Military Veterans and Patriots

Month: February 2022

  • Biden Falls Flat in Latest Head to Head Matchup Poll Against Trump

    Biden Falls Flat in Latest Head to Head Matchup Poll Against Trump

    Nick Arama | RedState

    How long has Joe Biden been down in the polls? Ever since last year and the debacle in Afghanistan. That’s a long time and he hasn’t been able to figure out a way to get out of the basement.

    Biden may have thought that dealing with the Russian situation might have helped him and would have people rallying around him. Except the problem is he’s handled it poorly right down the line, ever since he came into office and waived sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and cut our own energy production ability, then waved a flag to Vladimir Putin essentially signaling a “minor incursion” wasn’t going to be met with a severe backlash.

    While he had sanctions he could have dropped and Ukraine was begging for them to be dropped to prevent the invasion, he refused. Then he said “no sanctions would have prevented it” even though his team had been saying for a month that the threat of sanctions was designed to prevent Putin from acting.

    Americans look at his actions like that and 59 percent say Putin moved in because of Biden’s weakness. They can see it. 62 percent also said the invasion wouldn’t have happened under President Donald Trump.

    So no, Biden isn’t getting any lift in the polls from this situation at all and when you look at the polls toward 2024, even the Democrats are saying no, no, no to Joe Biden just before he is about to deliver his State of the Union address.

    According to the Washington Examiner, just 23% of Democratic primary voters would choose Biden for a second term, according to a survey from McLaughlin & Associates, a GOP polling firm. That’s got to make the Democrats sit up and take notice and realize they have a problem. He’s practically screaming to get primaried with numbers like that.

    But the problem is that the people whose names have been tossed around as the “back-ups” are just as bad and their numbers are even worse than Biden’s.

    Notably, support for 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who has stirred new reports that she’s eager to run again, came from just 4% of Democratic primary voters. And Vice President Kamala Harris is also an afterthought at 7%.

    Hillary Clinton has been doing all she can to get out there and have people see her again. Of course, that’s the problem. When they see her they’re reminded of all the reasons people didn’t vote for her.

    The top issue that is hurting Joe Biden is inflation.

    In his analysis for Newsmax, McLaughlin said, “Two-thirds, 64%, of all voters say that America is on the wrong track. Only 32% say, ‘right direction.’ As gas and food prices rise, the top issue is inflation. The number of voters saying the economy is in recession rose to 57%. Two-thirds, 63%, of the voters say the economy is getting worse, and only 31% said that it is getting better. This is the worst economic result since the coronavirus pandemic caused the economic shutdown in March and April of 2020.”

    This guy speaks for everyone on this issue:

    This is what Biden has brought.

    Meanwhile, Biden is trying to sell that the economy is just great and people are just “psychologically” upset over COVID. It’s a disconnect that keeps offending the voters.

    The survey found a lot of desire for President Donald Trump to run again and he indicated during his CPAC speech that he might do just that. It also found that he’d crush the competition.

    The survey said that not only do Republican primary voters want Trump to run for a third time, 66%-22%, but it also found that Trump would beat Biden, Clinton, and Harris.

    In fact, pollster John McLaughlin predicted an “electoral landslide,” telling Secrets, “Trump would win the needed battleground states by an even higher margin” than in 2020.

    They now can see the reality of Biden – and not what they were sold by the Democrats – and can compare it more fairly to Trump. It’s not surprising that a lot would now be running back to Trump.

    Original Here

  • Welcome to Monday, 28 February Conversation

    Welcome to Monday, 28 February Conversation

     Over Black Coffee and Gunpowder Tea

    served with 

    For those who may not have heard, CNN has a potential replacement for Zucker.
    Of course, this will not change the fact that…


  • Project Farm: Best Angle Grinder

    Project Farm: Best Angle Grinder

    In this week’s episode of Project Farm, Todd tests cordless angle grinders. He tests grinders from knockoff Makita, Makita, Milwaukee, Dewalt, Ryobi, Bosch, Craftsman, Ridgid, Metabo and Workpro. Grinder performance compared cutting through ½ inch rebar with 5 pounds of pressure. Tool power/torque compared using a grinding disc with incremental increases in pressure up to 20 pounds.

    Remember, Todd purchases all of the products tested on Project Farm to ensure unbiased testing results. Please consider supporting him on Patreon.

  • Putin Orders Russian Nuclear Forces on Alert Status…

    Putin Orders Russian Nuclear Forces on Alert Status…

    Putin Orders Russian Nuclear Forces on Alert Status as His Ukrainian Adventure Stalls

    Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to up the ante on his Ukraine adventure on Sunday by ordering Russian nuclear forces onto alert status.

    Putin, in giving the nuclear alert directive, cited not only statements by NATO members but the hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including the Russian leader himself.

    Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin told his defense minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put nuclear forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”

    “Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country,” Putin said in televised comments.

    My assessment:

    • The invasion of Ukraine is not going well. The Russian campaign plan seemed to be based on a series of what turned out to be flawed assumptions. They assumed the Ukrainian armed forces would be ineffectual if they did not totally melt away; they assumed Ukrainian feeling of pan-Slavism would see them flock to the side of the Russians; they assumed the Ukrainian government would be on the first plane out of the country on Wednesday, and they assumed that the entire affair would be wrapped up in 48-hours. None of that happened (Putin Shows Signs of Panic, as He Calls on Ukraine Military to Mutiny. In fact, the Ukrainians’ very clever propaganda campaign has succeeded in making President Zelensky into a heroic figure (Ukrainian President Zelensky Tells Russia to Pound Sand — and Hits Joe Biden’s Impotence).
    • The second round of sanctions announced yesterday caught Putin by surprise. Those sanctions which impede the ability of the Russian central bank to draw on gold and foreign currency reserves will become very serious in the next few weeks. The sanctions against Putin, himself, while a null-set economically hit him in his most vulnerable area, that would be his ego.
    • The outpouring of popular pro-Ukraine activity across Europe, like pulling a soccer tournament from Russia, street demonstrations, most of Western Europe closing its airspace to Russian aircraft, etc., caught Putin by surprise. As this exercise was supposed to showcase Russia’s power, it has backfired spectacularly in making Russia a pariah in Europe.

    Unlike the United States, which tends to observe treaties, the requirements of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty have largely been ignored by Russia. As a result, Russia retains battlefield nuclear weapons, and their open-source doctrine says they believe they can use those with impunity because the US does not have comparable weapons, and escalation would be to an ICMB exchange.

    At this point, I think we should all look at this order for what it is. Putin is on the verge of being humiliated, and he’s trying to return what has become a widespread governmental and popular backlash to the Ukraine invasion to a battlespace he controls. If the war persists for another week, which will mean the Russian Army in Ukraine is on the cusp of a spectacular failure, if not outright collapse, the calculus changes. February 27, 2022 https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/02/27/putin-orders-russian-nuclear-forces-on-alert-status-as-his-ukrainian-adventure-stalls-n528892

  • Welcome to Sunday, 27 February Conversation

    Welcome to Sunday, 27 February Conversation

     Over Black Coffee and Gunpowder Tea

    served with 

    For a brief Sunday message, remember to FROG!

    Have a very blessed day!

  • Freedom

    Freedom

    Yesterday, I read a very interesting article on the site AmericanGreatness. The article was about Trudeau’s tyranny. There were two things that really caught my attention. I thought I would share them 

    First was the subheading, which read:

    The convoy embarrassed the elite and challenged their authority. And for that Trudeau made them pay. Other Western elites will follow.

    Matthew Booze, American Greatness

    The second was the final paragraph. My brain was screaming about how absolutely true every word was. 

    Freedom today exists only among dissidents, among ordinary people who perhaps do not even know yet that they are dissidents: moms, dads, truckers, business owners. They have spirit and righteous rage, but they are disorganized, and the repression they face is highly coordinated. They are fighting an undeclared war with tyrants who want to take everything they have, who are seeking to demolish civil society and replace it with the state. This is the fight of our lives, and we cannot speak of “democracy” again until there is an unconditional victory, and those responsible for the pandemic’s atrocities are chastened, humiliated, chased out of power, and punished for their crimes.

    Matthew Booze, American Greatness

    Mr. Booze is absolutely, unequivocally correct in his statement we are in a fight. Truthfully, it is a war and one in which we should take no prisoners!

  • Welcome to Saturday, 26 February Conversation

    Welcome to Saturday, 26 February Conversation

     Over Black Coffee and Gunpowder Tea

    served with 

    I saw a headline suggesting the House had passed a ’reparations’ bill.

    There is a meme for that.


  • Welcome to Friday, 25 February Conversation

    Welcome to Friday, 25 February Conversation

     Over Black Coffee and Gunpowder Tea

    served with 

    As I tend to constantly deal with hydration issues, and use cucumbers as one method to deal with the issue, this found a smirk from me.


  • Russian Sanctions

    Russian Sanctions

    The Biden administration announced sanctions in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions target financial institutions, several individuals and the russian tech sector. The White House fact sheet details the sanctions.

    • Severing the connection to the U.S. financial system for Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank, including 25 subsidiaries, by imposing correspondent and payable-through account sanctions. This action will restrict Sberbank’s access to transactions made in the dollar. Sberbank is the largest bank in Russia, holds nearly one-third of the overall Russian banking sector’s assets, is heavily connected to the global financial system, and is systemically critical to the Russian financial system.
       
    • Full blocking sanctions on Russia’s second largest financial institution, VTB Bank (VTB), including 20 subsidiaries. This action will freeze any of VTB’s assets touching the U.S financial system and prohibit U.S. persons from dealing with them. VTB holds nearly one-fifth of the overall Russian banking sector’s assets, is heavily exposed to the U.S. and western financial systems, and is systemically critical to the Russian financial system.
       
    • Full blocking sanctions on three other major Russian financial institutions: Bank Otkritie, Sovcombank OJSC, and Novikombank- and 34 subsidiaries. These sanctions freeze any of these institutions’ assets touching the U.S financial system and prohibit U.S. persons from dealing with them. These financial institutions play a significant a role in the Russian economy.
       
    • New debt and equity restrictions on thirteen of the most critical major Russian enterprises and entities. This includes restrictions on all transactions in, provision of financing for, and other dealings in new debt of greater than 14 days maturity and new equity issued by thirteen Russian state-owned enterprises and entities:  Sberbank, AlfaBank, Credit Bank of Moscow, Gazprombank, Russian Agricultural Bank, Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Transneft, Rostelecom, RusHydro, Alrosa, Sovcomflot, and Russian Railways. These entities, including companies critical to the Russian economy with estimated assets of nearly $1.4 trillion, will not be able to raise money through the U.S. market — a key source of capital and revenue generation, which limits the Kremlin’s ability to raise money for its activity.
       
    • Additional full blocking sanctions on Russian elites and their family members: Sergei Ivanov (and his son, Sergei), Nikolai Patrushev (and his son Andrey), Igor Sechin (and his son Ivan), Andrey Puchkov, Yuriy Solviev (and two real estate companies he owns), Galina Ulyutina, and Alexander Vedyakhin. This action includes individuals who have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian state, and have elevated their family members into some of the highest position of powers in the country. It also includes financial figures who sit atop Russia’s largest financial institutions and are responsible for providing the resources necessary to support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This action follows up on yesterday’s action targeting Russian elites and their family members and cuts them off from the U.S. financial system, freezes any assets they hold in the United States and blocks their travel to the United States.
       
    • Costs on Belarus for supporting a further invasion of Ukraine by sanctioning 24 Belarusian individuals and entities, including targeting Belarus’ military and financial capabilities by sanctioning two significant Belarusian state-owned banks, nine defense firms, and seven regime-connected official and elites. We call on Belarus to withdraw its support for Russian aggression in Ukraine.
       
    • Sweeping restrictions on Russia’s military to strike a blow to Putin’s military and strategic ambitions.  This includes measures against military end users, including the Russian Ministry of Defense. Exports of nearly all U.S. items and items produced in foreign countries using certain U.S.-origin software, technology, or equipment will be restricted to targeted military end users. These comprehensive restrictions apply to the Russian Ministry of Defense, including the Armed Forces of Russia, wherever located.
       
    • Russia-wide restrictions to choke off Russia’s import of technological goods critical to a diversified economy and Putin’s ability to project power. This includes Russia-wide denial of exports of sensitive technology, primarily targeting the Russian defense, aviation, and maritime sectors to cut off Russia’s access to cutting-edge technology. In addition to sweeping restrictions on the Russian-defense sector, the United States government will impose Russia-wide restrictions on sensitive U.S. technologies produced in foreign countries using U.S.-origin software, technology, or equipment. This includes Russia-wide restrictions on semiconductors, telecommunication, encryption security, lasers, sensors, navigation, avionics and maritime technologies. These severe and sustained controls will cut off Russia’s access to cutting edge technology.

    The sanctions fall short of denying access to the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system and sanctions on Putin himself. Nor is the Russian oil sector affected.

  • War in Ukraine

    War in Ukraine

    As you should know by now, Vladimir Putin let slip the dogs of war last night US time/ this morning eastern european time after months of build-up. The initial attacks came as the UN Security Council was meeting to discuss the situation. Just before the first missiles impacted, and likely after they had launched, a prerecorded address by Putin was played on Russian state media. In that address he announced his plan for a special military operation aimed at disarming and de-nazifying Ukraine.

    Before I go any further, I caution you about the news and reports coming out of the warzone. Not only do you have to wade through the typical fog of war misinformation, you need to deal with active Kremlin disinformation and PSYOPS. If it gets reported by me, it is as close to the truth as I can get from here. Again, be very wary of the information you’re consuming and sharing, spreading disinformation about this can cost lives.

    Starting around 2130 EST Russian cruise missiles, short and intermediate range ballistic missiles and air launched precision munitions started hitting targets in Ukraine. Among the first targets were airports and ammo depots. However, not all targets were military in nature as several sites within the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv and Mariupol were hit.

    Shortly before 0700 local time the ground offensive kicked off with armored columns moving out from Crimea, the Donbas region and the Belarus border. The Crimean column made good headway into Ukraine, but that’s to be expected, given that column consists of mainly elite VDV paratroopers.

    The attacks from the Donbas and Belarus have not made nearly as much progress, though reports indicate that the Belarusan front has captured Chernobyl and most of the exclusion zone.

    Things are looking grim for the Ukrainians, however it is not all bad. It seems the Ukrainians have slowed if not stopped the assault from the Danbas. And there are multiple, though unconfirmed, reports that the Ukrainians have shot down several Russian aircraft today. There are also many images and video of disabled and destroyed russian tanks and armored vehicles.

    As I write this Ukrainian forces are fighting to take back Hostomel airport, just 15km from the capitol of Kyiv. Russian airborne forces landed there earlier today and managed to push back the defenders. As of 1515est at least part of the airfield is back under Ukrainian control.

    I will try to keep you updated as much as possible, however the speed at which this is unfolding may not make that possible. Look for a separate piece about the western reaction to this naked aggression by Putin later today.