Free Republic

To get things done, the US hired the best rocket scientists available after WW II, a bunch of Germans with Nazi backgrounds. They designed the Saturn V and its most reliable predecessors for NASA.

Stephanopoulos went from abetting Bill Clinton’s lies and handling his stained dirty briefs to being a wealthy celebrity talking head on ABC, spinning like a top for the DNC. I call that a series of massive, undisclosed campaign contributions, so let’s try Stephanopoulos before a jury of Trumpers in rural Idaho and shove him into a federal Supermax prison for election violations, RICO, and false business records. That would be fair, right George?

This is Trump in a reflective and even humble state of mind, admitting serious mistakes in personnel choices and making clear that he will engage in promised but long-delayed declassifications in spite of agency pressure against doing so. In essence, Trump has learned from errors in his first administration.

If Trump is elected, the declassifications will bring some painful secrets into public view. This will shake key agencies of government to the core and in regard to JFK and LBJ, will cause major revisions to modern American history. Although Trump is not saying so, he likely realizes that the result will be pressure for reform that he can capitalize on.

Accept an undesirable election result? McCarthy still has not accepted being turfed out by his GOP House colleagues.

The Gainesville area still offers some relative bargains, and with Shands hospital at the U. of Florida, the medical care available is some of the best in the country. The Florida Panhandle and along the Georgia border are also affordable. In addition, all over-heated markets eventually peak, and there are some indications that will soon happen in Florida.

Outside observers are necessarily at a disadvantage in understanding what is going on between Russia and Ukraine and tend to interpret events according to their preconceptions.

As a matter of tactics, Ukraine could be making withdrawals as part of a mobile defense or defense in depth to draw Russian forces into the open where they are more vulnerable to attack. At times, German generals during WW II used such tactics to great effect against the Russians. Then and now, Russian army cross country logistics is weak and prevents deep advances in force.

In addition, Ukraine may be giving greater priority to attacking Crimea than defending areas of less strategic importance. The loss of Crimea and the surrender of the forces there could prove decisive against Russia. It would give Ukraine a major territorial victory and the possession of tens or hundreds of thousands of Russian prisoners.

By way of analogy, if the Germans had captured the British army at Dunkirk, Britain would likely have been forced into a peace deal on Hitler's terms. With the most capable elements of Russia's Black Sea fleet sunk or hiding in port, their forces in Crimea are stuck with little hope of evacuation if they are defeated.

A ruling in the presidential immunity case before the Supreme Court could address not just the immediate controversy but also require expedited consideration and allow direct filings in the high court of appeals from criminal and civil cases involving current presidents and candidates for president. This would be a signal of the Court’s readiness to review the Trump case on an immediate basis.

In the modern world, for prosperous developed nations, well-equipped and well-trained militaries are as essential as having insurance and security systems. Stealth, diversionary tactics, defensive measures, and stand-off weapons make bombers like the B-21 are capable as both nuclear and conventional platforms against Russia or China.

With a more modern design, the cost of a fleet of new B-21s will be offset in part by the retirement of older aircraft that are expensive to maintain and operate. In addition, the B-21 will impose potentially disabling costs and uncertainties on adversaries.

For example, consider if you are a Chinese military planner working on how to take Taiwan. Even if China is able to defeat or fend off the US Navy, US bombers like the B-21 could suddenly appear in the skies near Taiwan and use stand off missiles and glide bombs to attack Chinese naval vessels and ground formations.

As expensive as the B-21 is, it is cheap compared to the cost of even a conventional war with China or Russia. And the B-21 and the rest of the US military are very, very cheap if they deter war with them.

Perhaps you are picking up on something that has yet to register in the official statistics. That sort of thing happens. As a teen in the early 70s, I saw a Florida panther roaming in a suburban area on a summer afternoon. Officially extinct at the time, it took another twenty years or so before the Florida panther was officially recognized as still in existence in the wild.

Home prices have risen dramatically in the most developed and desirable areas in Florida like southeast Florida, but there are still smaller communities in more rural areas where homes prices have risen less and homes remain affordable for many.

In addition, it matters whether one is buying with cash or with a mortgage. Higher interest rates are causing monthly mortgage payments to rise dramatically. Retirees who can buy with all cash are more mobile and in a much better position than those of working age who need a job and to earn enough to cover monthly mortgage payments.

The scientific discoveries and technological innovations that made nukes possible are abundantly documented. The best case for help from aliens is to the effect that technology from downed UFOs was helpful, with some suspicion that in recent decades, UFOs were deliberately downed or left available for human access.

Medical journals have long run on an accommodating honor system that permitted unethical researchers and authors to game and subvert the limited internal verification by publishers.

The paper mills simply took those tactics and made them into industrial scale fraud. Now that the problem cannot be ignored, the publishers have to clean house or suffer financial losses and various forms of government oversight and litigation.

I believe that the paper mill problem is solvable, and the good news is that other longstanding abuses like data manipulation and outright scientific research fraud are also likely to be addressed along the way. As it happens, this might also eventually help to clean up climate science. Or at least one can hope.

For a quick stomach purge, go to https://www.va.gov/ and run the search term “Pride Month.” There are numerous articles about the VA and its facilities honoring Pride Month with flags and in other ways.

Pancreatic cancer rates and rates of diagnosis seem steady based on reported medical statistics. Nevertheless, like many cancers, the incidence increases with age, so as we age, we are going to hear of more cancers among our contemporaries. And in general, if you pay attention to and talk about a particular form of cancer or other ailment, you are going to hear of more cases.

I had this happen to me when I had a benign pituitary tumor surgically removed some years ago. Within months, I heard of numerous such cases -- not because they were more common, but because I and my family and friends heard of them, sometimes after talking about my experience. I even noticed several references to pituitary tumors in episodes of the medical show House.

More fundamentally, since the prosecutor invented the terms of the crime, he usurped the legislative function and violated due process and the separation of powers. And since the crime was made up for Trump after the conduct that is the basis for the criminal charges, those charges violated the ex poste facto prohibition in the federal Constitution.

Russia's fundamental problem is that with her ethnic Russian population in sharp demographic decline, the federated republics are less and less inclined to defer to Moscow. Islam and local identities and ambitions are growing stronger by the year, tugging the Russian Federation toward dissolution.

Putin and his crackpot Great Russia theorists regarded Ukraine as a pseudo country of innate Russian identity that would easily collapse under invasion and then embrace amalgamation into Russia. This was their solution to Russian demographic decline.

Of course, that kind of thinking grossly misread the nature of Ukraine, with even many ethnic Russians there preferring Ukrainian citizenship and orientation toward the West as offering a better life than Russia did. In any event, the Ukrainians fought well enough to wreck Putin's invasion in a humiliating fashion.

Now Putin and his circle of yes men hope to batter Ukraine enough to be able to get a peace that can be called a victory that justifies Russia's painful losses in blood and treasure. My reading of history though is that countries in a bind like Russia is in rarely win even a limited, face-saving victory. When the tide of history turns, it usually does so more sharply than one expects.

Uniquely, the US civilian economy expanded over the course of WW II for two reasons. First, to win the war, Roosevelt dropped New Deal socialism and economically destructive regulations and turned to conventional economists and Republican businessmen to spur the civilian economy and war production. Second, the US became the hub of Allied war production, taking a large bite out of British finances and patents ending their system of imperial preferences. These two effects were unique to that era.

As for the Russian economy, due to sanctions, Europe adapted and found non-Russian sources of raw materials, while Russia found new export markets. The more substantial harm is in Russia losing access to US and EU technology, equipment, and parts. This has especially hurt the Russian civilian economy, while China, North Korea, Iran, and others -- for a price -- have supplied stop gaps and substitutes for the Russian military effort.

We ought not though let examination of Russian trees divert our attention from assessment of the forest. On the net, Russian power and strategic position have been diminished by their attack on Ukraine. Russia is relatively weaker and will soon be struggling to maintain control of their federation. Putin hopes that his current purge and another military effort will somehow bring victory over Ukraine. There is no victory though to be had for Russia.

I have been in this game before, with every link attacked as anti-Russian or ignored.

It is not an attack on Russia to point out that their military is known for massive numbers, an indifference to casualties, for brutal limited training, and for relatively simple weapons and tactics. These are in contrast to the highly trained and well equipped troops and modern weapons that are the norm for the US and NATO.

Reliable standard reference sources put the Russian domestic economy as smaller than that of Italy. Of necessity, when productive resources are shifted to war effort, the civilian domestic economy suffers. That leads to a decline in the civilian standard of living, which, along with growing military casualties, is the sort of thing that leads to public discontent.

Eventually, even ordinary Russians will realize that Ukraine might be beaten and cut up but cannot be absorbed. Meanwhile, NATO has new members and their defense spending is rising. The technology and manufacturing base of the Russian civilian economy is in decline. The many dimensions to the cost of Russia's war on Ukraine will accumulate over time. There is no genuine victory to be had for Russia.

Really? Google works for you, I assume.

The cost to Russia is not sustainable in the long term. Russian troop numbers are inflated and the new troops will be poorly trained and minimally equipped.