I have no military experience, other than a lifetime of reading military history and an obsessive’s facility for identifying World War II planes, tanks and ships.

Take everything I say with a grain – what the heck, a block – of salt.

But I’m going to indulge in a little pointless speculation about the war in Ukraine.

When discussing a war where both sides are experts at propaganda and warping public perception, trying to comment on anything in “the news” with any certitude is a fool’s errand.

Noted. I am that fool, and for right now it is my errand.

He Who Forgets: The thought of being able to win an easy – or at least easier – victory by taking out a key objective – the enemty’s leadership, capitol, or a key defense – is one of those things that keeps millitary planners busy dreaming.

In some cases – the US drives to Baghdad in 2003, or the German airborne assault on Fort Eben Emaël, in Belgium in June of 1940 – it works.

But not always.

In April, 1940, as part of Germany’s invasion of Norway, a Navy task force raced up Oslo Fjord; it’s mission was to land an invasion force on the Oslo waterfront to seize the. Storting (Parliament) and capture King Håkon and his administration, giving him a choice of capitulation and serving as a puppet (as his cousin, Christian X of Denmark, in effect did) or something much less pleasant.

On the final approach to Oslo, 15-20 miles south of the capital, in one old coastal fort (Oscarsborg, armed with three antique 1890s cannon (only two of them manned, and even those with rookie draftee crews) and a couple of equally ancient torpedoes launched from a James Bond via Rube Goldberg-style secret underwater cave, the commander, Colonel Birger Eriksen, disobeyed a “Stand Down” order, and opened fire at the leading German ship (reportedly telling the gun crew “Damn right we’re firing live ammunition” as he gave the order to fire), the heavy cruiser Blücher, blowing off a turret and sinking it in the channel, blocking the rest of the invasion (I told the story here, 12 years ago), and allowing Håkon to escape Oslo, and eventually get to the UK to continue the war.

The German attempt to “decapitate” Norway, with all its elaborate planning, failed because of one guy disobeying orders.

Similarly, the German airborne attempt to decapitate the Dutch military command, two months later, ended up a nearly Pyrrhic victory, as the paratroopers ran into a prepared defense, and were gunned down in droves by alerted and angry Dutch defenders.

Not Nearly Far Enough: Similarly, in September, Field Marshal Montgomery hatched a plan to end the war by Christmas; launch a lightning (by 1944 standards) strike to vault across the Rhine River (and a few lesser rivers and canals on the way), which was Germany’s only real natural defense from invasion from the west, across terrain that isn’t a whole lot more naturally defensible than the road from Fargo to Winnipeg.

To do it, airborne forces would simultaneously capture bridges across the Maas, Waal and lower Rhein rivers, as well as three canals. Once over the Rhein, there was literally nothing but German towns and troops blocking the road to Berlin.

The crossings of the Maas, and two fo the three canals were captured smoothly. The Waal, at Nijjmegen? Not smoothly at all. And the final crossing of the Rhine at Arnhem failed completely. Only one of the 12 British and Polish airborne battalions reached the bridge; all were mauled, and the Germans held the crossing.

Because of that bloody scrap along the banks of the Rhein, Germany retained its barrier until the bridge at Remagen fell, nearly six bloody months later.

Like The TSA Line, Only With Live Ammo: Again – we don’t know yet how to separate truth from fiction in Ukraine – and forces on both sides, and no side, are doing their darnedest to obscure whatever truth does leak out.

But assuming some of the news is accurate?

As this is written the hot war in Ukraine is five years old; Russian forces are on the northern outskirts of an alerted, angry, heavily armed Kiev.

But around the end of the first day, reporters filtered out that a Russian Airborne assault on two of Kiev’s airports had stalled, and then failed; both airfields remained, apparently, in Ukrainian hands.

Speculation – possibly informed, possibly not – held that the assault was an attempt to get Russian troops into Kiev fast and on the relative cheap, taking the airfields and suppressing the air defenses in order to fly troops in from Russia, debouching them almost directly into the Ukrainian capitol – a move that Russian Airborne has speculated about doing for nearly fifty years, since well back in Soviet times.

Did the Ukrainians read the same operations manual (a rhetorical question – the Ukrainian and Russian Armies both have roots in the Soviet army)? Were the Russians counting on their airborne/air transport assault to knock Ukrainian leadership so off-kilter that they’d have a much harder time resisting the conventional, armored ground attack, which woujld then have an easier time getting into Kiev?

We won’t know until the fall of Putin’s Russia opens up all the secrets that have gotten covered over since the fall of the USSR, of course.

But it’s interesting, if armchair, speculation.

(NOTE: If your response to this post is “the war in Ukraine doesn’t affect us, so I don’t care” – that’s fine, duly noted, and save it for a different thread. Thanks.

Target eliminates mask requirements for customers and employees.

Come for the news. Stay for the Karens howling with rage in the comment section.

A Tale Of Two Mayors

Minneapolis mayor: Jacob Frey appears in Vogue magazine and, well…:

Kiev Mayor appears in Ukrainian Badass.

Who would you rather have dealing with carjackers?

Joe Doakes Como Park emails:

When’s the best time to attack? When the enemy isn’t looking.

Lesko Brandon is focused on Ukraine. Excellent opportunity for China to take Taiwan.

Thanks, Comrade B. Couldn’t have done it without you. Have another pudding cup. The check is in the mail.

Joe Doakes

We shall see.

Walter Hudson is running for the MN House in District 30A.

Here’s today’s song list:

A friend of the blog sends this piece, by a Twin Cities area public health nurse who, in a convoluted way, figured in my “Twenty Years Ago Today” series, way back when.

But unlike my seven year long series, the article has nothing to do with personal nostalgia; it’s about her experience with the “unintended“ consequences of our governments hamfisted, authoritarian Covid response.

It’s long, but it’s worth a read, and even more worth passing along.

Established upfront: conventional warfare, especially one where the news media is working down stream from a regime that is among the most effective manipulators of information in the past 80 years, is phenomenally subject to the vicissitudes of Berg‘s 18th law.

But at the end of the first day, it appeared that the Ukrainians were holding back most of the Russian advances (other than the attack north out of Crimea), had held off or perhaps defeated at least one of the airborne assaults on air fields around Kiev, and had managed to disperse their Air Force and decentralized enough of their command and control that Russian attempts at a decapitation attack weren’t nearly successful enough to leave the Ukrainians floundering and rudderless.

Other, highly unconfirmed reports indicated that at least one Ukrainian Air Force pilot had become an ace, with 3-6 kills in one day of fighting. So far, the story has all the hallmarks of an urban legend, and probably war time underdog propaganda.

Melisa Lopez Franzen is one of the most powerful women in the Senate DFL caucus, and the highest ranking Latin American woman in the history of the Senate.

But when redistricting led her into the same district as Senator Ron “I went to Harvard, you know“ Latz, who do you think was going to win?But when redistricting lead her into the same district as Senator Ron “I went to Harvard, you know“ lats, who did you think was going to win?

Keith Ellison and John Thompson’s allegations of sexual abuse.

The jarring allegations of sexual abuse from Senator Jason Isaacson‘s relative and key Senste staffer.

Why, I’m starting to think that all of this “party of women” blather is just campaign posturing…

I’m posting this piece – from Alphanews’s Liz Collin, formerly of WCCO TV – partly to show that someone is doing actual journalism about what’s going on in Minneapolis….

…and partly to note that the most interesting part of the story is the reaction of Minneapolis “progressives” to the fact that Collin has left The Four and is now working for a conservative outlet.

Because, to Big Left and Big Media, ideological purity is now more important than telling the story.

A friend of the blog emails:

No. This person does not deserve our sympathy at this time. He attempted to murder someone. I don’t care if he’s a friend of yours, if he was “on your side at one time.” He attempted to murder someone.

I wonder how sympathetic Hannah Drake would be if the shooter were a white man with a MAGA hat. They both could have the same mental health issues, be going through the same thing.

Doesn’t matter. Attempted murder is attempted murder and it is illegal.

For a depressingly large part of our population, morality means “everything I want to, believe and accept is right“.

About a month ago, Open Table released information showing that restaurant reservations were in really bad shape in the Twin Cities.

Another month has passed, and it’s only gotten worse:

Apparently those photos Full of jammed restaurants that Mayor Frey had on his phone were gatherings of Democrats to support free-speech.

If citizens can’t defend their freedom, then they are not citizens. They are subjects.

The Canadian truckers have shown us that if they don’t have the ability to defend their personal finances from government opporession, they are not citizens. They are subjects.

And against even more drastic threats?

The Peasant Revolt of 1381 – in which peasants in what would now be the eastern suburbs of London rebelled against onerous taxation and government overreach (figuratively and literally) may or may not have been an impetus for the Second Amendment – but it certainly should instruct any study of the issue of popular power versus government authority.

This video explains the event; if you ignore the presenter’s obvious left-wing bias (trying to connect Margaret Thatcher and King Richard II is the kind of thing that plays better in a faculty lounge than in reality), the lesson is fairly clear:

And for people with ears to hear, the lesson remains clear: Ukraine, responding to a Russian invasion, has “granted” their citizens a right that can not be legitimately taken away in the first place.

Preparing for the possibility of a large-scale Russian invasion, the Ukrainian government has moved to declare a 30-day state of emergency, grant citizens the right to bear arms, and conscript military reservists between the ages of 18 and 60, adding nearly 200,000 troops to the country’s defense as Russian troops continue to enter the Donbas region.

Of course, the Ukrainians are implementing under duress what the Estonians have made a part of their national culture (although not, alas, in the sense of being an inalienable right, but more a matter of duty to state and people). Defending their freedom from Russia is an actual national hobby even in whatever passes for “normal times” on the Russian border (I’ve written about the article linked above in the past; it may be even more worth reading today).

This is the lesson: today, as in 1381 and 1776 and 1939, and in Ottawa today, your freedom is only as secure as your ability to defend it; legally, in courts via the Marquis of Queensbury rules of the legal system…

…or otherwise.

Close to three years ago, Sheriff Fletcher in Saint Paul said that the drastic uptick in homicides – even then, before the pandemic Dash was largely the result of gang beefs going back into the early 2000s.

It seems plausible then – although Big Left/Minnesota pointedly ignored the suggestion.

And yet here it is again:

The allegation that our skyrocketing homicide rates are related to yoot gangs was catcalled out of the public space three years ago.

Now, Channel 4 is covering it.

What could be the difference?

Oh.

“So, Mitch – why do you say that the democratic party in United States is the party of authoritarianism? “

Because they tell us they are. Strong majority of Democrats approve of Justin Trudeaucescu‘s treatment of civil disobedience:treatment of civil civil disobedience:

35 percent overall approved of Trudeau’s crackdown, while 10 percent said they were unaware of what’s happening to the US’ northern neighbor.

Looking at Democrat likely voters alone, 65 percent said they favored Trudeau’s crackdown on the protestors, and 17 percent said they disapproved.

I mean, even the rhetoric is becoming too obvious to avoid; Orwell’s villains declared that freedom was slavery; today, democrat thinkers closer and closer to the main stream say freedom is “white supremacist“.

Tomato, tomahto.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The transformation of society from capitalism to communism requires a transition phase under a strong-man during which people are ‘socialized,’ trained to the new rules. Those who will not submit are purged. It’s said you can vote your way into socialism but you must shoot your way out. The Canadian Parliament just voted their way into socialism and the purges are under way. But Canada’s gun registration and prohibited gun laws soon will turn into confiscation, leaving the public with nothing to shoot. The road to socialism will be a one-way street Up North.

Canada provides a lesson in real time for those who think it cannot happen here.

Joe Doakes

Even many well-meaning “liberals“, as opposed to progressives, blinded by “normalcy bias“, are going to be surprised at how this next few years goes.

And as in Canada, freedoms only hope in the United States is in the west.

A friend of the blog emails:

LOL at all the Yes In My Backyard Karens who have suddenly become Not In My Backyard when University of St Thomas is concerned.

I know many of these same people argued against and successfully fought off any kind of retail that could have happened in the former Bus Barn site that is now Allianz Field. In fact, they fought against neighbors of the former bus barn site, fought against any retail that would have added to the tax base (because the proposed retail asked for parking!), and then unironically fought against neighbors of the bus barn site to advocate for a soccer stadium that did not only receive tax exemptions (as all stadiums do) but was also granted a variance to add more parking than allowed in that area of the city. And they still champion their “success” at what they did for a neighborhood that they don’t even relate to. They still pretend to believe that all soccer fans take transit, the the soccer stadium isn’t surrounded by more parking than what was there before.

But now, St Thomas wants to put a sports complex near them? The horrors. It’ll bring cars! (Well, yes, any development would and don’t people already drive to Town and Country? I doubt many who pay to be members take the bus there.) It’s a stinkin’ sports complex rather than something that I’d rather live by. (Well, yes, but you’ve been bragging for years how much your property values have gone up because of your work, so cash in-move to where you want to live, somewhere guaranteed never to change, if you can find such a place.) Did I mention it’ll bring cars and we thought we solved that problem by getting rid of parking minimums? (Once the Karens give up their cars, I will believe that the issue is solved.)

Honestly, I don’t care one way or another, but those neighbors certainly deserve to have a little change happen to them that makes them a little uncomfortable for all they’ve done to others via advocacy for tear downs to build big apartments to Allianz Field. I understand that there is some money involved for some Town and Country members should the deal go through. It will be interesting which group of wealth wins out- Karens like Mary Morse Marti and Sean Ryan or St Thomas, or maybe the only winners will be the Town and Country club members

On Saturday, I was listening to NPR News.

Betty McCollum was apparently part of Vice President Harris’s dlegation of elite foreign policy experts that President Biden dispatched to Munich to try to avert disaster…

…and I know what you’re saying; that’s gotta be the punch line, right there. Right?

Under normal circumstances, you betcha.

There was an interview with McCollum in which she said (paraphrasing very closely here, since I was in my car, not recording anything) “there will be severe sanctions if Putin invades Russia”.

Good job, Mr. President.

Good job.

Getcher ice cream.

A friend and occasional commenter writes:

To the tune of Johnny Cash ‘How Highs the Water Momma?’

Let’s blow some money papa

700 Mil and climbing

It’s a billion here, a billion there

who gives a damn if people care

we’re not elected and that’s not fair

700 mil and climbing

Let’s blow some money papa

1.7 billion and climbing

The council’s broke, Walz is woke

We’ll spend enough money

To make the DFL Choke

In the end who’s going to care

1.7 bill and climbing

Almost writes itself…..That’s after just one cup of coffee

Craig (Redacted)

I haven’t recorded anything in a while. Might have to give this a shothave to give us a shot.

Given the damage popping up in that condo unit/converted grain silo, might have to come up with some lyrics adapted from “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”.

Since the 2020 election, where blacks and Latinos voted GOP in numbers we haven’t seen in decades, Berg’s Eighth Law has been getting a workout:

American progressivism’s reaction to one of “their”constituents – women, gays or people of color – running for office or otherwise identifying as a conservative is indistinguishable from sociopathic disorder.

I think the law may well have come about from an earlier wave of utterly racist prate and gabble about Justice Clarence Thomas, from people who aren’t intellectually fit to carry his gym bag.

Seems everything that’s old is new again:

“Nobody that I’m aware of feels that opposing Clyburn’s nomination would be the wise thing to do,” he said. “If you know that a person has been vetted by Jim Clyburn, you know that person won’t go to the court and end up being a Clarence Thomas,” referring to the Black justice whose rulings often resemble the thinking of White conservatives.

Josh Blackman:

The Washington Post wrote the emphasized portion. You know, Justice Thomas, the black justice who thinks like a white person. The Washington Post called Justice Thomas an Oreo. And that statement isn’t even accurate! The Court’s white conservatives issue rulings that often resemble those of Justice Thomas. Thomas is the intellectual leader of the Court’s conservative wing. And he has been for decades. Gorsuch, Alito, and the rest are just trying to keep up with CT. But once again, we get the racist trope that Thomas is Scalia’s clone. Just the opposite. Scalia often remarked that Thomas pushed him to the right. What lazy writing from the Post.

While the WaPo removed the statement, it was more out of political optics than decency.

I’m wondering what’ll happen first: Blacks realizing that they are just votes on the hoof for the Democrats, or Republicans figuring out how to get that message across?

Not every “blue” government does it all the time.

But eventually, one way or the other, one metaphor or another, this mechanism or that, this is blue governance in action.

I almost wondered if someone hacked into Ilhan Omar’s Twitter feed earlier this week:

I mean, talk about biting the hand that fed her.

More on the Ilhan Omar response tweet – itself just a big fascination – later.

Now – let’s take a look at this tweet, from someone justifying the hacking of crowd-funding data for people supporting the Trucker Convoy, included this photo and blurb:

Stay with me on this: it zigs, and it zags.

We’ve got “neo nazis”…

…at a libertarian, anti-masker rally of mostly rural, western, and libertarian-sympathetic Canadians, themselves likely to be not especially mask-y, especially if they take that whole Gadsden Flag “Don’t Tread On Me” thing seirouslly…

…all masked up as tightly as the most constipated Karen?

Does anyone ask actual questions anymore?

The big gun rights news this past week was the “Sandy Hook parents” winning is $73 million settlement from XXXXX.

Well I will defer to any lawyers on the finer points of this case, it appears to be more a matter of Connecticut law making the suit viable enough to make the settlement worth making.

Is it a precedent? Perhaps – in Connecticut.

This is further evidence, I think, of the thesis we talked about two years ago – how gun rights have won, and how the violent blowback in some of the bluer states is in fact evidence of that victory, as they overcompensate for the fact that gun control is on the wane nationwide.

Like all other gun control legislation (and the few gun control cases favorable to gun controlthat have gotten through the courts, in recent years), the proper response is to make sure a state law is clear on the subject.

And if blue states make the laws equally clear, to the point where it’s impossible to buy a firearm in Connecticut?

Well, then it’s up to Connecticut voters to fix that.

You know – to turn gun control into the same third rail there, in Connecticut, that it is nationwide, or at least to keep the issue in contention. Because in states with politically active gun rights movements, even seemingly unlikely ones, the battle is going very much the other way.

One minor shout-out to former Minnesapolis mayor R.T. Rybak; to date, he is the only DFL politician to come on the Northern Alliance. We had a great discussion. You don’t have to throw plates at each other to have a good debate.

But you can sure throw facts at each other:

I mean, if one has never worked in the private sector, one might think re-opening a long-closed restaurant is a matter of unlocking the doors, logging into the stove and getting avocado onto toast.

Not about getting food in stock, even without supply chain problems, or getting staff to come to a downtown that’s gotten very human-unfriendly, on top of expensive to park in and tangibly less pleasant to take the bus or train to, when employment options in much more amenable, affordable places are also available.

And there’s a real sense – at least, among people who pay attention to the DFL – that the current relaxation of Covid hypochondria is tied mostly to mid-term polling ,and when the “gnu” or “omega” variants come out in mid-November everything will get shut down in yet another frothing, unproductive, business-shredding panic, leaving those “Re-opened” restaurants giving their food away so it doesn’t rot in the freezer. Again.

He does realize his party caused this, right?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Covid is over: you know it and so do I. Democrats want to frighten the public long enough to steal a few more seats through mail-in voting this Fall, but can they fool the headline-reading low-information voters that long? Maybe. Maybe Lesko Brandon can bribe the World Health Organization to continue the pandemic until right after the election. That would be ideal.

Even so, Covid rules must end someday. Democrats’ entire political appeal is grounded in the moral superiority of people being Special. You like to dress up and play sex games? You’re Special. Society should not only accept you, society should Celebrate you. What’s that, you’re so mentally unstable that you need to bring your emotional support hippopotamus on the bus? No problem; you’re Special. Other passengers should budge up to make room. You’re afraid your children might die of Covid from an unvaxxed person? Darn right, kids are Special; we’re going to mandate masks, social distance, vaccines and punish the non-compliant as long as it takes for everyone to be perfectly safe.

Democrats can’t suddenly tell all those Special people to grow up and get a life. It’d be political suicide.

And then there are the immune-compromised, the Type I diabetics, the asthmatics. Covid could kill you so that makes you Special? Yeah, you’re right, it does, that’s a legitimate complaint. But society needs to move on, needs to learn to live with Covid and not under perpetual mask-and-vaccine requirements. How can Democrats sell that to all the Special people who make up their base?

Maybe it won’t be as hard as I think. Cindy Sheehan had absolute moral authority until one day, she didn’t. The media dropped her faster than a Black school shooter. Maybe it’ll happen to all the Mask Karens?

Joe Doakes

My prediction: the Mascists, having just gone through a conflict that is The closest their generation and social class will get to storming Omaha B each or breaking the siege of Khe Sanh, Will resent the loss of the best two years of their lives, and the sudden disassociation with their bands of Karens. There will be a wave of what used to be called the “readjustment blues” back in the 1970s, but which has always attended people who come back from war.

Because that’s about how these people see themselves, and this situation.