What Do ‘Men Give Birth’ and ‘Defund the Police’ Have in Common?

The war against Western Civilization is a war against distinctions and order.

by Dennis Prager at American Greatness

Unless you are brainwashed, you regard the statements “men give birth” and “defund the police” as absurd.

Why, then, do leftists (as opposed to liberals and conservatives) say these things and even believe them?

I think there are two related explanations.

One is that the Left seeks to tear down every normative institution. If men give birth, “man” and “woman” no longer mean anything. “Men give birth” means the end of the male-female distinction, the most basic distinction in the human race. Racial distinctions pale in comparison. So do national distinctions.

Marxists support the obliteration of the male-female distinction because the only distinction that matters to Marxists is that of class.

The other explanation is that the endgame of leftism is chaos. It is related to the first explanation, since the obliteration of all distinctions is chaos. Distinctions mean order. Having no distinctions means chaos.

I came to realize the significance of distinctions when writing my commentary on the first five books of the Bible (“The Rational Bible”). The Bible’s moral order is dependent on distinctions. Among them are:

• Man and God
• Good and evil
• Human and animal
• Holy and profane
• Parent and child
• Man and woman
• Beautiful and ugly

Distinctions are so important to the Judeo-Christian moral order and weltanschauung that making distinctions is what God did for the Six Days. While they are known as the Six Days of Creation, the fact is that after creating the “heavens and the earth,” God does little creating. After Genesis 1:1 the only things God creates are the animals listed in 1:21 and the human being (1:27).

So, then, what did God do for the remainder of the Six Days? He created order out of chaos.

That’s why the second verse of Genesis may well be the second-most important verse in the Bible (Genesis 1:1 is the most important because if you don’t accept its premise, none of what follows matters): “And all was null and void,” meaning all was chaos.

Chaos is the natural state of the world. The transformation of chaos into order necessitated God.

Order is composed of distinctions. Natural order was dependent on the distinction between night and day and land and sea, and moral and social order was dependent upon the distinctions listed above. And while they are all dependent upon God, the Bible describes only one of them as “created” by God—the human being as male and female.

The Left seeks to obliterate these biblical distinctions.

The Left denies the distinction between man and God. As Marx said, “Man is God.” The idea that there is a transcendent Being to which man owes moral obedience is anathema to the Left. Man is to answer only to himself (and ultimately to a left-wing state).

The Left denies the distinction between good and evil. On the Left, there is no objective morality. Good and evil are subjective, determined by the individual and the community.

The Left denies the distinction between human and animal. According to the largest animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), for example, there is no moral difference between a chicken and a human being. They are equally valuable—so much so that, according to PETA, there is no moral difference between a barbecued chicken in America and a cremated Jew in the Holocaust.

The Left denies the difference between the beautiful and the ugly in art. That explains the ugly music and architecture and the meaningless art the art world, led by the Left, has produced for a century.

And now the Left denies the difference between man and woman.

What is this all about? It is all about rejecting the divine order which made civilization possible and returning to chaos. That’s why “men give birth” is related to “defund the police.” Both lead to chaos.

If you ask those who claim that men give birth or who seek to defund the police, “Do you believe in chaos?” most won’t know what you’re talking about. On a conscious level, chaos is not what the Left seeks.

But it is what the Left creates. The war against Western Civilization is a war against distinctions and order. That’s why the Left loathes talk about Judeo-Christian and biblical values. These values represent the divine moral and social distinctions and subsequent order that constitute Western civilization.

That’s why “men give birth” and “defund the police” are related. Both represent disorder.

X22, On the Fringe, and more- June 22

 

Ever get that feeling of impending disappointment? Well, I'm getting that feeling today, because a yearly tweet that I've been dreading seeing all week went up earlier today:

The NCIS:Los Angeles production office is open for business. We're back for Season 14. #ncisla pic.twitter.com/2RB0P2cQfl

— Rick Tunell (@rtunell) June 22, 2022

The writing team always returns a few weeks before everyone else to get things set up. And as you can guess, I'm really not looking forward to filming getting under way again this year. Mainly because I don't want to turn back into that extremely desperate loser who'll believe anything and will look and beg for literally anything that looks like Hetty will be in the episode. Except I also know that if they're not filming, then there's zero chance of Hetty content. I hate those stupid catches. 😩😩

This is the part where I say 'but who knows, it just might be different this time', but I'm not going to. Because I can't even remember the last time I was ever right on that when it comes to this show.

Anyway, I'll be sure to let you all know whatever positive sounding details I get, however little and far between they may be! Because it's what I do.

Here's tonight's news:

A US Navy That Instructs on Pronouns Is a Navy Unprepared to Fight a War

by Jennifer Oliver O'Connell for RedState 

Make it stop. No, I’m serious. We should be demanding our tax dollars back for this waste. The greatest way to erode national security is to invest not in how to train your fighting force to protect America, but to train them to “respect other’s feelings,” and create a siren song of inclusion for the transgender lobby.

From The Washington Free Beacon.

The official training video is meant to emphasize “the importance of using correct pronouns as well as polite etiquette when you may not be sure of someone’s pronouns,” according to the Navy, which late last month published the video online. The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service touts the video as an “official U.S. Navy video” posted by Air Force staff sergeant John Vannucci.

The video is the latest bid by the military to foster a more sensitive environment for its members and staff. The Army mandates similar gender identity training and trains officers on when to offer subordinates gender-transition surgery, the Washington Free Beacon reported in March. These programs are part of a larger push by the Biden administration to make the military more welcoming to transgender individuals.

Because when I need to kill an enemy, focusing on feelings and social experiments is always the best strategy.

God help us.

I think back to December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt succinctly put it, “A date that will live in infamy.” Over 90 years later, this hapless Biden administration barely acknowledges its weight. But the actions of the Japanese, and our response to them, is a real-world example of WHY you have a properly trained fighting force; it is not to navel-gaze, hold hands, and sing Kumbaya.

When actual systemic racism and inequity existed in the armed forces, the Navy isolated Blacks to a handful of service categories: coal heavers, messmen, stewards, and cooks. That’s right, we were the servant class of the U.S. Navy for the balance of the 19th to the early 20th Century. Among our worst presidents, Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat, what a surprise) decided segregating an already desegregated armed forces to go along with the racist societal norms of the day was of extreme importance.

Sound familiar?

The Navy limited the ratings for which blacks could apply to coal heaver, messman, steward, and cook. Chief Gunner’s Mate John Henry Turpin, a survivor of the explosion aboard the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor, was an exception. Most of the 10,000 African Americans in the Navy during World War I fought to make the world safe for democracy despite their own limited opportunities. There were no blacks in the naval officer corps. Only a small number of them remained in the Navy during the interwar period. In fact, the Navy did not recruit African Americans for general service after 1922. From about 1919 to 1932, the Navy relied on Filipinos to serve in the ratings traditionally held by blacks. The changing status of the Philippines led the Navy to resume recruitment of African Americans.2

The point is, no one was making Blacks feel safe and being mindful of our feelings. I can safely say that Black military recruits probably heard every racial slur in the book and then some. But we weren’t crying for safe spaces; we stood tall and made our mark. Dorie Miller was among those changing the landscape of the country and our history.

Doris “Dorie” Miller joined the Navy in 1938 because between sharecropping and cleaning a ship, the latter option would actually be easier work and provide for his family. When Blacks were severely limited in their ability to ascend the ranks, Miller was promoted from mess attendant to Ship’s Cook on the USS West Virginia.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Miller was ready, because even as a cook, he was trained to fight, not to consider whether he was using the right pronouns or to contemplate his feelings.

After serving breakfast for the ship’s crew aboard the West Virginia on the morning of December 7th, 1941, Miller was collecting laundry when the ship was attacked by the first of several torpedoes.

Remembering his training, Miller immediately reported to his post in the ammunition holds of an anti-aircraft gun on board, only to find the gun was destroyed. Knowing time was against him, he raced to “Times Square”, the central intersection of the ship’s passageways.

Though untrained in artillery, Miller loaded ammunition and managed to shoot down a Japanese plane. He worked to save his severely injured Captain (who unfortunately died), and did his utmost, along with the rest of the crew, to save the USS West Virginia. Miller and the surviving crew had to ultimately abandon ship. Far too belatedly, Miller was the first Black to receive the Navy Cross for his distinguished service. Miller is also a cultural touchstone, as his story is featured in every Pearl Harbor film.

Dorie Miller was forged in adversity, defended his country in spite of the fact that his country treated him as less than, and made history, as well as changed history, because of it.

But today’s military, which is far more racially integrated than the military back in 1941, is intent on forcing diversity and inclusion and making people feel comfortable with gender-affirming nonsense. This does not build steel spines and determined wills. This does not prepare anyone for the hardships of war or the ability to fight a war.

I seriously doubt that Naval Undersea Warfare Center engineer Jony Rozon, sporting his rainbow-themed shirt and spouting his pronouns, would know what to do if his ship was bombarded by artillery fire. Should a conflict occur, and Rozon is taken as a prisoner of war, is he going to tell the enemy he wants to be addressed as “he/him”? Is the enemy going to have more “respect” for him because he requires this?

All China, Russia, or any force against us needs to do is watch this video to know we are now easy pickings.

Perhaps that is the point.

Germany’s ‘Green’ Energy Disaster Is A Warning To The United States

by David Harsanyi for The Federalist

As gas hit historic highs, leftists keep arguing it’s a perfect time to transition to a “clean energy” economy. “Now is the moment to double-down, triple-down, and quadruple-down on clean energy,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted on Friday, linking to a CNN piece that contends “wind and solar” have been “bailing out” Texas during its recent heat wave.

In the piece we learn that wind, solar, and nuclear have “powered about 38% of the state’s power in 2021, rivaling natural gas at 42%.” That’s quite the sleight of hand; tantamount to bragging about how Babe Ruth (60), Lou Gehrig (47), and Joe Dugan (2) combined for 109 home runs in 1927. True, but deceptive.

Subsidized solar power generates less than 2 percent of Texas’ energy during the year. Nuclear power generates around 10 percent and wind nearly 20. Coal accounts for nearly 15 percent and natural gas for more than 52 percent of electricity generation. It would be far more accurate to say that coal, nuclear, and gas are bailing out Texas.

No nation has anything approaching a clean energy economy. And those that have promised to build one are all struggling.

More than a decade ago, after a major earthquake caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced her nation would close down all its nuclear power plants, at the same time quadrupling down on the decarbonization of its economy—energiewende. Once there were 17 reactors in Germany. Now there are only three remaining, all of which are scheduled to go offline by the end of the year.

The move to “clean energy”—without nuclear—has accomplished three things:

1. It has prompted Germany, and the rest of the EU, to begin relying more heavily on Russian natural gas as it “transitioned.” Putin, who has begun demanding EU nations pay for their energy in roubles, is now able to undercut the European economy at will.

2. It has created the highest global electricity prices per household in the world. In 2019, German households were paying 34 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to 13 cents in the United States. The price of energy has doubled since 2000, when Germany first mandated decarbonization, an effort that forced energy companies to purchase long-term inefficient renewables at high, fabricated prices.

3. It has meant the burning of coal. Even before Russia began cutting off supply, Germany was more reliant on coal than the United States. This week, Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who earlier this year rejected a European Union label of nuclear energy as “green,” announced that in an effort to avoid future gas shortages—because cars can’t run on wind—the government would incentivize the use of more coal-fired power plants.

The “transition” to green that Germany began 30 years ago has not worked. In 2000, Germany obtained 84 percent of its energy from fossil fuels. By 2019, it was 78 percent. As Vaclav Smil pointed out a couple of years ago, at this rate, Germany would still be deriving 70 percent of its energy from fossil fuels by the year 2050. With a move back to coal in 2022, it will surely be even later, if ever.

Setting aside the high cost of transitioning to renewable energy, and the failure of wind turbines and solar panels to produce energy in the winter, the intermittency problem is not going to be overcome in any season. To pull back on the only reliable “clean energy” source that can mitigate this problem has been suicidal.

Unlike Germany, we don’t even have to worry about pipelines from Russia; we are situated on a continent with abundant energy sources. Germany’s problems are self-inflicted. Ours will be, as well, if we follow its lead.

Joe Biden Officially Becomes the Most Unpopular Second-Year President in Recorded History

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Joe Biden has crossed another major milestone, and I’m not talking about him setting records for presidential vacations, ice-cream eating, or inflation.

According to polling aggregate site 538, which has a hard-left bent on its editorial side, Biden is now the most unpopular president in recorded history at this point in his tenure. Just in his second year, he is more unpopular than any of his predecessors where polling data exists, stretching back nearly 90 years.

No other president has managed to sink as low as Biden has by the 517-day mark. Even Donald Trump, who often sat in the low-40s in approval surveys, mostly due to personality disagreements, wasn’t this far down in the aggregate by his second June in office. Heck, things are so bad that you can’t even use the word “polarizing” to describe Biden anymore because he’s not actually that polarizing. Instead, he’s just widely disapproved of by a large majority of Americans.

None of this is surprising. On Monday, the president made it clear that the pain is the point, bleating while on vacation (again) that crushing inflation and gas prices are a chance to “make a fundamental turn” toward green energy. Biden is telegraphing to Americans that he wants them to hurt, and Americans have gotten the message. Further, as former Obama advisor Larry Summers said on Sunday, there is no historical precedent to taming this kind of inflation without a recession. In other words, things are actually going to get worse.

That leads me to the mid-terms. I’m still seeing projections of Republicans only gaining 15-20 seats, with even a few true believers suggesting the Democrats could hold the House. On what planet is that possible given that Biden is this unpopular heading into November’s elections? We are no longer talking about just a normal, first mid-term lull, which likely would have delivered the House to the GOP anyway. We are now talking about a guy who is disapproved of at a historic level, and he is only continuing to press the gas as the country careens toward an economic cliff.

There is no escape here. I know Democrats, especially in the press, like to make themselves feel better by suggesting some Deaux ex Machina could occur prior to voters going to the polls, but that’s essentially an impossibility. With Democrats in charge of all three branches and the fact that congressional races are hundreds of individual contests (i.e. you can’t just take out a single candidate), anything else that happens will simply be placed at the feet of Biden, not blamed on Republicans.

Lastly, the clock has run on economic improvement happening in time for the mid-terms. It’s not possible for inflation to be tamed to any reasonable level by November. It’s also not possible to avoid the stagnation the country is entering into. Biden made this bed with his radical, idiotic policy pursuits, and he’s about to be strapped to it like a gurney.

Florida First Lady Aims to Mobilize a Million Mamas for DeSantis

 

Florida first lady Casey DeSantis announced Tuesday that she's launching a new initiative to get Sunshine State women involved in her husband’s bid for reelection and the state's growing parental rights movement.

"Mamas for DeSantis will work to support Gov. Ron DeSantis' reelection campaign as a movement for Florida moms, grandmas, abuelas, nanas, and more to get involved in the re-election campaign," according to a press release. "With the goal of signing up a million mamas across the state of Florida, this initiative will be the largest movement of parents in Florida history."

The first lady's effort will use paid media, direct mail, digital advertising, and engagement events across the state, according to the release.  

"I am proud to have Casey by my side, and I am grateful for the example she sets for our three children. And now, I am excited to work alongside her," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. "We are working every day to make Florida the most pro-parent state in the nation, and Mamas for DeSantis gives a voice to mothers across the state."

Mamas for DeSantis will support the governor's recently unveiled DeSantis Education Agenda, which calls on school board candidates to pledge their support to student-first leadership.

"We need more moms and dads standing up for their kids and their communities," Casey DeSantis tweeted Monday. "I’m excited to see so much energy around the @RonDeSantisFL education agenda. I look forward to these leaders adding their voices to our students-first agenda."  

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ron-desantis-casey-desantis-florida-parents/2022/06/22/id/1075574/   

Joe Biden's Memory Crashes and Burns in Odd Scene at COVID Vaccine Site

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Joe Biden is back from his latest vacation, having returned from an eventful trip to the beach in Delaware. Between the president falling off his bike while sitting still and his daughter rescuing him after he lost his temper with a reporter, perhaps returning to Washington was for the best.

Or was it? Biden visited a COVID-19 vaccine site in D.C. on Tuesday, and things did not go as planned. In another sign of his debilitating mental decline, the president forgot who runs his own CDC. You know, totally normal stuff considering we are talking about an agency Biden has supposedly been intimately involved with for the last year-and-a-half.

Rochelle Walensky may be a terrible CDC director, but pretending she doesn’t exist? That’s harsh, wouldn’t you say? Of course, Biden isn’t doing so on purpose. His memory really is just that bad. Recall that this is the same guy who has repeatedly forgotten Barack Obama’s name despite serving in his administration for eight years as vice president. The current president also routinely mixes up the names of officials in his cabinet.

Because again, he’s senile. I know it’s inconvenient for some to admit, specifically those on the left side of the aisle, but the President of the United States is not all there. His labored gait, his glossed-over appearance, his constant memory flubs, and his meandering, often incoherent way of speaking all testify to that.

Still, what made the scene at the vaccine site even odder was the way the president used his mask throughout the exchange. If you watch the video, everyone in the room is masked up despite the fact that it’s June 2022, with objective data telling us that mask mandates do little to nothing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. That’s dumb enough to witness on its own.

Biden takes things to an extra level of absurdity, though, when he pulls his mask down to start screaming at people across the room. He does this while a crowd is surrounding him, well within the range of his probable spittle. He then bends down, continuing to hold his mask off his face so a child can whisper into his ear.

Now, the problem here is not that Biden pulled his mask down.That’s perfectly reasonable given they are essentially nothing more than face decorations at this point. Sometimes you need to be heard, and a mask often prevents people from understanding you. The question is why do he and the rest of his administration keep playing this game? Why continue to promote mask-wearing, when even the president clearly doesn’t believe it does anything? Why wear a mask backstage at events only to remove it when coming into contact with the crowd? That type of behavior makes no logical sense and undermines trust.

But not making logical sense is a staple of Biden’s presidency, whether it’s his memory crashing and burning, the silly mask-wearing, or his general irrationality regarding policy decisions. Perhaps the electorate will learn some lessons after this ordeal finally ends, but color me a cynic on that front for the time being.

10 Times Socialism Actually Worked

Babylon Bee🐝

Bernie Sanders famously said that "real" socialism has never been tried. Frankly, we're shocked he would ever suggest such a thing because there are numerous examples of real socialist utopias that we have to pull from.

Here are just a few:

1) Star Trek's Federation of Planets: There's no money, but people still work for some reason. Workers of the world set your phasers to Social Contract!

2) The Borg Collective: Like a more efficient Federation that tears through freedom-loving planets and subjects them to the will of the collective.

3) In the wonderful dream AOC had last night: Elon Musk even made an appearance.

4) In John Lennon's "Imagine:" Everything works perfectly when you imagine it! Even marriage to Yoko Ono.

5) Smurf Village: Cheerful workers in a heavily regulated population. Just like China.

6) In Bernie Sander's serial fanfic: He's been writing Social Thunder for three years now. It's a big hit on his substack.

7) A beaver dam: Everyone chips in or they all die.

8) The nuclear family: Too bad the nuclear family is RACIST.

9) An Ant Farm: It worked great until a kid came and shook it up.

10) Whatever South American country Che Guevara ruled: I'm sure socialism worked there, otherwise people wouldn't still be wearing the shirt

---

You see! Socialism is alive and well today. You only have to open yourself up to the imaginary world behind you and seize the means of production for the proletariat!

Merrick Garland’s Version Of Justice For All Doesn’t Include His Political Enemies

Despite the group’s ominous pledge to take ‘increasingly drastic measures’ against pro-lifers, Attorney General Merrick Garland is silent.

Jordan Boyd reporting for The Federalist

A mysterious anarchist-connected group called Jane’s Revenge, which has taken credit for the recent destruction of several pregnancy centers across the United States, released a statement last week announcing further acts of violence planned against people who believe babies in the womb deserve to live. Despite the group’s ominous pledge to attack and take “increasingly drastic measures” against pro-lifers, Attorney General Merrick Garland is remarkably silent.

Jane’s Revenge has claimed responsibility for more than a dozen firebombings and acts of vandalism at pregnancy centers, pro-life organization buildings, and churches around the nation since an unnamed source leaked a premature version of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson opinion, crimes that the FBI just announced they plan to investigate. Garland faces calls for his resignation after refusing to utter a peep of criticism about the prolific, widespread assaults on pro-life Americans and their property.

It’s terrible to think that the man sworn to “upholding the rule of law, keeping our country safe, and protecting the civil rights of all Americans” is failing hundreds of thousands of people who have been openly threatened by political violence.

If anything, the man in charge of oversight of asymmetric justice in the United States isn’t delivering on his promise to be a lawyer for “the people of the United States.” Despite being labeled a “moderate,” “centrist,” and “neutral judge” by the corporate media, Garland is a partisan who repeatedly exploits his power at the DOJ to benefit the Biden administration’s political agenda.

That’s why the DOJ dropped its cases against the rioters who ravaged Portland for 100 consecutive days. That’s why Russia collusion hoaxer Susan Hennessey was still allowed to work in the DOJ’s National Security Division with potential access to the Durham inquiry despite publicly criticizing it.

That’s why the DOJ refused to investigate deadly nursing home policies in several blue states. That’s why Garland led the Biden administration’s charge to sue Texas over its pro-life law that essentially banned abortion in the Lone Star state. That’s why Garland colluded with the National School Boards Association to smear concerned parents as domestic terrorists and shield corrupt school boards but refused to investigate corporate media-inspired death threats against certain school board members.

While violent leftists calls for an “open season” on pro-lifers, the Supreme Court, and the court’s justices such as Brett Kavanaugh, Garland is focused on targeting the Biden administration’s political enemies. Just last week, Garland bragged about watching Democrats’ Jan. 6 show-trial hearings and reassured the corrupt corporate media that his prosecutors were doing the same.

When the Dobbs decision draft was leaked in May, Garland turned a blind eye to calls for violence, destruction, and death. It took until a man attempted to assassinate Kavanaugh, one of Garland’s former colleagues, earlier this month over the court’s imminent ruling for the DOJ to respond to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s questions about whether the agency planned to prosecute anyone touting the “ongoing, coordinated campaign of intimidation against the majority of the justices on the Supreme Court.”

Garland also issued a statement condemning the violence, but so far his promises to devote his agency’s resources to addressing “threats of violence and actual violence” have turned out to be moot. Garland’s lack of urgency on literal life and death matters is a strong contrast to how he acted when he said school board members’ lives were in danger because parents wanted to speak at meetings. That’s no accident.

Garland has become a pro at weaponizing the DOJ against the American citizens he is supposed to protect. Garland hasn’t just abandoned his post at a time when he needs to act, he has repeatedly sacrificed justice in favor of partisanship.

That isn’t just dereliction of duty, it’s full-blown enablement of the political violence Garland claims to be against. It’s wrong, it’s not just, and Garland deserves to lose his job over it.

US Should Be Cautious as Russia Raises Tensions Over Lithuania

Dennis Santiago reporting for RedState 

The European checkerboard grew increasingly complex over the weekend as economic sanctions over Ukraine continue to progress from talk to physical.  The latest round of EU sanctions bans the shipping of products such as coal, metals, construction materials, and advanced technology between EU territories and mainland Russia.

The Russian city Kaliningrad, the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet and home to around 500,000 people is a pocket territory of Russia taken by the Soviet Union at the end of World War Two. After the end of the Cold War, Kaliningrad became isolated from the rest of Russia, an island with the Baltic Sea on one side and the now NATO countries of Poland and Lithuania between the territory and mainland Russia.

Kaliningrad’s position is similar to that of Crimea, the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet, which was also geographically isolated from mainland Russia by Ukraine until it was annexed by the Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation with operations beginning in February 2014 and a treaty signed by the 18th of March.

For many years, the flow of goods between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad was via rail lines passing through the former Soviet republic of Lithuania, now independent and a member of the EU and NATO.

And so is created this latest crisis.

The sanctions declared by the West stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine are beginning to move from the preparations phase to the implementation phase where goods and services would begin to be physically restricted.

Beginning in June 2022, Lithuania started imposing the sanctions regime on goods shipped by rail through their territory to and from Russia, which in this case is from mainland Russia to isolated province Kaliningrad. Lithuania has stated that it is only restricting items that are on the EU’s sanction list per the timeline of restrictions implementation; the transport of people and all other non-sanctioned goods remain free to move.

According to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Vilnius is complying with the sixth round of sanctions imposed by the European Union. Borrell is quoted as saying, “Lithuania has not taken any unilateral national restrictions and only applies the European Union sanctions.”

This seems to have caught the Russians unprepared. Kaliningrad Governor Anton Alikhanov has noted that Russia had begun operating two ferries between Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg to handle the restricted traffic but would not have an additional seven ferries in operation to compensate for Lithuania’s rail restrictions until later this year.

Moscow is said to be summoning diplomatic representatives from both Lithuania and the European Union to discuss the matter.

But Moscow is also saber-rattling. On Monday, the Russian foreign ministry stated that: “If in the near future cargo transit between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of the territory of the Russian Federation through Lithuania is not restored in full, then Russia reserves the right to take actions to protect its national interests.”

Moscow has said this before. It said so in 2014 when it annexed the Russian Navy base in Crimea, an act that ultimately led to the war in Ukraine.

The trouble with this naval base on the Baltic Sea is that taking and holding territory to “protect its national interests” goes through land that triggers NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense pact, even if Lithuania, like Ukraine, is a former Soviet republic.

I’m a bit more focused on how Lithuania is a potential matchstick. The stakes for tension escalating to igniting a major war from what is beginning to happen in Lithuania are more serious for world peace than what is happening in Ukraine.

Ukraine is still technically a non-aligned country. It is not yet a member of either the European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which means all sides can roughhouse in it and, quite literally, get away with murder.

The fact of the matter is that, despite all the media coverage of the bravery of Ukraine in its fight against Russia, the advantage of the war has shifted in favor of the Russians. The world fought the battle of the Fulda Gap earlier this year and the NATO defense strategy to stop a mobile tank army in its tracks using man-portable anti-tank missiles worked perfectly.  The Western militaries celebrated vindication of their investment in defense that began with the invention of the US TOW missile first used in Vietnam.

But that phase of the war has ended.  It has transitioned to the defense of Ukrainian cities against something the Russian army is particularly good at — the meat grinding siege craft of rolling artillery barrages. The Ukrainians are slowly but surely buckling. The Russians have also learned the lesson from their own logistic blunders of the importance of interdiction of the supply lines between the West and the Ukrainian Army. Sadly, things will play out with many Ukrainian lives lost until a peace treaty, urged by the West, forcing the Zelensky government to accept, eventually ends the active conflict.

Picking up the pieces of the mess in Ukraine will then begin. Repairing the damage done to the European economic landscape will take decades. The animus between West and East will perpetuate tensions and threaten political stability on both sides of the Ukrainian hole in the ground.

The key question is: Will it end before other flashpoints on the European checkerboard explode? The US and the EU, and indeed the Russians as well, need to navigate sanctions-induced tension with care. Lithuania instantly triggers calamitous treaties if something goes wrong.  As the remainder of this year plays out, I would rate it as a dangerous flashpoint on the same order as Sarajevo was to trigger World War One. Other fractures are likely to emerge both in the West and in Russia.

This begins to shift the focus of the narrative from keeping the Ukrainians viable to keeping Europe and America alive. How quickly the mainstream media figures it out and starts to ask hard questions, I don’t know.