Has Interception Of Straight Line Ballistic Missiles Been Demonstrated In Combat? (REDUX)

Originally posted 4/28/22. 

moonofalabama |   The Americans are now crying ‘uncle’ about Russia’s hypersonic weapons. After the most recent flight test of the scramjet-powered Zircon cruise missile, the Washington Post on July 11 carried a Nato statement of complaint:

"Russia’s new hypersonic missiles are highly destabilizing and pose significant risks to security and stability across the Euro-Atlantic area," the statement said.

At the same time, talks have begun on the ‘strategic dialog’ between the US and Russia, as agreed at the June 16 Geneva Summit of the two presidents. The two sides had already agreed to extend the START treaty on strategic weapons that has been in effect for a decade, but, notably, it was the US side that initiated the summit—perhaps spurred by the deployment of the hypersonic, intercontinental-range Avangard missile back in 2019, when US weapons inspectors were present, as per START, to inspect the Avangard as it was lowered into its missile silos.

But what exactly is a hypersonic missile—and why is it suddenly such a big deal?

We all remember when Vladimir Putin announced these wonder weapons in his March 2018 address to his nation [and the world]. The response from the US media was loud guffaws about ‘CGI’ cartoons and Russian ‘wishcasting.’ Well, neither Nato nor the Biden team are guffawing now. Like the five stages of grief, the initial denial phase has slowly given way to acceptance of reality—as Russia continues deploying already operational missiles, like the Avangard and the air-launched Kinzhal, now in Syria, as well as finishing up successful state trials of the Zircon, which is to be operationally deployed aboard surface ships and submarines, starting in early 2022. And in fact, there are a whole slew of new Russian hypersonic missiles in the pipeline, some of them much smaller and able to be carried by ordinary fighter jets, like the Gremlin aka GZUR.

The word hypersonic itself means a flight regime above the speed of Mach 5. That is simple enough, but it is not only about speed. More important is the ability to MANEUVER at those high speeds, in order to avoid being shot down by the opponent’s air defenses. A ballistic missile can go much faster—an ICBM flies at about 6 to 7 km/s, which is about 15,000 mph, about M 25 high in the atmosphere. [Mach number varies with temperature, so it is not an absolute measure of speed. The same 15,000 mph would only equal M 20 at sea level, where the temperature is higher and the speed of sound is also higher.]

But a ballistic missile flies on a straightforward trajectory, just like a bullet fired from a barrel of a gun—it cannot change direction at all, hence the word ballistic.

This means that ballistic missiles can, in theory, be tracked by radar and shot down with an interceptor missile. It should be noted here that even this is a very tough task, despite the straight-line ballistic trajectory. Such an interception has never been demonstrated in combat, not even with intermediate-range ballistic missiles [IRBMs], of the kind that the DPRK fired off numerous times, sailing above the heads of the US Pacific Fleet in the Sea of Japan, consisting of over a dozen Aegis-class Ballistic Missile Defense ships, designed specifically for the very purpose of shooting down IRBMs.

Such an interception would have been a historic demonstration of military technology—on the level of the shock and awe of Hiroshima! But no interception was ever attempted by those ‘ballistic missile defense’ ships, spectating as they were, right under the flight paths of the North Korean rockets!

The bottom line is that hitting even a straight-line ballistic missile has never been successfully demonstrated in actual practice. It is a very hard thing to do.

But let’s lower our sights a little from ICBMs and IRBMs [and even subsonic cruise missiles] to a quite ancient missile technology, the Soviet-era Scud, first introduced into service in 1957! A recent case with a Houthi Scud missile fired at Saudi Arabia in December 2017 shows just how difficult missile interception really is:

At around 9 p.m…a loud bang shook the domestic terminal at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.

‘There was an explosion at the airport,’ a man said in a video taken moments after the bang. He and others rushed to the windows as emergency vehicles streamed onto the runway.

Another video, taken from the tarmac, shows the emergency vehicles at the end of the runway. Just beyond them is a plume of smoke, confirming the blast and indicating a likely point of impact.

The Houthi missile, identified as an Iranian-made Burqan-2 [a copy of a North Korean Scud, itself a copy of a Chinese copy of the original Russian Scud from the 1960s], flew over 600 miles before hitting the Riyadh international airport. The US-made Patriot missile defense system fired FIVE interceptor shots at the missile—all of them missed!

Laura Grego, a missile expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, expressed alarm that Saudi defense batteries had fired five times at the incoming missile.

‘You shoot five times at this missile and they all miss? That's shocking,’ she said. ‘That's shocking because this system is supposed to work.’

Ms Grego knows what she’s talking about—she holds a physics doctorate from Caltech and has worked in missile technology for many years. Not surprisingly, American officials first claimed the Patriot missiles had done their job and shot the Scud down. This was convincingly debunked in the extensive expert analysis that ran in the NYT: Did American Missile Defense Fail in Saudi Arabia?

This was not the first time that Patriot ‘missile defense’ against this supposedly obsolete missile failed spectacularly:

On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi Scud hit the barracks in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 soldiers from the U.S. Army's 14’th Quartermaster Detachment.

A government investigation revealed that the failed intercept at Dhahran had been caused by a software error in the system's handling of timestamps. The Patriot missile battery at Dhahran had been in operation for 100 hours, by which time the system's internal clock had drifted by one-third of a second. Due to the missile's speed this was equivalent to a miss distance of 600 meters.

Whether this explanation is factual or not, the Americans’ initial claims of wild success in downing nearly all of the 80 Iraqi Scuds launched, was debunked by MIT physicist Theodore Postol, who concluded that no missiles were in fact intercepted!

 

 

Shooting Down 60 Year Old SCUD Missiles Is Difficult And The Government Lies About It (REDUX)

Originally posted 4/28/22 

NYTimes |  The official story was clear: Saudi forces shot down a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group last month at Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh. It was a victory for the Saudis and for the United States, which supplied the Patriot missile defense system.

“Our system knocked the missile out of the air,” President Trump said the next day from Air Force One en route to Japan, one of the 14 countries that use the system. “That’s how good we are. Nobody makes what we make, and now we’re selling it all over the world.”

But an analysis of photos and videos of the strike posted to social media suggests that story may be wrong.

Instead, evidence analyzed by a research team of missile experts appears to show the missile’s warhead flew unimpeded over Saudi defenses and nearly hit its target, Riyadh’s airport. The warhead detonated so close to the domestic terminal that customers jumped out of their seats.

Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment. Some U.S. officials cast doubt on whether the Saudis hit any part of the incoming missile, saying there was no evidence that it had. Instead, they said, the incoming missile body and warhead may have come apart because of its sheer speed and force.

The findings show that the Iranian-backed Houthis, once a ragtag group of rebels, have grown powerful enough to strike major targets in Saudi Arabia, possibly shifting the balance of their years-long war. And they underscore longstanding doubts about missile defense technology, a centerpiece of American and allied national defense strategies, particularly against Iran and North Korea.

“Governments lie about the effectiveness of these systems. Or they’re misinformed,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst who led the research team, which shared its findings with The New York Times. “And that should worry the hell out of us.”

 

 

Nothing Good EVAH Came From The "Garden" To The "Jungle"...,

SCMP  |  When US President Joe Biden released his national security strategy on Wednesday, the report did not mention Africa much – one brief discussion near the end on building “US-Africa partnerships” and a handful of other mentions scattered across the document’s 48 pages.

However, military analysts say the continent is not only on the US radar but is a major arena of competition with China and Russia.

The main thrust of the strategy continues a theme Biden has sounded since taking office last year: the US will focus on competing with China and containing Russia.

In Africa, Beijing has become the single largest trading partner and built mega infrastructure projects through its Belt and Road Initiative, while Moscow is the largest military arms supplier and its companies have invested heavily in the continent’s extractive industries.

“China and Russia understand very well Africa’s strategic significance,” Major General Todd Wasmund, commander of the US Southern European Task Force, Africa, told a discussion at the Association of the US Army’s annual conference on Monday.

“As the Army refocuses on China – our pacing challenge – as well as the acute threat posed by Russia, it’s important to recognise that both countries are actively competing in Africa.”

The US says it will outcompete China and Russia by investing at home, building a coalition of like-minded states, and modernising its military. According to the strategy, the US will “counter democratic backsliding by imposing costs for coups and pressing for progress on civilian transitions” and “push back on the destabilising impact of the Russia-backed Wagner Group”, the Moscow-based mercenary network.

“These are sensible priorities, but they’re also not surprising given Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which delayed the strategy for months, and America’s rising tensions with China, which date from well before Joe Biden became president,” Christopher S. Chivvis, the director of the American Statecraft programme at the Carnegie Endowment, said.

Wasmund discussed how the army used its training of African militaries through its 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade to ward off the growing Chinese and Russian influence on the continent.

“They are seeking to influence events on the continent in their favour using political influence, disinformation, economic leverage and malign military activity. We also know that violent extremist organisations are a persistent threat,” Wasmund said.

Cold In The Garden This Winter: EU Ambassador Josep Borrell Says The Quiet Part Out Loud...,

eeas.europa |  Here, Bruges is a good example of the European garden. Yes, Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build - the three things together. And here, Bruges is maybe a good representation of beautiful things, intellectual life, wellbeing. 

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova@JosepBorrellF compared Europe to a garden, the rest of the world to a jungle.

☝️Europe built that “garden” through plundering. World’s most prosperous system, created in Europe, was nurtured by “roots” in colonies.

🔗 https://t.co/RaxnAPhO45 pic.twitter.com/HOhRr0FLxx

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) October 14, 2022

The rest of the world – and you know this very well, Federica – is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it, but they will not protect the garden by building walls. A nice small garden surrounded by high walls in order to prevent the jungle from coming in is not going to be a solution. Because the jungle has a strong growth capacity, and the wall will never be high enough in order to protect the garden.  

The gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.  

Yes, this is my most important message: we have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. 

We are privileged people. We built a combination of these three things – political freedom, economic prosperity, social cohesion – and we cannot pretend to survive as an exception. It has to be a way of supporting the others facing the big challenges of our time.  

So, thank you, Federica, for hosting this experience, this pilot programme of the [European] Diplomatic Academy. 

As the diplomats say, one told me: “In diplomacy, you have to say the truth. You cannot lie – well, formally, you cannot lie. You have to say the truth. You have to say only the truth but not all the truth.” But if we want to engage frankly and honestly, to discuss about the real problems and looking for solutions, then you have to tell all the truth – but we will do it later. 

Today, just let me tell you that I am happy to participate in what can be said - and you said that - a “moment of creation”, to be “present at the creation”. To be “present at the creation” are some words that were said many years ago by one of the most famous diplomats, George Kennan - in George Kennan’s memoirs. And these memoirs are still considered the best insider account of the framing of the United States policy in the post-war – with post war, I mean post-World War II.  

Now, we are definitely out of the Cold War and the post-Cold War. The post-Cold War has ended with the Ukrainian war, with the Russian aggression against Ukraine. And we are certainly living also a “moment of creation” of a new world. Because this war is changing a lot of things, and certainly it is changing the European Union. This war will create a different European Union, from different perspectives. 

Zionist Neocons And Their Delusional "Villa In The Jungle"

middleastmonitor |  Twenty-five years before Israel was established on the ruins of historic Palestine, a Russian Jewish Zionist leader, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, argued that a Jewish state in Palestine could only survive if it exists "behind an iron wall" of defence. Jabotinsky was speaking figuratively, but Zionist leaders after him who embraced his teachings eventually turned the principle of the iron wall into a tangible reality. Israel and Palestine are now disfigured by endless walls, made of concrete and iron, which zigzag in and around a land that was meant to represent inclusion, spiritual harmony and coexistence.

Gradually, new ideas regarding Israel's "security" emerged, such as "fortress Israel" and "villa in the jungle", an obviously racist metaphor used repeatedly by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, which depicts Israel falsely as an oasis of harmony and democracy amid Middle Eastern chaos and violence. For the Israeli "villa" to remain prosperous and peaceful, according to Barak, the state needed to do more than merely maintain its military edge; it had to ensure that the "chaos" does not breach the perimeters of Israel's perfect existence.

Israelis want to be able to kill, without being killed in return; subdue and occupy Palestinians militarily without the least degree of resistance, armed or otherwise. They want to imprison thousands of Palestinians without the slightest protest or even the most basic questioning of Israel's military judicial system. And yet these colonial fantasies, which have satisfied and guided the thinking of successive Zionist and Israeli leaders since Jabotinsky, work only in theory.

Even the Iron Dome missile defence system — an "iron wall" of a different kind — has been a failure in terms of its ability to intercept crudely-made Palestinian rockets. Professor Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has argued that the success rate of the system is "drastically lower" than what the Israeli government and army have reported.

Even the Israeli "villa" was compromised from within when the popular Palestinian uprising of May 2021 demonstrated that Israel's native Palestinian Arab citizens remain an organic part of the wider Palestinian community. The violence meted out by police and right-wing militants, that many Arab communities inside Israel had to endure for taking a moral stance in support of their brethren in occupied Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, showed that the supposed "harmony" within Barak's "villa" was a fragile construct that shattered within a few days.

Nonetheless, Israel still refuses to accept what is both obvious and obviously inevitable: a country which exists solely due to "iron walls" and military force will never be able to find true peace, and will always suffer the consequences of the violence it inflicts upon others.

 

The Information Operations Strategy Boils Down To "Who Is Most Attractive To The World"

TCH |  On February 24, 2022, Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Daleep Singh, told the world what to expect about the U.S. and allied response to the war in Ukraine.  We called the white house strategy “World War Reddit.”  Here’s what Deputy NSA Singh said:

…”Strategic success in the 21st century is not about a physical land grab of territory; that’s what Putin has done.  In this century, strategic power is increasingly measured and exercised by economic strength, by technological sophistication and your story – who you are, what your values are; can you attract ideas and talent and goodwill? And on each of those measures, this will be a failure for Russia.”  ~ Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh

Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh boiled down geopolitical power to a cultural issue of social likeability.  Realize that what he said is the White House strategy leading our foreign policy.  That strategy is why the White House enlisted TikTok influencers for their Ukraine effort [link].  Remember, the State Dept is also leading this effort.  

TCH |  THIS video from the White House briefing today, you absolutely must watch to gain a fulsome understanding of how the modern political left views the world of geopolitical contests in 2022.

Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Daleep Singh, was presented at the podium today to explain the strategic policy of the Biden administration toward Russia.

Singh’s remarks outlining the view of the ‘west’ toward defeating Russia are eloquent yet batshit crazy in their ideological context.  Daleep Singh sounds like the senior head of a Google Human Resources operation telling the department heads how they need to convey their feelings in order to hire the talent for continued growth in the industry.  This is a direct quote:

…”Ultimately, the goal of our sanctions is to make this a strategic failure for Russia; and let’s define a little bit of what that means. Strategic success in the 21st century is not about a physical land grab of territory; that’s what Putin has done.  In this century, strategic power is increasingly measured and exercised by economic strength, by technological sophistication and your story – who you are, what your values are; can you attract ideas and talent and goodwill? And on each of those measures, this will be a failure for Russia.”

Tulsi Fitna Get A Little "Civil Affairs And Information Operations" Training

It’s almost Friday! Who am I kidding ... Weekends haven’t been a thing for me for a while. Congress isn’t back in session til Nov 16th so doing some great Army Civil Affairs Officer training! Grateful to be in Hawai’i. Sending you all aloha & best wishes wherever you are! #ALOHA pic.twitter.com/EXxU8klhjD

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 15, 2020

armytimes |  Congresswoman and former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has left the Hawaii Army National Guard for a new assignment with a California-based Army Reserve unit, military officials said.

Gabbard’s new part-time assignment as an Army Reserve civil affairs officer follows 17 years with the Hawaii National Guard, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Sunday.

The Hawaii National Guard confirmed Gabbard, who holds the rank of major, made the switch in June, but the transfer to an out-of-state unit was not formally announced, even to the state’s National Guard personnel.

Gabbard’s new posting, the 351st Civil Affairs Command, is based in Mountain View, California, but has subordinate units in other Western states.

The Army Reserve supports the active-duty Army and has more commands and promotion opportunities. Like the National Guard, most Army reservists serve part-time.

“The House in Congress isn’t scheduled to be back in session til Nov. 16th so I’m taking advantage of the time to do some great Army Civil Affairs training! I’m grateful to be able to do it in Hawaii,” the 39-year-old Democrat said in a social media message posted Thursday.

Gabbard’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gabbard served in the Hawaii Legislature and Honolulu City Council before being elected to the U.S. House in 2012.

wikipedia |  The Information Operations (IO) is the Unit specifically and officially tasked with deployment of ‘information related capabilities’ (IRCs), which is euphemistic U.S. Military jargon for rapidly developing a broad range of propaganda, disinformation and any other tools of political subterfuge available in order to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision making processes of foreign governments, such as through creating propaganda, suppressing foreign news outlets and communications systems with ‘media blackouts’ particularly during operations also involving significant traditional military combat or other activities likely to result in imagery not beneficial to the United States, stirring up civil unrest, supporting false flag operations with false reporting in support of the U.S. narrative, bribery, blackmail etc. but officially not through any supportive role in political assassination support due to the Church Committee controversy. Generally, foreign assassinations and most other actual use of force operations are done in collaboration with classified elements of the U.S. military & intelligence communities such as the CIA and not within IO Units themselves unless absolutely necessary, such as if ambushed unexpectedly.

Equivalent foreign military intelligence programs are officially under the purview of FBI Counter-Intelligence (COINTEL].

The 151st Theater Information Operations is Group (151st TIOG) was realigned under the command of USACAPOC(A) in October 2015.

Information Operations units are the field commander's capability to synchronize and de-conflict IRCs in the commander's information environment. The Soldiers consist of teams which interface and provide IO expertise to the staff.^[6] 151st TIOG IO practitioners are particularly suited for this mission as U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers with civilian occupations such as law enforcement, engineering, medicine, law, finance, public administration and civil service, etc.; and, civilian education such as Project Management Professional (PMP), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Public Administration (MPA), etc.^[7][8]

Information Operations Soldiers are integral to U.S. missions across Northwest Africa, East Africa, Europe, Middle East, and various other locations. If you see something, say something.

Why Can't You Be More Like Tulsi Gabbard?

zerohedge  |  Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was confronted by anti-war protesters during a Wednesday town hall event she hosted in the Bronx. The crowd at the sparsely attended event was dominated by her own progressive constituency, but who loudly voiced their anger and frustration over selling out on foreign policy, especially when it comes to her positions and votes on the Ukraine war, which has seen the US hand over an unprecedented tens of billions of dollars in weapons and aid. This has made her indistinguishable from her establishment colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including neocon Republicans and hawkish Dems. 

One protester loudly denounced her for policy positions that will lead to a "nuclear war" with Russia as seen in a now viral clip. Indeed an article in Unherd observed starting last Spring: The Squad nowhere to be seen as Ukraine package sails through - a trend which has only continued. Though AOC and Democratic party leadership under her friend and "mentor" Nancy Pelosi have worked hard to protect her image as a leading young Progressive, she stood helpless on the stage as the crowd turned against her, calling her out as a fraud.

While discussing ongoing escalation among nuclear-armed powers over Ukraine, a protester had enough, yelling back at AOC: "None of this matters unless there’s a nuclear war, which you voted to send arms and weapons to Ukraine."

He then called her out for her initial "outsider" views on the campaign trail, which are now anything but. She was accused of "playing with lives of American citizens" by stoking proxy war in Ukraine, leading to nuclear showdown with Russia: 

"You ran as an outsider, yet you’ve been voting to start this war in Ukraine. You’re voting to start a third nuclear war with Russia and China. Why are you playing with the lives of American citizens?"

Previously after the New York Democrat voted in favor of sending $40 billion in military and humanitarian aid in May, she's made multiple statements in favor of ramping up aid to the Ukrainians amid the Russian invasion. "As Ukraine fights against the Russian invasion, we have a moral obligation to assist any way we can," Ocasio-Cortez had said.

Ironically this is the very week former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has come under mainstream media fire and an avalanche of online denunciations and attacks for her stance on Russia-Ukraine which runs deeply counter to Washington orthodoxy. She announced this week she'll be leaving the Democratic Pary, "an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness" - as she described in her own blistering video commentary.

In the viral AOC town hall clip, a second protester can be seen loudly asking why she can't be more like Gabbard. "Tulsi Gabbard, she's left the Democratic Party because they are war hawks," he began.

"Tulsi Gabbard has shown guts where you’ve shown cowardice," the second protester said. "I believed in you, and you became the very thing you sought to fight against."

"That what you've become, you are the establishment! And you are the reason why everybody will end up in a nuclear war..."

NATO Zionist Neocon Cabal Can't Afford To Lose Both Kabul And Kiev

unz  |  Let’s start with Pipelineistan. Nearly seven years ago, I showed how Syria was the ultimate Pipelineistan war.

Damascus had rejected the – American – plan for a Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline, to the benefit of Iran-Iraq-Syria (for which a memorandum of understanding was signed).

What followed was a vicious, concerted “Assad must go” campaign: proxy war as the road to regime change. The toxic dial went exponentially up with the instrumentalization of ISIS – yet another chapter of the war of terror (italics mine). Russia blocked ISIS, thus preventing regime change in Damascus. The Empire of Chaos-favored pipeline bit the dust.

Now the Empire finally exacted payback, blowing up existing pipelines – Nord Stream (NS) and Nord Steam 2 (NS2) – carrying or about to carry Russian gas to a key imperial economic competitor: the EU.

We all know by now that Line B of NS2 has not been bombed, or even punctured, and it’s ready to go. Repairing the other three – punctured – lines would not be a problem: a matter of two months, according to naval engineers. Steel on the Nord Streams is thicker than on modern ships. Gazprom has offered to repair them – as long as Europeans behave like grown-ups and accept strict security conditions.

We all know that’s not going to happen. None of the above is discussed across NATOsan media. That means that Plan A by the usual suspects remains in place: creating a contrived natural gas shortage, leading to the de-industrialization of Europe, all part of the Great Reset, rebranded “The Great Narrative”.

Meanwhile, the EU Muppet Show is discussing the ninth sanction package against Russia. Sweden refuses to share with Russia the results of the dodgy intra-NATO “investigation” of itself on who blew up the Nord Streams.

At Russian Energy Week, President Putin summarized the stark facts.

Europe blames Russia for the reliability of its energy supplies even though it was receiving the entire volume it bought under fixed contracts.

The “orchestrators of the Nord Stream terrorist attacks are those who profit from them”.

Repairing Nord Stream strings “would only make sense in the event of continued operation and security”.

Buying gas on the spot market will cause a €300 billion loss for Europe.

The rise in energy prices is not due to the Special Military Operation (SMO), but to the West’s own policies.

Yet the Dead Can Dance show must go on. As the EU forbids itself to buy Russian energy, the Brussels Eurocracy skyrockets their debt to the financial casino. The imperial masters laugh all the way to the bank with this form of collectivism – as they continue to profit from using financial markets to pillage and plunder whole nations.

Which bring us to the clincher: the Straussian/neo-con psychos controlling Washington’s foreign policy eventually might – and the operative word is “might” – stop weaponizing Kiev and start negotiations with Moscow only after their main industrial competitors in Europe go bankrupt.

But even that would not be enough – because one of NATO’s key “invisible” mandates is to capitalize, whatever means necessary, on food resources across the Pontic-Caspian steppe: we’re talking about 1 million km2 of food production from Bulgaria all the way to Russia.

Andrei Martyanov: Now We Turn Our Attention To A Serious Russian

americanaffairsjournal  |  The book really comes into its own in the long sections on the American economy. These chapters seem especially prescient after Western sanc­tions against Russia failed to stop the invasion or decisively cripple the Russian economy, while causing increasing strains in the West. In a word, Martyanov views American prosperity as largely fake, a shiny wrapping distracting from an increasingly hollow interior.

Martyanov, reflecting his Soviet materialist education, starts by discussing the food supply. He recalls the limited food options available in the old Soviet Union and how impressed émigrés were by the “over­flowing abundance” of the American convenience store. But Martyanov notes that today such abundance is only the preserve of the rich and powerful. He references a 2020 study by the Brookings Institution which found that “40.9 percent of mothers with children ages 12 and under reported household food insecurity since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.” And while some of this was driven by the pandemic, the number was 15.1 percent in 2018. Martyanov makes the case that these numbers reflect an economy that is poorly organized and teetering on the edge. In the summer of 2022, when the food component of the CPI is increasing at over 10 percent a year and rising fast, Martyanov’s chapter looks prophetic.

Martyanov then moves on to other consumer goods. He recalls the so-called kitchen debate in 1959 when Vice President Richard Nixon showed Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev a modern American kitchen. During this debate, Nixon explained to Khrushchev that the house they were in, with all its modern luxuries, could be bought by “any steel worker.” Nixon explained that the average American steel worker earned about $3 an hour—or $480 per month—and that the house could be obtained on a thirty-year mortgage for the cost of $100 a month. Martyanov points out that this is impossible in the contemporary American economy. As vital goods have become less and less affordable for the average American, debt of all types has exploded. He notes that the flip side of this growing debt has been a decline in domestic indus­trial production, which has been stagnant in nominal terms and falling as a percent of U.S. GDP since 2008. “The scale of this catastrophe is not understood,” he writes, “until one considers the fact that a single manufacturing job on average generates 3.4 employees elsewhere in non-manufacturing sectors.”

Needless to say, Martyanov does not believe that America has the most powerful economy on earth. Deploying his old school materialist toolkit, he surveys core heavy industries—including the automotive industry, the commercial shipbuilding industry, and later the aerospace industry—and finds U.S. capacity wanting. He points out that in steel production “China outproduces the United States by a factor of 11, while Russia, which has a population less than half the size of that of the United States, produces around 81% of US steel output.”

Martyanov is particularly critical of GDP metrics as a basis for determining the wealth of a country or the power of its economy, because they assign spending on services the same weight as spending on primary products and manufactured goods. He believes that the postindustrial economy is a “figment of the imagination of Wall Street financial strategists” and that GDP metrics merely provide America with a fig leaf to cover its economic weaknesses. In a separate podcast that Martyanov posted to his YouTube channel, he explains why these metrics are particularly misleading from the point of view of military production. He compares the U.S. Navy’s Virginia-class fast-attack sub­marine and the Russian Yasen-class equivalent. He argues that these are comparable in terms of their platform capabilities, but that the Yasen-class has superior armaments. Crucially, however, he notes that the cost of a Virginia-class submarine is around $3.2 billion while the cost of the Yasen-class submarine is only around $1 billion. Since GDP measures quantify economic output (including military output) in dollar terms, it would appear that, when it comes to submarine output, Russia is pro­ducing less than a third of what it is actually producing. Using a purchasing-power-parity-adjusted measure might help somewhat here, but it would still not capture the extra bang for their buck that the Russians are getting.

A few years ago, it would have been fashionable to dismiss this sort of materialist analysis as old fashioned. Pundits argued that the growing weight of the service sector in the American economy was a good thing, not a bad thing, a sign of progress, not decline. But today, with supply chains collapsing and inflation raging, these fashionable arguments look more and more like self-serving bromides every day.

Next, Martyanov looks at energy. While many American pundits believed that the emergence of fracking technology would make Russian oil and gas less and less important, Martyanov views the shale oil boom as “a story of technology winning over common economic sense.” He believes that America’s shale boom was a speculative mania driven by vague promises and cheap credit. He quotes the financial analyst David Deckelbaum, who noted that “This is an industry that for every dollar that they brought in, they would spend two.” Ultimately, Martyanov argues, the U.S. shale industry is a paper tiger whose viability is heavily dependent on high oil prices.

Martyanov is even more critical of “green energy,” which he views as a self-destructive set of policies that will destroy the energy independence of all countries that pursue them. He also points out that China, Russia, and most non-Western nations know this and, despite lip service to fashionable green causes, avoid these policies.

Finally, Martyanov returns to the collapse of America’s ability to make things. He recites the now familiar numbers about falling manu­facturing output and an increased reliance on imports from abroad. But he also points to the collapse in manufacturing expertise. Martyanov cites statistics showing that, on a per capita basis, Russia produces twice as many STEM graduates as America. He attributes this to a change in elite attitudes. STEM subjects are difficult and require serious intellectual exertion. They often yield jobs on factory floors that are not particularly glamorous. “In contemporary American culture domi­nated by poor taste and low quality ideological, agenda-driven art and entertainment, being a fashion designer or a disc jockey or a psychologist is by far a more attractive career goal,” he writes, “especially for America’s urban and college population, than foreseeing oneself on the manufacturing floor working as a CNC operator or mechanic on the assembly line.”

Rotting from the Head Down

Martyanov’s economic analysis may reflect his Soviet materialist education, but ultimately, he views America’s core problem as being a crisis of leadership. He traces this problem back to the election of Bill Clinton in 1993. Martyanov argues that Clinton represented a new type of American leader: an extreme meritocrat. These new meritocrats believed their personal capacities gave them the ability to do anything imaginable. This megalomaniacal tendency, Martyanov observes, has been latent in the American project since the founding. “Everything American,” he writes, “must be the largest, the fastest, the most efficient or, in general, simply the best.” Yet this character trait has not dominated the personality of either the American people or their leaders, he says. Rather, the Ameri­can people remain today “very nice folks” that “are generally patriotic and have common sense and a good sense of humour.” Yet in recent times, he argues, something has happened in American elite circles that has let the more grandiose and delusional side of the American psyche run amok, and this has happened at the very time when America is most in need of good leadership.

Martyanov believes that America’s extreme meritocrats vastly over­estimate their capabilities. This is because, rather than focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the country they rule, they have been taught since birth to focus on themselves. They believe that they just need to maximize their own personal accomplishments and the good of the country will emerge as if by magic. This has led inevitably to the rise of what Martyanov characterizes as a classic oligarchy. Such an oligarchy, he argues, purports to be meritocratic but is actually the opposite. A proper meritocracy allows the best and the brightest to climb up its ranks. But an oligarchy with a meritocratic veneer simply allows those who best play the game to rise. Thus, the meritocratic claims become circular: you climb the ladder because you play the game; the game is meritocratic because those who play it are by definition the best and the brightest. Effectively, for Martyanov, the American elite does not select for intelligence and wisdom, but rather for self-assured­ness and self-interestedness.

Kara Murza: America's Compradors ALWAYS Look Like Whipped Dogs

WaPo  | “It takes incredible courage in today’s Russia to stand against the power in place,” Tiny Kox, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said this week in awarding Washington Post contributing columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza the Václav Havel Prize for his defense of human rights in his home country of Russia.

Kara-Murza is currently in a Russian prison awaiting trial on trumped-up charges of distributing “fake news” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His wife, Evgenia, accepted the prestigious award on his behalf in Strasbourg, France, on Oct. 10. The prize is named for the former president of Czechoslovakia, who — before he rose to that position after the 1989 revolution that overthrew the communist regime — himself spent many years in prison for his dissident activities. The Post is publishing Vladimir Kara-Murza’s acceptance speech below.

In his remarks, Kara-Murza draws an apt parallel between Russia’s current aggression toward Ukraine and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Russian soldiers invading Ukraine display World War II battle flags on their vehicles and use slogans praising Stalin along with Vladimir Putin. In 1968, Czechs launched a reform campaign — known as the “Prague Spring” — that aimed to create a more liberal society by limiting the powers of the Communist state. Soviet leaders felt threatened by the prospect of a liberal democracy blossoming within the Warsaw Pact, so they sent in tanks, crushing a movement whose members included Havel and many other dissidents.

Kara-Murza, like Havel, has spent his life defending the truth from the assault of dictators. The award of this prize affirms that triumphant continuity.

 

Just Like Its Warmaking - Russian Intelligence In Ukraine Will Also Make An Evolutionary Leap

johnhelmer  |  The leadership of the Russian foreign intelligence service has declared that Ukraine has passed through the path of transformation into a fascist state in just one generation. Paradoxically, all this time the Russian special services have not been able to monitor what was happening in a neighbouring and so important a state for us. How did this happen and what to do about it today?

The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation, Sergei Naryshkin (lead image, left), said that a group of ‘totalitarian-liberal regimes of the West’ turned Ukraine into their tool and established a dictatorship of fascism there. According to him, the transformation of the country took place in a single generation. He called it a tragedy that the prosperous Ukraine that was is no longer there. The head of the SVR emphasized that Russia is obliged to fight this.

Naryshkin delivered his speech during the opening ceremony of the exhibition ‘Evidence of the crimes of the Ukrainian Nazis and their accomplices.’ The exposition is based on eyewitness statements, as well as materials which were brought from the special operation zone.

A week earlier on September 30, Sergei Naryshkin said that the SVR ‘began to extract information that will help the Russian military during a special operation (SVO) in Ukraine.” According to him, the intelligence is aimed at obtaining operational and tactical information necessary for victory ‘on the battlefield.’ In addition, Naryshkin noted, the urgent task of the SVR remains to obtain information which contributes to the adoption of the most important foreign policy decisions by the country’s leadership. As an example he cited Kim Philby, who during the Great Patriotic War obtained information about the upcoming German offensive on the Kursk Bulge.

Thus, now this work will have to start, if not from scratch, then on fundamentally different organizational and ideological foundations. There is no longer any ‘fighting brotherhood’ of those who studied together. In Kiev we are dealing with a new generation which is no longer emotionally or historically connected to Russia or the USSR; it has been brought up on western principles of work. Now, moreover, we can forget about the lost decades because the situation in Ukraine itself is no longer connected to the circumstances of that time. Now this is a completely new field, which must be processed [обрабатывать] as if we are seeing it for the first time. This is a kind of new challenge that needs to be approached in a new way.

None Of This Can Be Understood Without Mention Of Syria

It was the Russian intervention to help stop another disastrous US/Israel 'regime change' operation that led to the zionist neocons flipping out. 'Russiagate' was born out of Trump's comments on the US intervention in Syria (These match his previous outspoken comments on Iraq) and branding Hilary and her state department as the 'mother of ISIS'. 

It was because of this that the zionist neocons were able to suggest that Trump was 'Putin's puppet', this is now forgotten. The progressive liberals, hungry for any reason to see Trump as illegitimate, disgracefully ran with it. (Many of them, particularly those on social media, were just truly ignorant geopolitically and in terms of zionist neocons) These buffoons have deluded themselves into being neocons on Russia - with no contextualizing idea what is really going on. They were unable to accept that Trump won the election through winning previously solid blue state great lakes states. These states previously voted for Obama twice. They couldn't comprehend why Trump won - so they accepted any reason given for why it wasn't real.

Generally, zionist neocons have been the most successful political conspiracy of the 20th and 21st centuries. This is true despite the fact that their actions and influence have repeatedly brought disastrous consequences home to roost. This is true despite the fact that they represent a tiny interest group. Zionist neocons have run roughshod over numerous supposed democracies. Despite their serial failures, zionist neocons have never faced any consequences for their serial evil manipulations.. Only their political proxies ever do. 

Everyone goes on about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But it's the swarm of zionist neocons that these two empowered - working in the background (and increasingly out in the open) who remain politically active and face no real scrutiny. This includes zionist neocon columnists in the MSM who face no consequences or scrutiny. This is why major media outlets keep giving them a platform from which to spread their increasingly transparent and hysterical lies.

Zionist neocons are right wing Jewish nationalists. Any attempt to explain what is going on without reference to this fact and to their influence - means they will get away with it. Zionist neocons have gotten away with serial misuses of American military hegemony since the end of the cold war. In order to solve the zionist neocon problem, you have to name it. 

None of the zionist neocon program makes any sense from the perspective of hard-nosed American national interest. This is why America can't be negotiated with - because the zionist neocon program isn't about American interests. Peeling Russia off China is an imperative American interest.  However, what has unfolded here to date is entirely counterproductive because zionist neocons are driven by ethnic animus toward Russia and a short-term desire to remove obstacles to regime change in Syria. Russia and China coming together is a problem for later.

It is also inescapable to not notice that a lot of highly ethnocentric supposedly left-wing anti-war Jews are most prominent and energetic in pushing this, from Sean Penn and Ben Stiller to Paul Mason and Jon Stewart.

At what point are we supposed to finally trust our own eyes, stop pretending that the emperor has any  clothes, and call out the source of our national predicaments?

 

Although Gamed Out Years In Advance - The Ziocons Had A Really Shitty Gameplan

pamho  |  Ukraine’s elites had given into promises of great financial rewards by foreigners who controlled the IMF but who also had an agenda to bring down the economy and government of Russia. The demand by American and European elites in return for billions of dollars in aid and military protection — was for the government of Ukraine to fight a bloody and unwinnable war with Russia over control of the resource rich Donbas region. And also to change their laws for neoliberal reforms to allow the foreign buying of land and businesses.

Obviously they had a huge obstacle for that plan because of Russian military might. But what is the destruction of Ukraine if the rich and powerful could get richer and more powerful?

Obviously the foreigners pulling the strings knew they couldn’t win a war against the far larger Russian military. Russia had by far the largest and most modern military in Europe. To defeat them on the battlefield was impossible. But the western elites wanted the elites of Ukraine to fight the war anyway. Why?

A future with the current economic system of the world remaining as it is—controlled by American and European elites — was seen by those elites as less and less likely as time goes on.

Whitehall’s major problem with Moscow is that it “is seeking its own independent sphere of influence separate to any American-backed global order or rule book”, the then head of the British army, General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, said last year.

Unacceptably to British planners, Russia elected to become a rival. Then defence secretary Michael Fallon said in 2017 that “Russia has chosen to become a strategic competitor of the West”.

His successor, Gavin Williamson expressed a similar lament, saying that “after 1990 we … believed there would be only one superpower”, referring to the US. Now, “Russia wants to assert its rights”, he complained. From EXPLAINER: BRITAIN’S PROXY WAR ON RUSSIA

For years China and Russia have been building a new financial system for their allies and business partners. Sanctions by western elites on so many nations and on so many powerful and rich people around the world, had led to their desire to escape the reach of the business elites who control American and European politicians from behind the scenes. It was only a matter of time until American and European financial control over the world would end as more and more countries became dependent on China and Russia for their imports and exports, for loans, for weapons, etc. The elites of America and Europe could see the writing on The Great Wall and were determined to put a stop to it.

But how to do that?

It was a very dumb plan. The plan was to entice Russia — to basically force them into defending the Russian people in Ukraine or lose face to the world as an impotent power. Thereby leading to defection from the new Russian and Chinese led economic system challenging the western powers. But first they needed a “moral basis” to try to destroy the Russian economy by “morally correct” sanctions. They couldn’t just cut them off for no reason but to harm them. Cutting them off from the American and European financial system, from their banks, from their insurance, from their markets, from their payment processing systems, from everything and anything if they have to — was the plan. That in turn would hopefully lead to revolution in Russia, or at least a coup.

They would use that destruction of the Russian economy and a hopeful coup by business interests to bring into power a pro-western government. That would then be used to pressure China to give up its plans for independence or fear facing a similar onslaught.

President Of Russia Vladimir Putin's Energy Week Speech

kremlin.ru |   I cannot help but quote some statistical data. According to EU statistics, exports to Russia amounted to 89.3 billion euros in 2021 and imports from Russia to 162.5 billion euros. The deficit in Russia’s favour is 73.2 billion euros. That is data for 2021. In the early months of 2022, this deficit increased to 103.2 billion euros.

What caused it? We sell our goods and we are ready to buy European products, but they refuse to sell them. They imposed embargos on several categories of goods one after another, hence the deficit. What does this have to do with us? They will blame us again. We sell what they want to buy – and at market rates. We are ready to buy from them but they will not sell. The deficit keeps growing, to repeat, through no fault of our own. Just do not walk away from cooperating with Russia. That is it.

I would like to note – as European officials at the highest level also mentioned – that European wellbeing in the past decades has been mainly based on cooperation with Russia.

The consequences of the partial rejection of Russian goods are already hitting the European economy and residents. But instead of working on restoring their own competitive advantage in the form of affordable and reliable Russian energy sources, the Eurozone countries are only making the situation worse, including by capping the price of oil and oil products from our country. But it is not only European countries; they are doing this together with North America, as planned, beginning December of this year.

I will quote the American economist, Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman: “If you want to create a shortage of tomatoes, for example, just pass a law that retailers cannot sell tomatoes for more than two cents per pound. Instantly you will have a tomato shortage. It is the same with oil or gas,” end of quote. Let me remind you that Milton Friedman passed away in 2006. He had nothing to do with the Russian government and cannot be designated as a Russian agent of influence.

It would seem that these are truisms. But the leaders of some countries, their bureaucratic elites dismiss these obvious considerations, and, on someone else's command, are deliberately pursuing a policy of deindustrialising their countries, reducing people’s quality of life, which will certainly entail irreversible consequences.

It should be clearly understood that if the price of oil from Russia or other countries is limited, if some artificial price caps are imposed, this will inevitably worsen the investment climate in the entire global energy sector, then exacerbate the global shortage of energy resources and further increase their cost, and this, I repeat, will primarily hit the poorest countries. These inevitable consequences are plain to see. And experts, including world-class ones – I just gave you a quote – talk about it all the time.

No amount of intervention or the unsealing of oil reserves will remedy the situation. They simply do not have as much spare resources as they need – that is the whole point. They need to understand this eventually.

The fact is that aggressive promotion of the green agenda, which, of course, needs support, as I said, but it should be done right, so, the aggressive promotion of this agenda, including in the euro area, has led to underinvestment in the global oil and gas sector. Already. Meanwhile, the EU and the United States have imposed sanctions on leading oil producers, which make up about 20 percent of the global output.

As a result, in 2020–2021, investment in oil and gas production dropped to the lowest levels in the past 15 years. You see, it happened in 2020 and 2021, long before our special operation in Donbass. Investment was less than half of what it was in 2014 in the wake of what the so-called Western politicians did, and businesses underinvested by $2.5 trillion. I will come to that later: what does the OPEC+ decision have to do with it? The OPEC+ decision is designed solely to balance the global market. They have found their scapegoat in OPEC+. What does it have to do with anything? Clearly, to reiterate, they are simply covering up their mistakes. I will come to that later.

There is one more important point. Suppose the oil price cap is imposed. Who can guarantee that a similar cap will not be imposed in other sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, the production of semiconductors, fertilisers, or the metal industry, and not only with regard to Russia, but to any other country? No one can give such guarantees, meaning that with their reckless decisions, some Western politicians are breaking the global market economy and are, in fact, posing a threat to the well-being of billions of people.

The so-called neo-liberal ideologists of the West are known to have destroyed traditional values before, we all see. Now, they seem to have set their sights on free enterprise and private initiative.

As I mentioned earlier, Russia invariably fulfills its obligations in stark contrast to Western countries, which cynically refused to honour signed finance and technology, as well as equipment supply and maintenance contracts.

I am here to say one thing: Russia will not act contrary to common sense or underwrite someone else’s prosperity. We are not going to supply energy to the countries that introduce price caps. I want to tell those who prefer con jobs and shameless blackmail to business partnerships and market mechanisms – we have been living in this political paradigm for decades now – you should know that we will not do anything that disadvantages us.

Successful G7 Oil Price Caps = OPEC Rival Consumption-Based Price Setting Cartel

indianpunchline |  The Biden Administration tempted Fate by underestimating the importance of oil in modern economic and political terms and ignoring that oil will remain the dominant energy source across the world for the foreseeable future, powering everything from cars and domestic heating to huge industry titans and manufacturing plants. 

A smooth transition to green energy over time is largely dependent on the continued availability of plentiful, cheap fossil fuel. But the Biden Administration ignored that those who have oil reserves wield a huge amount of power over our oil-centred energy systems, and those who buy oil are on the contrary, cripplingly dependent on the market and the diplomatic relations which drive it. 

The Western powers are far too naive to think that an energy superpower like Russia can be simply “erased” from the ecosystem. In an “energy war” with Russia, they are doomed to end up as losers.  

Historically, Western nations understood the imperative to maintain good diplomatic relations with oil-producing countries. But Biden threw caution into the wind by insulting Saudi Arabia calling it a “Pariah” state. Any improvement in the US-Saudi relations is not to be expected under Biden’s watch. The Saudis distrust American intentions. 

The congruence of interests on the part of the OPEC to keep the prices high is essentially because they need the extra income for their expenditure budget and to maintain a healthy investment level in the oil industry. The International Monetary Fund in April projected Saudi Arabia’s breakeven oil price — the oil price at which it would balance its budget — at $79.20 a barrel. 

The Saudi government does not disclose its assumed breakeven oil price. But a Reuters report suggested that a preferred price level would be around $90 to $100 a barrel for Brent crude — at which level, it won’t have a huge impact on the global economy. Of course, over $100 will be a windfall. 

Meanwhile, a “systemic” crisis is brewing. It is only natural that the OPEC views with scepticism the recent moves by the US and the EU to push back Russia’s oil exports. The West rationalises these moves as aimed at drastically reducing Russia’s income from oil exports (which translates as its resilience to fight the war in Ukraine.) The latest G7 move to put a cap on the prices at which Russia can sell its oil is taking matters to an extreme. 

The OPEC regards it as a paradigm shift, as it implicitly challenges the cartel’s assumed prerogative to ensure that global oil supply matches demand, where one of the key measures of supply-demand balance is price. Arguably, the West is de facto setting up a rival cartel of oil-consuming countries to regulate the oil market. 

No doubt, the West’s move is precedent-setting — namely, to prescribe for geopolitical reasons the price at which an oil-producing country is entitled to export its oil. If it is Russia today, it can as well be Saudi Arabia or Iraq tomorrow. The G7 decision, if it gets implemented, will erode OPEC’s key role regulating the global oil market.

Simply Put - Biden's Owner-Operators Have Failed The World...,

michaelshellenberger  |  Many people in the U.S. are still unaware of just how dire the situation is in Europe. They have started logging their old-growth forests for wood fuel to stay warm during the winter. You can see in a tweet that just came out today from somebody in Denmark that “people are stealing each other's wood pellets and their wood briquettes as soon as they're delivered.” To make matters worse, “There's constant reports of cars having their tanks drilled and their gas stolen.” Remember, it's not even winter yet. Winter's actually over 72 days away. So this is a very serious situation.

You can see that in Poland people are actually burning trash to stay warm. Burning trash in your fireplace creates toxic smoke. It's hazardous. The government's considering handing out masks so people can breathe more safely when they're outdoors.

Recall that natural gas is the reason the United States reduced its carbon emissions more than any other country in the world. Carbon emissions have been on the decline globally, in large measure, because of the transition from coal to gas. Natural gas is something that most reasonable people agree is a superior fuel to coal. Natural gas is the reason the United States reduced its emissions by 22% between 2005 and 2020, which is five percentage points more than the United States had agreed to reduce our emissions under cap and trade legislation, which nearly passed Congress in 2010 and under the UN Paris Climate Agreement.

At the same time Biden was going to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil. Biden administration was refusing to even meet with oil and gas executives. That’s a pretty serious snub when you consider that it’s an industry you want to expand production.

An oil and gas analyst on Twitter criticized a Senator from Wisconsin for suggesting the Democrats are responsible for the lack of refining capacity. He said, “What — do you also blame a political party for a flat tire?”

I pointed out that a single oil refinery outage would have little impact if we had sufficient refinery capacity, and the reason we don't is that politicians, mostly Democrats have used regulations to prevent their construction. When I interviewed executives one said to me, “If you were an oil company, why would you invest hundreds of millions of dollars into expanding refining capacity if you thought the federal government would shut you down in the next few years? The narrative coming out of this administration is absolutely insane.”