actually of two minds about this. Pr...

The hits just keep on coming. The most recent from President Brandon's visit to Poland was described as follows : President Joe Biden was tragically felled by a slice of pizza topped with jalapeño peppers in Warsaw on Friday, Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt reported on Hannity. . . . Biden . . . ate pizza with soldiers and afterward met with Polish President Andrezj Duda. As Biden spoke, he coughed and took a sip of his drink. He turned to Duda and said, “I was visiting our troops and I had pizza pie with hot peppers on it.” . . . as b-roll of Biden eating pizza aired, Hurt said, “And there he is, defeated by a slice of jalapeño pizza.” Biden is the first president to be “defeated” by food on foreign soil since George H.W. Bush threw up on the prime minister of Japan during a dinner in Tokyo in 1992. That was the least of it. On Thursday, he insisted there was no reason to have imposed sanctions on Putin, or something like that : President Biden suggested Thursday t...

I continue to think Ukraine's President Zelensky is practicing wartime national-purpose rhetoric at an Abraham Lincon or Winston Churchill level. Below is from his March 24 address in English to NATO : I am addressing you from Kyiv, our capital, which has been fighting for a month already, just as our entire state. Yes, it is true - we are not in the Alliance. Not in the most powerful defense union in the world. Not one of the 30 states under the umbrella of joint protection. Under the umbrella of Article 5. It feels like we are in the "gray zone". Between the West and Russia. But we defend all our common values. And we are bright people! And we have been defending all these values for a month now! . . . And do you have confidence that Article 5 can work? "Budapest" hasn’t worked for us already. Our Budapest Memorandum. Has not worked for peace in Ukraine. And I will tell you honestly - today Budapest is not working for peace in Ukraine as well. Ye...

I've said here that the Russo-Ukraine War is just one theater of the larger Plebe War, although so far, there's been no actual shooting in the other theaters, like the US battles over transsexualism. An intriguing example is the photo above of the winners in the recent NCAA women's swimming championship. In nearly every case, the photo has been cropped by corporate media to focus on Lia, the fully intact, six foot four, cisgender male at left who identifies as a woman purely for athletic purposes, and it eliminates the runner-up women clustered far to the right, pretty clearly in protest at the outcome. Even so, Mr Thomas's victory grin seemes forced and equivocal. This post at Instapundit , apparently from Twitter, shows the lengths to which corporate media will go to justify Mr Thomas's official standing as a female -- in the official corporate media photo, his facial features have clearly been retouched and softened. Well, of course. The guy has no intentio...

I'm stumped. Above is this morning's map for the Ukraine theater of the Plebe War. As far as I can tell, the ISW site is the most prestigious ongoing assessment of the war's progress, but it's been misleading in important ways from the start. First, I think it's generally acknowledged that the thick pink blobs that are said to denote "Assessed Russian-Controlled Ukrainian Territory" do not reflect the fact that the actual Russian controlled areas are really just thin lines along roads where Russian units advanced as of several weeks ago. The truth is Ukrainian forces operate freely within all the pink blobs and conduct attacks on Russian convoys at will there. Second, the conventional wisdom at this point is that the Russian advances are "stalled" on all fronts except within Mariupol. For more than a week, the ISW assessments have consistently said nothing but words to the effect of "Russian forces did not make any major advances on Ma...

There's been a flurry of leaked or blurted reports from the Russian side on its actual casualties in Ukraine. According to the UK Daily Mail , Russia has lost almost 10,000 soldiers in less than four weeks in Ukraine, according to its own figures. The death toll – an incredible tally for a war that the Kremlin believed would be over within days – was published by a pro-government website, but quickly taken down. There was speculation that it was uploaded by a pro-Ukrainian employee. Russia had previously admitted to 498 deaths – but that was on March 2. Although this estimate is at least deniable, this still exceeds the estimates of "more than 7,000" that have been the consensus in US media, apparently based on information from the Pentagon. However, another Russian leak gives an even bigger total. A former internal affairs minister of #Ukraine @AvakovArsen shared the intercepted Russian military summary for March 18: Rus. Army troops killed 12,814. Private co...

This piece at Breitbart reports on remarks by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on the Ukraine conflict: “The use of weapons is never something desirable, because it always carries a very high risk of taking the life of people or causing serious injury and terrible material damage,” Cardinal Parolin told the Spanish Catholic weekly Vida Nueva when asked whether European nations should be sending weapons to Ukraine. “Nonetheless, the right to defend one’s life, one’s people and one’s country sometimes also involves the sad recourse to arms,” the cardinal recognized. “At the same time both sides must refrain from the use of prohibited weapons and fully respect international humanitarian law to protect civilians and non-combatants.” “On the other hand, although military aid to Ukraine may be understandable, the search for a negotiated solution, which silences weapons and prevents a nuclear escalation, remains a priority,” Parolin added. The piece then draws an un...

The Institute for the Study of War site, which appears to be the most prestigious commentator on the Russo-Ukraine war, has made what strikes me as a meaningless pronouncement : Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war. That campaign aimed to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine. That campaign has culminated. I've noted on YouTube for the past week or two references to Clausewitzian "culmination" as a point where an attack exhausts itself. But that can take place either before it achieves its objective, in which case it's a victory for the defender, or after, in which case it's a victory for the attacker. But in either case, it leaves open the question of what happens next. Clausewitz himself seems to have recognized the problem : The success of the attack is the result of a present superiority of force, it being u...

Something's up. A comprehensive report about the ongoing federal probe into Hunter Biden’s tax filings published by the New York Times on Wednesday night confirmed the existence of the first son’s infamous laptop. The puzzling thing is although the New York Post broke the story in October 2020, and other outlets have since acknowledged the laptop is authentic, that the New York Times would belatedly report it is clearly big news. But nothing has changed about the story at all, except that the Times now says it's a story. Trump's reaction is understandable : Former President Trump said the New York Times has admitted being a part of an effort to 'rig' the election for Joe Biden with their report confirming the authenticity of Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents. Trump said in a statement on Friday, 500 days after the November 2, 2020, general election: 'The New York Times just admitted that it participated in an effort to rig the election for Joe B...