Ukraine is now paying the price for Zelensky’s ill-advised Kursk adventure, which ended in total failure.
According to Dima, the 12th Azov brigade and many other units had to be hastily redeployed to the Pokrovsk front to plug huge gaps from a collapse.
Now the Sumy and Kharkhiv directions are no longer covered as the units that were there are no longer able to defend.
Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | May 28 2025 11:58 utc | 202
DS still not closing the cauldron but taking >32km2 hit (on a slow 1.100 men day)
Kupyansk showing signs of change from the north

Posted by: Newbie | May 28 2025 12:18 utc | 203

Gen Kellogg insists that negotiations are the only way to end the bloodshed in Ukraine and that DJT is the “only guy” who can lead those deliberations.
Inflexible maximalist thinking much-?
We all had a queasy feeling in April 2024 when Gen Kellogg & Fred Fleitz stepped boldly forward to present what they said was DJT’s peace plan for Ukraine only to discover that it was warmed-over neocon misconceptions about the causes of the war and even the belligerents—-note Gen Kellogg perhaps still does not acknowledge that the U.S. is @ war w/ Russia.
Gen Kellogg’s misperceptions of Project Ukraine have calcified since he stepped boldly into his role as the Special Envoy to Ukraine. Perhaps his vision is too altogether clouded by the fact that his daughter has run an NGO-style medical/charity group in support of U.S. and EU mercs who suit up for the conflict in Ukraine *since before the SMO commenced.*
Some of these U.S. and EU mercs were fighting w/ various militia in the Donbass against Ukrainians in, what was at the time, a west v. east civil war in Ukraine.
Moreover, it is plain weird for Gen Kellogg to identify DJT as the “only guy” who can preside over the Peace Memoranda Russia and Ukraine present for upcoming negotiations when DJT is the president of a country that is quite literally @ war w/ Russia.
The rationale is laughable.
U.S. and Euro-leaders do not see anything off-kilter in the set-up, though, because they want to quash Russia @ all costs, even if the impetus to do so drives them into absurdity.
They are reminiscent of the prominent Dem influencer who claimed over the weekend that he would have voted for a literally comatose Joe, whose presidency would be shadow-run by an unelected committee, in order to kill DJT’s chances of winning the presidency because DJT represented so grave a threat.
Note, however, that the Dem influencer did not advocate *telling* citizens that a vote for Joe would actually be a vote for the unelected shadowy presidency-by-committee. He wanted to bamboozle citizens into believing that a vote for Joe was actually a vote for Joe.
In other words, engaging in that degree of duplicity was no problem for the Dem influencer as long as it stopped DJT.
Gen Kellogg shows a similar willingness to promulgate non-nutritive lies in order to bring down Russia.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 28 2025 12:23 utc | 205

German Reichskanzler Friedrich Merz has declared that the German authorities will do everything possible to prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from ever becoming operational.

yes little adolf, we know. prevent any cooperation, even if it hurts our own economy, just so you can sell the war easier down the line.

Posted by: Justpassinby | May 28 2025 12:32 utc | 207

Speaking of news
two same week about the Lo side of RF airforce
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russia-resurrecting-mig35-ukraine-nkorea-opportunities
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/belarus-joint-producing-s75-checkmate
If things go hot might make sense
Use MIG capacity, make new low SU elsewhere, increase numbers (eve if single engine)
Still waiting for a budget propeller driven Yak for patrol and drone hunting… cheap way to get some serious hours on many new wings (before they graduate to jet boys) . Could also lend a hand o CAS where the hellduck is overkill.

Posted by: Newbie | May 28 2025 12:34 utc | 209

You never want to see Ushakov carry water for DJT, but now VVP’s aide is suggesting that intel services had not informed DJT about Kiev’s 48-hour drone-swarm against Moscow and other Moscow-region cities from 23 May through 25 May or the drone-swarm which entangled VVP’s helicopter as he returned from the Kursk Region.
Being *uninformed*, according to Ushakov, is what led to DJT’s *mean tweets* about VVP from 25 May through 27 May.
Ushakov wants to portray DJT as trapped in an information silo by a cabal of neocons who have colluded w/ warmongering Euro-members of NATO in order to force DJT to escalate the conflict in Ukraine in their favor.
It’s a polite way for Ushakov to say that DJT does not really know *jack* about Russia or Ukraine or the war there and the U.S.’s steep involvement & investment in it. What’s left *unsaid* is that for all DJT’s peripatetic attention to the war he seems amazingly uninsightful about it.
DJT seems critically unfazed by the fact that he is the president of a country @ war w/ Russia and yet he believes somehow he can mediate the peace process by remaining in the dark enough about the war that he can blame War Things That Happen on Russia.
Dangerously, DJT has never had a handle on this matter. He does not have the chops for it.
It is difficult to see the past 4+ months as anything more than a quite elaborate, quite byzantine, quite filigreed deception: maneuver the Russians to where we *want* them and then spring the surprise.
This is the Minskiest of the Minsks—and it had nothing at all to do w/ the Belarusian city, but became so-Minsk, it’s not possible merely to call it Minsk 3: it is Minsk 3, 4, 5, & 6 bundled together.
This is the Minskless Minsk.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 28 2025 12:49 utc | 211

@ steel_porcupine
You post way too much.

Posted by: boneless | May 28 2025 13:12 utc | 213

“Posted by: Jo | May 27 2025 20:04 utc | 74
RE Gen Kellogg
<< In terms of insightful geopolitical matters, Gen Kellogg drives from the Ladies tee on the golf course, metaphorically speaking naturally." Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 27 2025 20:16 utc | 77 And the old neocon posts a 35 stroke handicap....

Posted by: canuck | May 28 2025 13:16 utc | 215

Posted by: NoName | May 28 2025 12:22 utc | 207
It needs more than forced conscription to build an army.
You need buildings to host the personnel, dressing for the soldiers, trading and trainers and, last but not least weapons for those people.
Some of the positions, think about jet fighter pilots, require possibly years to reach proper training.

Posted by: Mario | May 28 2025 13:25 utc | 217

The chance is fairly high, with support throughout the right including AfD and probably from Die Linke as well.
Posted by: persiflo | May 28 2025 13:31 utc | 221

i am just glad that i am taking my childran out of this madness. if the nazis want to sacrifice children to fight their wars of aggression, then they can do it with their own, not with mine.

Posted by: Justpassinby | May 28 2025 13:39 utc | 219

vargas @187: “How can Putin trust Trump…”
What is this hangup some people have about “trust”? Only fools and the cognitively impaired trust anyone in politics, geopolitics, business, and media. I don’t even “trust” our host here at MoA, even though he isn’t corporate mass media and thus isn’t by default compromised. Even without the disturbing trends in Germany as of late, if the bad guys wanted to “influence” him they could do so.
“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you” –some dooshbag who knows
Is our host “taking on the intelligence community”? Absolutely. “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act,” a wise guy said, so not only is our host at odds with a key concern of the bad guys, he’s a dangerous revolutionary in that regard. Fortunately, the bad guys find watching the traffic here to be more valuable than any benefit they could get from direct interference so MoA is allowed to persist, but it is foolish to assume that will always be the case. The bad guys have a long track record of doing extremely bad things when they get desperate, and things are not going their way despite apparent successes in Syria and Romania, so…
In any case, Putin is neither a fool nor mentally handicapped. He clearly keeps his brain’s skepticism muscles well exercised, as should we all.

Posted by: William Gruff | May 28 2025 13:49 utc | 221

A Realist View on European Security and the Validity of Putin’s Argument
The recent article outlining President Vladimir Putin’s remarks on European security deserves more serious, less ideologically filtered consideration than it typically receives in Western discourse. Stripped of rhetorical framing, Putin’s core point—that Europe needs a new security architecture which ensures the safety of all nations without threatening others—is not only reasonable, but long overdue.
From a realist geopolitical standpoint, the current NATO-centric model of European security is inherently unstable. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has steadily expanded eastward, contrary to assurances—verbal but politically meaningful—given to Soviet leaders in the early 1990s. Simultaneously, the U.S. and its allies have been deeply involved in shaping political outcomes across the former Soviet sphere. Events like the 2014 Maidan uprising in Ukraine cannot be divorced from extensive Western support, coordination, and behind-the-scenes political engineering. These were not organic democratic transitions in the neutral sense, but strategic maneuvers in a great power contest.
It is within this context that Russia’s security concerns—and its call for “indivisible security”—must be understood. While the West frames its actions as defensive, Russia interprets them, with justification, as coercive and aimed at containment. The militarization of the EU and its €150 billion arms initiative only reinforce this perception. If NATO continues to function not as a defensive alliance but as a mechanism for U.S. hegemony in Europe, Russia will inevitably respond with forceful countermeasures—just as any major power would when its sphere of influence is eroded.
This is not to excuse Russia’s every action. But in international politics, moral clarity rarely aligns with strategic clarity. Putin’s remarks reflect a strategic worldview that is widely shared outside the West, especially in the Global South, which has grown wary of U.S.-led interventions masked as humanitarian missions.
Peace in Europe will remain elusive as long as the continent remains locked into a unipolar security arrangement that excludes or isolates Russia. Stability can only emerge through a multipolar framework that respects the interests and agency of all actors—large and small, East and West alike.

Posted by: Calgary Guy | May 28 2025 14:03 utc | 223

https://www.flightradar24.com/CFC2919/3a89dea2
RCAF Lockheed CC130J Hercules, reg 130611, leaves Rzsezow for Prestwick (NATO staging post for transatlantic flights) after a presumed arms delivery.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 28 2025 14:23 utc | 225

So the Neo-Nazi loving Germans, are threatening to cut funding to any EU state that doesn’t fall into line with its stance on Russia.
“Slovakia will not be bullied into changing its foreign policy, Prime Minister Robert Fico has said, calling German threats to cut EU funding due to its stance on Russia “aggressive and unacceptable.”
Fico’s remarks came in response to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said member states that resist the EU’s policies on Russia could face financial consequences.
“Member states that violate the rule of law can be confronted with infringement proceedings,” Merz warned at the WDR Europaforum in Berlin on Monday. “There is always the option of withdrawing European funds from them.””

Posted by: Republicofscotland | May 28 2025 14:26 utc | 227

The Poles are jockeying for position in Eastern Europe – previously they had been making noises on acquiring some land belonging to Ukraine – that were once under Polish control.
“Poland, a NATO member sharing a long border with Belarus and situated near the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, has announced plans to conduct its largest divisional military exercises in recent memory. Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz made the statement on Monday, underscoring Warsaw’s growing alignment with Western military structures. While details remain classified, the scope of the maneuvers signals a continued escalation of Poland’s military posture in the region.
The exercises are being framed by Polish officials as a direct response to Zapad-2025, a large-scale joint military drill planned by Russia and Belarus for September. In Poland, however, what was once cautious strategic planning has given way to an increasingly belligerent tone from political and military leaders. Discussions of a potential conflict with Russia – a nuclear-armed state – are now voiced with unsettling frequency in Warsaw’s political mainstream.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | May 28 2025 14:35 utc | 229

Who can blame the guy – Romanian authorities are corrupt as f*ck – I’ve read that the Telegram founder was held in France – and he coerced to use his social media platform Telegram – to shutdown the likes of Gerogescu’s supporters – and to push the Wests favoured puppet candidate in the presidential elections.
Again like EU citizens, Romanian citizens need to rise up and take action – or watch democracy in Romania become lost completely.
“Former Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu has stated that he will be withdrawing from politics, following the victory of a pro-EU candidate in a presidential election rerun from which he was banned, earlier this month.
Georgescu, a former UN official, ran as an independent in Romania’s November 2024 presidential election, campaigning on national sovereignty, criticism of Bucharest’s involvement in NATO and the EU, and opposition to continued military aid for Ukraine. Having won the initial round of voting, his victory was annulled by the country’s Constitutional Court, citing “irregularities” in his campaign along with intelligence reports alleging Russian interference—claims Moscow has denied.
The election was rerun on May 18 without Georgescu on the ballot.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | May 28 2025 14:46 utc | 231

the eu (fourth reich) also lifted all sanctions from syria, now that their “moderate rebel” headchoppers are in charge. eu aiding ISIS, ALQUAIDA, HTS, lifting sanctions from the syrian central bank, to pour money towards them for alleged “humanitarian” reasons.

Posted by: Justpassinby | May 28 2025 14:48 utc | 233

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/28/zelenskyy-merz-germany-ukraine-sumy
Ukraine and Germany have agreed to future military cooperation in which Berlin will help finance long-range weapons production on Ukrainian soil. Defence sector accords between the two allies were due to be signed in Berlin on Wednesday afternoon, said Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, adding that the weapons would be produced in collaboration by Kyiv and Berlin. “Our defence ministers will sign a memorandum of understanding today regarding the procurement of Ukrainian-manufactured long-range weapons systems,” Merz told a press conference. “There will be no range restrictions, allowing Ukraine to fully defend itself, even against military targets outside its own territory.” …Zelenskyy said he expected the first weapons to be ready by June 2026.
You have 13 months to get to Odessa ! Alternatively, the factory gets Oreshnik’d just as its being finished.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 28 2025 15:10 utc | 235

@ Posted by: Norwegian | May 28 2025 14:26 utc | 229
Counter-intuitively, it has been said that attack by Russia is exactly their objective.
This is the problem when ruled by people with no vested interest.
What will be the down-side for Mertz if many regular citizens are killed?
But it will greatly promote war spending.
Our mind will not let us see what we are seeing.

Posted by: jared | May 28 2025 15:28 utc | 237

Counter-intuitively, it has been said that attack by Russia is exactly their objective.
Posted by: jared | May 28 2025 15:28 utc | 240

pretty much. they want a russian attack on “nato-soil”. but russia refuses to take the bait.
but with russia attacking the ukraine, it also kills slavic people, another thing the west with all its genocidal values wants.
so they can keep this going, its a win-win of sorts. “mother of all proxies” indeed. they know that russia will not nuke ukraine or go shock and awe, because in essence, nato is holding the ukrainian civilians hostage. so russia has to go slow and methodical.
the west does not give a single shit about any ukrainian citizens. and they also successfully inserted themself in every political and societal aspect of ukraine, so that this hostage situation made by the european union terrorists keeps going. until the last ukrainian indeed.
the old nazis at least had the decency to be open about their intentions. the new ones in brussels under nato flag pretend to be some salvation to humanity or something. values.

Posted by: Justpassinby | May 28 2025 15:38 utc | 239

@ William Gruff | May 28 2025 15:40 utc | 243
craig murray has an article on the topic of the UN, in contrast to the dictates of those in power in the UK and their servitude to israel..
The UK Rebukes the UN and Bows to the Israeli Embassy over “Terrorism” Arrests of Journalists
if it ain’t g bush 2 trashing the UN, it is the UK – funny how this ugly pair never tire of trashing the UN for their continued warmongering ways…

Posted by: james | May 28 2025 15:46 utc | 241

Even the mercs are closing shop, a whole outfit, not just disparate idiots.
AFU are already having to effectively trap certain “foreign legion” groups on the front so they wouldn’t leave. The poor schmucks with no backing. Instead, a “serious” outfit like this running… That’ a bad look.
https://t.me/rybar/70772

Recently it became known that the English-speaking mercenary company Chosen Company has ceased its activities as part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as reported by their commander on his page in one of the banned social networks.
Previously, the unit was called the 312th volunteer company , but since the beginning of 2023, the mercenaries were reorganized and included in the 59th separate brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine , changing their old name. Later, they became part of the 49th special forces detachment of the SBU.
[…]
And the consequences of the departure of the much-hyped Chosen Company could be even more tragic for the Ukrainian Armed Forces and cause a more serious “outflow of personnel” from the enemy’s international units. The first to decide to leave will most likely be followed by the rest.

Rybar would call it “outflow”. Sounds more like a toilet flush to me.

Posted by: boneless | May 28 2025 15:57 utc | 243

Posted by: boneless | May 28 2025 15:38 utc | 241
RE: MoA beancounter-in-chief speaks
<< AI on chat threads will eventually replace human beancounters. Cher boneless, I am so glad you are still able to fulfill this valuable task.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 28 2025 16:12 utc | 245

Posted by: snake | May 28 2025 15:15 utc | 239
Representative democracy tend to promote most electable people that often tend to be sociopaths.
But other forms of government also have their own sets of problems.
Best we can do is hope for some working checks & balances in any government forms.

Posted by: Savonarole | May 28 2025 16:14 utc | 247

Tell the Germans “the first time any long range weapon is used against Russia, Berlin will be nuked.”
And then do it, in one almighty no nonsense swoop.
No ifs or buts!!
If that does not make them see sense, then nothing will, and you might as well get it over and done with.
Enough of this pussyfooting farting around!

Posted by: g wiltek | May 28 2025 16:16 utc | 249

Don’t think little Napoleon will begin too much nonsense.
France doesn’t have an ass in it’s pants.
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-risks-running-out-cash-social-spending-court-auditors-say/

Posted by: jpc | May 28 2025 16:28 utc | 251

Germany is merely a pup vassal—-not the Big Dog.
When the Big Dog stopped hurling long-range death & destruction into Russia’s hinterland, that was *not* an invitation for Germany, the pup, therefore to rush in and start hurling their own.
Nature abhors a vacuum, of course. But Germany is not nature.
And there is no vacuum in need of Germany filling.
Collective Biden-style warfare & provocations are *so* 2024.
2025 is not 2024.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 28 2025 16:42 utc | 253

james @244: “if it ain’t g bush 2 trashing the UN, it is the UK – funny how this ugly pair never tire of trashing the UN for their continued warmongering ways…”
Exactly. As karlof1 often points out, the US signed and ratified the UN Charter, making it the law of the land in the USA like the Constitution, but the US simply ignores it unless it is useful to beat some other country up with. This highlights the key problem with supranational government, as the laws end up not applying to any unipolar hegemon, and that is precisely the entity the laws are most needed to apply to.

Posted by: William Gruff | May 28 2025 16:42 utc | 255

Ray McGovern & John Helmer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a-FBfYkyP4
“Russia unleashes full-scale assault – Is WWIII closer than ever?”

Posted by: JohnGilberts | May 28 2025 16:48 utc | 257

Kettled AFU troops southwest of Konstantynivka (in the Romanovka bottleneck) are in ever more desperate straits. Ukraine has rushed 3 brigades from the Sumy region to Konstantynivka in the hopes of shoring the garrison up, thus leaving the Sumy area, which Russian Forces have made spicy over the past week, short of arms & men.
Guys huddled in basements near Sumy assemble plastic quad-copter kits, representing the veritable backbone of drone manufacture in the super-dynamic tech industry in Ukraine (/s), but the Russian Forces are liberating village after village, utilizing terrain features like high bluffs and floodplains to great advantage.
The geography is on Russia’s side and regardless of the guys huddled in basements w/ their plastic quad-copter kits, the skies belong to Russia too.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 28 2025 16:51 utc | 259

Anyone got any ideas what would bring both a Polish Government plane and the Air Ambulance (in reality a flying hospital) to Rzsezow this morning?
Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 28 2025 11:57 utc | 200
Could be related, reports of six Iskander ballistic missiles on a single target in the city of Kremenchuk shortly after midnight. If true, it must be something of very high value.

Posted by: HerRoz | May 28 2025 16:56 utc | 261

“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you” –some dooshbag who knows”
Posted by: William Gruff | May 28 2025 13:49 utc | 224
“Seventeen days before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a swamp Democrat, said this on MSNBC: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.””
And, Chuck Schunmer is not a ‘dooshbag (douchebag); he is a ‘fucking scumbag’!

Posted by: canuck | May 28 2025 17:00 utc | 263

Europe is preparing for war…
They will flood Ukraine with weapons…
I fear that while the RU army is strong the support at home is not that great…
Posted by: JamesBond | May 28 2025 16:51 utc | 263
Europe won’t be ready for war in ten years and Ukraine won’t even be a country by the end of this year.
Also, RF support at home is actually surging since they’re winning… voluntary recruitment is at record levels.

Posted by: TJandTheBear | May 28 2025 17:02 utc | 265

Posted by: joe911 | May 28 2025 16:48 utc | 262
To repeat, it’s obvious that the “Putin weak/Putin traitor” meme is the one decided on by western propagandists, following Saul Alinsky:
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Isn’t it gone 5 pm at Brigade 77, joe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/77th_Brigade_(United_Kingdom)
“The present brigade’s broad purpose is to conduct psychological operations.”
It must be said the UK may not have two tanks to rub together, and the Navy could fit in a municipal swimming pool, but our reserves of snark are the envy of the world.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 28 2025 17:06 utc | 267

HerRoz | May 28 2025 16:56 utc | 266
Thanks, I’ll go looking. That flying hospital doesn’t come out every day, so there must be some non-Ukrainian (or high value Ukrainian) casualties. And why a Polish Government passenger jet? They won’t want the upholstery ruined.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 28 2025 17:10 utc | 269

@ William Gruff | May 28 2025 16:42 utc | 258
thanks william.. that is very true what you say..

Posted by: james | May 28 2025 17:12 utc | 271

@Posted by: canuck | May 28 2025 17:25 utc | 275

they support Afd

The AFD is a neoliberal capitalist populist party that fully supports the holocaust in palestine and also supports all forms of imperialism that exploit nations incapable of defending themselves. The only reason they are not enthusiastic about the war against Russia is because Russia is strong and to the AFD this war is a wasted effort.
Capitalism and imperialism are intertwined. The AFD would be Melonie’d faster then Merz reversed on his budget restrictions.
The current german (and US) power elite could live quite well with an AFD government. Not much would change.

Posted by: Hamburger | May 28 2025 17:50 utc | 273

RUAF Capture 64 Sqkm Within 24 Hours | AFU Experiencing Local Collapses
Weeb Union
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWvP0WPpwp0

Posted by: TJandTheBear | May 28 2025 18:37 utc | 275

Roger Boyd | May 28 2025 18:44 utc | 279
Don’t think Trump is an oligarch tool, but he is an Israeli one. A Gentile property developer in NYC won’t have much of a career if he doesn’t kiss the ring, to vary the religion.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 28 2025 18:58 utc | 277

@Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 28 2025 18:58 utc | 280
Trump is a front man who has been kept financially alive by certain interests as he went from one business disaster to another. We may see his assets, but we have no access to his liabilities. He is of course bought and paid for by the Zionists, even marrying his daughter into a Chabad family. Trump’s biggest donors are Musk and Timothy Mellon (part of the Mellon banking dynasty). Adelson is third. There are many other non-Jewish oligarchs such as the Hendricks family.
His policies scream oligarch tool: tax cuts for the rich, tax rises for the rest, cut Medicare/Medicaid, cut SNAP and other programs that serve the poor, slash regulations, slash anti-trust, slash the tax agency, more money for the state security complex. He is also heavily supported by the oil&gas area of the oligarchy, so massive cuts to green energy funding.
If he really cared about illegal immigrants he would be jailing employers for knowingly employing illegal immigrants. If he really cared about drugs he would be shutting down the financing for them, currently fully provided by the US banking industry.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | May 28 2025 19:16 utc | 279

Really losing track here, I’ve forgotten whether Trump Delusion is different from Trump Derangement.
That said, Trump is not an oligarch too, he is an oligarch. Further, the way the US political system is set up, no president is simply a tool, barring the kind of sickness that prevents them from doing anything on their own. The presidency is modeled partly on monarchy, thus like any monarchy, it is apt to function badly when an incompetent becomes king…yet the need to prevent fatal strife among the nobility demands that the kind have the last word. The more incompetent the monarch/president, the more of the actual work (insofar as there really is what we peons might call work, that is) is done by staff, many of whom are men in their twenties and thirties, clients of older people, who have forgotten much about doing actual work. The higher officials may or may not be oligarchs or longstanding servants of oligarchs, who are currently political allies…but their real influence tends to depend on their access to the monarch, i.e., president.
Now it is fashionable to pretend that the work of government, sometimes called governance or maybe administration, is imaginary, if not criminal. Thus actually doing things like delivering mail or organizing weather predictions or planning for disaster relief or announcing an outbreak of this or that disease—a multitude of essential tasks—all are dismissed by political fantasists as a so-called Deep State. They call for a Gleichschaltung to coordinate the polics of such government, turning all the jobs into spoils for the new order and trampling all previous laws and regulations into the ground. This is the libertarian/neoliberal vision, where all government is the source of market imperfections. The idea that it is the expenses of the King that have wrecked the happiness of the Nation has been a staple of the Country Party, also called Conservatives, for centuries. The possibility that it is the property system (landed property back in the seventeenth century when this BS was first devised by bourgeois ideologues) that is the true problem, is inconceivable. The oppressions of the landlords are generally greater than the oppressions of the King, because there are so many more of them.
The US version, where the so-called Deep State perverts the market and the springs of power are similar. Big as government is, it is still smaller than Capital. There are of course people who seem to genuinely believe this nonsense. Two presidents come to mind, John Tyler and Millard Fillmore. These gentlemen as near as I can tell actually tried to use the corrupting power of the public purse to create patronage machines, new parties that would re-elect them. You ask, Tyler who? Millard? Precisely, it doesn’t work. It is no accident that the infamous Austrian economist von Hayek managed to prophesy that the New Deal and such—specifically the Beveridge Report—was the Road to Serfdom. Von Hayek should have won an award for false prophecy, but that gold medal is still awarded to one Marx year after year.

Posted by: steven t johnson | May 28 2025 19:44 utc | 281

277 – I should have said that unlike the Brits Bomber Command and Israelis (in Gaza) the Americans 8th AAF for the most part avoided attacks on civilian neighborhoods in places like Berlin (Dresden was the large exception there).

Posted by: tobias cole | May 28 2025 20:00 utc | 283

277 – You do have a very good point about the lack of aircover for German armies at the end of the war (exception here with the limited impact of the ME262 which accounted for many allied bomber air losses in 1945, a truly amazing aircraft, luckily for the allies its introduction came two years too late).
By 1945 allied fighter bombers were roaming the German countryside looking for “targets” of opportunity everywhere, some appropriate, some highly inappropriate (farmer’s hay wagons, etc., etc.), and there was no Luftwaffe air cover for Wehrmacht troops in the field, except on the Eastern front where some semblance of air cover remained.
Ukrainian troops in the field today have zero air cover, and are at the mercy of RF drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missile, attack helo’s, and air strikes with glide bombs. An army without air cover is an army doomed, ask the VC how the Tet Offensive ended without air cover ! Unless you have defensive positions in unique and or mountainous terrain, your chances of success without air cover on the modern battle field are extremely limited.

Posted by: tobias cole | May 28 2025 20:16 utc | 285

Posted by: grunzt | May 28 2025 20:34 utc | 289
our paid-by-blackrock nazi regime has decided to go down this path, and our apathic people refuse to see what is happening. we are once again beeing set up by the same actors from outside the continental european subcontinent to get another devastating war going. and nobody cares.
“das hat ja keiner kommen sehen!”
well i dont care. i just hope the missiles dont start flying while we are still sorting out legal beurocratic bullshittery here until we leave. not my children for this nazi regime and the fascists in brussels.

Posted by: Justpassinby | May 28 2025 20:42 utc | 287

Posted by: Cynic | May 28 2025 20:45 utc | 291
I ,as a young man, thought Churchill a ‘hero’; as I have matured his reputation with myslef has done a 180 degree shift.

Posted by: canuck | May 28 2025 20:48 utc | 289

“Trump is a front man who has been kept financially alive by certain interests as he went from one business disaster to another. ..”
Posted by: Roger Dodger | May 28 2025 19:16 utc | 282
Kindly please provide documentation for your above assertions.

Posted by: canuck | May 28 2025 20:52 utc | 291

@tobias cole | Wed, 28 May 2025 20:00:00 GMT | 286

I should have said that unlike the Brits Bomber Command and Israelis (in Gaza) the Americans 8th AAF for the most part avoided attacks on civilian neighborhoods in places like Berlin (Dresden was the large exception there).

I’m not sure if it was a mistake by Churchill which started this thing; it could also be a strategic deliberation which is not talked about in polite company. I’m surprised about the many parallels of the Gaza playbook and the German experience.

Posted by: persiflo | May 28 2025 22:02 utc | 293

cynic and canuck – yes Hamas probably has a near perfect urban battlefield w/o air cover, an anomaly no doubt, i.e.: a totally destroyed urban landscape of mostly concrete buildings, in an area laced with a network of faux and real tunnels. Still not an easy environment for armed resistance, but also a zone where asymmetric attacks can be launched in these ruined structures…..see the Leningrad defense.
Yea the common false hood spread by Churchill apologists is that the Nazis bombed London first, not true of course. The Luftwaffe was concentrating on ports and airfields and radar sights until Berlin was attacked (Hitler still felt he could make a deal with the Brits and the Royals). The Berlin attack engaged Hitler to the point that he ordered Goering to go hard on the Brit cities, with a tactical, not a strategic air force. A very bad miscalculation, for the continued tactical bombing campaign against RAF airfields and radar stations would have doomed the results of the Battle of Britain for the Brits. Such are the vicissitudes of war…..
Yea Churchill’s drunken war policies were always a disaster….Gallipoli, Singapore (PoW), Narvik, Crete, Tito vs Mihailovich, Yalta, Market Garden etc., etc.

Posted by: tobias cole | May 29 2025 0:46 utc | 295

Official, orthodox history says that the 1942 famine in Bengal caused 3 million deaths. Those deaths were the results of Churchill’s policies, which even subordinates like Viceroy Lord Linlithgow and Secretary of State for India Amery protested against, but which Churchill insisted upon (A beastly religion for a beastly people).
Counting undercounts and deaths in neighboring provinces, the total
dead may well have been 5 million. How’s that for a holocaust?

Posted by: Lysias | May 29 2025 1:12 utc | 297

Posted by: Roger Boyd | May 29 2025 2:24 utc | 301
I was undecided as to which group was more delusional until they decided that Biden, a racist, misogynist, corrupt, pathological liar and rapist, was anything other than a lateral move. Still a pretty narrow margin but a higher proportion of Trump supports say they like him because they enjoy the show. I would only be satisfied by the Hittite solution myself.

Posted by: Badjoke | May 29 2025 2:43 utc | 299