SL Xpress

Well, I’ve always had issues with how Democratic administrations tend to prosecute war ever since the end of WWII. Having said that, Biden’s administration has been Bush-like in the way elder Bush rallied the world to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. They’re not analogous except for how Biden has helped galvanize support. I’ve been impressed. Compare that to how Obama handled the annexation of Crimea and the installation of thugs in Donbas (no Cloak Room - he was under a mandate to get us out of conflicts - not get us into new ones) or Trump’s narrative around the conflict specifically and NATO in general. Its okay to be disappointed until you compare the Biden administration to any other. This has been the most active administration in supporting Ukraine we could hope for, and I for one choose to remain grateful regardless of any differences I have. Not to say I think you’re wrong, because I don’t. I just have a different perspective on it.

Here's some cheerful news about Russia pulling personnel out of the nuclear power plant. I wonder why? "The Russians are reducing their presence at #Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate reports. The Russian representatives of #Rosatom have already left, and Ukrainian employees of the plant who signed contracts with Rosatom are being advised to evacuate by July 5. Meanwhile, the number of military patrols in #Enerhodar is gradually decreasing." Another article from the Kyiv Independent. No less cheery! Military intelligence: Russian occupation forces 'gradually leaving' Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant (kyivindependent.com)

As an aside, I see people getting excited about the use of ATACMS to take out the Kerch bridge, and rightfully so, but that's target B for me. I want to see them used to take out the airfields in Berdyansk and Crimea. If Russia can be pushed back to operate their air power deep inside their own country, it changes the dynamics of the battlefield for this counter offensive dramatically. Russia has terrible air refueling capability. And on that note, a fuel depot was apparently hit in Berdyansk this morning:

Zaluzhnyi rightfully annoyed about Western criticism of the speed of the counter offensive: ""It annoys me," Zaluzhnyi told The Washington Post that partners say Ukraine's counteroffensive in the east and south has started more slowly than they expected. According to the commander-in-chief, Ukrainian troops reach a certain position every day - even if it is only 500 meters. “It's not a show that the whole world watches and bets on or anything like that. Every day, every meter is given with blood." Zaluzhny adds that in order for Ukraine's counteroffensive to proceed faster, more weapons of various types are needed. "Without full supply, these plans are not possible at all. But they are carried out. Yes, maybe not as quickly as the participants of the show, the observers, would like, but these are their problems," says Zaluzhnyi in an interview."

Nice article about the effectiveness of the Bradley's. The 47th brigade is the group that was wiped out in that disastrous early foray through a Russian minefield that has since been paraded by Russian sources. I love the part where the guy snuck out of the hospital the day after checking in with a concussion, went to the battlefield, started up the Bradley, and drove it off. Ukrainian soldiers credit 'perfect' US-supplied Bradley vehicles (msn.com)

I'm commenting on the video provided which was used as evidence of his prescience. The video was absolutely directly after the annexation of Crimea and the installation of the thugs in the Donbas. Prior to that Russia was in the midst of bribing Yanukovych and his cronies with billions of dollars to be another Lukashenko. If Russia had been able to successfully embed Yanukovych for life like they intended, then there wouldn't have been a need for the operations they subsequently embarked upon. Zeihan's expertise is geography, so of course he thinks in those terms. And yes, it has a tremendous amount of merit. No question. Putin cares about the kidnapping of children not only for demographics for Russia, but also because he's trying to eliminate Ukrainian identity. If demographics were truly his priority, and not the restoration of Imperial Russia, the genocide of the historical mistake of Ukraine, and the establishment of Russia as the savior of traditional values, he wouldn't be embarking upon an exercise which has had a catastrophic impact on the demographics of his country. No offense intended. There are some good points within your stance. But I don't think you're presenting them well. Talking about Putin kidnapping children and sponsoring initiatives to increase birthrates while sending hundreds of thousands of men in their prime to their death, and chasing off hundreds of thousands of the most educated part of his work force to avoid being called up, either sounds like a man who isn't prioritizing demographics, or is prioritizing them with a really stupid strategy.

So right after Crimea and Donbas you think it was a brilliant insight to say Russia would go after the rest of Ukraine? Really? He also got the timing and methodology wrong. REALLY wrong. In my strongest opinion he also got wrong the whole idea of Ukraine entering a trap that Russia sprung when they went down to defeat the separatists. There’s way more he got wrong than right, while the one thing he got right - Russia would make a play for Ukraine - was a blinding glimpse of the obvious to me. Again, I’m not here to debunk Zeihan. I like the guy. I enjoy his observations and how he comes to his conclusions. But he throws a whole lot of shit out there to see if anything sticks. When we talk about how amazing he is at predicting future behavior, I think it’s importaht to note he’s also shitty at predicting future behavior, because that’s not the point. He’s running what if scenarios. Specifically worst case scenarios. That’s important even if they don’t come to pass.

Cowboys versus the Bills. The fact is indoors has more competition in December than women’s basketball in March or softball in the summer. From a network perspective its value is going to end up being in part its ability to draw a demographic not as interested in the NFL. It’s not ideal, but it doesn’t mean it’s doomed to failure, either. There’s an unfortunate ceiling to its growth In terms of viewing numbers unless it can successfully navigate that dynamic. There are also issues with the final being played the day after the semifinals. Whoever plays in the early match is going to have a competitive advantage. It would be better to have a day separation regardless of when the final is played. Another problem is the AVCA convention. I wish they could separate the two events, simply because joining the convention and the final four event constrains where the final four can be held. They need cheap hotel and convention space that’s within walkin distance of the arena hosting the event. No other sport works with the same kinds of restrictions. A Sunday start then loses some of the coaches who don’t want to book a late flight after the convention has concluded, which loses some of the incentive for the event to have the two intertwined in the first place. That said it’s progress to get locked in on ESPN and ABC. We’ll see how the numbers look.

The national championship will be televised on ABC. Both semifinals on ESPN.

I don’t have a problem with Zeihan. I’m too declarative. It’s effective rhetorically. Passion and conviction changes hearts and minds. The central issue is his speculations regarding the Kerch bridge. It shouldn’t be taken seriously. He likes throwing out what ifs. It’s important to note. The video you linked is a good example. Based on what he knew in 2014 he speculated that Russian friendly areas - including Odesa that was famously founded by Catherine the Great, and the implied move of Kherson over to Russia by more clandestine means would allow Russia to shut off Ukraine access to Dnipro and the Black Sea, their grain would have no export market because it’s too low quality for Europe, the US would not have any incentive to support Eastern Europe in any kind of face off with Russia, and Germany would then be impelled to send troops through Poland to fight off Russia in Ukraine. Cue ironic laughter. Instead the lines of battle became static. Russia quit risking their military in excursions in Ukrainian territory. I don’t agree with his assessment that the Ukrainian military fell into a trap. But they never were as aggressive in taking back territory. Poroshenko was elected as rabidly anti Russian, then Zelensky was elected as a primarily Russian speaking Ukrainian who wouldn’t be as much of a hardliner towards Russia. And a pro Ukrainian Biden was elected president. None of which could be predicted in 2014 regardless of demographic trends. Doesn’t make them wrong or unhelpful. The truth is - and we’ve talked about it unpteen times before - the invasion was a massive mistake. But the crusades were a massive mistake, too. They were both carried out for the wrong reasons by zealots where what made sense was less important than the religious cause behind them. With the crusades the restoration of the Holy Land in Christian hands. With the invasion the restoration of imperial Russia and the final erasure of the historical mistake of Ukraine. But that wasn’t predictable in 2014 by Zeihan because he didn’t have enough information at his disposal. He saw any military action in Ukraine as a mopping up exercise for the final remnants of an isolated Ukraine. As far as predictions go, that’s a really bad one.

When you say he nailed it, what exactly did he nail there? Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the presentation, but anything important had already occurred (Crimea, Donbas) and the rest of his predictions didn’t pan out. Specifically Odesa never went Russian. And it wasn’t 4 years before they did anything more radical. As we know, it was 8 years. I think it’s important to have speculative theorizors, but it’s also important to recognize them as such. He likes taking data and analyzing what if scenarios. But timing and how many of his what ifs come to pass aren’t nearly as important as just having some of them come true. In any case, the Kerch bridge was a Ukrainian special forces operation using a truck bomb and forward intelligence of a fuel laden rail car to create a massive explosion that damaged the bridge and the underlying support structure. Not a clandestine IS strike or unannounced long range weaponry. Which is not my effort to debunk Zeihan, but merely to ask people to not necessarily take everything he says completely at face value. He doesn’t even take everything he says at face value.

Did the ATV fly through a window?

My guess is none of them, but there are doctoral theses written regarding which players on the Texas roster are walk-ons and which ones are on scholarship. There’s no Jack Texeira working within the volleyball support staff, I can tell you that much. Unlike every other full scholarship sport, you can’t even realistically run a roster with just the 12 scholarship players. But you can’t give partial scholarships either. So the sport has these asinine 3+1 and 2+2 deals, where players walk on part of the time for a handshake agreement to give them a full scholarship later down the road. I wish they’d just make it 15 scholarships like women’s basketball. But a lot of programs can’t afford that, so here we are. Last year’s roster had 14 true legitimate, hard core scholarship level players, plus a couple of other players who could earn a scholarship at other schools. One of them - middle blocker Deandra Pierce - apparently now has a scholarship with Georgia Tech after being a walkon at Texas for two years. OH Kendra Miller could start at a number of lower tier Div I schools. Crownover probably could. Caffey was a late enrollee because of shenanigans at Nebraska I won’t bore you with. She was a 2nd team All American on Nebraska’s national championship finalist team but earned a graduate certificate at Texas over a semester as a walk in with NIL money. Same thing with long time starter Jenna Ewert from Colorado, who transferred to Texas at the start of summer. My point is that it’s not EVER completely clear who is on scholarship and who isn’t at Texas, much less what the future roster will look like in that regard. Very talented players are willing to walk on at Texas, whether because they’re a legacy, they want to be a part of a championship program, they hope to earn a scholarship in the future, or some other reason. Or they’re willing to forgo scholarship money with NIL money partially replacing it. But in terms of talent, all three of these players SHOULD be scholarship players. They certainly have full ride offers from other schools. My GUESS is that they’re all going to be on scholarship. But who the fuck knows? People love asking how many players we’ll take in this class. I don’t know All of them? For sure we’re holding a scholarship for Macaria Spears. It’s likely we’re holding a spot for a middle. The big recruiting weekend is Labor Day weekend, with the national championship banquet/gala on Friday and the Stanford match on Sunday So we’ll see who shows up for that and what the class looks like afterwards.

Addison Gaido, 6’4 (maybe 6’5) opposite out of Georgetown HS and club Austin Skyline announced her commitment. With libero Krueger and OH Vander Wal that brings the 2025 class up to 3

The only thing he's missing here, IMO, is that Putin doesn't value competent leadership in charge of the military. He values a military that won't plot a successful takeover. Shiogu's incompetence isn't a bug. It's a feature. No one wants to install Shiogu as the leader of Russia. That makes him extremely valuable to Putin in ways that go beyond being a successful military leader.

He already gave his explanation when he met with the African leaders. Russia voluntarily withdrew because they (air quotes) signed a treaty with Ukraine through negotiations with Turkiye that Ukraine promptly reneged on. Just more horseshit.

But no one did that.

I didn't ever venture to cloak room until late last year. It takes a while for any of us to recognize names and associate them with specific opinions. Of course I recognize a lot of the handles from reading their posts on the sports boards, but it's not the same. Usually they have to be pretty extreme or else voluminous with their positions to even make an impression. I'm just going by what I'm seeing here now. I don't see what I consider reasonable conservative views being espoused very much, and when they are, they're generally buttfucked. I'm not criticizing that. Maybe conservative views should be dismissed outright for legitimate reasons. Certainly I don't pass many of the litmus tests that tribe sets out. Or, I could very well be wrong. I absolutely don't have enough information to make an informed judgement, as you're making clear. So all I have is my uninformed one. But in my uninformed opinion, the cloak room has an echo chamber feel to me. I would imagine people who share similar political views to mine would agree, even if you would not.

I don't have a strong opinion on RFK Jr's electoral chances. He seems like a complete whacko to me. But then it's amazing how many of the candidates on both sides seem that way. It's hard to find one who seems remotely reasonable most of the time. I credit the Democrats for nominating what I consider some of the more middle leaning candidates, and I feel like they've been rewarded for that with Bill Clinton, Obama, and Biden. I was simply commenting on the idea that third party candidates never make an impact. They ALMOST never do, but the almost is still an important distinction to me.

To be fair, he's not getting a dime from the vast majority of people on this forum. It's dominated by people with progressive views. It's as much of an echo chamber here as any forum with conservative leanings. And both sides are guilty of the same kind of demagoguery and demonization of the other side. That said, I do feel like IF it's important to determine "well, he/she started it!" I would say the conservative side is guilty. But one of the things that can be the most dangerous to a representative government, IMO, is when one side creates a monopoly on power. To me, the strength of a representative government is to give both sides the chance to fuck things up. Because they will. But at least if they're both getting an opportunity to do so, there's not the disenfranchisement that exists in repressive systems. FDR was brilliant in creating his New Deal coalition. So brilliant it ruled the legislative body for 60 years. When Newt Gingrich made it to Washington D.C. in 1979 as the first Republican representative from his congressional district ever, he looked around at the bipartisan spirit Congress embodied back then and said hogwash. When the Reagan coattails brought in even more freshmen Republicans, he gathered an assortment of like minded party members who chose a much more confrontational style of representation. Unfortunately, this resulted in 1994 in the Republican takeover of the house, and it's been going back and forth ever since. But the same style generated over decades of not being in power, exacerbated by successful gerrymandering campaigns and the echo chamber inducing mechanics of social media (Edit - the impact of the partisan and highly successful Fox News cannot be exaggerated, either), has resulted in the destructive polarizations we see today. Most legislative outcomes are the result of prisoners dilemmas to one degree or another. Unfortunately, through a variety of circumstances, the Republican party has been rewarded over and over for being more willing to send the United States over a cliff in various ways. But there's certainly a mirroring aspect that goes on, too. Regardless of who started it, there are huge swaths of progressive groups who characterize anyone not of their tribe as an existential threat. (I just want to say that the whole idea of approving a debt ceiling is ridiculous to me - Congress has the power to pass whatever budget they want. If they don't want to raise the debt ceiling, don't pass a budget that will require that. Lifting the debt ceiling to me should be part and parcel with passing a budget that extends beyond it in the first place. Instead we play this incredibly destructive and artificially induced game of chicken every few years.) I remember when I had a bunch of communist and socialist friends back in the 80s and 90s, and they'd lament the lack of difference in the two main parties, along with the absence of a legitimate third party. And that was certainly fair. We still see the same lamentations, especially among the most progressive who feel like we haven't even approached going far enough in a complete reworking of an inequitable and unsustainable economic system. One of the problems I see it is that you can't have a country with world hegemony making radical shifts in how they view the world from one administration to another and still maintain that hegemony. Maybe the price isn't worth it any more. Maybe the world and the people of this country would be better off if we threw in the towel, and chose a more isolated expression of our values, whatever those end up being. I don't believe that, but the course we're on is going to make that choice for us, and then we'll get to find out. In any case Will Hurd preaches a form of inclusiveness, whatever that ends up looking like. He has a respect for science, that many Republicans proudly discard and use their love of ignorance as a litmus test for whether you're one of them or not. He has an outlook on foreign affairs (and an expertise in doing so) that in many ways dovetails with mine. It's honestly difficult for me to find any Republican I actually like, but the Democratic field doesn't exactly have me doing cartwheels, either. The only reason I voted for Clinton and Biden is because the alternative was so destructive and odious I refused to do so. I'll likely vote for Biden because I'll still believe the Republican nominee is more dangerous for the future of democracy than the Democratic candidate unless the Republican party shocks me. There's a great line in the movie Cocktail Party that I constantly use. "The party wouldn't end unless it ends badly." I thought maybe 2008 would represent the end of the party, but the central banks got together and printed out money like nobody's business, propped up zombie banks with underlying negative asset classes that were never realistically valued as such, and everyone pretended on some level everything was hunky dory until we sprinkled enough magic fairy dust that it was. So whatever is going to change the course we're on with enough pain and misery, death, suffering, and starvation, hasn't happened, yet. We still have whatever Titan-esque implosion we have coming to us in our future. My hope is that I somehow shuffle off this mortal coil before that happens. I mean, I hope it doesn't happen at all, but history shows that the kind of demonization we're creating amongst ourselves only has one result. A whole lot of repression and/or mass executions. We managed to avoid it on some level in the 30s, although the people who died in WWII might disagree. But representative government is way more fragile than the average person wants to realize. No one has tried to build a multi cultural, multi racial society like the United States in world history. Those who have even come close didn't exist long term based on a sharing of a power. They existed by one group dominating the others, whether as a majority or a minority. In any case, anyone who represents someone who is willing to even look towards the middle as either a Republican or Democrat gets some kind of token support from me. Because otherwise we're heading off the cliff. It's only to be determined which side will be doing the pushing, and which side will be doing the falling.

Ummmm.... That's not necessarily true. I wish it was, but sometimes Sauron wins.

The Ukrainians became my favorite people in the world back in 2014.

I can give you my sincere view as someone who leans conservative and is horrified by the transition. The first thing I'd say is that there is always a strong isolationist bent in the American public. REALLY strong. Both sides of the aisle, and independent, too. It's historical from the beginnings of the republic, first widely documented by Alexis de Toqueville in the early/mid 19th century in Democracy in America. The US is really a reluctant world power. We've mostly been driven there by necessity and by elites. The American public in general has no appetite for the kinds of activities the US has involved itself in post world war II to maintain world hegemony. We don't have a good understanding of the costs/benefits, or what kind of price we'd pay for isolation. I'm not saying the country would not be better off if we were more isolationist - I don't agree with it, and I think it would have been a world disaster, but it's not like we can go back and run some kind of real world re-creation to see how things would have worked out instead. Invariably pretty much every political town hall I've ever attended, whether a Democrat or Republican representative, if the budget is brought up, or a lack of funding for domestic services, someone points out all the money spent on foreign countries, and how if we just eliminated all of that, we'd have all the money we need. Which isn't even remotely true, but that's the narrative a large segment of Americans have always wanted to believe. Second, there's a bit of an isolationist bent in the Republican party historically. Eisenhower famously argued against robust military spending on conventional forces, choosing instead to focus on the relatively cheaper threat of nuclear annihilation as a defense of the country. He won the election in 1952 by a landslide in part because of the involvement in Korea started by the Democrats (although, let's face it - Eisenhower would have won regardless whatever ticket he chose). Richard Nixon won in 1968 in part on his promise to get the US out of Vietnam. In actuality Nixon and Kissinger further entangled the US in all kinds of foreign involvement, but the message to the electorate was less of confrontational engagement and more one of detente and political maneuverings. It was only with Reaganism, the massive expansion of US conventional forces under him, and then its use under Bush I and II, that the Republicans went full foreign adventurism, although the party has certainly been filled with plenty of war hawks, and its traditionally virulent anti communist views - to the point of abuse - are well documented. Third, I think Russian disinformation campaigns found early on a ripe audience for their tactics within the alt right. Russia depends on using armies of social media warriors who look to exacerbate any division in any culture. They'll espouse left or right wing positions. They don't care. The main purpose is to create wedges in the fabric of a society to then exploit those wedges for their purposes. They found their money and support went a long way by funding nascent white nationalists and helping them gather followers. As those leaders gained prominence, they often echoed themes aligned with the Kremlin. This isn't just in the US, by the way. Throughout Europe the arch conservative circles are often infused with pro Kremlin sentiment. Le Pen's movement in France. Orban in Hungary. I got in trouble on the Daily Texan Ukraine thread by saying that Putin has positioned himself as something of a white savior, as well as a traditionalist. But he also tries to build ties with autocrats where ever he can, repeating the message over and over again that they can't trust the US as a reliable ally, which is true to an extent. Fourth, you have the emergence of Trump. Now, I'll tell you as a conservative I see populist movements on both sides of the aisle. I don't think of Bernie Sanders as intrinsically dangerous for democracy as I do Trump, but he's certainly radically antithetical in my eyes to market economics. I understand that's seen as a feature, not a bug in the eyes of many of his followers. It's not my intent to dissuade anyone from that point of view, even if I could. Which I can't. To me this is an extension of the anger and polarization we'd already seen, often times of the same forces. Tea Party on one side. Occupy Wall Street on the other. Populist candidates are channeling that anger and outrage successfully in their campaigns. But when Trump won the election it galvanized the voices which are sympathetic to Putin and his supporters, and Trump has been feeding it directly and with dog whistles ever since. The fact that the Republican establishment has absolutely caved to him with notable exceptions has been a naked lust for power and a continued need for relevance at the expense of the future of our democracy, in my opinion. I will say there is still a great deal of bipartisan support for Ukraine. Texas Republican McCaul has been unabashed about it. Mitch McConnell is ready to pass a supplemental defense budget and authorize more spending on Ukraine right now. Lindsay Graham appeared on Al Franken's podcast a month ago where they jovially talked about their common ground regarding supporting Ukraine. But there's no doubt that the Trump wing of the party along with avowed isolationists like Rand Paul, are in favor of either shutting down support completely, getting some kind of agreement in place along current lines of control, or at the very least making it difficult for Ukraine to obtain further funding, "no blank check." This dovetails with the base, which, because of rabid gerrymandering begun in the 90s and accelerated with every census, is the only group important to reach and gain support from in the vast majority of the districts we've redrawn. This strain is always going to be present, in both Democrats and Republicans. Back in the 80s it was the Democrats who were the isolationists, but the Clinton presidency didn't end up reflecting that. I would argue Obama's presidency did, just not as successfully as the rank and file would have preferred. Just yesterday I saw an interview where Obama was defending his administration's inactions following Crimea and Donbas in 2014. I'm not trying to delegitimize his rationale. I'm merely saying that his administration won a mandate in part on the idea he was going to get us out of conflicts, not into new ones. Right now there's still a significant segment of Democrats who feel like we should be spending less on defense and less on Ukraine, and more on domestic needs and progressive agendas. But because their party is the one in the White House, they've circled the wagons to provide support for the president's agenda. For which I'm grateful. Anyway, I don't know if any of that is helpful or makes sense, but that's my view of it.

Some of that is society building, but some of that is simply pushing society in the direction they already lean into. A reading of any kind of Russian literature, both in the past and contemporary, reveals a sense of fatalism which might as well be the chief characteristic of the Russian identity. Along with every character possessing 12 names used interchangeably. To me that’s the biggest yoke Ukraine is in the midst of breaking away from (the fatalism, at least). I’m with you on the double down on internal repression and becoming even more calloused regarding war casualties. Russian society equates fear with respect, ruthlessness with strength, and values stability over freedom. And Putin values staying in power over anything else. My problem with all the 1917 comparisons - and there are plenty of lessons to draw from - is that the revolutionaries were true believers on a crusade. That’s something both Putin and Prigozhin lack. It felt like Putin was trying to speak in those types of tones as he galvanized the public for popular support of the conflict in Ukraine, but as you’ve stated, he wants a submissive citizenry, not zealots.

I already posted about the additional 45 Gepards Germany will supply by the end of the year, but this is big for more robust air defenses as well.