Ukraine’s spring offensive is aimed at America as much as Russia

posted by Bethany Elliott at The UnHerd

The tanks are arriving. The recruits are undergoing training. New units are being formed. Preparations for Ukraine’s spring offensive are afoot, with US officials expecting it to begin in the coming weeks. Ukrainian hopes to dislodge Russian forces from the country are reportedly centred on the Zaporizhzhia frontline, which would allow Ukraine to push into the partially-occupied oblast to seize the transport hub of Melitopol and sever the land bridge which permits Russia to supply forces from Crimea. 

The counter-offensive may well prove decisive in determining the fate of the war, not least because significant territorial gains could lead to negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. The country’s leadership having hitherto ruled out peace talks until Russian forces have withdrawn entirely from Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, on 5th April, Ukrainian presidential advisor Andriy Sybiha said that if its forces achieve “strategic goals on the battlefield” and reach Crimea’s borders, the leadership would be open to negotiations over the future of the peninsula.  

Alternatively, should Ukraine’s army falter, the Spring Offensive could mark the moment at which Western support to Ukraine begins to decline, with former US Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer warning that “if this becomes a grinding war with no end in sight, it becomes a lot harder to maintain Western support”. 

Second only to the Russians, Ukraine’s greatest enemy is Western fatigue. Back in September, Russian-born banker Lubov Chernukhin warned of people viewing Ukraine as “Afghanistan 2.0 – a war that drones interminably on, prompting fatigue”. Meanwhile, in February, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrij Melnyk noted that a key challenge for Ukraine is combatting Western weariness, with allies feeling they could “put their feet up” after supplying tanks. 

This is especially apparent in America. Some in the Republican Party, notably in the Trumpist wing, have been voicing doubts about support to Ukraine, none more so than the man himself. Trump has complained of the US giving Ukraine too much aid and said he could have prevented the conflict by letting Putin “take over something”. In February, a group of pro-Trump Republicans led by Congressman Matt Gaetz introduced the ‘Ukraine Fatigue Resolution’, urging an end to US military and financial aid to Ukraine and warning of the costs of a protracted conflict. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has claimed it is not in America’s interest to become “further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia”. With US public support for aid to Ukraine declining, assistance to the embattled nation looks set to be a hot topic in the run-up to 2024’s presidential election.

Moving beyond party politics, this is an America which wants to concentrate on its epoch-defining clash with China — as outlined by former Trump advisor Elbridge Colby in a recent interview with UnHerd. The country has learnt severe lessons about prolonged military engagements on the other side of the world, and perhaps most importantly is still led by a President whose hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan let the Taliban seize power and left well-meaning coalition partners unable to fill the gap left by US resources — an incident which should keep Volodymyr Zelenskyy awake at night. 

For his part, President Biden has vowed to stick by Ukraine “as long as it takes”. However, the US budget for military assistance is expected to run out by September, while US defence officials have privately described shipments of ammunition for the coming offensive as a “last-ditch effort” since allies cannot meet the pace at which Ukraine is firing and it will take months for suppliers to catch up. As Ukraine’s single biggest military and financial supporter, if the US were to pull out, it would have a catastrophic effect on Ukraine’s ability to withstand Russian aggression. 

The Russians are aware of this — Putin’s strategy hinges on outlasting Ukraine and its backers. Last month, ex-president and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitri Medvedev said that “of course” Ukraine’s supporters are growing tired, which is why “Biden and his henchmen have been doing their utmost to push through this aid and everything else as quickly as possible”. 

As Ukrainian forces plan how to break into Russian-held territory and liberate occupied areas, there can be no pressure quite like preparing for battle. However, added to this is the fear that failure to make significant territorial gains will weaken Ukraine’s position not just on the battlefield, but in the capitals of Western allies.  

X22, And we Know, and more- April 11

 

Jesse Kelly’s “Over the Top” Advice to Republicans Is Sound, Reasonable, and Necessary

J.D. Rucker for The Daily Liberty

“Or once again, you’ll come to me in ten years and tell me you should have listened,” conservative commentator Jesse Kelly said on Twitter near the end of a long rant directed at Republicans who are somehow shocked that the radical left is unhinged.

He’s right. If the GOP continues with business-as-usual in their preferred role as opposition bellyachers who don’t actually have to do anything other than fundraise and shoot skeet, we will no longer be a nation worth preserving. We need bold action. In some ways, we need to start calling plays from the George Soros playbook. And that’s the point that Kelly was trying to make in his epic Twitter thread:

Leftists will continue to steal elections, release violent criminals, arrest political opponents, demonize patriots, control the narrative, and destroy this nation until real actions are taken against them. Will the GOP learn this before it’s too late?

Will Robert Kennedy Jr. Expose the Democrat Party for Exactly What It Is?

Mike Miller reporting for RedState 

Given the current state of politics in this country, which will likely get far worse before it even has a chance to get better, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement last Wednesday that he will seek the Democrat Party nomination for president in 2024 hardly caused a ripple in the media.

The 69-year-old anti-vaccine activist and scion of one of the most famous American political families filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. While RFK Jr.’s campaign to challenge Joe Biden — or whomever — for the Democrat nomination might be a long shot, as my colleague Nick Arama reported, there are already signs that the Democrat vanguard is afraid of this guy.

CNN clown Jake Tapper dismissed Kennedy as a quack — a sure sign that the fix is already in to ridicule the son of Bobby Kennedy to the point of irrelevant dismissal by low-information, rank-and-file Democrat voters:

Anti-vaccine quack RFK Jr. has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for president as a Democrat… Kennedy is such a healthcare menace, in 2019, even his cousins wrote an op-ed criticizing his anti-science views on life-saving vaccines.

Um, Jake? Is this a good time to point out that Kennedy was a helluva lot more right about COVID-19 vaccines than was your sock-puppet network? How cute that you cite his cousins as your “proof source.”

So what are Tapper and other Democrat Party sycophants so pinched up about?

Podcaster Jason Whitlock, host of “Fearless” on Blaze Media, says RFK Jr. is not an extremist. On the contrary, Whitlock calls Kennedy’s values “Middle America.” Whitlock adds that Kennedy reminds him of an “old-school Democrat,” and predicts: We’re about to see that “old-school Democrats aren’t liked by new-school Democrats.”

“In fact,” Whitlock adds, “They’re hated.”

Is there any doubt? The party of House Minority Leader Hakeem Sekou Jeffries, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley, and the puppeteers of feckless Joe Biden hate what we used to call “moderate” Democrats more than they hate conservatives; principally because moderates can attack the party of Joe Biden and Barack Obama from within.

While Whitlock is hopeful that a Kennedy run will be an “eye-opening experience” for the Democrat Party as a whole, he also asks, rhetorically:

How do you find common ground with people whose values are related to feelings, whose politics and policies and worldview are built around satisfying feelings?

Not to burst Whitlock’s bubble, but you don’t.

Facts, data, logic, and history are to the left what crucifixes and holy water are to vampires. The entire so-called “progressive” Democrat narrative is built on lies; lies that are repeated ad nauseam for the purpose of pitting Americans against Americans, with the Democrat Party as the “moral” arbiter between good and evil.

Still, Whitlock — a conservative Christian — believes that if American society based its politics, policies, and worldviews on a single document — the Bible, for example — we could at least find some common ground:

[You] can’t build a society if people don’t want to stand on something concrete. The Bible is concrete whether you like it or not. The Constitution is concrete whether you like it or not.

These two — the Bible and the Constitution — have served America incredibly well. Better than any other society in the history of the planet. But let’s all throw it out the window because leftists feel like something different would be better.

While — inspirationally, if you will — I agree with Whitlock’s take, including his wistful thinking about RFK Jr. returning a bit of sense and morality to the out-of-control Democrat Party, the pragmatist in me knows it’s just not going to happen.

The radical left continues to metastasize within virtually every aspect of American society, and I believe it’s a reasonable bet that it’s going to get worse before it comes anywhere near to getting better. as I suggested at the top.

All of the above said, as long as a flicker of reason still exists on the left, and the conviction of men and women like Jason Whitlock, on the right, maybe — just maybe — a glimmer of hope remains that the crazy train isn’t quite ready to run completely off the rails, yet.

I encourage you to watch Jason Whitlock’s “Truth Bomb.”

Melania Trump cautions against assumptions in statement following Donald Trump's indictment

 News organizations have made assumptions about the former First Lady's stance on subjects that are personal, professional, and political over the past few weeks. In these articles, unnamed sources are cited to bolster the author's claims.

We ask readers to exercise caution and good judgment when determining whether or not stories concerning the former First Lady are accurate, particularly when they fail to cite Mrs. Trump as a source of information.   

Office of Melania Trump

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/melania-trump-statement-after-donald-trump-indictment/   

Karine Jean-Pierre Can't Explain Why Biden Doesn't Do Press Conferences

Bob Hoge reporting for RedState 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed at a briefing Monday that (despite appearances) the administration is not “trying to protect” President Joe Biden from reporters by continually shielding him from the media. Per Fox News:

“Is the administration trying to protect the president from our questions? Please answer that question,” one reporter asked Jean-Pierre during the daily White House press briefing after a number of other reporters questioned why Biden had no formal press conferences scheduled, including on his upcoming trip to Ireland.

“Absolutely not. Absolutely not,” Jean-Pierre replied.

Journos kept pressing the issue, however, demanding to know why Biden never seems to schedule any formal press events. Jean-Pierre delivered one of her famous word salads:

I understand, John. I understand. I understand. I have dealt with this question about three times already. I understand. It is the job of you all to ask this question to me. I totally get that. And that’s not a problem at all.

But certainly the president, many times, has stood in front of all of you, has taken questions on his own because he wanted to see what was on your minds. He wanted to see what the questions you all were going to ask him, and he wanted to answer them directly. That has happened multiple times, many times, during this administration. And that will certainly continue to be.

When it comes to a formal press conference, I don’t have anything to share with you at this time. [Emphasis mine.]

That’s a whole lot of words to basically say, “The president has zero interest in doing a press conference anytime soon.” Asked whether Biden will do will formally talk to the media during his upcoming trip to Ireland, Jean-Pierre hemmed and hawed and claimed the matter was really out of the administration’s hands because another country was involved. Blaming other world leaders is a tactic she’s used before, as RedState‘s Nick Arama reported.

Things really turned funny, however, when KJP laughably claimed that Biden was transparent because he answers so many queries from yelling reporters:

…I’ll say this, it’s unprecedented that a president takes as many shouted questions as this president has.”

An audible groan arose. Listen to the reporters in the background growl “No!” to her claim:

Jean-Pierre just laughed off their concerns.

Okay. Well, we’ll certainly get the data and share that with all of you … I hear you. I hear you on the press conference, on a formal press conference. We get this probably every couple of months when you guys ask us about a formal press conference. [Emphasis mine—why do you think you keep getting asked this, Karine?] I don’t have anything to share with all of you at this time.

And I’ll just leave it there.

I remember remarking to a colleague when Jean-Pierre was new to her position that she looked absolutely miserable at the podium. That however has noticeably changed—now she giggles a lot and barely seems to be taking the job seriously. She treats the reporters like little children.

This is far from the first time the White House press corps has clashed with her over Biden’s lack of availability:

Reporters Rip Into WH for Not Answering Questions, Then WH Stiffs Them Again

In fact, the issue goes as far back as her predecessor, former Press Secretary Jen Psaki:

Jen Psaki’s Answer to Latest Biden Solo Presser Question Should Spark an Outcry in the Press (but Will It?)

Jean-Pierre wasn’t done though, issuing a pathetic, dissembling answer on whether Joe Biden will ever visit the disaster-stricken community of East Palestine, Ohio:

We deserve better than this from this president—and from his spokesperson.

Another Big Blow to Dems: Third State Lawmaker in a Month Flips to GOP

Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

We’ve been seeing people who might have normally identified themselves as liberals in the past now flipping over and voting for Republicans because the Democrats have moved so far to the left.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk posted a graphic last year that explained it and why he was now voting Republican for the first time.

He doesn’t think he’s moved; he thinks, as many Democrats do, that the party has left him.

You see it in folks like Bill Maher — although still a Dem, he gets how far left they’ve moved with the woke insanity, for example, and is regularly calling them out for it these days.

But we’re also now seeing it with more politicians changing from Democrat to Republican.

We reported on how Rep. Tricia Cotham in North Carolina just flipped, giving the House Republicans a veto-proof majority against Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper. Cotham explained why she switched:

“The modern-day Democratic party has become unrecognizable to me, and to so many others around this state and this country. The party wants to villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgment, has solutions, who wants to get to work to better our state. Not just sit in a meeting and have a workshop after a workshop, but really work with individuals to get things done. Because that’s what real public servants do. If you don’t do exactly what Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you, they will try to cast you aside.”

There was also longtime Democrat Representative Francis Thompson, who served Northeast Louisiana for 50 years. Imagine how upset you have to be to change your affiliation after half a century. The 81-year-old lawmaker changed his party registration to Republican on Friday, March 17, giving the GOP a supermajority in the House. They already held a supermajority in the state Senate.

Thompson said that the things that the Democrats were pushing were no longer in alignment with his views as a Christian.

“The push the past several years by Democratic leadership on both the national and state level to support certain issues does not align with those values and principles that are part of my Christian life,” Thompson said.

Now there’s a third politician fleeing the Democrats within a month, the second in Louisiana. In addition to Thompson, Rep. Jeremy LaCombe, a Democrat who was elected in 2019 to District 18, which covers parts of Pointe Coupee and West Baton Rouge parishes, said on Monday that he is switching to Republican, according to The Advocate, a local Louisiana paper.

LaCombe has not yet laid out his reasons for switching.

But his switch leaves Democrats with only 32 members in the 105-member House. Republicans now have 71, and there are two independents. Veto overrides, tax measures and some other important decisions require 70 votes in the House to pass.

This should be a big signal to the Democrats that they have a big problem with their extreme agenda. People who want to have any conscience or serve their constituents aren’t going to stand with it.

If it wasn’t evident from these folks fleeing, take a look at where Joe Biden’s numbers are for going along with all this radical nonsense in addition to having horribly failed economic policies.

The switches come as President Biden faces a near-record low approval rating among key groups, including women (43% now vs. 42% low), voters ages 45+ (41% vs. 39% low), suburban voters (41% vs. 39% low), rural voters (31% vs. 30% low) and Democrats (81% vs. 78% low) – Democratic men in particular (79% vs. 78% low), according to a recent Fox News poll.

Biden is also at a low mark of 41% approval among suburban women.

Even CNN was busting Biden on how only a third of Americans thought he deserved another term. I’m surprised it’s even that high given what a disaster he’s been.

But this is one big flashing alarm that Democrats are in a bad place as we move into 2024.

Perry Verdict Shows Urgency To Confront Blue City Prosecutors

The Perry verdict shows what can happen when ideologues are the top law enforcement officer in your own neighborhood.

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

An Army sergeant in Austin, Texas, was convicted on murder charges Friday. Daniel Perry, 33, now faces life in prison over an incident from July 2020. Perry’s crime? Reaching for his handgun to take down a 28-year-old Black Lives Matter demonstrator who pounded on Perry’s car with an AK-47.

Perry’s claims of self-defense fell short, and the Army sergeant at Fort Hood was found guilty of murder after an eight-day trial followed by two days of jury deliberations. The case, however, brought by a far-left prosecutor funded by liberal financier George Sorors, never should have made it to trial. Charges shouldn’t have even been filed. The day after the verdict, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott ordered his pardon review board to prepare an act of clemency.

“Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney,” Abbott wrote in a statement published on Twitter Saturday.

In Texas, the governor’s pardon powers are constrained by a state board appointed by the governor, which dictates when clemency may be given.

“I have made that request and instructor the Board to expedite its review,” Abbott said of Perry’s murder verdict Friday.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton took more direct aim at Perry’s prosecutor, José Garza.

“Self-defense is a God-given right, not a crime,” Paxton told Fox News. “Unfortunately, the Soros-backed DA in Travis County cares more about the radical agenda of dangerous Antifa and BLM mobs than justice.”

According to the Daily Mail, Garza received $600,000 from the Soros-backed Texas Justice and Safety PAC during his 2020 campaign.

“This week has shown us how rogue prosecutors have weaponized the judicial system,” Paxton added.

While Perry faced a guilty murder verdict in a Texas courtroom last week, another Soros-backed prosecutor was pursuing unprecedented charges against a former president in New York.

On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump pled not guilty to a 34-count felony indictment related to hush-money payments made in 2016. Altogether, the charges carry a maximum 136-year prison sentence over a case that prosecutors are pursuing a novel legal theory. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg claims Trump broke the law by falsifying business records for the purpose of influencing an election. The case is so weak that a dozen liberal law professors and Trump antagonists have even called the prosecution a dead end.

In 2021, Bragg’s campaign was bankrolled by another Soros-backed group, Color for Change, with a seven-figure cash infusion. The group later pulled back half its donation after Bragg faced his own allegations of sexual misconduct.

Each case offers warning signs of a politicized criminal justice system that prioritizes crackdowns on political enemies rather than an aggressive adherence to the law. Soros financing is at the center of the liberal makeover, with Soros-backed DAs now presiding over 1 in 5 Americans.

With more than $40 million from Soros pumped into local DA races, far-left prosecutors who pursue partisan charges while Main Street vandals run wild have gone virtually unopposed. The Perry verdict shows what can happen when ideologues are the top law enforcement officer in your own neighborhood.

 

Why are IQs dropping?

Article by David Strom in HotAir

For decades IQs were climbing in the Western World. It was called the “Flynn effect.”

Average IQs were defined as 100 in each succeeding iteration of the IQ test, as by definition the average was normed to 100. But if you rescored earlier IQ tests based upon prior norms, the average IQ would have increased by about 15 points or one standard deviation.

In other words, if you took an IQ test in 1942 and scored 100, by today’s scoring you would have an IQ of 86.

That is, until the past 10 or so years. In the past 10 years, IQs have been dropping, and dropping pretty fast. And nobody is quite sure why. It is labeled the “Reverse Flynn Effect.”

There is lively debate about what exactly the Flynn effect and now the Reverse Flynn effect exactly mean. It could be something as simple as differences in education or education styles or something physical such as the effects of nutrition, as diets change over time. There could have been something that stimulated logic and reading abilities in the past and that no longer exists, or something else.

But the fact is that improvements in IQ over time are being erased.

Americans’ IQ scores are trending in a downward direction. In fact, they’ve been falling for over a decade.

According to a press release, in studying intelligence testing data from 2006 to 2018, Northwestern University researchers noticed that test scores in three out of four “cognitive domains” were going down. This is the first time we’ve seen a consistent negative slope for these testing categories, providing tangible evidence of what is known as the “Reverse Flynn Effect.”

In a 1984 study, James Flynn noticed that intelligence test scores had steadily increased since the early 1930s. We call that steady rise the Flynn Effect. Considering that overall intelligence seemed to be increasing faster than could be explained by evolution, the reason increase became a source of debate, with many attributing the change to various environmental factors.

One interesting clue is the fact that of the 4 domains of intelligence measured only 3 of the four have gone down, while the 4th–spacial reasoning–continued to rise.

Almost sounds like playing video games a lot dumbs down the verbal and logic abilities while increasing spatial reasoning. That is my favorite explanation.

Schools, too, have stopped emphasizing logic and reading and gone deep into ideological propaganda. The simplest conversation with a newly graduated student reveals their utter inability to reason coherently on almost any matter or use the English language as a sophisticated communication tool.

Hence the inability to define simple terms such as sex, or answer the question “what is a woman.”

We know that exposure to sophisticated concepts and reading matter a lot, particularly at the early stages of brain development. With the reduced emphasis on reading and logic skills and the enhanced ability to consume endless amounts of simple content–usually in very small bites–it wouldn’t be surprising to see the ability of younger people to exercise more sophisticated abilities.

Of course, this is speculation on my part.

Dworak, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University and one of the authors on the study, is very clear that these results don’t necessarily mean Americans are getting less intelligent. “It doesn’t mean their mental ability is lower or higher; it’s just a difference in scores that are favoring older or newer samples,” she said in a press release. “It could just be that they’re getting worse at taking tests or specifically worse at taking these kinds of tests.”

And, it should be said, there has long been debate over how accurately IQ tests are able to gauge overall intelligence and potential for success in society in the first place.

Regardless, scores are falling, and there’s got to be a reason for the decline. Dworak says it might have something to do with “a shift in perceived values in society.” She offers up the potential explanation that an increase in focus on STEM education may have allowed other areas, like abstract reasoning, to fall by the wayside.

I don’t buy that society is becoming more focused on STEM. We talk a lot about it, but STEM scores are pretty dismal in the schools, and STEM itself is becoming ideological.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if you sliced and diced the population in order to tease out some more sophisticated correlations. Race, income, type of school, hours on the Internet, content consumption habits, parenting styles.

I suspect we could learn a lot. And given the size of the data sample, I suspect that the studies could easily be done, or even have been done and the results not widely distributed for political reasons.

But again, that latter is just speculation. It may be that the variables simply weren’t recorded.

In any case, the fact remains: something bad is going on here. I think we have all seen the effects in our personal experiences, and now the anecdotal impressions have data to back them up.

Why are IQs dropping? – HotAir

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