FTXed Up

November 16th, 2022

Let me start out by explaining how cryptocurrency works: You exchange your money for digital strings of numbers based on math you don’t understand, for one of the following reasons:

A. You believe those digital strings of numbers will be worth more money at some point in the future.
B. You want to buy drugs online in a theoretically untraceable manner (said theoretical untraceability being a key property of the math you don’t understand).
C. You want to place your money beyond the reach of your national government.

There are exceptions to the above (say, you’re mining your own cryptocurrency, or you know enough math to understand exactly the mathematical properties of how blockchain-based cryptocurrency works), but I’m going to guess that one of the three above use cases apply to 95% people using cryptocurrency.

I’m somewhat sympathetic to C, and even understand how A might be tempting (hey, crypto has dropped so much I might buy a couple thousand worth of Dogecoin, just for the hell of it, as a pure speculation play), but cryptocurrencies as a whole are not a proven store of worth on par with, say, a bar of gold, a share Apple stock, or a

Is cryptocurrency money? Sort of.

Cryptocurrency offers something that sometimes acts like money, offers anonymity like money, and offers an alternative to government-backed fiat currencies. Instead of being backed by the full faith and credit of the federal government, cryptocurrency is backed by the full faith of millions of technologically savvy individuals who believe the math is sound.

The math may indeed be sound, but that didn’t save it from the loss of investor confidence of the Crypto Winter we’re now experiencing. And that winter is absolutely slamming the business models of people who sought to make crypto more like other forms of money.

Enter Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, whose crypto empire just collapsed.

Here’s the 99 second summary.

Here’s the story in a bit more depth.

Amid all the jubilation and gloating by Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and pals over the Democrats’ better-than-expected showing in the midterms comes a disturbing story that may explain something about how they won such a curious election.

Biden’s second-biggest donor, cryptocurrency billionaire wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried, a k a SBF, saw his business file for bankruptcy days after the election, but not before pumping $40 million into the Democratic Party to spend on “get-out-the-vote” and other shadowy ballot-harvesting mechanics for the midterms.

The shambolic 30-year-old whiz kid, once said to have been worth $16 billion, had spent $10 million helping get Biden elected in 2020.

SBF’s mother, Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, also is co-founder of left-wing political action committee Mind The Gap, which has raised a reported $140 million to help Democrats win elections through the same “get-out-the-vote” grift.

Tree. Acorn. Distances.

A more unlikely billionaire you could not find — and of course his money was built on thin air. A math genius with poor social skills, SBF reportedly lived in a “polycule” — a polyamorous relationship with multiple people — in a luxury penthouse with about 10 co-workers in the tax haven of the Bahamas, where his collapsed crypto exchange FTX was headquartered.

Otherwise, he was sleeping on beanbags in his office, eating vegan fries and, according to his own Twitter feed, popping amphetamines and sleeping pills to regulate his chaotic sleeping habits.

Just the sort of person you want to entrust billions in currency to!

Now Reuters is reporting that between $1 billion and $2 billion of customer funds have vanished from FTX, conveniently after the Democrats safely spent his money.

At last report, SBF and his mysterious co-founder, Gary Wang, were being held “under supervision” by Bahamian authorities after reportedly planning to flee to Dubai, according to fintech publication Cointelegraph.

It is a stunning fall to earth. The financial media and big investors have feted the young billionaire as a saint who shunned earthly pleasures like Lamborghinis and Rolexes, but lived only to give away all his money and make the world a better place.

He was the most famous millennial adherent of a cult known as “Effective Altruism,” which originated at Oxford University, found fertile ground in Silicon Valley — and now has gone down in flames along with him.

“Indulgences! Buy your Social Justice Indulgences here!”

EA is a disguised form of socialism, because all the “good” that is done just happens to match up perfectly with the left’s obsessions, whether climate change, social justice, equity, banning meat or his favorite, “pandemic preparedness.”

In a Nas Daily online video, an awkward Bankman-Fried was featured this year as a role model of altruism for young people: “Sam is not a traditional billionaire because he believes in the concept of ‘earn to give’ … Next decade he will probably give away more than $10 million … He wants to get rich in order to impact the world and change it.”

Some detail snipped.

The sinister neo-socialists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) loved SBF so much, they made FTX a “corporate partner” — but that page on the WEF website has vanished in the last 48 hours, leaving an error message.

Venture capital firm Sequoia was a big backer, investing over $200 million in SBF, a lot of which he then invested back in Sequoia, whose chairman and managing partner Michael Moritz is a big donor to the Dems as well as to anti-Trump hate group the Lincoln Project, and reportedly is a neighbor of Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco.

It’s like a Voltran of Globalist Grift!

One important part the Post piece leaves out is how Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s other firm, was trading billions of dollars from FTX accounts and leveraging the exchange’s native token as collateral, according to a source.”

Embezzling, Ponzi scheme, security and exchange violations…it’s a rich, cross-hatched tapestry of fraud.

Here’s Joe Rogan on the Brokeman-Fraud scandal:

And here’s Ben Shapiro:

Every generation gets the Bernie Madoff it deserves…

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Posted in Communism, Crime, Economics, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, video, Waste and Fraud | 11 Comments »

Ukraine Update for November 15, 2022: Dnipro Crossed?

November 15th, 2022

Right after Kherson city was liberated and spans on the Antonivsky and Nova Kakhkovka bridges blown, a whole lot of commenters went “Well, Ukraine obviously isn’t going to try to cross the Dnipro there, it’s too wide.”

Looks like that assumption might have been in error, as there are already reports that Ukraine has landed on the other side.

The Kinburn Spit is a narrow finger of sand and scrub, barely three miles long, that juts from the wider Kinburn Peninsula into the Black Sea at the mouth of the Dnipro River south of Kherson. It and the adjacent peninsula also are the last parts of Ukraine’s Mykolaiv Oblast that remain under Russian occupation.

Don’t expect that to last. The Kremlin on Wednesday ordered its battered forces on the right bank of the Dnipro to retreat to the river’s opposite bank.

The order came six months after Ukrainian brigades, re-armed with European howitzers and American rocket-launchers, began bombarding Russian supply lines in the south—and two months after those same brigades launched a counteroffensive aimed at liberating Mykolaiv and Kherson Oblasts.

The Ukrainians have the Kinburn Spit in their sights. They’ve got the troops, the equipment … and a plan.

Russian troops seized the Kinburn Spit in mid-June as Russian advances in the south—having already overwhelmed Kherson city—ran into stiff resistance a few miles south of Mykolaiv city. Capturing the spit would turn out to be one of the Russian army’s last victories in the south. The four-month Ukrainian counterlogistics campaign that preceded Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive already was underway.

Kinburn matters. Russian control of the sandy strip “will allow them to exert further control of the Black Sea coast,” the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. explained in June. For the Ukrainians, Kinburn is a back door—a way to get forces onto the left bank of the Dnipro without crossing the river, likely while under fire.

As far back as April, U.K. intelligence agents were advising their government to support Ukrainian forces in any future attempt to “conduct beach reconnaissance” on the Kinburn Spit. The recon could “Identify good landing locations for a larger assault force for a future counterattack,” the agents explained in a presentation that later leaked to the press.

It’s possible Ukrainian special operations forces riding in rigid-hull inflatable boats began reconnoitering the spit as early as September. In October, video circulated online reportedly depicting the Ukrainian navy’s last remaining big ship, the 240-foot amphibious vessel Yuri Olefirenko, apparently firing rockets at Russian forces on or near the spit.

The Ukrainian military’s southern command on Saturday announced its intention to liberate Kinburn. Within a day, there were videos online possibly depicting Ukrainian commandos riding toward the spit in their small boats.

Here’s a video of Ukrainian forces doing just that:

Looks more like a commando raid or a reconnaissance in force. And here’s a video analyzing Russia defensive position on the Spit:

There are unconfirmed reports of other river crossing zones. I’d take those with several grains of salt. But it seems possible. Indeed, there are reports confirming that Russia has indeed bugged out from towns in Kherson south of the Dnipro, like this video of apparently abandoned posts in Oleshky, directly south of the Antonovsky Bridge:

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has evidently confirmed Russia’s pullout from the banks of the Dnipro as well:

Russia is preparing defensive positions in Crimea:

Three areas they’ve prepared defensive lines are on the isthmus just south of Perekop, just south of the Chongar Strait, and even on the Arabat Spit, that tiny bit we talked about having a tiny dirt road here. Says Suchomimus: “It’s a bit of preparedness and foresight we haven’t seen from them so far.”

Peter Zeihan thinks that Crimea is so hard to supply that Russia would be better off abandoning it:

I suspect Putin would rather die that give up Crimea voluntarily.

if all that weren’t enough. there’s the tiny little matter that a Russian missile reportedly strayed into Poland, killing two people.

Pooty Poot certainly knows how to make friends and influence people…

Update: Current thinking seems to be that the Polish missile strike was a Ukrainian ground to air missile that went astray trying to intercept a Russian missile.

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | 3 Comments »

China’s Lockdowns: Even Crazier

November 14th, 2022

Evidently those Chinese Flu Manchu lockdowns are even crazier than we thought:

  • In Hunan, Chinese authorties have built literally hundreds of temporary quarantine facilities on roads “as far as the eye can see.”
  • The Uighurs in Xinjiang (remember them?) have been under continuous lockdown since August 13th.
  • In Xining City in Qinghai province (next to Tibet), some people have been locked down in a wet market for over 40 days.

    • No matter how crazy China seems to get under Xi Jinping, it shows the amazing ability to always get crazier…

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    Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy, video | 8 Comments »

    Veterans Day: Celebrating Ralph Puckett

    November 13th, 2022

    This Veterans Day we celebrate the life of Korean War Medal of Honor winner Colonel Ralph Puckett.

    Selected as the company’s commander, 1st Lt. Puckett had five-and-a-half weeks to train his Rangers before being committed to combat operations. While attached to Task Force Dolvin and leading the advance of the 25th Infantry Division on Nov. 25, 1950, Puckett and his Rangers attacked and secured Hill 205 in the vicinity of Unsan, Korea. Though outnumbered ten to one, Puckett and his Rangers defeated five successive Chinese counterattacks over four hours that night and into the early morning hours of Nov. 26. Finally, on the sixth assault, with supporting artillery fires unavailable, the Ranger company was overrun in hand-to-hand combat. Having suffered multiple serious wounds, Puckett was unable to move. Despite orders to abandon him, fellow Rangers fought their way to his side and evacuated him to safety. For his actions, Puckett was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.​

    Snip.

    Still very active in military affairs and his local community, Puckett lives in Columbus, Georgia, with his wife of 68 years. They have two daughters, one of whom is deceased, a son and six grandchildren. His awards include two Distinguished Service Crosses (one to be upgraded to the Medal of Honor); two Silver Stars; two Legions of Merit; two Bronze Stars with V device for valor; five Purple Hearts; ten Air Medals; the Army Commendation Medal; and the World War II Victory Medal, among others. In addition, he earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge with star, Special Forces Tab, Ranger Tab, Master Parachutist Wings, Glider Badge and Columbian Lancero Ranger Badge.​

    There’s a video that covers what a badass he was taking that hill, including running back and forth to draw sniper and machine gun fire so his troops could pinpoint and take out the enemy. Also, his wife was a schoolgirl who came to visit him in the hospital while he was recovering from his wounds. Twenty-three weeks later they were married.

    In 2021, his Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. Along with Hiroshi H. Miyamura, he’s one of two remaining living medal of Honor recipients from the Korean War.

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    Posted in Media Watch, unions, video | 2 Comments »

    Texas Election Results Roundup for 2022

    November 12th, 2022

    National results were a deep disappointment to Republicans expecting a red wave. What about the results in Texas? Better:

  • Republicans retained all statewide races.
  • Incumbent governor Greg Abbott walloped Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke by about a point less than he walloped Lupe Valdez in 2018, the year O’Rourke got within three points of Ted Cruz in the Texas senate race. 2018’s Betomania seems to have slightly raised the floor for Democrats in various down-ballot races, but not enough for them to be competitive statewide. This is O’Rourke’s third high-profile flameout in five years, and one wonders whether out-of-state contributors are getting wise to the game.
  • Vote totals seem down a bit from 2018, with the governor’s race drawing about 266,000 fewer voters.
  • Incumbent Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick increased the margin by which he beat Mike Collier (also his opponent in 2018) from about five points to about ten points.
  • For all the talk of Ken Paxton being the most vulnerable statewide incumbent, he also won his race over Rochelle Garza by about 10 points, as opposed to a three and half point victory over Justin Nelson (a man so obscure he has no Wikipedia entry) in 2018. (Thought experiment: Could Beto have beaten Paxton this year? My gut says his money would have made it a lot closer than his race with Abbott, but I think he still would have lost by about the same margin he lost to Ted Cruz in 2018. But his lack of a law degree would have worked against him, and I doubt his ego would ever consider running in a down-ballot race like AG…)
  • In the Comptroller, Land Commissioner and Agriculture Commissioner races, Republicans were up a bit around 56%, and Democrats were down a bit more. (And Dawn Buckingham replacing George P. Bush should be a big improvement.)
  • Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian had the biggest spread between him and Democratic opponent Luke Warford, 15 points (55% to 40%).
  • Three Republican statewide judicial race winners (Rebeca Huddle in Supreme Court Place 5, Scott Walker in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5, and Jesse F. McClure in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 6) were the only statewide candidates to garner 4.5 million or more votes (possibly due to the absence of Libertarian candidates).
  • Of three closely watched Texas majority Hispanic house seats, only Monica De La Cruz in TX15 won, while Myra Flores (TX34) and Cassy Garcia (TX28) lost.
  • Though Republicans came up short in those two U.S. congressional seats, statewide they “narrowly expanded their legislative majorities in both the House and Senate.”

    In the House, the GOP grew its ranks by one — giving them an 86-to-64 advantage in the 150-member chamber for the 2023 legislative session. The Senate has 31 members, and Republicans previously outnumbered Democrats 18 to 13. The GOP will hold at least 19 seats next session. Democrats will hold at least 11, though they are leading in one Senate race that is still too close to call.

    The Republicans’ victories were felt prominently in South Texas, where the GOP won key races after targeting the historically Democratic region of Texas after Democratic President Joe Biden underperformed there in 2020.

    In House District 37, now anchored in Harlingen, Republican Janie Lopez beat Democrat Luis Villareal Jr. The seat is currently held by Democratic state Rep. Alex Dominguez, who unsuccessfully ran for state Senate rather than seek reelection. The district was redrawn to cut out many of the Democratic voters in Brownsville from the district to the benefit Republicans. Biden carried District 37 by 17.1 points in 2020 under the old boundaries, but would have won by only 2.2 points under the new map.

    Lopez would be the first Latina Republican to represent the Rio Grande Valley in the House.

    In another major South Texas victory, Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, who defected from the Democratic Party and ran this cycle as a Republican, won reelection handily.

    In another crucial battle in southern Bexar County, which has traditionally been dominated by Democrats, Republican incumbent John Lujan prevailed over Democrat Frank Ramirez, a former San Antonio City Council member.

  • Who did well? Incumbent Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw. Remember this ad from 2020? In addition to Crenshaw winning reelection by some 73,000 votes, August Pfluger and Beth Van Duyne won reelection to their districts, and Wesley Hunt, who ran a close-but-no-cigar race for TX7 in 2020, managed to win the race for newly created TX38 this year. (My guess is that, just like Rep. Byron Donalds (FL19) and Rep. Burgess Owens (UT4), Hunt will be blocked from joining the Congressional Black Caucus.)
  • Is there any sign of black support for Democrats eroding? A bit. In 2018, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (one of the very dimmest bulbs in congress) received 75.3% of the vote from her black and Hispanic majority district. In 2020, she received 73.3%. In 2022 (post redistricting), she received 70.7%. Slow progress, but progress none the less.
  • Unfortunately, corrupt Harris County Democratic head Lina Hidalgo managed to edge her Republican opponent by a mere 15,000 votes.
  • Leftwing fossil Lloyd Doggett was elected to his fifteenth term in congress, crushing his Republican opponent for the newly created 37th congressional district, while communist twerp Greg Casar (formerly of the Austin City Council) was elected to the 35th, formerly Doggett’s prior to redistricting.
  • Tarrant County had been trending more purple recently, going for O’Rourke over Cruz there by about 4,000 votes in 2018, and going for Biden over Trump by a mere 2,000 votes (less than .3%). But Abbott beat O’Rourke there by some 25,000 votes.
  • Jefferson County (Beaumont) is another county that’s flipped back. It went for O’Rourke over Cruz by about 500 votes,and flipped back to Trump over by around 500, but Abbott walloped O’Rouke by over 8,000 votes this year.
  • The runoff in the Austin Mayoral race will be on December 13 between hard lefty Celia Israel, and soft lefty retread Kirk Watson. If Watson picks up a clear majority of third place finisher Jennifer Virden’s voters (which seems likely), he should win.
  • As I mentioned in the Liveblog, the social justice warrior slate beat the conservative slate in Round Rock ISD.
  • This is a side effect of Williamson County, formerly a reliable Republican bulwark, becoming decidedly more liberal as Austin has become a hotbed of radical leftism. Abbott still edged O’Rourke by some 2,000 votes here, but Biden beat Trump by about 4,000 votes in 2020.

    • If 1978 is the year this election reminds me of nationally, then 1984 is the template year for Texas politics. In 1982, Phil Gramm resigned after Democrats threw him off the House Budget Committee (because why would you want a professional economist on a budget committee?), switched parties, and ran for his own vacancy in a special election as a Republican, winning handily.

    Gramm’s switch showed that the time for conservatives to remain welcome in the Democratic Party was drawing to a close, and the way he resigned to run again rather than just switching made him a folk hero among Texas republicans. In 1984, Gramm ran for the senate, walloping Ron Paul, Robert Mosbacher, Jr. (a sharp guy who eventually did better in business than politics) and former Texas gubernatorial candidate Hank Grover in the Republican primary before decisively beating Lloyd Doggett (yep, the same one that’s still in congress) in the general by some 900,000 votes.

    Gramm’s victory showed that the political careers of conservative Democrats who switched to the Republican Party could not only survive, but thrive. Between 1986 and the late 1990s, a series of high profile conservative Texas Democrats (including Kent Hance and Rick Perry) would switch from an increasingly radical Democratic Party to the GOP.

    So too, this year showed that Hispanic Democrats could leave a party increasingly out of tune with people they represented (largely hard-working, law-abiding, entrepreneurial, conservative, and Catholic) for the Republican Party and win. Republicans may not have flipped terribly many seats in south Texas, but except for recent special election-winner Myra Flores, they held their gains.

    The combination of Trump’s distinct appeal to working class Hispanics, deep opposition to disasterous Democratic open borders policies, and Gov. Abbott’s long term dedication to building out Republican infrastructure there have all primed Hispanics to shift to the GOP. Just as it took years for all Texas conservatives and most moderates to abandon the Democratic Party (Republicans wouldn’t sweep statewide offices until 1998), it will take years for the majority of Hispanics to switch.

    But if Democrats continue to push open borders, social justice, radical transgenderism, soft on crime policies, high taxes and socialism, expect Hispanics to make that switch sooner rather than later.

    That’s my Texas race roundup. If you have any notable highlights you think I should have covered, feel free to share them in the comments below.

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 11 Comments »

    Breaking News: Russian Retreat Complete, Kherson City Liberated

    November 11th, 2022

    Yesterday’s post about Russians starting to bug of Kherson Oblast north/west of the Dnipro Rover is already obsolete, as Russia appears to have completed its retreat.

    Russia’s military said on Friday it had completed its withdrawal from Kherson, a lightning-fast retreat of tens of thousands of troops across the Dnipro river in the south of Ukraine.

    Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, one of President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, on Wednesday ordered troops to leave Kherson in a pullout that allows Ukrainian forces to move closer to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

    Russia’s defence ministry said all Russian forces and equipment had been transferred to the eastern bank of the Dnipro. It said the withdrawal was completed by 5 a.m. Moscow time (0200 GMT) on Friday.

    “The transfer of Russian troop units to the left bank of the Dnipro river has been completed,” the defence ministry said in a statement.

    “Not a single unit of military equipment or weapons have been left on the right (western) bank. All Russian servicemen crossed to the left bank,” it added. Russia, it said, had not suffered any loss of personnel or equipment during the withdrawal.

    I’m betting that last paragraph is a huge exaggeration, as we already have reports of wounded Russian soldiers being abandoned in the retreat. And there are already videos of captured equipment:

    Whether it will measure up to Peter Zeihan’s prediction of more equipment captured than in Izyum remains to be seen.

    Livemap shows pretty much all of Kherson Oblast liberated, and reports Ukrainian troops entering Kherson City.

    And Russia blew a span out of the Antonovsky Bridge.

    It appears that the Nova Kakhkovka Bridge has also been blown:

    Right now the Kherson retreat looks like considerably less of a debacle than the rout in Kharkiv. We’ll see how many troops were captured and how much equipment captured after the dust settles.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | 6 Comments »

    Russia Starts Bugging Out

    November 10th, 2022

    Lets look at the news that Russia has announced a complete withdrawal from Kherson oblast north/west of the Dnipro River.

    First up: A big picture overview from Peter Zeihan, that I have some minor to moderate quibbles with.

    Takeaways:

  • Russia has announced withdrawing from the Kherson pocket, which is their only territory west of the Dnipro River.
  • “Reports at this point indicate that the Russians are withdrawing at full speed from all positions.”
  • Not a rout…yet.
  • “Based on whose statistics you’re looking at, they’re somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 Russian forces in the area, but it’s generally accepted on both sides these are the best troops that the Russians have, with the best training and the best equipment.”
  • Those Russians haven’t been properly supplied for a month due to the Kerch Strait Bridge attack. “Which is the only heavy rail connection that can handle freight transport from Russia proper to the southern front.”
  • “Everything now has to come in by truck and the Russians have lost the vast majority of their tactical truck support fleet for the military and are now using civilian vehicles, making them very vulnerable.”
  • “Not enough shells and not enough fuel have been getting to the Kherson front.”
  • One result: For the last two weeks, Ukrainian artillery has received zero counter-battery fire. “So the Ukrainians have just been able to plug away with whatever ammo they have.”
  • “The Ukrainians are being presented with a golden opportunity even if it’s only 20,000 Russian troops that are here. They’re now all in a state of retreat and they all have to go to the same places.”
  • “There are only two bridges across the [Dnipro] river, and the Ukrainians have excellent intelligence on the entire zone, so if the Russians put up a pontoon bridge it usually only lasts for a few minutes before it gets taken out.” I rather strongly suspect that Zeihan is either exaggerating here, or the sources he’s depending on are. It’s a bit too far front the frontlines for easy Excalibur range, and I sincerely doubt Ukrainian observers can get approval for HIMARS strikes within minutes for targets of opportunity. They’re just too expensive, and it’s not like they have huge quantities on hand.
  • “All of the Russians need to go on the same roads and the same intersections, which are all going to be massive kill zones until they reach the bridgeheads, one of which is at Kherson city, and the other one which is at the dam at Nova Kakhkovka.”
  • “The Ukrainians have been hitting these bridges with rocket fire for weeks, and they can’t handle heavy equipment any more.” Here Zeihan’s information is out of date; Russia has successfully repaired the bridge at Nova Kakhkovka using aggregate fill, which means it probably can be used for Russian heavy equipment to escape. See the video below for more details.
  • “Which means the Russians are going to have to make a massive parking jam at the bridgehead, dismount, and then run across while under artillery fire the entire time. The casualties are going to be immense, and that’s the best case scenario.”
  • “Best guess is that not only are the Russians going to be leaving behind their best gear, but they’re leaving behind more gear than what Ukrainians captured from the Russians in the Izyum assault back in September.” In this I also think Zeihan is overly optimistic. Russia has fought this war very stupidly for the first six months, and the disordered flight from Izyum, leaving so much equipment behind, should never have happened with a competent plan for a fighting retreat. By contrast, all the evidence we have from Kherson (again, see the video below) suggests that Russia is planning a fairly competent and orderly retreat, especially with the ability to use the Nova Kakhkovka bridge. Will Russia leave a lot of good kit behind in Kherson? Probably. Will they leave more behind than Izyum? For that I’m very skeptical. Then again, the Russian military has constantly surprised me with the depths of their incompetence over the past eight months…
  • “The Ukrainians are likely to enter the war by May with a tank and artillery force that’s more than five times its strength on the first day of the war.” For tanks, I think this figure is greatly exaggerated. According to Oryx, Ukraine has captured 503 tanks total, and they had more than that in active service. For artillery, though still unlikely, it seems a bit more plausible, as Ukraine started with less and Russia has tons and tons of towed artillery, which is exactly the sort of thing that’s going to get left behind in a hasty retreat.
  • “The Russians have already used the majority of their missile and tank forces, which began this war as the world’s largest.” That, I think, is accurate. Russia has been expending smart ordinance at a furious rate, and with sanctions, it doesn’t have the technological base to easily replace them.
  • “The Kherson withdrawal, and the likely rout to come, does mark the end of any hope the Russians had of regaining any sort of strategic initiative, or any sort of meaningful offensive operations, until at least to May. It’ll take them at least that long to bring in fresh troops and fresh gear.”
  • “In that time, the Ukrainians are not going to sit on their hands. They don’t have to cross the river to strike at the Russians. Once they get to the river, the long-range rockets and artillery are going to be able to target the isthmus, which is only about three kilometers wide, that connects the Ukrainian mainland to the Crimean peninsula.” On the Deep State map, I get closer to 9km just south of Perekop. Plus the Chongar strait bridge, which will be in HIMARS range. Plus the rail bridge just south of Syvash. Plus the little road southwest of Vasylivka crossing, which looks too small and precarious to support heavy traffic. Ditto the long, skinny road that runs down the Arabat Spit that separates the Sea of Azov from the Syvash Lake (AKA Rotten Lake), which appears to be a literal dirt road more suitable for dirt biking that main battle tanks. (Actually, there appear to be several weird little dyke-top roads that separate different segments of the Syvash Lake, though none really look up to military duty.)
  • “Because the Kerch rail bridge is out, Russia cannot only not bring in ammo and troops and fuel, it can’t bring in food. Their only other option are some very light rail and road connections across that isthmus, coming from the rest of occupied Ukraine, all of which Ukraine will still be able to strike.”
  • “In capturing Kherson, the Ukrainians are going to be able to cut the water flows to the Crimea canal, and water from that canal is solely responsible for three-quarters of the food grown in Crimea. So no imported food, little grown food. Russia is either going to have to evacuate the entire peninsula by car across the Kerch bridge’s remaining road span, or suffer a 1980s Ethiopia style famine.” Here again I think Zeihan exaggerates, as Russia will still be able to bring in food via ship across the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov. Crimeans could well be looking at a very lean year, maybe even Siege of Saint Petersburg lean, but that’s not “Ethiopians dropping dead of famine” lean.

    • Next up: Suchomimus offers a detailed map update. Zeihan is a geopolitical generalist jack of all trades, but detailed video and geolocation analysis is all Suchomimus does.

    Takeaways:

  • Russia has blown up most (probably all) of the bridges over the Inhulets River.
  • Russia has several ferries to run troops and equipment over the Dnipro, along with rallying point to stage units for withdrawal. Some of the staging areas have been hit by Ukrainian artillery, but satellite photos show Russian forces spread out in those areas to minimize damage.
  • No evidence of heavy vehicles using those ferries yet. “It’s unknown if these ferries and barges can actually support anything heavier or not, and if they can, it’s likely they can only carry one at a time.”
  • There are two ferry loading points in Kherson city itself.
  • There are also Russian Raptor class patrol boats operating in the Dnipro, which makes sense.
  • The southern bank shows several unloading spots. “This shows the ferry unloading spots, as well as a number of defensive positions trenches and earth walls which have been constructed. This point is reported to be less used than it was because of numerous calls from Mr. HIMARS. But it’s still heavily defended with trenches.”
  • As mentioned above, Russia has repaired the Nova Kakhkovka bridge over the Dnipro River using fill materials. “The main bridge is fully repaired, and there are three smaller and lighter bridges, so this is the only real crossing point…there’s no way to move heavy vehicles other than the ferries, and we’ve only seen light trucks on those so far on the Eastern side. Nova Kakhkovka is the only real option, so they are in a bit of a pickle, at least when it comes to getting heavy vehicles back across.”
  • “I expect the priority will be holding Nova Kakhkovka for as long as possible.”
  • Russia has constructed no less than three successive prepared defensive lines on the south/east side of the Dnipro.

    • Finally, after a month of almost no significant Kherson updates, are we seeing frontline movement indicating a Russian withdrawal? Oh yeah. Here’s Kherson at 4:04 AM Ukrainian time today:

    And here it is at 11:37 AM:

    That looks pretty dramatic to me…

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | 5 Comments »

    A Red Trickle

    November 9th, 2022

    When the data ends up giving you results that are different than what you expected, it’s time to step back and try to figure out whether your data is wrong or your theory is wrong.

    The theory was that Republicans were going to enjoy a red wave election year, with some analysts going so far as to predict a red tsunami.

    That didn’t happen.

    Republicans will probably take the House, while control of the senate might not be decided until the Georgia runoff, and Republicans seem to have lost a couple of governorships.

    Other widely hailed trends that didn’t happen:

  • There seemed to be no dramatic swing in Hispanic votes toward the GOP.
  • There seemed to be no notable movement of white suburban women back into the GOP fold.
  • Independents did not seem break dramatically for the GOP either.

    • The only place Republicans really seemed to have overperformed is in Florida, where DeSantis whomped turncoat Charlie Crist in the governor’s race (a far cry from the squeaker he won against Andrew “Gay Meth Orgy” Gillum in 2018), and added either four or five U.S. House seats. (They say four, but seem to be counting FL28 (a newly created seat) as a GOP “hold.”)

    If there’s a previous election year this reminds me of, it’s 1978. Despite raging inflation and Jimmy Carter’s feckless policies, Republicans picked up only three senate seats and 15 house seats. (Remember, this was a time when Democrats held a much larger advantage in the House than today.) They would do much better in 1980.

    But so far, 2022 is a big disappointment for Republicans.

    One evergreen takeaway: Never trust polls, no matter whether they’re good or bad for your side.

    Tomorrow: A closer look at Texas results.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans | 6 Comments »

    Liveblogging the 2022 Election

    November 8th, 2022

    Right now Republicans in 2022 are looking like a Kickstarter that hit their initial funding ask, but didn’t hit any of their stretch goals…

    Republican John Kennedy avoids a runoff in Louisiana. NY Post/RCP: “Republicans were expected to pick up three Senate seats from Democrats, gaining a 53-47 majority after two years out of power, according to the latest projection by RealClearPolitics. The same outlet predicts the GOP will regain their House majority by winning at least 227 seats.”

    “Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria has lost her bid for re-election in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district to Republican State Sen. Jen Kiggans. Luria, a veteran naval officer, was elected to the House of Representatives as part of a Democratic wave in 2018. In the past year, she has risen in prominence as a member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.”

    Yeah, you can see how important voters found the January 6 farce.

    Going off to walk my dogs. Republicans had a good night, and will likely take the House and Senate, but not any better than you might expect in a regular midterm, and not nearly as much as you might expect with a president as unpopular as Biden.

    Beto concedes. So long, and thanks for the $160 million!

    Cahill, U.S. Marshall. Must be George Kennedy Night.

    Paxton back up over Garza.

    Beto O’Rourke’s livecam is running on a 56K modem.

    Abbott giving a victory speech.

    J. D. Vance projected winner in Ohio, and flip from the way-to-early returns.

    Republicans behind in those south Texas US congressional seats.

    Walker leading Warnock in GA. According to Telemundo. Because with mute, it isn’t any less informative.

    The ABC network dude looks like he has a haircut from Frank Gehry.

    Ha! DeSantis is WALLOPING Charlie Crist, 60%-40%

    So far not a good night for Republicans in Arizona.

    Eric Scmitt wins in Missouri.

    Chris Sununu looks like football pundit Peter King.

    Honestly, I’m seeing a red wave, but not the red tsunami some were predicting in the last week.

    Williamson County judge too close to call. Possibly headed to a runoff.

    Dan Patrick now up much more substantially in TXLT GOV race.

    Kemp wins in Georgia. Barring any 3 AM pipe breaks.

    Unfortunately, the Social Justice Warrior slate is up in RRISD races.

    Six years later, and we’re still laughing at the Jeb! meme.

    Pause while I get the doggies some food.

    OMG! Ron Paul is up 3 points!

    Now Patrick is leading Collier.

    KVUE is talking as though Beto might win. Nah, he’s toast.

    Austin commie twerp Greg Cesar is headed to the U.S. House. On behalf of Texas, we apologize in advance.

    Garza up just slightly over Paxton. Still early.

    KVUE’s team is sortof crap, but still better than anything else on.

    Abbott only wolloping Bobby Francis by 8 points right now.
    Collier/Patrick tied for Texas Lt. Gov. right now. Early votes tend to favor Dems, though.

    Looking like an Israel-Watson runoff in Austin mayor’s race.

    Democratic incumbent Bennet, he of the Presidential flameout, up big in Colorado.

    Election coverage, or the car wash scene from Cool Hand Luke? Circle, verily you tempt me!

    The people of News 24 are really blathering.

    Back. Had to lightly punch someone up request.

    Guam goes Republican!

    Sununu, DeSantis and Rubio all winning headily.

    Scury County recording ZERO votes for Dan Patrick? I call Shenanigans.

    VA7 flipping red.

    Chip Roy is crushing his opponent right now.

    Too early for meaningful Texas results.

    Stand by. We’re on the air.

    CNN’s exit polls are disasterous for Democrats.

    Charlie Crist: Less popular than Jeb!

    Back from voting. I’ve never seen higher turnout for a midterm, and possibly never higher turnout even for a Presidential year.

    “In a shocking turn of events, data analysts at Fox News have called the gubernatorial race in Arizona for Stacey Abrams.”

    538 now gives Dr. Oz the edge over Fetterman. But is it beyond the range of Philadelphia fraud?

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    Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

    Election Day! Go Vote!

    November 8th, 2022

    Today’s the day! Grab your voter registration card and ID and go vote!

    Voting Locations:

  • Williamson County (you can now vote in any location for any precinct)
  • Travis County

    • If you’re in Round Rock ISD, read this.

    Also, come back here around 7 PM, when I’ll start liveblogging the election.

    Last minute voting recommendations:

  • For ACC District, vote for Nathaniel Hellman, because I see Steve Jackobs signs right next to Beto signs in my neighborhood.
  • For North Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 Director, Place 4, vote for Diana Christiano over Jackie Oltremari, because the later has signs for the the RRISD social justice warrior slate on her lawn.

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    Posted in Austin, Elections, Texas | No Comments »

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