Regular readers will be familiar with one of my favorite refrains: The best government money can buy. Leave it to the Babylon Bee to develop that concept in a truly creative way:
This innovation promises to do away with the sleaziness inherent in the old concept of “making the sale” to John Q. Public:
Here’s another new concept, or a development of a possibility that I brought up a day or two ago. The idea is that the Russian Winter Offensive has already begun, but in an unexpected manner. Most commentators have naturally been expecting a massive “blitzkrieg” style of offensive—massive firepower, prepped by artillery and then spearheaded by tanks, designed to break through the equally massive Ukrainian fortified lines. What I suggested the other day was something along the lines of what we could call “stress testing”. The Russian offensive seems to be taking the form, for the time being, of heavy probing attacks which settle down as Ukrainian forces are transferred to oppose the attacks—resulting in the Ukrainian defenders being anchored in place and subjected to the usual attrition by artillery. In the meantime, the Russians move on to a new probing offensive: wash, rinse repeat.This is happening over a vast area but the result is a major intensification of the war of attrition approach:
Larry Johnson has picked up on that:
I am mystified by the Western analysts who are downplaying the Russian offense in the Donbass along the defensive line that stretches from Bakhmut in the south to Seversk in the north as some sort of sideshow with no strategic importance. I disagree. I do not think that Russia is waiting for a “Spring offensive.” A Russian offensive is underway on multiple fronts and Ukraine is paying a heavy toll.
Larry references a recent video by Doug Macgregor, who, in a bit of a volte-face, likens the Russian approach to the culminating Allied 1918 offensive on the Western Front in WW1—with the important difference that the Russians are cautiously avoiding the massive casualties suffered by the US Army in its 100 day offensive in France:
Stand tall, Billie Sol, we don’t know you at all,
We’ve taken down your pictures from the wall.
Well, we don’t want to handle an agriculture scandal,
We have got to face elections in the fall.
Phil Ochs continued: “And now I’d like to say, that crime sure doesn’t pay,
But if you’d like to make some money on the sly, well you can always rent, the U.S. government, it’s the best one that money can buy.”
Watched the Russian woman in the video on Larry's site. Maybe its a show but the Russians have to be beyond pissed off with this German tank issue. Regardless of how many of them there are and that they'll probably be blown to bits rather quickly, the symbolism of Deutsche panzers rolling across the same ground a short 80 years on is chilling. It shows an amazing level of hubris, historical ignorance and stupidity.