In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Looking for the current outlook on the Russia-Ukraine War, I found this article at Responsible Statecraft : George Beebe, Director of Grand Strategy at [Quincy Institute], highlighted the perils of extrapolating a “stalemate” from the current lack of significant battlefield movements in Ukraine. “Those who believe this war has settled into a long-term stalemate make the mistake of measuring the relative progress of each side with maps. They see that the frontlines have not moved significantly over the last year and conclude that the sides are stalemated,” Beebe told me. “But other metrics, though, paint a different picture. Ukraine is using up its quite limited supplies of men, weapons, and ammunition, and the West cannot provide what Ukraine needs. That is not a formula for stalemate; it's a formula for Ukraine's eventual collapse or capitulation,” he continued. . . . “Despite everything that’s happened, despite all the stuff we have given, the Bradley’s, the M1 [Abrams]...

From the UK Telegraph via Yahoo Neews : Germany and the US will put pressure on Ukraine to negotiate with Russia by scaling back weapons deliveries in what would be a major blow to Kyiv’s hopes of victory, German media reported on Friday. Bild, a German tabloid, reported what it described as a “secret” German-American plan to force Ukraine’s hand on opening peace talks, citing sources in the German government. Under the plan, Washington and Berlin would supply Ukraine with sufficient weapons and armour to hold the current front line, but not enough to retake occupied territory. . . . “Zelensky should realise that it can’t go on like this,” a German government source told Bild, referring to Ukraine’s stalled counter-offensive against Russian in the east. “He needs to, of his own free will, turn to face his nation and explain that there is a need to negotiate.” German government sources also told Bild that the White House shared Germany’s view on the need to shift the focus from...

Is Biden drunk? pic.twitter.com/ex6IjBoZ0J — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 24, 2023 Nick Arama responded to the post at Red State : After the press conference, some on the X platform began asking questions about Biden's condition and how he came into the press conference. Some of those questions didn't hold back and were blunt. Unfortunately, farther down, he unintentionally reveals something about the condition of journalism at Conservative Inc: He has gait problems, in addition to his incoherence and deterioration. I'm not sure that it matters what name you put on it at this point--except to say that he has continuing problems. If it were just that he was drunk, that might be beer, because at least that would goes [sic] away. "That might be beer"? Wha? What on earth is he trying to say? Maybe he meant to type, "that might be bad enough, but at least that would go away". But then he followed it up "that would goes ...

I've put up a post with my thoughts on the recent developments over Michael Voris over on the Cold Case File blog .

I ran into a recent article that points to the same questions I had about Sam Bankman-Fried when I posted on the scandal a year ago : [T]he received narrative goes on to say that FTX was run by a dozen or so polyamorous hippie-style geniuses who suffered from ADHD, lived communally in a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas, and had their own doctor-therapist who prescribed amphetamines for their ADHD. The only female in the group I'm aware of was Caroline Ellison, so according to that doctor, there wasn't really that much action. Nevertheless, it was the synergy between Beanbag Boy Bankman-Fried and Queen Caroline that drove the whole enterprise, or something like that. But they let Caroline lose $10 billion in unsupervised trading, and John Ray III says he's nver seen anything like it. Never underestimate what a beautiful woman can do. At the time, I was scratching my head: I kept doing web searches on ADHD and came up with discussions like this : In order for peopl...

I ran into a piece by Walter Shapiro at The New Republic, The Real Reason Why Biden Shouldn’t Drop Out : Panicked Democrats, vibrating with anxiety over the polls, continue to nurture an unlikely fantasy: Joe Biden looks at his family across the Thanksgiving table on Nantucket and says with a weary sigh, “I can’t do this for another five years. I’ve tried my best. But I just don’t have the stamina to keep going through 2028.” Nothing in the president’s makeup suggests that he would abruptly jettison his reelection campaign. . . . Every sign emanating from his inner circle and reelection campaign suggests a stubborn refusal to even acknowledge his growing legion of Democratic doubters. But even if Biden were to accept the truth embedded in the polls, as Harry Truman did when he bowed out in 1952, the subsequent multicandidate scramble for the Democratic nomination would create as many (if not more) political problems as it would solve. This echoes David Axelrod, who says , ...

Even in 1980, the incipient Reagan landslide seems to have taken Democrats, or at least those speaking for public consumption, by surpise. In 1972, especially after the Eagleton fiasco , there was never any serious expectation that McGovern could beat Nixon, so that election is an outlier -- but even then, the real pessimism didn't even take hold until McGovern was nominated. In the 2024 cycle, we're seeing gnashing of teeth and rending of garments a full year before the election. The closest equivalents to the current environment that I can remember were in 1988 over Dukakis and 2004 with John Kerry, when, after the Democrat conventions, "sources" spoke to reporters without attribution about how badly those campaigns were going. But again, this was during the summer and early fall before those elections, not during the fall a full year ahead, and few people are now publicly trying to maintain a happy face. And the Democrat insiders aren't just talking on backgr...