In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Here's a data point for the Russo-Ukraine War: as of Sunday, the Institute for the Study of War's report on the Russian offensive contained the same boilerplate it's had for several weeks : Russian forces continued to capture territory in central Mariupol and will likely capture the city in the coming days. As of yesterday, the ISW began to back off : Little information about what is occurring in Mariupol is available likely due to the loss/interdiction of communications from the city. Russian media reported fighting in the city on April 2. But as of today, they're in full retreat: Additionally, the Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol have outperformed ISW’s previous estimates and continue to hold the city. Shouldn't people be asking questions about the "experts" who are guiding our military policy? A couple of weeks ago, the buzzword was "culminate". The Russian advance on Kyiv had "culminated", but none of the talking h...

On Thursday, I asked: But someone also should be asking questions about 2018, and indeed, what services the Secret Service is now providing for Hunter, who has adopted a new, very low public profile, at Joe's behest. This man is an addict. Does Hunter now have permanent 24/7 minders? What do the minders do for him to keep him happy but out of trouble? Apparently I'm not the only one to wonder about this. This morning, reports were making the rounds about just these questions : Hunter Biden is renting a home in Malibu, California, for $20,000 per month — and the Secret Service is paying $30,000 per month to rent an adjacent home to provide him with 24/7 protection, according to a report Monday by ABC News. The president’s son is living in the exclusive location and pursuing his art career, even as critics call for a special counsel to take over the investigation into his alleged influence-peddling, which is documented on his infamous laptop, now verified. . . . The ...

I was finishing up yesterday's post with a remark about unanticipated consequences of the Russo-Ukraine War, and the image above came to mind. It's a photo of the French army occupying the Ruhr district in Germany in 1923 as a result of German defaults on reparation payments after World War I. Ukraine President Zelensky has called on Russians to learn the words ‘reparations’ and ‘contributions’. He stressed that Russia would reimburse Ukraine for everything that was destroyed during the war. Something like this must inevitably occur if the world is to avoid a circumstance where Russia simply withdraws from Ukraine, rebuilds for some period of years, and tries the same thing again. The same applies to war crimes. The evidence of large-scale executions of civilians in the liberated Kyiv suburbs Bucha and Irpin is an indication that such massacres are probably even more widespread and will need full investigstion and prosecution. The problem is enforcement. Ukraine alre...

The suddenness of the Russian collapse and retreat around Kyiv is just another illustration of how consistently Ukraine has outperformed the conventional wisdom throughout the war. Just a few days ago, reports that the Russians were digging trenches in the Chernobyl radioactive area were taken as a sign that they were going to stay there and use it as a base to reconstitute their forces, at minimum to keep Ukraine's army tied down around Kyiv while they shifted their efforts to Donbas. All of a sudden, the reports instead were that as of Thursday. Russian troops had left the Chernobyl facility entirely , with other reports that the soldiers who had been digging trenches were being treated for radiation sickness. Although most discussions of the developments around Kyiv characterize them conservatively as an organized strategic withdrawal by the Russians to refocus their forces, the report from the BBC below stresses that the withdrawal was forced by Ukrainian attacks and, given ...

When I wrote the old blog on subjects like "continuing" Anglicanism, I ran into contextual distractions, including a supposed Orthodox option for people dissatisfied with Episcopalianism, or indeed novus ordo Catholicism. The poster child for this option is Rod Dreher : Raised a Methodist, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993, and subsequently wrote widely in the Catholic press. Covering the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, starting in 2001, led him to question his Catholicism, and on October 12, 2006, he announced his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. At the time, Dreher had argued that the scandal was not so much a "pedophile problem", but that the "sexual abuse of minors is facilitated by a secret, powerful network of gay priests", known as the "Lavender Mafia" Various correspondents over the years have urged this option on me, but as far as I can tell, the option isn't popular, there are certainly accounts from people wh...

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...