Recent content by wdolson

MIke Johnson gave a news conference today where he did a 180 on Ukraine. He mentioned that there was a recent intel briefing he got that convinced him that we need to get aid to Ukraine. I don't know what it was, but I saw a snippet of the news conference and he seemed shaken. He mentioned...

Anyone who knows how Washington works has said that any reasonable Ukraine bill that made it to the floor of the House would pass easily. There were rumors that Johnson was going to put a bill up that had amendments that the Democrats couldn't accept just to kill the bill and claim the...

My partner came across something about why the Russians are not restoring the T-72s. Apparently there are some brass and copper parts in the T-72 that are unique and long out of production. All the T-72s had those parts stripped by profiteers and sold on the scrap metal market. So the...

In WWII there were light, medium, and heavy tanks. Light tanks proved to be highly vulnerable and of limited value from fairly early in the war and they moved to limited roles such as recon (where speed was an advantage) or supporting light troops like air mobile. After the war advancements in...

Unless Russians are going to fly those Su-35s, it's going to take a while to train Iranians to fly them. There are a lot of differences between a 1970s vintage American fighter and a more modern Russian one. Observations of coms chatter from the attack launched over the weekend, it became...

I'll only believe it when it lands on Biden's desk. Johnson has been trying to play Lucy and the football with Ukraine aid ever since he became Speaker. For those not familiar with the American comic strip Football gag

It has come out that he received campaign contributions from Russians Konstantin Nikolaev—the Putin ally behind Mike Johnson campaign donation

It also showed that some Arab states would side with Israel against Iran if Iran was the aggressor. Jordan had a valid reason to contribute since I believe their air space was violated. Saudi Arabia had no reason to participate except to send a message.

I would not call the guys who do the All In podcast a reliable source. David Sacks frequently repeats Kremlin talking points. The inflation rate in the US is generally fairly low and the economy is recovering well. Consumer confidence is a lagging indicator. The prime rate is higher than...

Biden, the Democrats, and even most Republicans want to help Ukraine. Biden has asked for $60 billion for Ukraine. The current Speaker of the House wants Biden to lose and is doing everything he can to decrease Biden's chances of winning. The best thing Ukraine can do is to hold off on...

The US does not have clean hands. The US has caused a number of the world's problems, or contributed quite a bit to them. The regime in Iran came about because the US and UK interfered in Iranian politics in the 1950s. Not all of the world's problems came about because of the US. The...

Worst case would be early January when the next Congress is seated. There are a number of Republicans who feel strongly about funding Ukraine. We're right around the deadline now for a special election to replace any Congress people who quit. A resignation of a handful of Republicans after...

Strange New Worlds scratches the itch for the fans of TOS that hasn't been addressed by any of the spinoffs. I'm a smorgasbord ST fan, I have liked elements of all the series, though Enterprise was pretty bad the first two seasons. Like many early Gen X and late Boomers I grew up watching the...

Oi! If Ukraine was trying to end the war by conquering Russia, yes, it would be impossible. But they very much have what it takes to get their borders back. I wonder which Russian oligarch is giving him campaign contributions? His math is very bad here. He's basically arguing that the US...

The Germans did attack the US in late 1941 and early 1942. Within a day or two of Pearl Harbor the Germans declared war on the United States so the u-boats which were on the way into US coastal waters could operate "legally". The US was sending a lot of oil to Britain. The tankers would load...