Putin uses ICBM for first time to attack Ukraine, signaling how the war could go nuclear

 The attack comes two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a revised nuclear doctrine that formally lowers the threshold for the country’s use of nuclear weapons. Ukraine on Tuesday fired several American-supplied longer-range missiles and reportedly fired U.K.-made Storm Shadows on Wednesday into Russia. ...

The developments come as the war has taken on a growing international dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the battlefield — a development that U.S. officials said prompted U.S. President Joe Biden’s policy shift on allowing Ukraine to fire longer-range U.S. missiles into Russia. The Kremlin responded with threats to escalate further.

More.

You'd think Trump could spell his name correctly after all that's passed between them, but why congratulate North Korean ascendancy to the WHO?

It's all just weird.

And Jimmy Carter level bad.

 

GOP candidate positions on Ukraine demonstrate nothing but groveling to the anti-war right

 And the kernel there is pretending things that are not true, the mark of an unserious country.

Nikki Haley is simply incoherent. She says we have to win this war, but without more financial assistance. 

“I don’t think we need to put money in Ukraine,” Haley said last week before an audience in Iowa. ... “This is not a war about Ukraine, this is a war about freedom—and it’s one that we have to win,” Haley said. “If we win this war, this will send a message to China, it will send a message to Iran, it will send a message to North Korea, it will send a message to Russia. If we lose this war… they said Poland and the Baltics are next, and you’re looking at a world war.”

Ron DeSantis pretends Russia never invaded and simply has a territorial dispute with Ukraine.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests—securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party—becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis told Fox News host Tucker Carlson this week.

And The Daily Beast isn't wrong about Donald Trump's position, who to this day touts the myth that he is some great deal-maker who can untie the Gordian Knot:

Former President Donald Trump has said he would have let Russia “take over” parts of Ukraine if he were still in the White House.

It is also the case that there is plenty of pretending on the other side, that the West wasn't responsible for the Ukrainian revolution of 2014 which ultimately provoked the current conflict.

Statesmen tell hard truths to their people. But none of ours seem capable of telling even the simple ones, including Joe Biden.

The pest in North Korea is becoming more problematic

South Korean defense officials said the missile fired on Saturday appeared to have been launched from an actual submarine, unlike some tested in the past, which were believed to have been fired from underwater platforms. North Korea has only one known submarine capable of launching a ballistic missile, with a single launch tube, but it has been developing a new one with greater capabilities, according to the South Korean military.

More.

Trump kicks off speaking tour vying for the Sean Penn vote, saying he got on best with communist dictators of China, North Korea, also with Russia's Putin

 Reported here.

Tone deaf, much?

My guess is Sean Penn still isn't impressed, try as Trump may.

Big news of the day: Russia admits its COVID deaths aren't 54k but are a much higher 186k

The new calculation is based on an evaluation of excess death data compared with current projections for deaths based on prior years of death data. The US' CDC does the same routinely and that data confirms that US COVID death data is close though underestimated. 

Places like China, Iran and North Korea however will never tell the truth.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/28/russia-admits-to-world-third-worst-covid-19-death-toll-underreported

Follow the (gullible) science lol:

In North Korea Jane Fonda and her "responsible ethically harvested gold and sustainable diamonds" would be executed by dropping a dozen mortar rounds on her glam head

If you want war with North Korea, Joe Biden is your man

Link.

People foolishly say Trump gave the Norcoms nothing when he's foolishly curtailing joint military exercises with SK

U.S. to end large-scale military drills with South Korea:

Word of the planned announcement comes less than 48 hours after a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un came to an abrupt end with no agreement. Trump said afterward that the annual military drills with South Korea were "very, very expensive" and the government in Seoul should pay more for them. ... “That’s not good alliance management," Klingner said. “We didn’t get anything in return. North Korea did not codify their missile test moratorium, nor do they agree to any constraints on their own military operations.”

Piers Morgan: Trump is kicking Democrats' ass

Piers Morgan, here:

According to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Trump is now at 47% approval, compared to Obama’s 45% two weeks before the midterm elections in 2010. ...

And I see a President who’s growing stronger by the day.

Trump’s become a political Godzilla, crushing everyone who dares challenge him and bulldozing his way through an agenda that is beginning to pay real dividends.

In less than two years, Trump’s got two nominees onto the Supreme Court, entrenching a Conservative majority.

He’s slashed taxes, and regulations – sparking a boom in the US economy that shows no sign of stopping, a surge in jobs and record low unemployment.

Trump’s forged a peaceful dialogue with North Korea, launched a trade war with China that many think is long overdue, withdrawn from the obviously flawed Iran nuclear deal and Trans-Pacific Partnership, forced Mexico and Canada to update NAFTA, bullied NATO countries into paying their bills, and bombed ISIS out of Iraq and Syria.

He’s also clamped down hard on illegal immigration.

As I write this, a ‘caravan’ of more than 7,000 Central American migrants – most of them from Honduras - is moving towards the Southern border.

They intend trying to enter the United States illegally.

It’s hard to think of a more powerful image to vindicate Trump’s much criticized demand for a new ‘Wall’, isn’t it?

Did Trump voters in 2016 vote for a huge corporate tax cut, war with North Korea, and a DACA amnesty?

I watched all the rallies and never heard about these things.

The enthusiasm was all for The Wall, a symbol of the out of control immigration problems facing the country, of which we haven't gotten one inch 19 months later. We could have had 2000 miles of razor-wire by now, but for that you'll need Hungarians apparently, not Americans.

The secondary enthusiasms were for jobs and an end to Obamacare, which have been half-heartedly addressed, not in the least because rank and file Republicans are about business as usual, i.e. keeping their jobs. We still have 16.1 million total unemployed in May 2018, and (unusable) privately purchased health insurance premiums going through the roof.

They don't give a damn about us or what we need, except at election time.

I'm voting in the primaries against incumbents where possible, and third party (but no libertarians) in the general. Otherwise it'll be for Mickey Mouse, Dopey and Goofy, but never again for these fools. The cartoon variety would be an improvement.

Ann Coulter: The rich are like sharks, all appetite and no brains

Here:

Trump thought North Korea was hard? With immigration, we have all of the most influential forces in our culture on the same page. Immigration is a great unifier of the rich and powerful. 

The rich are like sharks -- all appetite, no brain. With their cheap labor voting 7-3 for the Democrats, it won't be long until Democrats have a lock on government. What do you think they'll do then, Business Roundtable? Answer: Make it impossible to do business. Google "California." 

With the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the Koch brothers' incessant lobbying for more and more cheap labor, we see exactly what Lenin said about the capitalists: They will sell us the rope with which to hang them. 

The rich don't care. They can't think beyond next quarter's earnings. 

Trump may have kept the issue of US troops in South Korea separate from the North Korea talks, but he still wants them out

Removing US troops from the peninsula will only give China what it wants. A robust US presence in South Korea, Japan and Guam helps ensure the security of Taiwan, not simply the security of South Korea. The end game is Taiwan. Trump is misguided to think otherwise.

Quoted here before 6:30 this morning:

“I want to bring our soldiers back home,” Trump said, although he added that it’s “not part of the equation right now.” Then he said: “We will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should. But we’ll be saving a tremendous amount of money. Plus, I think it’s very provocative.”

Trump's determination eventually to remove US troops from South Korea isn't what the South wants or the North demands

From the story here in early May:

The South Korean government reiterated this week that the troops were still needed and would not be pulled out as a result of a peace treaty with North Korea. ...

Mr. Kim recently declared, through South Korean officials, that he would drop the North’s longstanding insistence that American troops leave the peninsula. Some experts argue that watching American soldiers depart is far less important to him than winning relief from economic sanctions.

SECDEF Mattis explicitly states US troops in South Korea are not a bargaining chip in North Korea denuclearization talks

Quoted here:

However, Defense Secretary James Mattis said recently at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that any discussion about U.S. military presence in South Korea will be "separate and distinct" from the negotiations with Pyongyang.

"That issue will not come up in the discussions with [North Korea] and as you all recognize; those troops are there as a recognition of a security challenge," Mattis said.

How the failed North Korean summit is just like Election 2016

The North Koreans simply failed to show up, as did Hillary's voters.

But as with the election, everyone will go on interminably with other attempts at explanation.

The idiots at Politico call the Hermit Kingdom "hermetic" after North Koreans fail to show up in Singapore

Hermits are recluses, the followers of Hermes something else again. Apparently the editor never learned the difference at Carleton College, or is himself a hermit, employing himself elsewhere.

Here:

The scuttling of the summit, which had been scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, is a blow to U.S. efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, as well as Trump’s desire to land a legacy-making deal with the hermetic nation. ...

A senior White House official said the [North Korean] statement was simply the latest in a “trail of broken promises“ that led Trump to abandon the talks. Last week, North Korean officials failed to show up in Singapore for a series of meetings to lay the groundwork for the presidential summit, the official said, declaring: “They simply stood us up.“

In recent days, the North Koreans have also been unresponsive to U.S. attempts to reach them. “We simply couldn’t get them to pick up the phone,“ the official said. In addition, the North Korean government did not keep its promise to invite experts to observe what it has said was the closure of one of its nuclear test sites, casting doubt on what really happened, the official said.

Just a reminder: North Korea wants US troops out of South Korea

A bad idea shared by many, not the least of whom is Pat Buchanan.

Reuters reports, here:

The North has long said it is open to eventually giving up its nuclear arsenal if the United States withdraws its troops from South Korea and ends its “nuclear umbrella” alliance with Seoul.

In canceling talks with South Korea over US military drills, Norths demonstrate the wider objective: Removal of US forces from the peninsula

North Korea cancels meeting with South Korea, threatens to ditch summit with US over military drills

Was the last North Korean nuclear weapon detonation yield at Mantapsan underestimated by over 100%?

According to a Wikipedia entry here, the following formula is used to calculate the radius of the crater created by an underground nuclear blast:

r = 55 * ${\displaystyle \sqrt[3]{y}}$

If y was 100 kilotons as widely reported, for example here, the radius r of the crater should have been in the neighborhood of 255ft. with the entire underground void thus having a diameter of something like 510ft.

Yet the researchers referenced in this article state that the diameter of the void left under Mantapsan was 656ft.

That presupposes an r-value of 328 and thus a y-value of 212 kilotons, not 100, meaning the North Koreans detonated a weapon with a yield 112% higher than widely reported.