billbindc

That guy who pulled the alarm is an idiot and pretty much the single Dem to buck leadership on the CR. No quibble with that one.

I would respectfully suggest that the guy who made a budget deal during the debt ceiling negotiations and reneged on it, or the guy who intentionally separated out Ukraine aid and attached it to very controversial border legislation, or the guy who could have won many Democratic 'present' votes with small concessions and chose not to is perhaps not the best source for what happened yesterday. For instance, pretty much every characterization of the CR bill above is wrong. Anyway, the king is dead and any of his likely replacements (Emmer, Scalise, McHenry) have been fairly strong supporters of Ukraine. As I understand it, there was a deal ready to go before McCarthy mucked it up that is still on the table for a clean vote. As a one vote motion to vacate is likely off the table for any new Speaker, I suspect we'll see that aid come through forthwith barring the usual caveats about bad bounces, etc.

McCarthy did a lot worse than that. He actually attacked Dems on Sunday on Face the Nation claiming they tried to shut down the government when it is only open bc Democrats provided 2/3rds of the votes. This wasn’t a murder, it was a suicide.

Sure didn't. What happened is that McCarthy went on tv all weekend and blamed the Democrats for everything...including claiming on Sunday that Democrats wanted a government shutdown after they almost unanimously saved us from the last one with less than half of the GOP votes. He then refused to even talk to them until his underlings raced all over the Hill this morning offering things Democrats knew he couldn't deliver. Even then, if McCarthy had tried just a little bit he could have managed to get some 'present' votes from Democrats to save his seat. He didn't bother and continued to publicly attack them. So...my mea culpa is that I had expected McCarthy to show just a bit of nous to save his job. Alas. P.S. Of relevance to this board is something you won't read about much...McCarthy was trying to tie Ukraine aid directly to the most MAGA border package possible. There's no chance in hell such a bill could pass the Senate.

I would be curious to hear your opinion taking as a given that Xi has already realized that China is not going to over take the US economy, that the demographic bomb has already gone off and will get far worse every decade going forward, that American military abilities are being recalibrated at speed to be specialized expressly to face China and that Chinas diplomatic/Belt and Road initiatives have failed signally to achieve the PRC's geopolitical goals.

Alison doesn't lack sufficient imagination. Alison has superior local knowledge. China locked down it's population during covid for reasons beyond epidemiology. It was to both demonstrate to the West and prove to itself that state capacity was such that it could exert that level of control on its population for a year or more during a significant crisis. Dam busting on that scale is just a one-weird-trick approach to the threat China poses to Taiwan. You'd be better off leaving it to late night tv where it belongs.

Well said. This tracks with everything I hear and if anything, the people who follow the PRC the most closely now seem the most certain that the scenario you posit above is most likely. Xi's regime has realized that they aren't America in 1940, they are Germany in 1913. They've peaked as a power too early and their moment is passing. They are not the sort of regime that will take that philosophically. I would add, however that things are not hopeless for Taiwan. China has managed to deprive itself of any friends in the world and has united its neighbors as enemies. South Korea, Japan and the United States have clearly concluded that this is a war they mean to fight.

I think this is a pretty good summary of what's likely to happen: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/01/McCarthy-Gaetz-speakership-battle-00119355 My one caveat is that I think it overstates Gaetz's influence when/if he loses the first motion to vacate.

But the dance next month will be defined by the realization among the (too-conservative-for-me but) generally sane majority of Republicans in the House that to retain some semblance of order in the House they have to keep McCarthy and to keep McCarthy they need Democratic votes to stifle their own bomb throwers. There's already talk on the Hill among Republicans to cooperate with Democrats to change the rule so that motions to vacate will be nullified. With a half decent bounce or two, things are about to get a lot less crazy in the House.

Similar to Wedgewood's "30 Years War" in that respect. At Calw the pastor saw a woman gnawing the raw flesh of a dead horse on which a hungry dog and some ravens were also feeding. In Alsace the bodies of criminals were torn from the gallows and devoured; in Zweibrücken a woman confessed to having eaten her child. Acorns, goats' skins, grass, were all cooked in Alsace; cats, dogs, and rats were sold in the market at Worms. In Fulda and Coburg and near Frankfort and the great refugee camp, men went in terror of being killed and eaten by those maddened by hunger. Near Worms hands and feet were found half cooked in a gipsies' cauldron. Not far from Wertheim human bones were discovered in a pit, fresh, fleshless, sucked to the marrow.

Simply put, control of just over 1/2 of 1/3rd of the US government isn't really enough to stop what the rest of it wants. There will be some delays in votes and some bumps along the way buy what has happened in the House is ultimately a good thing for Ukraine. The Putin wing of the House GOP caucus just tried to shut down the government, overstepped politically and failed. This coming week, there will be a motion to vacate the Speaker's chair and Democrats very likely step in to save McCarthy as there aren't really the vote in the GOP caucus for anyone else would take the job if they won it. The price of that action will be aid to Ukraine. Finis.

Still very thin. I'm billbindc at both Twitter and blue sky but still really on the former. I will bail as soon as Musk demands (as he plans to) some form of ID to confirm your account or asks for a penny to have a non-validated account. I suspect that's what will kill the site and perforce create the next thing.

Yeah, pretty bad now. I'm on blue sky and hoping that's where the best Ukraine commentary ends up. We'll see.

Germany, AfD, etc.

Someone is clearly leaking a particular version of events to media and only some media in the usual country(s) is picking it up. Why? Because that scenario looks quite a bit like a Russian disinformation operation.

Why the expertise on this board is the best: Exhibit Bajillion, above.

Aren't your tanks still at the mercy of highly distributed man portable AAWS in a five mile radius from any tank asset? How is there ever going to be enough ISR for that? And how will there ever be enough to protect the logistical tail of those tanks?

Pelosi and McConnell ran/run a very tight ship. Not likeable people, to be sure, but they delivered tough votes routinely. McCarthy is simply not of that caliber and it's likely that aid to Ukraine suffers for it.

My point would be that Chechnya as currently ruled requires little attention from Moscow. Putin and Kadyrov know each others footwork, needs and limitations. Things run themselves. Even a fairly stable Chechnya will spend some time demanding a lot more attention from a Moscow that has its hands quite full already. That was my point about drag. Even best case, Putin will be feeling it.

Double, somehow.

Thanks for the refs, friends.

A question for the group: where would you find good analysis of Russian cyber operations in this war, what the Russians have done or not done, impacts, Ukraine reaction?

The silovik state operates under a system of understandings. Those will have to be renegotiated as the old ones will go into the ground with Kadyrov. Putin will be forced to let someone else into his inner circle, competitive forces will be released within the Chechen system, etc. It will be yet another complication, yet another distraction and likely a further reduction in state capacity emanating from Putin's office. I don't expect something dramatic to change at first but more like increased systemic drag.

I feel like we should be celebrating more that Kadyrov is very likely dead.

Luttwak is a profoundly silly person. Edited to add yet another dumb thing he uttered today: