TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2993. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
MILITARY & STRATEGIC:
GROWING CONFIDENCE IN A DEMOCRATIC VICTORY
We all know how important the coming election is in the US. We are quite literally faced with a fork in the road - one side takes us down a dark and dangerous path towards a semi-fascist autocracy and the other is the real America that despite its many flaws is a decent and honest democrat at its core. It’s a truly shocking difference in possible futures.
However I am ever more certain that Kamala Harris will win the presidency. I am growing more certain that the Democrats will regain the House, and just about hold onto the Senate with a 50-50 (the Vice President is President of the Senate and casts the tie breaker, so Democrats would hold it that way). There’s even a possibility they may hold it 51-49.
The reason I think this, having just spent the morning and early afternoon online with my colleagues over there, is a slew of new polls that are quite different from the usual ones. These are very granular and observe the key districts in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Nebraska 2nd District, Michigan and Wisconsin.
What makes these polls so special is they are only usually run at two points - one in July and one now. Many of the big polling companies ignore them because they lack frequency, but Democrats are over the moon with the positivity and we know the Republicans are in full panic mode.
How do we know the Trump cult is worried? On Friday, 27 pro-Republican polls were released, all of them showing Trump winning. We already know that the source is pro-Trump because they always have been. In most cases they only poll Republicans and add a handful of democrats to make it look real. The purpose of these polls isn’t to convince the media or Trump supporters, its to skew the polling averages and create a false impression.
Why do they need to create the false impression of an impending victory? This is just one of those key tenets of fascism - skew the perception of the truth to suit your agenda. Trump has a money problem. He hasn’t raised anything like the staggering $1 billion plus (and that’s just from small donors), that the Democrats have. They don’t have the money and with ever more indications that they’re losing, coupled to Trump’s inability to speak with a civil tongue in his head without resorting to racial invective and mad theories only the paid up cult members believe, the donors are keeping their wallets shut. There are only so many people wanting to buy golden assassination edition sneakers for $500 or knock off Chinese watches for $100k, or a Donald Trump bible for $99, or a $100 glass Melania in a wedding dress ‘collectibles’.
It doesn’t help that yesterday the man with the couch habit and potential Vice-President ‘Shady’ JD Vance, when asked who the most important person was going to be in the next Trump administration, gave a deeply disturbing technical answer: The Attorney General, because the new administration will need to find and prosecute Trumps political, media, and ‘deep state’ opponents to make America ‘free’ again. This concept is not an America George Washington, or any of the other founders would have imagined when they wrote the constitution.
But we’re not giving them enough to win, merely survive. So something has to change.
This has to be the message, we need to get this out to everyone.
Military aid is great. But do you want Ukraine to win or merely survive and face an unjust peace, with no real security dictated by Putin?
If the answer is no, then campaign for victory aid is the answer.
I shall make it my mission to get anyone who will listen to understand the simple message, do you want Ukraine to win or not? Then step up if you do.
‘The Analyst’ MilStratOnX
Ukraine 🇺🇦 Must Win!
MILITARY & STRATEGIC:
KURSK & TORETSK
The situation in Kursk is beginning to seem a little odd.
The Russians have made some advances from the west but they haven’t really been trying very hard - it’s not clear why. They had this under control then stopped.
It wasn’t anything the Ukrainians did in the salient so the assumption is they ran out of ammo - being the most northern part of the front they were likely being supplied from the ammo depots Ukraine destroyed first as they were closest and would have been first to feel it. Given the speed at which they were deployed there were no stocks to cushion the cut off.
Ukrainians in Kursk are in no position to resume an offensive so they’re gaining time to establish defensive points.
The other aspect of the Russian operation is they are not under military command - it’s under FSB control, and Putin for reasons that remain speculation but make sense (only if you think like a Russian dictator), is seemingly unwilling to appoint an individual to oversee the operation. Think along the lines of, this is Russian land, being liberated by Russians and therefore whoever commands it will be seen as a hero and popular. Popular isn’t good when the only person allowed to be popular is Putin.
Meanwhile it’s no secret anymore that there’s a lot of questions being asked about Kursk in Moscow and nobody really understands why it hasn’t been dealt with.
Meanwhile in Toretsk, the Ukrainians managed to stop the Russians employing another of their spike attacks.
This involved a narrow push with assault troops to enter the city centre and roll up the high rise buildings that run east-west along its ‘spine’. This would have given them fire control over everything else and made it impossible to operate in the town, with Ukrainian forces split in two. Once established the spike spreads out from the centre - they’ve used this tactic successfully multiple times now.
However the Ukrainians have developed a solution.
Firstly, once you spot the spike developing you prevent it from moving forward using repeated counter attacks. You destroy the momentum by reducing the buildings in this case, that the Russians plan to take, to rubble.
Then, using drones to pin the Russians in the stem of the spike down, to a point where they were too afraid to even look out of a window there were so many drones waiting for them. One got stuck trying to get in through a window and the drone blew him in half.
Then the Ukrainian elite assault troops move in and root them out.
This completely collapsed the Russian plan to quickly take Toretsk and it remains in Ukrainian hands. It was a tough fight, literally room to room stairwell to landing search and eradicate.
Overall the Russians seem to have been suffering from a mixture of exhaustion, low morale and unquestionably the ammo shortages have caught up. This has provided a breathing space for the Ukrainians they really need. The ammo shortages will not last - a month at most I suspect - but by then the weather will hopefully have changed.
The weather currently is still between 13-23c along most of the frontline during a day. It’s unseasonably warm and dry with mostly clear skies. Ideal military operations weather without intense heat, and the ground is solid. The Russians will be very disappointed they can’t maximise the opportunity it provides.
Elsewhere I’m repeatedly hearing that the Zelensky Victory Plan is more than it seems and those few who have seen it say it ‘could’ work.
You know my view of plans, nothing goes wrong like one and few ever survive the reality of combat.
That there is a plan is both a morale boosting strategy for anyone involved in the fighting and shows they’re still trying to ensure a win
80% of Ukrainians allegedly, say they think they can win if given enough to do the job.
“There are still some who blame this war not on Putin’s lust for power but on Ukraine’s thirst for freedom, so I want to ask them: would they ever blame the Hungarians for the Soviet invasion in 1956? There is no European language where peace is synonymous with surrender and sovereignty is synonymous with occupation.” - these were the exact words with which Ursula von der Leyen addressed Viktor Orban.
This happened in response to the Hungarian prime minister's anti-European and anti-Ukrainian statements.
In addition, in the European Parliament, in protest against Hungary, a group of deputies sang the famous partisan song “Bella Ciao”.
Pleased that Orban is still catching hell today
When has he stepped out of it?
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/jd-vance-just-stepped-in-it-again-2/58534/
The fire at the oil depot in Feodosia, occupied Crimea, has ended after six days.
The fire affected 12 tanks, of which 8 were completely destroyed. Buildings on the territory were also burned.
UK SHAME ON SANCTIONS BUSTERS
The United Kingdom Treasury has opened 52 cases against companies in the UK responsible for breaking sanctions arrangements. These are mostly in relation to oil shipping and insurance for ships carrying Russian oil.
Of the 52 cases 15 have been closed - and not one has been fined or prosecuted despite all of them allegedly having carried out at the minimum, a technical breach.
The remaining 37 cases are still under investigation.
The UK has a far too cosy relationship between government, MP’s and the industry. Lloyds of London is the principal ship insurance market globally - and insurance is provided through firms who are paid large sums - of which profit is exceptionally high, unless a claim is made.
Theoretically those profits should be invested to pay any claims which can run into billions of pounds.
However those firms use what are called ‘Names’. These are individuals - many of them MP’s and wealthy individuals from all walks of business and politics, as well as global investors who are offered the possibility of being a ‘Name’.
These Names sign an agreement that places them as financially responsible for paying any claims in full if there is no money left from invested profits or reinsured assets to pay a claim.
In return they are paid dividends from the profits each year. It’s a very lucrative business.
However it doesn’t always work out.
For example if insurance company X insures a Russian oil tanker carrying crude that runs aground say in the English Channel, it breaks up in a storm and pollutes vast areas in the UK, France and Belgium, then X has to pay for the clean up. It might have £1.5 billion in assets it can liquidate to pay the bill. If the bill is £4 billion, it then turns to its Names to provide the money. The claim isn’t made based on your wealth it’s based on you being responsible in full for your percentage. If you are one of 1000 Names in that firm then you are responsible for 1/1000 of £2.5 billion - so £2.5 million. If you don’t have the cash you have to sell everything you own or raise the money somehow to offset your contribution. Many Names go bankrupt in such circumstances. Yet they’re very happy to take the profits when they’re being paid out.
Becoming a Name is like a right of social passage for top executives and long term MP’s and so on. The House of Lords is riddled with them.
The fact is that nobody in that ‘class’ want to be the first to see another one of their network prosecuted because it could just as easily be them. This is a case where those who make the decision on prosecution are just as likely to be a Name as the person they are expected to prosecute. So of course, it tends not to happen. It’s a long standing and miserable aspect of the British class and fiscal system that spreads its ugly tentacles from the City of London.
That is also its own problem. The City of London ‘the Square Mile’, is a political and legal institution that answers to nobody and has its own unique and very separate police force and administration few are even aware of. In fact in legal terms it’s almost a separate country inside London. Its ability to isolate financial interests is staggering.
This is why nothing ever happens and if anything ever does it’s usually just the minimum to make it appear as if something is being done.
This is the problem with ever getting sanctions and financial penalties imposed on those who breach them. It is the quintessential old boy network but in the modern age, Names can be almost anyone who knows the right people in the right places.
It is a form of corruption, state sanctioned and yet almost never discussed or debated. One of those ‘things’ that has developed over hundreds of years and still gives the UK control over almost 30% of global finance and private wealth management.
The Russians didn’t choose London just because of the shops.
5 questions. With NAACP legal fund president.
https://open.substack.com/pub/joycevance/p/five-questions-with-janai-nelson?r=70k1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
A passenger on the "Intercity" train from Kramatorsk to Kyiv is Vasyl the cat, who spent a year at the positions in the Serebryansk Forest alongside the "Bureviy" brigade
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I feel the need to defend raw milk. It's good stuff as long as you carefully wash and rinse the cow's udder. I would not trust a MAGA to do that correctly.
Jeff Tiedrich. - The week in stupid
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/this-week-in-stupid-october-12-edition
A list of things DeathSantis HAS regulated. Cranes not among them. Which explains why a crane crashed into an office building during Milton.
Where there is love, there is hope❤️
Source: Oriannalyla
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Russian Su-34 supersonic fighter-bomber allegedly shot down by F-16.
Several russian milbloggers claim that a Su-34 was shot down during an air bomb drop about 50 km from the front line by an F-16, and even claiming that "NATO has sent the F-16 to hunt."
The Z-channels therefore predict that their attacks with FAB glide bombs will be disturbed and their infantry will suffer even more more losses.
"Our Su-34 was shot down. The crew was killed. The airplane was shot down while dropping glide bombs, about 50 km from the front line. Our Su-34 was shot down apparently by an F-16, which was over enemy-controlled territory. There will be more such losses soon. NATO has released F-16s for hunting. Now there will be less FABs flying. Consequently, the losses of our infantry will increase."
There is no confirmation yet, but we keep fingers crossed.
@freerussia_report
Activist Disrupts Hungarian PM's EU Presidency News Conference In France.
An activist and municipal councilor for a Hungarian opposition party disrupted a news conference in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was laying out his plans for Hungary’s six-month presidency of the European Union.
Márton Gyekiczki, interrupted Orbán as he was speaking about his opposition to immigration, running toward the podium where Orbán sat and throwing a stack of what appeared to be banknotes at the prime minister.
“How much did you sell out the country for? How much did you sell out the country for, Mr. Prime Minister?”, Gyekiczki yelled as the papers scattered. “He sold out to Putin, he sold out to Xi Jinping!”
The president of the Democratic Coalition party, former Prime Minister Ference Gyurcsány, later wrote on social media that he was “proud” of Gyekiczki for his actions. “We will say it everywhere and always: Hungary has a traitorous government!”
The reference about "sold to China" gets understandable when taking into consideration that Chinese police is now allowed to act legally in Hungary. This gives the Chinese regime the possibility to control and spy on their citizens legally, especially dissidents. In 2022 the Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders denounced that China is operating almost 40 illegal police stations in the EU, targeting and seeking to intimidate mainly political dissidents and members of persecuted communities.
Moreover China is very interested in using Orban the same way as Putin - to influence the EU and get a foot inside. For Orban it's all about the money. China gets an important bridgehead in conquering European markets, Orban gets some sort of a 'strategic corruption' framework agreement with China, like the Budapest-Belgrade railway line renovation, covered to 85% by Chinese loans. It might take an entire century to pay back in full, and the regime "can take out several billion euros a year."
Meanwhile, EU officials have already stated they are looking to limit China's economic aspirations in Europe.
Orban got also thunder from Ursula von der Leyen in a fiery clash at the European Parliament.
“There are still some who blame this war not on Putin’s lust for power but on Ukraine’s thirst for freedom, so I want to ask them: would they ever blame the Hungarians for the Soviet invasion in 1956? There is no European language where peace is synonymous with surrender and sovereignty is synonymous with occupation.”
On Wednesday, some in the European Parliament fired back with a song. After his speech some members started singing “Bella Ciao,” an Italian antifascist resistance song from the World War II-era.
“You are not welcome here,” Terry Reintke, the co-leader of the Greens Party in the European Parliament, told Mr. Orban. “This is the house of European democracy.”
The champion for “illiberal democracy” again called for a change of policy and supported Putin painting a bleak future of an EU "falling apart." Also reiterated his support of Trump saying "We will open several bottles of Champagne if Trump is back,” at a news conference.
'Make Europe Great Again' is Orban's motto in lend-lease. I agree, start with suspending voting rights of every member country that is violating the rule of law.
🇪🇺@EU_Report 🇭🇺
@freerussia_report
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2993. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
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