Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I showered with Rahm and all I got was this shitty blog.

Not all heroes wear capes.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

We have all the best words.

No one could have predicted…

Also, too.

Reality always wins in the end.

We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!

Wetsuit optional.

Shocking, but not surprising.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Word salad with all caps

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

How has Obama failed you today?

Just a few bad apples.

Women: They Get Shit Done

Nevertheless, she persisted

A snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals

Verified, but limited!

I personally stopped the public option…

The revolution will be supervised.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You are here: Home / Archives for Open Threads

Monday Morning Open Thread: Resist — Joyously

by | 155 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Baby Trump inflatable

From commentor TonyD:

Here is our $99 Baby Trump balloon.

I tend to avoid social media because I dislike taking dips in toxic swamps. But I wanted to do something to speak out about the Poison Cheeto in Chief. So I got permission from my wife and bought myself a Baby Trump inflatable balloon for my birthday.

We mounted it on our our porch roof, which is close to 20 feet from the ground. I was concerned that we might experience broken glass or worse, and my neighbor Alex agreed, offering to set a pool and taking 12 days as to his estimate of Baby Trump’s life span.

Alex is one of the smartest people I know. He is a NYC EMT who was down at Ground Zero for several days from Sept, 12th on. Many laughed at him because he insisted on wearing a high grade mask, but now he’s still here and many of those who made fun if him are not…

show full post on front page

Monday Morning Open Thread: Resist — JoyouslyPost + Comments (155)

The Information About the Russian Bounties On US And Coalition Service Members Evolves

by | 209 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Since The New York Times broke the news that Russia’s GRU had been placing bounties on US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, bounties that were being pursued by the Taliban and Taliban aligned militias, the reporting has evolved. Within several hours The Washington Post had confirmed the reporting. This was followed by Fox News. Then CNN confirmed and expanded the reporting to include that our EU allies intelligence services had also confirmed the original reporting. The New York Times has now confirmed CNN’s expansion of their reporting. As has Sky News, also a Murdoch property like Fox News. NBC News has also confirmed the reporting. Finally, The NY Times is now reporting that US Special Operations Forces and military intelligence had reported this information up their chains of command as early as January this year.

The President and his administration are, of course, pushing back. The current Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, tweeted out a denial, based on a quick internal review of records, that the President and the Vice President had been briefed. What he did not deny or pushback on was the actual substance of the reporting. Specifically, that Russian military intelligence, the GRU, has been offering bounties for US and coalition forces in Afghanistan to the Taliban and Taliban aligned militias. The Press Secretary also issued a similar denial to DNI Ratcliffe’s. Former Acting DNI Grennell tweeted out a complete denial as a response to Congressman Lieu’s tweeting about this that covered the briefings and the intelligence assessment that the GRU had taken out bounties on US and coalition forces. Grennell was then dragged by Chief Warrant Officer (ret) Jim Wright for not knowing what he’s talking about, which is a fact as Grennell has no intelligence experience, but a lot of experience spilling sensitive and classified information when serving as the US ambassador to Germany. The President also got in on the denials, tweeting out his own denial that he’d been briefed, as well as the Vice President and his new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, but not denying the reporting about the intelligence assessment. He then went on to assert no one has ever been tougher on Russia and attack The New York Times, VP Biden, and his son Hunter. It also doesn’t help that the President’s tweet came out after the Russian embassy’s that appears to mimic key phrases from the Russian’s twitter denial.

The Russian Bounties On US And Coalition Service Members Evolves

The Russian Bounties On US And Coalition Service Members Evolves 1

Here’s what I think is really going on. I have no doubt the intel is solid and the leak is accurate. It has been confirmed by too many different sources, including our allies, and reported in too many different competing news outlets. Including Fox and Sky, which given their ownership and editorial stance, are sympathetic to the President. The new DNI, John Ratcliffe who also has ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE WITH INTELLIGENCE, did not deny the underlying truth in the leak in his response – that the GRU had been offering and paying bounties to the Taliban and Taliban affiliated militia to kill US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. He just denied that the President had been briefed, which was also the official White House position and that includes the denial the President tweeted out. While former Acting DNI Grennell has now weighed in claiming that all of it is a lie in a tweet responding to Congressman Ted Lieu, frankly Grennell might not have been in the loop. All we know is that this was assessed and then briefed sometime up to the beginning of March. It may have been briefed before Grennell took over, though he was installed in February. The reason for that is that as soon as this got to the theater commander and the US ambassador in Afghanistan from the Special Operations Forces and military intelligence personnel in theater, it would have been sent back as a priority for the National Command Authority’s situational awareness. The President’s denial that his new Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows was not briefed means nothing, because Meadows didn’t become the White House Chief of Staff until March 31st and then didn’t really start on site until mid April because he had to self quarantine for two weeks. So he wouldn’t have even been around based on the timeline being reported.

What we’re seeing in these denials are semantic games around the words brief and briefing. The NY Times reporting indicates this intelligence was included in the President’s Daily Brief (PDB). We know, from previous reporting, that the President does not and will not read his PDB. And we know from previous reporting that his primary briefers tend to not tell him anything negative about Russia, or anything else that would upset him, because he immediately loses his temper and blows up the briefing. My take is that it was in the PDB, which covered the intelligence community’ butts, but that because the President doesn’t read that and because no one will risk a temper tantrum by briefing him on anything Russia does that is negative, that it was never formally briefed. As in told to him in a session on a calendar with a block of time marked briefing. I would expect, however, that someone did mention it to him some other way. As an aside, in a different setting, what have you. Which is why they are being so precise in denying he was briefed. Notice they’re not denying he was told or notified, just not briefed. It is important to remember that the President had at least a 1/2 dozen phone calls with Putin between March and June. And those are the formal ones we know about because they were official. It does not count him talking to Putin on his private cell phone from the residence at night or early in the morning before he bothers to actually go into the Oval Office.

Mark Zaid, who was of counsel for the whistleblower has publicly offered to represent any and all US intel or nat-sec personnel who have knowledge of this, can confirm it, and wish to formally blow the whistle. Specifically that he and his firm will take the case pro bono and ensure that all the proper forms, formats, and processes are taking to ensure that the whistleblower complies with the law and is protected. We’ll have to wait to see where that goes.

The Washington Post is now reporting that US and coalition forces were, in fact, killed in action in Afghanistan as a result of the bounties offered by the GRU. Given that no one in or around the President, with the exception of Grennell, has even attempted to deny the actual underlying facts of the reporting, this story is only going to get worse. If the principals knew about this because they all get the PDB  – any and/or all of the Director (or acting) of National Intelligence, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, the Senior Directors for Afghanistan and for Russia on the National Security Staff who work for the National Security Advisor – and they should have and they never actually said anything to the President, then all of them are derelict in their duties and need to be removed from their positions. If it was in the Presidential Daily Brief and neither the President, nor the Vice President read it because they can’t be bothered to read them, then they are derelict in their duties and need to be removed from their positions. What we know now is not the end of this story. I expect more information will come out, it will continue to be damning, and the President and his surrogates will try to ignore the underlying reality while lashing out at those who are reporting it. All while we have US and allied coalition forces in contact with the enemy in Afghanistan. An enemy that is being monetarily incentivized to kill them by the GRU/Russian military intelligence. If this failure to do anything to make Russia stop what they’re doing, from the most basic issuance of a démarche telling Putin to stop, let alone anything resembling real pushback, is not a clear example of a high crime and misdemeanor, then nothing is

Open thread.

The Information About the Russian Bounties On US And Coalition Service Members EvolvesPost + Comments (209)

Lest We Forget Open Thread: Pence Is Every Bit As Dangerous As Trump

by | 47 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Some people say, given the obvious deterioration of the Oval Office Squatter’s reelection campaign, that the Permanent GOP is preparing to shove Mike Pence to the front of the 2020 ticket — just in case. Let nobody forget that Pence is every bit as vile, dishonest, and dangerous to our joint American experiment as his ‘chief.’

Also, he is really, incredibly, remarkably-even-by-Indiana-Republican-standards stupid. The only difference between a Trump incumbancy and a Pence one would be less ‘entertaining’ press conferences and more overt theft by his kakistocratic handlers.

show full post on front page

Lest We Forget Open Thread: Pence Is Every Bit As Dangerous As TrumpPost + Comments (47)

Longmire: Season 6, Episode 8, Netflix Help Needed

by | 428 Comments

This post is in: 

Longmire has kept me company on the treadmill since the pandemic started.

Longmire: Season 6, Episode 8, Netflix Help Needed

I am on Season 6, and I am halfway through episode 8.   Season 6 is the last season, and there are 10 episodes.  So I only have about 90 minutes of Longmire left.

I HATE walking on the treadmill, so I need something really engaging to keep me company.  Even when I was only walking 15 minutes at a time, to start, there was always something going on that made me want to find out what happened next.  Always.  Walt or Vic or Ferg or Cady always has something going on, and I care about the characters.  I even think Jacob Nighthorse might not be a bad guy, but I guess I’ll find out soon!

So I’m looking for a show that will grab me like Longmire did.  Keep me going on my treadmill routine.  I also really like Stumptown, if that helps to know what kind of stuff I like.

Netflix only.

Action, but not crazy violent like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad.

No subtitles.

Compelling.

Characters I can care about.

No comedies.

Anyone willing to help me out with suggestions?

 

 

 

 

Longmire: Season 6, Episode 8, Netflix Help NeededPost + Comments (428)

Bellingcat Versus The GRU

by | 67 Comments

This post is in: ,

Luke Harding has a new book coming out, so The Guardian, where he is a reporter, has a teaser article.

That article starts with a writeup on Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat, the organization he built. I watched from the start too. His use of open-source intelligence to figure out what was happening in Libya and then Syria was impressive. Some of it dovetailed with my interests in chemical warfare. [Disclosure: I write occasional pieces for Bellingcat.]

The focus of the article is Bellingcat’s identification of the two GRU agents who poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter, before law enforcement agencies managed to.

Harding argues that this shows the decay of the GRU’s spycraft. They left documentary evidence essentially lying around for Bellingcat to find.

Open-source intelligence can do a lot, and states haven’t fully come to terms with it. That said, there are big downsides to what has become a parody of open-source intelligence: the misidentification of innocent people by social media mobs.

Bellingcat is careful to keep its information about people to itself until it has a positive identification involving multiple documentary sources. What it is doing is utterly different from the Twitter request to find a particular person. Bellingcat will toss out a photograph of a bomb fragment or other equipment for crowdsourcing an identification, which is quite a different thing.

Anyhoo, take a look at the Harding article. It’s a long read, but if you only get halfway through it, you’ll have learned about Higgins and Bellingcat.

Open thread!

Bellingcat Versus The GRUPost + Comments (67)

The Village(s) Idiot(s) and Brave Resisters

by | 282 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one in the mega-MAGA Central Florida retirement development known as The Villages. But that didn’t stop brave resisters from turning out to heckle a pro-police/pro-virus/pro-racism/pro-Trump golf cart parade recently:

Perhaps the most famous resister in the community that bills itself as “Florida’s Friendliest Hometown” is Ed McGinty, a mensch who has been conducting a one-man anti-Trump protest for months by parking a cart decorated with anti-Trump signs at busy intersections in The Villages. Slogans include: “Biden Will Kick Trump’s Fat Ass.”

McGinty was attacked after the golf cart parade protest but says he gave as good as he got:

He said he was “driving peacefully” along Old Camp Road when a man with long fingernails reached into his golf cart and punctured his neck while pulling him from the seat.

“Once out and standing I punched his nose with all I have,” McGinty said. “I believe I broke his nose because his eyeglasses went flying…”

McGinty then suggested Trump supporters sell all of their flags and signs “while there is a market for that trash.” He added that if anyone else wants to challenge him, they’ll find him six days a week on a corner in The Villages.

I salute you, good sir, and hope to raise a victory toast to you come November while the Trumpers sulk disconsolately on their lanais.

PS: This morning, an elderly man in a no-show job who divides his time between watching Fox News and cheating at golf retweeted that same clip above to express support for The Village idiots riding in carts:

Thank you to the great people of The Villages. The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!

By “the great people,” Trump means the old man who shouted “white power” at the 8-second mark. May his retirement become official on January 20, 2021.

The Village(s) Idiot(s) and Brave ResistersPost + Comments (282)

Late Night Open Thread: Parler, It’s Where the Kewl Kidz Are!!!

by | 63 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Parler, per Wikipedia, is a “microblogging and social networking service launched in August 2018, promoted as an alternative to Twitter and particularly marketed to political conservatives in the United States”. (The article cites “Brad Parscale, Senator Mike Lee, and activist Candace Owens” as prominent early supporters, for what that’s worth.)

Benny Johnson, formerly ‘Buzzfeed Ben’, is a plagiarist currently serving as “chief creative officer at conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA”.

As you may have heard, Professional Conservatives are currently Big Mad at Twitter and FaceBook for those companies’ recent half-hearted attempts to staunch the sludge of hate speech, misinformation, and monetized lies. Lo, Mr. Johnson proclaims a Solution!

It’s the hot new craze!

Tom Cotton’s aide writes some advertising copy:

Report from Fast Company:

… I have to admit: The Parler site itself is well-designed and organized. It obviously takes many cues from Twitter in terms of features and layout, but it’s got some of its own bells and whistles, such as the ability to tip other users’ posts with influence points, which you must buy with a credit card. You can also vote up posts and “echo” them by hitting a little megaphone icon…

Of course, if Parler has your credit card info, it can sell your data, just like those other evil apps! And because I am an elderly cynic, when a company offers a chance for its marks to send money to their faves, I immediately wondered about the percentage of outright grifters among its users…

show full post on front page

Late Night Open Thread: Parler, It’s Where the Kewl Kidz Are!!!Post + Comments (63)

Electoral Justice Open Thread: DC *Will* Be A State

by | 253 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

… Just as soon as we succeed in turfing out the GOP racists currently supporting the Oval Office Squatter. Goals!

Karen Tumulty, at the Washington Post — “Why the lopsided House vote in favor of D.C. statehood was so historic”:

Before Friday, the last time Congress considered the question of the District of Columbia becoming a state was 27 years ago. The measure failed in 1993 by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, with all but one House Republican and 40 percent of the Democrats voting against.

So the lopsided House vote in favor of D.C. statehood on Friday was a historic one, illuminating both the politically and racially charged moment that we are in and forces that have building for decades.

It passed along party lines, 232 to 180, with Rep. Collin C. Peterson, a Democrat from a conservative district in Minnesota, the only one in the chamber to break ranks and join the Republicans in opposition.

“I was born without representation, but I swear — I will not die without representation,” D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, a Democrat and a fifth-generation Washingtonian, said shortly after the vote…

Though the measure has 40 Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said it will not reach the floor. Even if Democrats win control in November, as looks increasingly possible, it’s unclear that statehood could garner the 60 votes it would need to overcome a filibuster…

(IMO, if we break McConnell’s majority, it won’t be all that hard to peel off some of the GOP cowards looking to get out from under the wreckage.)

And of course the Republicans, inside and out of Congress, immediately leapt to announce their allegiance to racism…

show full post on front page

Electoral Justice Open Thread: DC *Will* Be A StatePost + Comments (253)

GOP Venality Open Thread: #PutinsPuppet Gets His Strings Yanked

by | 160 Comments

This post is in: , ,

I’m sure Cheryl & Adam will have more informed commentary later, but SRSLY: At this point, the Notorious P Tape is gonna be a live-on-air performance where Putin soils a kneeling Trump’s ‘very expensive silk’ tie, and Trump meekly comments, Thank you sir may I have another?

Is ‘Sure, Russia was paying a bounty on dead Americans, but when American intelligence found out, nobody bothered to tell Trump’ supposed to be some kind of vindication? What’s the message supposed to be — that everyone figured Trump knew about it already, or that nobody expected him to do anything about it but maybe tell some more lies?

I’d predict McEninny would be out of a job by Monday, except who the hell would they get to replace her?

GOP Venality Open Thread: #PutinsPuppet Gets His Strings YankedPost + Comments (160)

Furry Friends – becky57 – 4 Cats Is Not Too Many, Right?

by | 46 Comments

This post is in: 

Stories of Obama, Bandit, Chicago, Scribbles and Rocky

by their Mom, beckya57

So we have 4 rescue cats.  No, we didn’t plan to have 4.

They have an interesting family dynamic: Bandit (female), the oldest, is the mother, Chicago (female), the second oldest, is the older sister, and Scribbles (male, 2 yo) and Rocky Maine Coon (male, 6 months, who posts on Twitter as the Democat!) are the 2 naughty younger brothers who live to annoy Chicago.

We Started With Three…

We had 3 cats, and we were happy with them: Bandit, Chicago and Obama.


BANDIT


CHICAGO


OBAMA

Bandit is a Troublemaker!

Bandit was named that by my husband, due to her dark grey mask over her white face. It also turned out to be an accurate description of her character.  She is a major troublemaker; for example, no roll of toilet paper is safe in her presence.


BANDIT GETS IN TROUBLE

She also, however is the oldest of the four, and periodically plays mother to the others.

Obama!

We got a ginger cat next, Obama (yes we’re moderate liberal Democrats), who was very friendly and lovable, as gingers usually are.


OBAMA

Chicago

Chicago came next.  She is a tuxedo cat, very sweet, quieter than the others.  My husband named her too; he thought her tuxedo coloring made her look like a Chicago jazz musician.  I thought that was stretching it a bit, but Chicago is one of my favorite cities, so I didn’t mind.  (Yes, it would’ve made more sense to have named the black tuxedo Obama, but whatever.).  She is much more attached to my husband than to me (unlike the others), and loves to sit on his lap.


CHICAGO

We had these 3 for a couple of years, and they got along well and we enjoyed them, aside from periodically wanting to kill Bandit after one of her misdemeanors.  However, Obama developed cancer and died at age nine.

Here comes Scribbles…

We were heartbroken, and I started scouring Petfinder for another ginger, which led us to Scribbles, our first kitten.


SCRIBBLES

He was named that by the Humane Society, and we decided we couldn’t improve on that.  He’s a Manx, and has some weakness in his back legs.  He compensates by putting his legs together and bounding around the house like a rabbit, which has led us to dub him the “cabbit.”

Surprise!

We were planning to stay with 3.  However…

I went on a Mountaineers hike one day.  (The Mountaineers are a Washington state outdoor activity club.). One of the other hikers started talking about some kittens she was fostering, who would be needing permanent homes.  I was only half-listening, until she mentioned that one of them was half Maine Coon.  I’ve always wanted a Maine Coon, so I told her I wanted that one, but would have to talk my husband into a fourth cat.  I went home and talked to him, and while he was unenthused he also realized quickly he wasn’t going to win this argument, and so we acquired our fourth cat, Rocky Maine Coon (a pun on Rocky Raccoon from the Beatles’ song).


ROCKY RACCOON

…And Then There Were Four

So we now have the mother, Bandit, the goody two-shoes older sister, Chicago, and the rowdy two younger brothers, Scribbles and Rocky.

The latter two love to chase each other around the house, wrestle, and on occasion harass Chicago.


ROCKY and SCRIBBLES


ROCKY, SCRIBBLES and CHICAGO

Family Dynamics

Poor Chicago always gets upset, which of course only encourages them.  In addition to mothering the other cats, Bandit goes through periods of deciding that my shoes are her kittens, and carries them in her mouth around the house.

Bandit has developed diabetes as she’s gotten older.  She puts up with the indignity of twice daily insulin injections without too much fuss.

Scribbles is by far the most vocal of the group, and meows at me when he wants treats.

Rocky, aka Rocky Raccoon

Rocky is about eight months old now.  For most cats that would mean he would be getting close to full grown, but I read in Wikipedia that Maine Coons keep growing until they’re about 4 years old, which is why they get so big.  So far he’s a regular size cat, about 9 ½ lbs, but who knows where he’ll end up.  If Rocky is any indication Maine Coon genes are very dominant, as he has classic MC looks, including the floofiest tail you’ve ever seen, which he carries aloft and proudly.

He is also very playful.  His favorite game is “kitty handball,” which consists of him sticking his paws under the bathroom door when one of us is in there, in order to bat small balls and other toys back and forth with us.  He also went through a period one of my brothers dubbed Dishwasher Fascination Syndrome, in which he would jump into the open dishwasher and carefully examine the contents; clean or dirty, he didn’t care.  He only rarely does this now, which given his continued growth is probably just as well.


ROCKY INSPECTS THE DISHWASHER

Love, love, love.

As you readers can undoubtedly tell, we are hopelessly besotted by our crew, who manipulate us shamelessly and very successfully on a daily basis for attention, treats and anything else they want.  They are a great deal of fun, and have been wonderful company during quarantine.  I even got a T-shirt with avatars of each of them:


WHO DOESN’T HAVE A T-SHIRT OF THEIR CATS?

.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and that you get as much pleasure and love from your pets as we do from ours.

Furry Friends – becky57 – 4 Cats... Not Too Many, Right? 14


SOCIAL DISTANCING!

*****

If you think you might like to have your furry family featured here, please send an email to watergirl at balloon-juice.com.  If you check out the banner picture for Furry Friends, you’ll see that we’re not limiting this series to cat and dogs!  ~WaterGirl

 

Furry Friends – becky57 – 4 Cats Is Not Too Many, Right?Post + Comments (46)

Pandemic Stories: Some Longer Pieces

by | 81 Comments

This post is in: ,

I try to keep the nightly (early morning, here on the east coast) pandemic aggregation post down to no more than 32 ‘bites’ — that’s the point where my creaky home-brewed browser starts really churning to load, which I assume also happens to many of you. Sometimes (like, almost every night this week) I could do two or three posts at that length, without feeling I’d really exhausted the new topics… but there’s only so much traumatic information we can bear!

A reminder: There is no requirement to read every story, all the comments, every new rumor or breaking headline. One reason I keep doing the nightly posts is that it helps me, personally, to shunt the pandemic-paranoia to a part of my brain that can deal with all of it. And I’m one of those pessimists who feels better when I believe I’ve explored the worst possibilities!

If (when) all this information starts to overwhelm you, walk away, do something else, prioritize your own mental health.

… Nearly 30 doctors around the world, from New Orleans to London to Dubai, told Reuters they feel more prepared should cases surge again in the fall.

“​We are well-positioned for a second wave,” Patel said. “We know so much more.”

Doctors like Patel now have:

*A clearer grasp of the disease’s side effects, like blood clotting and kidney failure

*A better understanding of how to help patients struggling to breathe

*More information on which drugs work for which kinds of patients.

They also have acquired new tools to aid in the battle, including:

*Widespread testing

*Promising new treatments like convalescent plasma, antiviral drugs and steroids

*An evolving spate of medical research and anecdotal evidence, which doctors share across institutions, and sometimes across oceans.

Despite a steady rise in COVID-19 cases, driven to some extent by wider testing, the daily death toll from the disease is falling in some countries, including the United States. Doctors say they are more confident in caring for patients than they were in the chaotic first weeks of the pandemic, when they operated on nothing but blind instinct…

show full post on front page

Pandemic Stories: Some Longer PiecesPost + Comments (81)

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Life Goes On, Mostly

by | 177 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Some commentors are quite chuffed about this, I understand:

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Life Goes On, MostlyPost + Comments (177)

What the President and the US National Command Authority Should Have Done In Response To Russia Taking Out Bounties On US & Coalition Military Personnel In Afghanistan

by | 311 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

As Cheryl has noted for us, The NY Times has reported that a Russian military intelligence unit, for those playing along at home, this would be a GRU unit, is taking out bounties on US and coalition military personnel deployed in Afghanistan. According to the reporting, the US Intelligence Community came to this conclusion and briefed it to the President and the principles within the National Command Authority no later than March of this year. At that point the National Security Staff of the National Security Council developed a package of responses ranging from issuing a démarche to the Russian government demanding that they stop to escalating sanctions to “other possible responses”. But, “the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.”

Let me repeat that: THE WHITE HOUSE HAS YET TO AUTHORIZE ANY STEP!!!!!!

I want to be really, really, really, really clear about what Russia, via the GRU, has been doing with these bounties against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. It has been waging war against the US and our coalition partners, many of whom are our NATO allies, by proxy through Taliban backed or affiliated militia and irregular forces. In short, they have been waging a form of low intensity, irregular, and unconventional war against the US and our partners and allies in Afghanistan. US concept, doctrine, and law regarding how to respond to state directed cyberattacks and subverting influence operations undertaking by Russian military intelligence may not be adequate to formally state that those operations, which have been ongoing against the US and our allies and partners since at least 2014 are, in fact and in law, acts of war. But they are clear about what Russia’s GRU is doing in Afghanistan and what the GRU is doing in Afghanistan is waging war against the US and our allied coalition partners.

The President and the National Command Authority should have pushed back forcefully and hard as soon as this was brought to their attention. A démarche demanding the Russian government immediately desist should have been issued immediately. It should have delineated a very short window of time for Russia to stop its actions against US and coalitions forces, and if/when they didn’t comply, then the US response should have escalated. US Cyber Command, along with the cyber operations components of the CIA, should have been tasked with a swift and harsh response against Russian targets through the cyber domain if the diplomatic pushback failed. At the same time, US Special Operations Command should have been tasked with two overlapping missions if the diplomatic pushback failed. The first was to put SEALs, whose specialty is hunting, capturing, killing, and/or rescuing, into the Afghan theater with a very focused assignment: find the GRU personnel responsible for taking out the bounties and the Taliban affiliated militias and irregular forces who had accepted them, capture them if possible, and kill them if necessary. The second was to put small teams – Operational Detachments Alpha (ODAs) – of US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets, into the theater to conduct our own unconventional warfare operations against the Russian intelligence units and the Taliban aligned militias and irregulars they were partnering with. The Green Berets primary mission set is unconventional warfare. They are the best at it and should have been deployed, along with the SEALs, as soon as it became clear that responses through diplomatic channels had failed. This sequence of operations: diplomacy via a démarche and, if that failed, then a cyber response and two separate, but related special operations responses would create time and space for the development of plans and sequels to escalate as necessary. None of this has, of course, happened!

One of the primary reasons that Putin either authorizes and approves these types of operations against the US and our allies and partners, or tolerates them as freelancing provided they are successful, is because he has faced no real negative consequences for the war he has been waging against us and our allies and partners for the better part of the last decade! His irredentism in Georgia and then in Ukraine, his cyber war against our Baltic allies, his attempts to destabilize Finland, his ongoing interference in Ukrainian politics to reestablish what he thinks should be Russia’s near abroad, his use of the Wagner Group, a private military company (PMC) against the US, its allies and partners in Syria and other places, is all because he feels that he can get away with it. That the only country that could really stop him is the US and the only coalition that could do so is a US led NATO. And since that never happens, he is free to pursue his goal of leveling the international system so as to provide Russia, as an extension of himself, with greater power and leverage than it would otherwise have based on its relative economic and military power.

Putin’s actions have repeatedly demanded a much stronger response than he has actually received. To be very honest and to mark my beliefs to market, when it was clear that Putin was going to invade Crimea, and then did so, my assessment provided to the US senior military leader I was advising at that time was: “no one is going to risk a war with a nuclear power state over Crimea”. And while this was true, and we did not, the reality was that we should have. I was wrong. Putin’s invasion of Crimea needed to be met with force. The US and NATO should have mobilized to retake it for Ukraine and, while doing so, rolled up Russia’s little green men – whether Russian intelligence and special forces or Wagner Group mercenaries – and the Russian backed separatists in eastern Ukraine at the same time. I am aware now, as I was then, that Russian doctrine is to use nuclear weapons within the theater of operations when confronted with losing in a conventional war. In hindsight, we should have called their bluff. We did not do it then when Obama was president and it is certainly not going to happen with our current president; especially given that while he was being made aware that Russia was targeting our troops, as well as our allies, in Afghanistan, the President was inviting Putin to rejoin the G7 because the G8 just sounds better.

Until Putin is punched in the nose and knocked on his ass, he’s going to keep doing these things. I guarantee that it is only a matter of time until we find out that the GRU has been offering similar bounties against US and coalition forces operating in Syria and Iraq. Until Putin faces some real consequences for his actions and those of his subordinates who are successfully freelancing, he will continue to wage his 21st century form of war against the US, our allies, and our partners. The longer we wait to provide him with real consequences, the more likely it becomes that when we do, we will have limited ourselves to options that are very, very costly.

Open thread!

 

What the President and the US National Command Authority Should Have Done In Response To Russia Taking Out Bounties On US & Coalition Military Personnel In AfghanistanPost + Comments (311)

On the Road: A Bit of Housekeeping + On the Road After Dark

by | 33 Comments

This post is in: 

If you typically follow On the Road, I hope you will read on – especially if you have submitted photos to On the Road.  There are some housekeeping and scheduling matters that need some attention.

If you don’t typically follow On the Road, I hope you will read on, too, because we are going to add a couple of weeks of On the Road After Dark, for reasons that are explained below.

On the Road: A Bit of Housekeeping + On the Road After Dark 2
MY BLEEDING HEART VINE

This week and next week we are featuring only people who have never submitted to On the Road before, so stop by and check it out.  Great stuff so far!  We’re calling it First-Timers Week, but when we do this again at some point, we may call it On the Road Virgins, or Virgins On the Road – which Baud pointed out would be a much better name!

July 3:  the final post of First-Timers Week goes up

July 6:  we will return to “regular order” for On the Road

I don’t ever want anyone to have to wait more than a month between submission and publication, so please bear with me while we’re trying a couple of things to see what might work while we catch up!

July 6:  we will add a couple of weeks of what I am calling On the Road After Dark.  No, not racy photos!  Just an additional On the Road that will start at around 9:30 or 10:00 blog time, 7pm in CA.

This temporary evening version will help us catch up on the backlog that built up during our two weeks of First-Timers Week.

Here is the list of the submissions that will be published starting July 6:

If you’re on this list and you have a preference for the morning On the Road or for On the Road After Dark, please let me know in the comments or by email.

I’ll post this first at 5:05 am on Friday so the morning peeps will see it, and then I’ll post it again in the evening on Friday so the night crew will see it.

On the Road: A Bit of Housekeeping + On the Road After DarkPost + Comments (33)

This Fucking Guy

by | 104 Comments

This post is in: 

In the first task force briefing since who cares when since they don’t do shit, Pence came out and told a bunch of lies while Fauci tried to keep from vomiting into his mask. The remarkable progress is that younger people are getting sick, not older ones! Jesus Christ on a cracker.

Meanwhile, a bunch of Republicans (Dick and Liz Cheney, fuck them I’m not linking, and some others) posted on social media encouraging mask wearing.

If those fuckers think they’re going to get a dispensation for being in the anti-mask death cult with a couple of tweets, they better have another thing coming from our so-called free press. Every one of these useless death eating Republican fucks should be getting hammered on the Sunday shows if they dare to show their faces there. Their party is killing people all over the nation. If Toddler, Snuffy and the rest can’t fucking ask them tough questions and keep drilling in, those overpaid, weak “reporters” ought to fly to Houston or Phoenix, head to the nearest bar, and take a few deep breaths.

I agree with what John said below about Republicans surrendering. For year, after year, after year we’ve had to listen to Republicans who read five pages of WW II history compare Democrats to Chamberlain at Munich, calling us surrender monkeys and wimps because we didn’t want to fight the war du jour. Now Democrats are the only ones who’ve shown any real grit and fight in this war against this shitty virus, and will we get any credit? Almost certainly not. Jesus, even this idiot knows the score:

I’m so god damned disgusted I can’t even write any more.

Open thread.

This Fucking GuyPost + Comments (104)