THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX Falcon rocket aces 100th consecutive rocket landing. “Simultaneously, demonstrating just how far SpaceX is ahead of its competitors and the rest of the spacefaring world, the Starlink 6-1 launch culminated in the 100th consecutively successful landing of a Falcon rocket booster. As a result, SpaceX’s landing reliability now rivals the launch reliability of some of the most reliable rockets ever flown. That extraordinary feat bodes well for SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket, which is designed to propulsively land humans on the Earth, Moon, Mars, and beyond.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered officials to tighten control of the Ukraine border Tuesday after a flurry of drone attacks targeted regions inside Russia – with one drone crashing just 60 miles from Moscow.
Ukraine authorities did not take responsibility for the attacks but have claimed the right to such forays to turn back Russia’s invasion. Pictures of the drone showed it was a small Ukrainian-made model with a reported range of close to 500 miles but no capacity to carry a large load of explosives.
Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian drone early Tuesday over the Bryansk region, local Gov. Aleksandr Bogomaz said in a Telegram post. He said there were no casualties. Three drones also targeted Russia’s Belgorod region along the border, and one flew through an apartment window in its namesake capital, local authorities reported.
Moscow Regional Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said the Moscow-area drone apparently was targeting – but did not hit – a Gazprom gas distribution facility.
Ukraine going after a target that deep inside of Russia, even unsuccessfully, was almost science fiction before today.
Plus: “More than 60,000 Russian troops have died in the first year of the Ukraine war, more than all Russian wars since World War II combined, a new study says.”
AS NAPOLEON SAID, THE MORAL IS TO THE MATERIAL AS THE THREE IS TO THE ONE: France’s baby bust. “The decline in fertility is ‘the most important fact of the history of France’.”
CHICAGO: Calling the Police: Lightfoot Needs A Lifeline. “What Lightfoot is testing is if, in America’s third largest city, the rise in violence is enough to make calls to defund the police enough of a liability that she can overcome her deep unpopularity to eke into the runoff, which is to take place on April 4th.”
Nice to see the CDC kinda sorta taking some responsibility for some of the damage it did. Not that anyone will lose their job over it. That’s just not done.
We talk of a “Vietnam War.” In fact, it was a Cold War communist proxy effort that saw over 100,000 Chinese auxiliaries engaged in supply and repairing Vietnamese infrastructure, while thousands of Soviet “advisors” manned tanks, flew planes, and organized and operated anti-aircraft systems. Vladimir Putin’s current objection to U.S. military aid to Ukraine is again ironic, given Russia was historically an active participant on the ground in Vietnam and both directly and indirectly killed Americans in efforts to defeat the United States.
Moyer ends volume two on a mixed note. An exhausted and beaten North was negotiating in fear that its massive losses of 1967-1968, if continued, would have threatened the Hanoi regime itself. An elected Republican hawk Richard Nixon, inheriting a war that already had cost 35,000 dead, was now opposed by the same Democrats who started it. A growing number of frustrated Americans wanted either to win the war or to get out. Nixon would soon take the gloves off, ensuring that a nearly defeated North would be subject to greater bombing pressures—even as the anti-war Left enjoyed complete control of a Congress that was suddenly liable to cut off aid to Saigon, could more easily mobilize against a now oppositional and conservative White House—and the ingredients of the Watergate debacle were on the distant horizon.
The so-called “Watergate Congress” of Democrats elected in 1974 pulled the plug on funding for our defense of South Vietnam the following year. But prior to their election, as Lewis Sorley quoted counter-insurgency expert Sir. Robert Thompson in his 1999 book, A Better War:
Having failed to achieve their aims militarily, the North Vietnamese turned their attention to the Paris Peace Talks. They were extraordinarily fortunate to be dealing with Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, two opportunists of the worst sort, who were willing to negotiate a deal which left the North with troops in South Vietnam. When President Thieu balked at this and threatened to scuttle the talks, the North backed off of the whole deal and Nixon ordered the 1972 Christmas bombings of Hanoi. For eleven days, waves of B-52’s, each carrying 108 500-pound and 750-pound bombs, pummeled the North. For perhaps the only time during the entire War, the North was subjected to total war, and they were forced to return to the negotiating table. Sorley cites Sir Robert Thompson’s assessment that:
In my view, on December 30, 1972, after eleven days of those B-52 attacks on the Hanoi area, you had won the war. It was over.
At that point, the Viet Cong had been destroyed, we had definitely won the insurgency phase of the War. Additionally, the North had been defeated in the initial phase of conventional warfare, and had finally had the War brought home to them in a significant way. Though the overall War was certainly not over, it was sitting there, just waiting to be won.
During a 2012 eulogy for George McGovern, Joe Biden recalled a confrontation he had with President Gerald Ford over pulling troops out of Vietnam. Ford had agreed to meet with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which included then-freshman Joe Biden, to discuss the administration’s military funding requests during the fall of South Vietnam on April 14, 1975.
According to Biden’s account: “I said, ‘Begging the president’s pardon, but I’m sure if the president were in my position, the president would ask the president the following question.’ I swear to God, it’s in the transcript. And Ford looked at me very graciously, and he said, ‘Yeah?’ I said, ‘With all due respect, Mr. President, you haven’t told us anything.’ They were talking about Sector 1, Sector 2, Sector 3, and with that the president turned and said, ‘Henry, tell them.’ And that was the first time it was decided that we were not going to try to sustain our presence [in Vietnam],” said Biden.
But Biden’s alleged statement, and the response from Ford, do not appear in the classified minutes of the meeting, which have been released by the Ford Library Museum. According to the transcript, Biden did speak up at the meeting to oppose military aid to help evacuate South Vietnamese allies alongside the U.S. troops. “I am not sure I can vote for an amount to put American troops in for one to six months to get the Vietnamese out. I will vote for any amount for getting the Americans out. I don’t want it mixed with getting the Vietnamese out,” said Biden, according to the transcript.
Found via Fred Bauer, who notes, “Biden has never made any secret of his tremendous admiration for McGovern, whom he views as a transformational and inspirational figure.” Which brings us to 2021:
The Chicago mayoral election is today! Can you feel the excitement? Yes, we here in the Windy City, on a terminal February day in an off-off-year — the “Why are we even doing this, in this weather?” timing chosen quite by design — have been appointed to decide the fate of incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot (D — but why even bother clarifying), who is running for reelection as Chicago mayors inevitably tend to do.
The topline takeaway is this: It is extremely possible that Lightfoot will be ejected from office tonight. It’s not a guarantee, because (1) polling is so variable nowadays, especially in local races; (2) all the candidates have strengths and weaknesses that will appeal to various voter demographics in a city famously divided by them; and (3) almost everyone is triangulating their final vote. If that were to happen, it wouldn’t exactly be historic in Chicago history — it happened in 1983, more about which below — but it would be rather notable as a marker in the breakdown of Democratic machine politics within big cities, among which there are few bigger than Chicago.
And I do think it’s over for her, either tonight or in the runoff: Whether you’re a committed Leftist who thinks Lori Lightfoot has let you down by fighting the various unions and not defunding the police — while still alienating them; this is classic Lightfoot — or you’re just some guy with a wife and a kid worried about getting mugged or having masks forcibly tied to your weeping son’s face by agents of the state, you’re done with Lori.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: The Correct Take on Scott Adams. “Is Scott Adams racist? For the famous “Dilbert” humorist, it might be something worse — and better.”
Plus:
Nike offers to #FundMorePolice.
Stephen Colbert’s most epic self-own ever.
The coolest dog in the world.
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
JOANNE JACOBS: Catching ChatGPT cheaters is tough: Is it bursty? “Justness is a cornerstone of the rule of practice of law and is first harmonic to the saving of social order and the tribute of soul rights . . . Outlaw justice involves the funfair and colorblind undefined of Torah . . . “
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