Israel hits Iran, everyone wants to delete illegal aliens, Kamala loses a one-person debate, WaPo refuses to pick Kamala over Hitler, the WNBA continues to bleed cash, and Tim Walz gets his ABBA on. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Reminder: Early voting in Texas is going on now and extends through November 1st, and Joe Rogan’s interview with Donald Trump is tonight.
A new Fox News poll shows that two-thirds of American voters favor deporting illegal aliens—a dramatic increase over the past decade.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made mass deportation a major policy promise throughout his campaign, as the open border policies of the Biden-Harris administration have allowed millions of illegal aliens to enter the U.S.
The October 2024 poll of registered voters shows that support for deportation has increased dramatically since 2015. Among nonwhite voters, 57 percent now support mass deportations, while only 33 percent said they did in 2015.
Additionally, 91 percent of Republicans now say they support deportations—a 21-point increase since 2015. Rural voters’ support has risen by 20 points, urban voters by 19 points, and men’s support increased by 16.
Democrat support for deportations has increased to 42 percent from 34 percent in 2015.
Voters were also asked if they were in favor of allowing illegal aliens who have jobs to apply for legal status. While 68 percent said they were in favor in 2015, it dropped to 58 percent in favor this year.
Another Fox News poll shows that immigration is voters’ second top issue as they head into the November election. The economy is the number one issue for 40 percent of voters, while 17 percent said immigration and 15 percent said abortion.
is out of gas. The weather is choppy, the navigation system completely unreliable, and the best guess is that you’re still short of the runway. (Oh, and the captain had a stroke while in the cockpit a few hours ago, leaving only a flight attendant as the pilot. She refuses to read the instruction manual or listen to the passengers.) Yes, it’s easy enough to spin up lovingly bespoke metaphors for how the Harris campaign is handling the late stages of the 2024 race — a race they very much could still win, I must always emphasize — but I’ll conclude this one by saying that if last night’s Kamala Harris CNN town hall (with Anderson Cooper hosting in the Philadelphia suburbs) is any indication, the plane may already be disintegrating in midair, before it even hits the ground.
You may have noticed that I’ve had a decidedly muted reaction to Harris’s other recent “serious” media interviews, whether Bret Baier at Fox News or Bill Whitaker on 60 Minutes, in the sense that while Harris was predictably awful in both sit-downs (almost relentlessly so), she was boring and unrevelatory in her awfulness. In other words, we learned nothing new about the depths to which she is capable of sinking performatively that we didn’t already know. They were water-treading exercises for the most part.
Last night’s CNN town hall, on the other hand, was memorably bad. This is the moment her campaign dreaded, the moment when the fundamental emptiness and inadequacy of their candidate was revealed for all the world to see without helpful edits or someone to bail her out. There Harris stood exposed — with an unpersuaded audience and a moderator in Cooper who handled his task without showing any particular solicitude for her electoral fortunes — and she withered in the spotlight. (As Dylan might have said, “Even the vice president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.”) There are moments from this event — many moments, oh so terribly many of them — that will haunt Harris in retirement forever should she lose, the sorts of ghastly stammering failures destined to go into YouTube clip reels ten years later explaining “How We Got Here….”
As for myself, I found Harris’s answer to Anderson Cooper’s pointed question about the border fence to be perhaps the lowest moment of her entire public career to date, and I mean that in the specific sense that nobody who watches it — not even her fiercest partisans — will be able to come away from it with anything save a reflex-level revulsion.
I did not have Anderson Cooper cooking Kamala on my bingo card but here we are.
She’s exposed as a total hypocrite here. First the wall was racist, stupid and xenophobic but now that she needs votes she’s pandering. pic.twitter.com/ctk6nmQcvZ
“What was most remarkable about the disaster is how even CNN’s own analysts panned Harris’s performance as well, some with a palpable sense of disgust.”
Some excerpts of that:
NEW: CNN’s Scott Jennings says Kamala Harris is a “double-threat” because she can’t think on her feet and can’t answer the expected questions.
CNN has railed on Harris after her town hall event.
Next, after weeks of courting Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, Harris rejected him for Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota – the state that gave us Gov. Jesse “the body” Ventura and Saturday Night Live’s Al Franken as a U.S. Senator.
Another misstep for Harris. While Shapiro isn’t Biden, he is well known in greater Philadelphia and seems comfortable campaigning in Scranton and towns like it across the state.
It still isn’t clear if Harris rejected Shapiro because he is Jewish and supports Israel’s right to defend itself or because he is a tireless campaigner, well-received on the stump, who might show her up. Did she reject Shapiro because picking him would offend “the Squad” in Congress and endanger the electoral votes of Michigan, home to a large Muslim population? Or did she spurn the Pennsylvania governor because she didn’t want her supporters murmuring: “We should’ve run him?
Harris compounded her mistake by picking Walz, who represents the Democratic Party’s modern left wing. Walz won’t help Harris win votes in Pennsylvania; in fact, he makes it harder. She picked someone who is un-relatable everywhere, from Philadelphia’s neighborhoods to small town and rural Pennsylvania. And, he’s just plain “weird.”
It gets worse. Her message, agenda, and policies are not resonating here.
She has tried to stress that the economy is actually good – “Bidenomics is working,” she maintained. They tried charts, graphs, and “experts.” No one in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods is buying it, especially blacks and Hispanics, who are being crushed by inflation and violent crime.
So Harris pivoted to a new message: she would “fix” the economy and “fight” inflation. Her now comically repeated line about being “raised in a middle-class family” draws blank stares, laughs, or anger, even among some in her usual base.
It’s even worse in rural Pennsylvania, where Walz and “second man” Doug Emhoff tried a “real men for Kamala tour,” complete with ads and Zoom calls about why men should support her.
Then they sent “Elmer Fudd” – aka Walz – out hunting. In newly purchased hunting clothes, using the wrong rifle (plus demonstrating that he didn’t know how to load it), Walz resembled something like King Charles attending the Indianapolis 500.
Harris was against fracking – that is, before she was for it, as she now claims to be. No one in rural Pennsylvania is buying it. Her “values haven’t changed,” as she herself says. Rural Pennsylvanians know that her preferred policy would hurt the economy of northern, central and western Pennsylvania, to say nothing of the national economy and national security.
Democrats want to win Pennsylvania, of course – but they have selected the wrong candidate, through the wrong method. Harris then dug the hole deeper by picking the wrong running mate. And to top it off, they’re running on a misguided, if not delusional, platform.
“Black, Latino, and Asian Trump supporters shout down white, liberal Harris supporters in Lancaster.”
The left-wing, liberal, and Democratic narrative about former President Donald Trump being a racist is falling apart.
For years, labeling Trump as a racist was an integral part of Democrats’ political strategy. It was never really true, mind you. It was just baseless hyperbolic hysteria that was at the foundation of the Democratic political propaganda machine. They have used it against every Republican presidential candidate for the last 40 years.
They used it to brainwash, scare, and manipulate racial minorities and white liberals in the previous two presidential elections, in which Trump was the GOP nominee. They wanted to create a narrative that the only people who supported Trump were a bunch of lowly, uneducated, racist white people. It worked in 2016, and it worked in 2020. It’s not working in 2024.
The sanctimony of white, liberal Democrats is predicated on their unhinged arrogance of moral superiority involving race. The white, liberal Democrats think racial minorities cannot succeed in the United States without white, liberal Democrats saving them. The white, liberal Democrats think they are more intelligent, enlightened, and compassionate than Republicans. So, imagine their surprise when, outside the venue that hosted a town hall for Trump in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, it was black, Latino, and Asian Trump supporters shouting down Vice President Kamala Harris’s white, liberal supporters.
I witnessed, firsthand, white, liberal Harris supporters screaming that Trump is a racist and then demeaning the many black, Latino, and Asian Trump supporters holding Trump signs and wearing MAGA hats and shirts. These smug, arrogant white people were trying to tell racial minorities what was best for them. It was a sight to behold, but not one that has not become commonplace in American society. It was a reflection of just how out of touch with reality white, liberal Harris voters are.
Dominicans for Trump sign holders outside Trump town hall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Christopher Tremoglie)
The crowd at the town hall was diverse, with a larger-than-expected minority presence, given the tall tales of Harris supporters’ fails regarding diversity and race among Trump supporters. It was immediately noticeable upon arriving at the town hall. Those in attendance were greeted by boisterous Asian Americans waving American flags in front of Trump posters, wearing red MAGA hats, and chanting the name “Trump!”
A few hundred feet away, a group of Dominican Trump voters were cheering for the former president and shouting down anyone who dared insult the GOP nominee. They stood outside the venue holding signs that read “Dominicans for Trump” and “Boricuas for Trump.”
A Harris supporter passed the group and chastised them, asking how they could be a minority and support a racist and a bigot. A person holding a “Boricuas for Trump” sign shouted back at them, asking the white Harris supporter who they thought they were telling a Dominican who to support. The Harris supporter kept walking. Other incidents played out similarly nearby.
Later, this group gathered at a main intersection near the Lancaster Convention Center and engaged in a shouting match with a group of Harris supporters, who had gathered to protest Trump. There did not appear to be any mention of race, just two groups shouting back and forth at each other. However, again, I noticed the Harris supporters were white, and the most vocal Trump supporters were black, Latino, and Asian.
Also: “Initial GOP Early Vote Turnout in Texas Substantially Higher Than 2020 Levels.”
But don’t get cocky! “Schumer-Backed Democratic PAC Makes $5 Million Texas Ad Buy Backing Allred….Schumer’s group, Senate Majority PAC (SMP) had mostly abstained from the Texas race, playing ball in other, seemingly more competitive races like in Ohio and Montana — much to Congressman Colin Allred’s (D-TX-32) chagrin. But clearly the calculus has changed for the group, which has now put substantial skin in the game in Texas.”
The Democratic Party’s election dirty tricks begin. “Montana Dem Operative Caught Tampering With Ballot Box…The operative, Laszlo Gendler, has been paid by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), according to OpenSecrets.org, as Montana Talks reported. The DSCC is attempting to help incumbent Democrat Senator Jon Tester against GOP senatorial candidate Tim Sheehy.”
A decade and a quarter of a billion dollars later, students and faculty are more frustrated than ever….
A decade ago, Michigan’s leaders set in motion an ambitious new D.E.I. plan, aiming “to enact far-reaching foundational change at every level, in every unit.” Striving to touch “every individual on campus,” as the school puts it, Michigan has poured roughly a quarter of a billion dollars into D.E.I. since 2016, according to an internal presentation I obtained. A 2021 report from the conservative Heritage Foundation examining the growth of D.E.I. programs across higher education — the only such study that currently exists — found Michigan to have by far the largest D.E.I. bureaucracy of any large public university. Tens of thousands of undergraduates have completed bias training. Thousands of instructors have been trained in inclusive teaching.
Michigan inaugurated what it now calls D.E.I. 1.0, it intentionally placed itself in the vanguard of a revolution then reshaping American higher education. Around the country, college administrators were rapidly expanding D.E.I., convinced that such programs would help attract and retain a more diverse array of students and faculty.
Today that revolution is under withering attack. Energized by backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement and the right-wing campaign against “critical race theory” in public institutions, at least a dozen states have banned or limited D.E.I. programs at public universities. After the Oct. 7 attacks, as campuses across the country erupted with protests against Israel, critics accused D.E.I. programs of fostering antisemitism. In the fever of the 2024 campaign, Republican influencers and politicians have recast D.E.I. as an all-purpose boogeyman — the root cause of defective airplanes, the collapse of a Baltimore bridge and the near-assassination of Donald J. Trump.
But even some of Michigan’s peer institutions have soured on aspects of D.E.I. Last spring, both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences said they would no longer require job candidates to submit diversity; such “compelled statements,” M.I.T.’s president said, “impinge on freedom of expression.”
Michigan hasn’t joined the retreat. Instead, it has redoubled its efforts, testing the future of an embattled ideal. A year ago, the university inaugurated what it calls D.E.I. 2.0. At Michigan’s flagship Ann Arbor campus, the number of employees who work in D.E.I.-related offices or have “diversity,” “equity” or “inclusion” in their job titles increased by 70 percent, reaching 241, according to figures compiled by Mark J. Perry, an emeritus professor of finance at the university’s Flint campus and a D.E.I. critic. (The school’s own figures, which count the D.E.I. work force differently, show less growth over time and a much smaller staff as of last year.) When school began in August, brightly colored flags around campus promoted the goals of D.E.I. 2.0.
According to a confidential report I obtained, a committee appointed by Michigan’s provost — and stocked with professors with D.E.I.-related appointments — urged the school this summer to continue using diversity statements in hiring and promotion, arguing that eliminating them “would be seen as a capitulation to the winds of political expediency.”
In many respects, Michigan’s entire D.E.I. initiative can be understood as a sustained act of defiance against such pressures. Nearly two decades ago, voters in Michigan banned racial preferences in university admissions and hiring. When the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action across the land last year — stripping selective colleges of their most powerful tool for building racially diverse classes — Michigan’s president, Santa J. Ono, went on PBS’s “NewsHour” to offer his university as the model for achieving diversity in a post-affirmative action world.
But over months of reporting this year, I found a different kind of backlash building, one that emanated not from Washington or right-wing think tanks but from inside the university’s own dorms and faculty lounges. On Michigan’s largely left-leaning campus, few of the people I met questioned the broad ideals of diversity or social justice. Yet the most common attitude I encountered about D.E.I. during my visits to Ann Arbor was a kind of wary disdain.
D.E.I. at Michigan is rooted in a struggle for racial integration that began more than a half-century ago, but many Black students today regard the school’s expansive program as a well-meaning failure. The university now has a greater proportion of Hispanic, Asian and first-generation students and a more racially diverse staff. But in a state where 14 percent of residents are Black, the school’s Black undergraduate enrollment has long hovered stubbornly at around 4 percent, before ticking up just past 5 percent this fall. (The figures are slightly higher if, as school officials strongly urged, you include students who identify as more than one race.) …
Michigan’s own data suggests that in striving to become more diverse and equitable, the school has also become less inclusive: In a survey released in late 2022, students and faculty members reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging. Students were less likely to interact with people of a different race or religion or with different politics — the exact kind of engagement D.E.I. programs, in theory, are meant to foster.
Social Justice is racist garbage that destroys everything it touches.
'We must not publish a study that says we're harming children because people who say we're harming children will use the study as evidence that we're harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children.' pic.twitter.com/hS4CcswkXg
Hezbollah launches a drone attack against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house, though they cause no injuries. Honestly, this is a huge step up from their usual targeting of women and children, as a country’s political leaders are a legitimate war target.
“Half of Millennials and Gen Z homeowners are, quote, trapped in their starter homes, which are now losing tens of thousands in value thanks to the same Federal Reserve that put them in a housing hell to begin with.”
Ammo.com sent over a report on defensive gun use in the U.S. “Although many dispute the plausibility of more than one million DGUs yearly, it is entirely plausible. With millions of gun owners in the U.S. and millions of unreported crimes, more civilians likely stop threats than are harmed by them. Furthermore, states with permitless carry and stand-your-ground laws experience reduced violent crime rates. Therefore, armed civilians are, at least, not a danger to society.”
Another one. “North Texas Teacher Arrested for Sexual Relationship With Former Student. Carroll ISD middle school teacher Angela Barnes was charged with sexual assault of a child and improper relationship between an educator and student.”
Lin Chen pleaded guilty in federal court today to illegally exporting U.S. technology to a prohibited end user in China, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The plea was accepted by the Hon. William Alsup, Senior U.S. District Judge.
In pleading guilty, Chen, 65, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), admitted to acting on behalf of Jiangsu Hantang International Trade Group Corp., Ltd. (JHI), a company headquartered in Nanjing, PRC, to procure a wafer cutting machine on behalf of Chengdu GaStone Technology Co., Ltd. (GaStone), an entity located in Chengdu, PRC. Chen admitted to knowing that GaStone was designated on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List on Aug. 1, 2014. Federal regulations restrict the export of certain items to companies, research institutions, and other entities identified on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List. Under applicable Department of Commerce regulations, wafer cutting machines, which are used to cut thin semiconductors used in electronics (also known as silicon wafers), require a license for export to end-users such as GaStone.
According to the plea agreement, by no later than Dec. 4, 2015, Chen knew that GaStone was prohibited from receiving restricted exports without a license, including a DTX-150 Scribe and Break Machine, a machine for processing silicon wafer microchips. On approximately Dec. 10, 2015, Chen worked with a co-defendant to arrange the sale of a DTX-150 to GaStone by shipping it to the PRC in the name of JHI without an export license from Commerce. Chen used JHI’s status as an intermediary to conceal GaStone as the true end-user of the technology.
That’s a slice-and-dice machine, not some cutting-edge process tech that’s embargoed to China. They might have been able to get that legally by just filling out the proper forms.
The last full-sized Kmart closes. I would say “Thanks, Joe Biden,” but this particular death, thanks to Walmart and Amazon, has been a long time coming.
“WNBA will lose $40 million this season. So naturally the players are thinking of opting out of their labor agreement to ask for more money… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Postcards From Barsoom has an extensive, reasonably compelling case that men gravitate toward jobs that allow them to compete with other men, mainly to impress women, and as become the majority in each of these fields, those particular arenas no longer convey status for achievement, because men do not win status by defeating women. Thus men who enter female-dominated fields for greater access to women are barking up the wrong tree, because even their co-workers will view them as low status. This theory has a certain amount of explanatory power, and posits that the feminization of academia begat social justice, not vice versa, but seems to me to be too totalizing an explanation for our current woes. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
The Ukrainian Armed Forces have reportedly deployed Abrams main battle tanks to the frontline near Avdiivka, where some of the most intense battles on the frontlines are currently taking place.
Russian forces have been making continuous efforts to capture this critical city and have been amassing substantial reserves, launching near-daily attacks.
Military analyst Damian Ratka claims that the tank shown in the broadcast on Ukrainian TV is an M1A2SEPv2 of the U.S. Armed Forces, which was likely filmed at one of the training grounds in Poland where Ukrainian crews were undergoing training at the time.
President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, confirmed the arrival of the first batch of 31 Abrams tanks on September 25, 2023. These initial tanks belong to the M1A1 Situational Awareness (SA) version, with approximately 650 units deployed within the U.S. Army.
Suchomimus has more on the Abrams deployment:
The M1A1 Abrams is pretty modern and very tough, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be killed, and Ukraine has already lost one:
The blowout panels might indicate that the crew survived.
A second was disabled, with a mine causing a thrown track, but it looks like it could be recovered:
Pakistan’s Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) held the roll-out ceremony of the inaugural serial production batch of the Haider Main Battle Tank.
Attended by Pakistan Army Chief of Staff General Asim Munir, the ceremony highlighted the unveiling of the Haider MBT, a third-generation tank designed and built entirely in Pakistan.
Based on the Chinese VT4 platform, the Haider boasts a formidable arsenal, including a 125mm Smoothbore gun capable of firing various types of ammunition, such as Armor Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot and Anti-Tank Guided Missiles.
Augmenting its firepower, the tank features a secondary armament comprising a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun and a remotely operated weapon station armed with a 12.7mm heavy machine gun.
The Haider is equipped with an advanced fire control system, integrating a range of sensors and targeting devices to optimize accuracy and lethality on the battlefield.
Powered by a turbocharged electronically-controlled Diesel engine generating 1,200 hp, coupled with a hydro-mechanical automatic transmission, the Haider achieves exceptional mobility, boasting a maximum road speed of 70 km/h and an impressive cruising range of 500 km.
The VT-4 is a pretty modern T-90 derived tank, including composite armor, but it’s an export model. It’s probably pretty good, but not up to the standards of Abrams, Challenger or Leopard 2, especially for fire control and other electronics.
When I originally saw the Ripsaw tank, it looked like a toy for rich people. But in its M5 fully-autonomous version with a 30mm autocannon, it looks like it could be a very effective raiding weapon.
In that context, even the low noise/low thermal signature electric motor makes sense.
Speaking of the Tank Museum, bonus video 1: Was the Sherman any good?
“Sherman was a well-built, reliable tank that arrived in numbers when it was most desperately needed. It was relatively inexpensive, for a tank it was quite easy to maintain, and there were some sophisticated features, things like the stabilized gun, and also, and this is quite remarkable, a relatively effective comms kit.”
“It’s often criticized for its tank-vs.-tank performance, but that’s not really what it was originally designed to do, even though it found itself in that position quite often. But the fact remains it could still hold its own against the majority of enemy armor.”
Tank Museum bonus video 2: The evolutionary dead end of the A1E1 Independent, a monstrously large interwar tank with five turrets.
Remember all the fanfare over the U.S. sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine? Supposedly in time for the much vaunted Spring Offensive?
That didn’t happen. Evidently the usual Biden Administration competency was in play. But now the allotment of M1A1 Abrams tanks (not the M1A2s previously discussed) are finally ready to be shipped over.
The first batch of Abrams tanks that the U.S. is providing to Ukraine was approved for shipment over the weekend, and the tanks remain on track to arrive in Ukraine by early Fall, Army Acquisition Chief Doug Bush told reporters on Monday.
“The last of the set was officially accepted by the U.S. government or the production facility over the weekend. So they are done,” said Bush. The 31 Abrams tanks destined for Ukraine – older M1A1 variants – had been undergoing refurbishment and preparation for shipment for months.
Though the tanks are ready, they still have to be shipped overseas and sent to Ukraine, “along with all of the things that go with them – ammunition, spare parts, fuel equipment, repair facilities,” Bush said. “So it’s not just the tanks.”
The goal, said Bush, remains to get the Abrams tanks to the unit level by “early Fall.” He did not give a specific date or even month. Last month, Politico reported that the tanks would arrive on the battlefield in September.
Helping Ukraine repel Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression has frequently been cited as a top priority by members of the Biden Administration,a cause in whose over $46 billion in military aid has been sent. Given that the UK’s Challenger 2 tanks arrived in Ukraine in March, it would seem like the Biden Administration hasn’t treated their pledge of Abrams tanks with any urgency.
To be sure, several U.S. weapon systems (HIMARS, Patriot, Excalibur and various drones) have proven absolutely vital in letting Ukraine resist the Russian invasion. But for something the U.S. defense establishment, and just about all our NATO allies, view as a top priority, the Pentagon as been quite sluggish at getting them tanks. A cynic might wonder if it’s because, being drawn from existing stocks, sending them M1A1s doesn’t grease enough Beltway Bandit palms.
Given how long it will take to train Ukrainians on them, maybe they’ll be available for the 2024 Spring Offensive…
We’ve already talked about the Battle of 73 Easting, so let’s talk about the battle that followed close on it’s heels, the Battle of Medina Ridge, the 32nd anniversary of which just passed, and which some regard as the largest tank battle of Desert Storm.
Following 73 Easting and the Battle of Norfolk, The Adnan Republican Guard division of motorized infantry launched an artillery spoiling attack against the U.S. First Armored to slow their advance, only to be slaughtered by MLRS cluster bombs, Apaches and A-10s.
This is simultaneous with the destruction of loot-laden Iraqi vehicles on the Highway of Death and the burning of Kuwaiti oil fields.
Despite the Iraqis believing that the rugged terrain south of the Euphrates valley is too difficult for an armored division to negotiate, the 24th Infantry Division reached their objective, securing Highway 8 east of where the 101st had done so a couple of days earlier. They blockade the highway, destroying over 100 vehicles retreating westwards with tank and TOE fire. Bedouin nomads watching from atop a nearby ridgeline politely applaud as tank rounds hit their targets.
The Medina Division of the Iraqi Republican Guard is the last organized combat force standing against the U.S. and its allies.
While the Iraqis have entrenched behind a small hill the Americans must crest, they’ve made the mistake of being just out of range of their T-72s.
“For the next 40 minutes, the engaged elements of the First Armored Division simply sit there picking off Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles with impunity. The Iraqis desperately call in artillery support, but the rounds fall behind the front line of Abrams tanks.”
“The 1st and 25th Field Artillery Regiments respond. Using artillery acquisition radars, the U.S. artillery is able to detect the firing of an Iraqi artillery piece, pinpoint its exact position, and return counter artillery fire on it before the Iraqi round has even landed. Within just a few minutes, two entire artillery battalions of the Medina division have been wiped out.”
“40 minutes after the battle began, the Medina’s right flank has been completely destroyed, and the right flank of the American force is just beginning to smash into the Medina’s left. In this sector, many Iraqi tanks are pointing southwest. The nearest tanks are destroyed before they can even rotate their turrets towards the Americans. Those that do fire back find that they are again outranged.”
Apaches and A-10s join in here as well.
“The battle would become known as The Battle of Medina Ridge. It lasts just two hours during which 186 Iraqi tanks and 172 armored vehicles are destroyed. Four American Abrams tanks are lost.”
I’m skipping over some secondary action and friendly fire incidents, but the Iraqis were complete routed and Americans took minimal casualties.
If more modern American and NATO tanks using combined arms operations took on even more antiquated Soviet tanks in Ukraine, the result is likely to be similar.
Democrats enabling sexual predators (yet again), more tanks for Ukraine information, and the unexpected return of Storm Drain Woman. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Published in November of 2022, the story indicated “thousands of child molesters are being let out after just a few months, despite sentencing guidelines.”
The story reported that more than 7,000 inmates convicted of “lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age” were released from prison the same year they were incarcerated.
The Daily Mail’s analysis was conducted using a database—created in 1994 after the federal Megan’s Law was passed—requiring law enforcement to make public information regarding registered sex offenders. The news organization examined data in California through July of 2019.
“Everyone should be really upset and frightened by this,” Dordulian said.
According to Dordulian, child molesters are the least likely of criminals to be rehabilitated and are four times more likely to commit the same crime again.
“Once they’re out,” he said, “they are going to re-offend and there’s going to be another child that is victimized by these people.”
Senate Bill 357. Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in July, the measure decriminalized loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution. The bill did not officially take effect until January 1 of this year; but, from the moment it became law back in July, these women say, the on-the-ground reality changed. “The minute the governor signed it, you started seeing an uptick on the streets,” Powell said. “And on social media, the pimps were saying: ‘You better get out there and work because the streets are ours.’”
The pimps were right: police stopped making arrests for crimes that would no longer be charged. The anti-loitering statute had provided the grounds for officers to question women and children whom they suspected might be trapped in a prostitution ring. “As a police officer, you need probable cause to stop and investigate,” Powell explained. “So if I have a law that says you can’t loiter in this area, with pasties and a G-string, flagging down cars, I could stop you for that because you’re loitering. But if I just say I’m stopping you because you look kind of young, that’s a little weak. So, it takes away a tool.” Without the statute, police hands were suddenly tied. Henceforth, questioning the girls—and potentially provoking a violent confrontation with pimps—came to seem a Pyrrhic gamble, one that California’s police officers would now avoid.
The films, which include “Miss Representation,” “The Mask You Live In,” “The Great American Lie” and “Fair Play,” are licensed to taxpayer-funded schools across every state and sometimes contain sexually explicit imagery and push students to feel “shame and sorrow” about American society split by privilege and oppression. They are paired with curricula that include discussion on Gov. Newsom’s comments within the films, urging them to gather their friends and vote for aligned politicians that support a “care economy” that “embraces universal human values.”
“Former Arlington teachers union president charged with embezzlement. A former president of the Arlington teachers union, who was ousted last spring, has been charged with embezzling more than $400,000 from the organization. Ingrid Gant, 54, of Woodbridge, was arrested yesterday (Monday) in Prince William County on four counts of embezzlement.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“Thirty years ago, Guan County, Shandong Province launched the ‘Hundred Childless Days‘ campaign under the aegis of national family planning, known in the West as the ‘one-child policy.’ The birthplace of the “Boxers” was deemed to have too high a birth rate by the provincial government. County officials sought to correct this by ensuring that not a single baby was born between May 1 and August 10, 1991.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
North says they do not feel safe anymore, and she believes it all ties back to the large homeless encampment located only feet away from the salon.
“Our safety started to become a big issue. We suffered from multiple break-ins. We’ve had our cars broken into. We clean up feces and needles on a weekly basis. It increased from that to, you know, people approaching us and threatening us with weapons, threatening rape, murder, all of those things,” said North.
The salon has been up and running just off Ben White Blvd. for four years now. North says she has seen an uptick in crime for a while now, but the dangerous behavior from people living in this encampment picked up recently.
“In the past year, it’s gotten increasingly worse and, in the past couple of weeks, it’s gotten to the point where I actually finally felt like this might shut my business down,” said North.
Erin Mutschler, another co-owner of the salon, says they have called the police every time they have dealt with a situation like the one caught on video, but she says police often take 45 minutes to an hour for anyone to show up.
The mayorship of Steve Adler is the gift that just keeps giving, even with him out of office… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Follow-up: Democratic State Rep. Harold Dutton: “Don’t Blame Abbott, Houston ISD Takeover Plan Was My Idea.” (Previously.)
A Florida woman was pulled from a storm drain for the third time in two years. Maybe she was looking for David Icke’s lizard people. Also, she sounds like a real winner: “Police said her license had been suspended 17 times from 2007 to 2020.” (Previously.) (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Jay Leno broke his collarbone, several ribs and both kneecaps in a motorcycle accident. But it sounds like a freak accident: “So I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it…I didn’t see it until it was too late. It just clothesline me and, boom, knocked me off the bike.” (There’s no evidence the line was strung there by Conan O’Brien.) “But I’m OK!…I’m working this weekend.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
It could take months to deliver the tanks because the U.S. has to purchase them through a procurement process.
The move marks a reversal for the Biden administration, which had resisted sending the tanks, and comes as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced his country would provide 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks for Ukraine’s military. Britain said earlier this month it will provide 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks. France plans to contribute 10 armed fighting vehicles.
The Pentagon has long shown a reluctance to send their best miltech abroad for fear of it falling into enemy hands. However, for both the Leopard 2 and the Abrams, the question is which version of the tank are they sending to Ukraine? Any version of either is going to have more sophisticated and modern fire control systems than the majority of Russian tanks currently in theater. And any version of the Leopard 2 is going to feature a Rheinmetall 120mm smooth-bore gun, either the L/44 or the more powerful L/55. The L/44 should punch through the front armor of most Soviet/Russian tanks, and the L/55 should theoretically punch through all of them.
For the Abrams, the M1A1 and M1A2 are both armed with the L/44, and National Review is reporting that the Biden administration is sending M1A1s. (The original M1 uses the older 105mm rifled M68 gun. That’s thought to be able to penetrate any Soviet armor up to and including the early T-72 models, and possibly some later export models, but not later T-72s and more modern domestic Soviet/Russian tanks. In Desert Storm, even M60 Patton tanks with the 105mm gun were regularly reporting kills on T72s.) Thus Abrams and Leopard 2 120mm rounds of various sorts are fully interchangeable.
The Challenger 2 uses the Royal Ordnance L30 rifled 120mm gun, which uses different ammo.
Back to the BBC: “Germany also permitted other countries to send their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine – which was restricted until now under export regulations.”
Poland has been itching to send Leopard 2s to Ukraine since very early on in the conflict, but Germany had been dragging its feet until now. Previous German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht was reportedly the clog in the process, and given this came down a week after her departure suggests that was in fact the case.
They’re getting enough Abrams for two plus tank companies (three tank platoons of four tanks each, plus two command tanks), but not enough for a full armor brigade. But add the 14 German Leopard 2s, and presumably you have a force that can rip a hole in any Russian line. Add the already announced Bradleys and other IFVs, and you have a mobile infantry force behind them that can then exploit those holes.
Ukrainian military blogger Denys Davydov seems pretty ecstatic at the news:
He says that Ukraine will be receiving Leopard 2A6 tanks, which are very modern indeed. There are a number of country-specific variants, but they all use the L/55 main gun and modern fire control systems, electronics and composite armor.
He repeats the rumor that Germany refused to send Leopard tanks unless America sends Abrams, which has a fair amount of plausibility. If Russia does go apeshit over the move (doubtful), Germany could always go “Hey, we just followed America’s lead!”
Correction: Davydov states that the Abrams requires jet fuel for the turbine engines. This is false. The Honeywell AGT1500 gas turbine engine powering the M1 does not require jet fuel to operate, it can run on jet fuel, diesel, gasoline, or marine diesel (which used to have a higher sulfur content than regular diesel, though I’m not sure that’s true anymore, and is probably not relevant to usage in Ukraine).
He says the Leopard 2s being sent are in active service with the German army, not in long-term storage.
“We have the common decision from many of the Western allies (Norway, Poland, Germany, and many others, UK obviously, and probably United States, will provide the tanks to Ukrainian.” Indeed, Norway just announced that it is also sending leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
As for his predictions that Ukraine will liberate Crimea come spring, and that this will, in turn, cause the collapse of the Russian federation and drive Putin from power, well, let’s just call them highly speculative.
So too Peter Zeihan (him again) is on the tank news as well:
Some takeaways:
As to why the Germans have been so hesitant, I don’t know if you know your history…
…but the last couple hundred years of history [doesn’t] necessarily put the Germans in the best light. And so the idea that the Germans would ever, in a peaceful environment, decide that they should take a leadership position on military affairs is something that is antithetical, not just to the German population in general, but the government of Scholz specifically. His party is the Social Democrats, and they have basically made their bones in geopolitics about making sure that Germany is never an offensive power at all.
The Leopard 2 is good, but “the Abrams should be more accurately thought of as the pinnacle of armored equipment development. This is a system that is not merely a tank, it’s a weapons system that has several integrated programs within it, some of which the Americans still consider top secret so anything that the United States sends from its arsenal is going to honestly have to be dumbed down a significant amount, and that is going to at a minimum take time.” I think he overstates the case here slightly, because the M1A1 isn’t on the cutting edge the way the M1A2 Sepv3 is, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if their are some systems in there the Pentagon doesn’t want anyone outside to take a look at. On the other hand, there several other nation operators, so this is a solved problem. Also, Abrams have been deployed to Europe as recently as 2020 as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve.
“There are over a dozen countries in Europe that use [Leopard 2s], and everyone except for the Germans has been arguing for sending these things for weeks now. So these the Leopards can actually be on the front lines in Ukraine probably within two or three or four months, which means it can actually make a difference in the coming spring offensive, which will happen in May and June.” My caveat would be that it takes about as long to properly train a Leopard 2 crew as an Abrams crew, and if I were the government of the USA, Poland, etc., I would have already been secretly training Ukrainian crews on Abrams and Leopard 2 simulators.
“You’re talking a minimum of the year, probably closer to three, three to build out the physical support infrastructure to get an appreciable number of Abrams in play.” This is either false or only narrowly true in that it might take 1-3 years to train a single Ukrainian technician to master the complete suite of Abrams repair and maintenance skills. It uses the same main gun ammo, the same 7.62x51mm NATO machine gun ammo (though the Leopard 2 lacks the M2 .50 BMG machine gun, but .50 BMG is hardly difficult to get a hold of), and the same fuel as the Leopard 2, and we’re sending spare parts along. The logistical tail is real, but it overlaps heavily with the Leopard 2. A C-5 Super Galaxy can lift two Abrams tanks, so if it was absolutely a top priority, all 31 Abrams could be delivered tomorrow to Rzeszów–Jasionka Airport less than 100 miles from the Ukrainian border. (More likely is something like shipping from Charleston to Gdansk, which would be about 15 days after all the bureaucratic niceties are observed.)
As always, tank crew effectiveness comes down to training. A good tank crew takes a minimum of six months to become proficient enough to be effective in combat (and most would argue it takes longer). Even if you assume you can shave some time off for Ukrainian tanks crews experienced on Soviet equipment, it still takes a good deal of time to become proficient on either an Abrams or a Leopard 2; two to three months would seem to be the absolute minimum. So unless Ukrainians were already training on Leopard 2s and/or Abrams in secret, I wouldn’t expect to see in the field any until (at the earliest) late April.
(Note: This is partially recycled from a previous post in honor of the 30th anniversary of the battle, but the video is new.)
Thirty years ago, on February 26, 1991, units of the American Second Armored Cavalry Regiment engaged the armor of the Iraqi Republican Guard Tawakalna Division in the Battle of 73 Easting.
The furious action lasted twenty-three minutes. The troop stopped when there was nothing left to shoot. Sporadic contact ranged from nuisance machine gun fire to one company-sized counterattack of T-72s and BMP armored personnel carriers. Tanks and Bradleys destroyed enemy vehicles at long range from the dominating position on the ridge. Three Bradleys from first platoon, led by Lieutenant Michael Petschek, encountered and destroyed four T-72s as they moved north to reestablish physical contact with G Troop. Medics treated and evacuated enemy wounded. Crews cross-leveled ammunition. Mortars suppressed enemy infantry further to the east as our fire support officer, Lieutenant Dan Davis, called in devastating artillery strikes on enemy logistical bases. Scouts and a team under the control of First Sergeant Bill Virrill cleared bunkers using grenades and satchel charges, and then led a much-needed resupply convoy through minefields to our rear. A psychological operations team broadcasted surrender appeals forward of the troop and the troop took the first of hundreds of prisoners including the brigade commander. Soldiers segregated, searched, and secured prisoners through the night. Many prisoners cried because they had not expected such humane treatment; their officers had told them that we would execute them. The prisoners were incredulous when our soldiers returned their wallets without taking any of the money that they had looted from Kuwait City. Just after 2200, 1ID conducted a forward passage of lines in Third Squadron’s area of operation to our south.
The morning after the battle, soldiers were exhausted. Many of the approximately fifty T-72s, twenty-five armored personnel carriers, forty trucks and numerous other vehicles that the troop destroyed were still smoldering. Our troop had taken no casualties.
Other sources say Americans suffered a small number of casualties, but it’s unclear whether these occurred during the Battle of 73 Easting itself, or immediately following it but before the larger engagement of the Battle of Norfolk.
Here’s a video on the battle:
In addition to being an overwhelming victory, and part of the larger overwhelming victory of Desert Storm, the Battle of 73 Easting was important for several other reasons.
For one thing, it was the largest tank battle between American- and Soviet-constructed armor since Israeli M-60 Patton tanks faced off against Egyptian T-62s in Sinai campaign of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. All throughout the 70s and early 1980s, various media outlets talked about how much better Soviet military equipment was than American equipment. (I remember a 60 Minutes episode that talked about Soviet equipment being better “all across the board.”) And Soviet equipment was better—on paper, with thicker armor, higher top speeds, etc. And then 73 Easting happened, and M1A1s wiped the floor with T-72s. A lot of that was American troops being much better trained and led than Iraqi troops. But the Republican Guard was the best the Iraq army had, and on paper the T-72 was a match for the M1A1s. In actual combat, the T-72s started blowing up before they realized the Americans were engaging (and destroying) Iraqi armor at the extreme range of the American computerized fire control systems. Soviet armor still used reticules reticles, where the gunner had to manually calculate distance and windage to put shots on target.
In Vietnam, early computerized combat technology was clunky and unreliable. By the time of Desert Storm, the furious onrush of Moore’s Law had rendered technology smaller, more compact, more reliable, and more user-friendly. By pursuing what Jerry Pournelle called the strategy of technology, the United States was producing weapons that were qualitatively superior to those of its communist foes. That technological gap (especially in the form of SDI) was one of the drivers for the end of the Cold War, and it was on full display in Desert Storm. The Soviet Union itself would dissolve later the same year.
The Battle of 73 Easting has become the single most accurately recorded combat engagement in human history. Army historians and simulation modelers thoroughly interviewed the American participants, and paced the battlefield meter by meter. They came up with a fully interactive, network-capable digital replica of the events at 73 Easting, right down to the last TOW missile and .50-caliber pockmark. Military historians and armchair strategists can now fly over the virtual battlefield in the “stealth vehicle,” the so-called “SIMNET flying carpet,” viewing the 3-D virtual landscape from any angle during any moment of the battle. They can even change the parameters – give the Iraqis infrared targeting scopes, for instance, which they lacked at the time, and which made them sitting ducks for high-tech American M1s charging out of blowing sand. The whole triumphal blitzkrieg can be pondered over repeatedly (gloated over even), in perfect scratch-free digital fidelity. It’s the spirit of Southwest Asia in a digital nutshell. In terms of American military morale, it’s like a ’90s CD remix of some ’60s oldie, rescued from warping vinyl and remade closer to the heart’s desire.
Like Agincourt or Amiens, the Battle of 73 Easting heralded the arrival of a new type of technology to the battlefield, one that every army in the world would henceforth need to take into account.
This time Moran climbs around an M1A1 Abrams tank and talks about his time serving inside one during (I’m assuming) Desert Storm [evidently the Iraq War]. Highlights include how an Iraqi bullet missed his head by three inches, and how a tank designer including a pressure sensor on a loading door kept it from taking his arm off when they forgot to throw the proper safety switch.
Edited to add:
Desert Storm? Why do people keep thinking I'm that old…? Add about 13 years to the story….
Twenty nine years ago today, on February 26, 1991, units of the American Second Armored Cavalry Regiment engaged the armor of the Iraqi Republican Guard Tawakalna Division in the Battle of 73 Easting.
The furious action lasted twenty-three minutes. The troop stopped when there was nothing left to shoot. Sporadic contact ranged from nuisance machine gun fire to one company-sized counterattack of T-72s and BMP armored personnel carriers. Tanks and Bradleys destroyed enemy vehicles at long range from the dominating position on the ridge. Three Bradleys from first platoon, led by Lieutenant Michael Petschek, encountered and destroyed four T-72s as they moved north to reestablish physical contact with G Troop. Medics treated and evacuated enemy wounded. Crews cross-leveled ammunition. Mortars suppressed enemy infantry further to the east as our fire support officer, Lieutenant Dan Davis, called in devastating artillery strikes on enemy logistical bases. Scouts and a team under the control of First Sergeant Bill Virrill cleared bunkers using grenades and satchel charges, and then led a much-needed resupply convoy through minefields to our rear. A psychological operations team broadcasted surrender appeals forward of the troop and the troop took the first of hundreds of prisoners including the brigade commander. Soldiers segregated, searched, and secured prisoners through the night. Many prisoners cried because they had not expected such humane treatment; their officers had told them that we would execute them. The prisoners were incredulous when our soldiers returned their wallets without taking any of the money that they had looted from Kuwait City. Just after 2200, 1ID conducted a forward passage of lines in Third Squadron’s area of operation to our south.
The morning after the battle, soldiers were exhausted. Many of the approximately fifty T-72s, twenty-five armored personnel carriers, forty trucks and numerous other vehicles that the troop destroyed were still smoldering. Our troop had taken no casualties.
Here’s a video on the battle:
In addition to being an overwhelming victory, and part of the larger overwhelming victory of Desert Storm, the Battle of 73 Easting was important for several other reasons.
For one thing, it was the largest tank battle between American- and Soviet-constructed armor since Israeli M-60 Patton tanks faced off against Egyptian T-62s in Sinai campaign of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. All throughout the 70s and early 1980s, various media outlets talked about how much better Soviet military equipment was than American equipment. (I remember a 60 Minutes episode that talked about Soviet equipment being better “all across the board.”) And Soviet equipment was better—on paper, with thicker armor, higher top speeds, etc. And then 73 Easting happened, and M1A1s wiped the floor with T-72s. A lot of that was American troops being much better trained and led than Iraqi troops. But the Republican Guard was the best the Iraq army had, and on paper the T-72 was a match for the M1A1s. In actual combat, the T-72s started blowing up before they realized the Americans were engaging (and destroying) Iraqi armor at the extreme range of the American computerized fire control systems. Soviet armor still used reticules, where the gunner had to manually calculate distance and windage to put shots on target.
In Vietnam, early computerized combat technology was clunky and unreliable. By the time of Desert Storm, the furious onrush of Moore’s Law had rendered technology smaller, more compact, more reliable, and more user-friendly. By pursuing what Jerry Pournelle called the strategy of technology, the United States was producing weapons that were qualitatively superior to those of its communist foes. That technological gap (especially in the form of SDI) was one of the drivers for the end of the Cold War, and it was on full display in Desert Storm. The Soviet Union itself would dissolve later the same year.
The Battle of 73 Easting has become the single most accurately recorded combat engagement in human history. Army historians and simulation modelers thoroughly interviewed the American participants, and paced the battlefield meter by meter. They came up with a fully interactive, network-capable digital replica of the events at 73 Easting, right down to the last TOW missile and .50-caliber pockmark. Military historians and armchair strategists can now fly over the virtual battlefield in the “stealth vehicle,” the so-called “SIMNET flying carpet,” viewing the 3-D virtual landscape from any angle during any moment of the battle. They can even change the parameters – give the Iraqis infrared targeting scopes, for instance, which they lacked at the time, and which made them sitting ducks for high-tech American M1s charging out of blowing sand. The whole triumphal blitzkrieg can be pondered over repeatedly (gloated over even), in perfect scratch-free digital fidelity. It’s the spirit of Southwest Asia in a digital nutshell. In terms of American military morale, it’s like a ’90s CD remix of some ’60s oldie, rescued from warping vinyl and remade closer to the heart’s desire.
Like Agincourt or Amiens, the Battle of 73 Easting heralded the arrival of a new type of technology to the battlefield, one that every army in the world henceforth need to take into account.
