GOOD TO KNOW: Why F-22s, F-35 and New B-21 Bombers Should All Be Feared.

While there is broad agreement that these newer air defenses do make it harder for stealth platforms to remain fully undetected, there are a variety of reasons why actually destroying a stealth platform – and completing the entire “kill chain” – will remain extremely difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish, according to a former 3-Star Air Force weapons developer.

“Bi-static radar can help detect low observable aircraft. However, to intercept a stealth aircraft requires transfer of detection from a large acquisition radar to a much smaller interceptor radar either on an aircraft or a missile that can track—or maintain continuous “lock-on” of the low observable aircraft. When you transfer track from an acquisition radar to a weapons interceptor necessary to engage at longer ranges than the stealth aircraft can detect and fire at the interceptor, that dramatically reduces the probability of the stealth aircraft being engaged. Detection is not what it is all about, you have an entire kill chain where every element must be successful to intercept and destroy a low-observable aircraft,” Ret. Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Warrior Maven in an interview

Deptula explained that moving beyond a ground-based radar with a very large aperture to a much smaller “engagement” radar presents substantial challenges for attackers.

Stealth has become the automotive safety of military aerospace: It’s the minimum you have to provide to play with the big boys.

OH: In Istanbul, Erdogan Remakes Taksim Square, a Symbol of Secular Turkey. “The skeleton of a large new mosque has risen up on the west side of Istanbul’s Taksim Square in the last year, dwarfing the monument to the secular Turkish republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and commanding the public space.”

SHARIA LAW: This Iranian Lawyer Saved My Life. Now We Must Save Hers.

The lawyer who saved my life was just sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes in Iran.

I first met Nasrin Sotoudeh — an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, and our country’s foremost campaigner for women’s rights and against child executions — when I was being harassed and violently intimidated by Iran’s intelligence services. My crime? I had removed my headscarf in public and put the video online, in protest of Iran’s forced hijab law and the stifling control over women’s bodies and choices that it represents.

I finally felt empowered, being part of this White Wednesday movement in Iran, where every Wednesday women would courageously defy the regime in removing their headscarves, or wearing a white shawl in support of those who did, and which quickly grew into a near daily event. I was an ordinary woman, partaking in an extraordinary movement.

For this, I would go on to be arrested a total of three times last year. I was beaten and brutalized in prison, my only breaks from the psychological torture of solitary confinement. It was the most frightening experience of my life — not just the pain — but that I felt so alone, suffering in solitude.

Read the whole thing.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Collusion narrative go boom. “The constitution protects American citizens against government-backed fishing expeditions that investigate until they find a crime. Despite this forensic colonoscopy, the Mueller investigation cleared Trump and his associates of the constant, hyped-up RUSSIAN collusion the Democrats and the media have been barking about for years.”

REPORT: Russian air force planes land in Venezuela carrying troops.

Two Russian air force planes landed at Venezuela’s main airport on Saturday carrying a Russian defense official and nearly 100 troops, according to media reports, amid strengthening ties between Caracas and Moscow.

A flight-tracking website showed that two planes left from a Russian military airport bound for Caracas on Friday, and another flight-tracking site showed that one plane left Caracas on Sunday.

That comes three months after the two nations held military exercises on Venezuelan soil that President Nicolas Maduro called a sign of strengthening relations, but which Washington criticized as Russian encroachment in the region.

Reporter Javier Mayorca wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the first plane carried Vasily Tonkoshkurov, chief of staff of the ground forces, adding the second was a cargo plane carrying 35 tonnes of material.

An Ilyushin IL-62 passenger jet and an Antonov AN-124 military cargo plane left for Caracas on Friday from Russian military airport Chkalovsky, stopping along the way in Syria, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

The cargo plane left Caracas on Sunday afternoon, according to Adsbexchange, another flight-tracking site.

The flights carried officials who arrived to “exchange consultations,” wrote Russian government-owned news agency Sputnik, which quoted an unnamed source at the Russian embassy.

FLASHBACK: US Secretary of State John Kerry Says “The Monroe Doctrine Is Over.”

Heckuva job, Johnny.

READINESS: Navy Needs More Dry Docks for Repairs, Says First-Ever Maintenance Report.

“First-ever maintenance report” is all-too revealing.

MAXINE MELTDOWN: ‘This is not the end of anything!’

I don’t doubt that, although it’s certainly the end of anything legitimate — stipulating for argument’s sake there was anything legitimate about the investigation to begin with.

More from Mad Maxine:

“This is the— well, it’s the end of the report and the investigation by Mueller. But those of us who chair these committees have a responsibility to continue with our oversight,” Waters said.

“There’s so much that, uh, needs to be, you know, taken a look at at this point,” she claimed,” and so it’s not the end of everything.”

All the Democrats have to do is not act crazy, and they can’t even manage that.

HMM: China to Use First Atomic Icebreaker as Test for Future Nuclear Aircraft Carriers.

BRIAN STELTER: Trump Made Me Do It!

Video at the link, but the transcript is far more watchable:

Let me take this on. Partisans on the right are already claiming the end of the Mueller probe vindicates all of their prior positions. They are saying the media, the evil media, was wrong all along.

Donald Trump Jr. is tweeting out messages like this: “#CollusionTruthers.” Accusing the press of pushing a narrative against his dad. Junior is making a rookie mistake. Mueller’s assignment was to get to the truth about Russian interference.

Now, did many commentators and Democratic politicians allege collusion? Yes.

Did many journalists ask about it? Yes.

There is a giant difference between asking and telling. The job of the nation’s news media is to ask, to question all sides to scrutinize and report on opposing points of view and only take the side of truth and decency.

In other words: We didn’t fall for anything, push a false narrative, work to delegitimize a presidential election, or cover for Hillary Clinton’s very real security lapses. No, we were just asking questions. Bravely, one presumes.

And here’s the kicker:

The president’s kids and friends on Fox should be able to tell the difference between agenda-driven columnists and journalists trying to report. There is a big difference. There is difference between news and opinion.

Would that his bosses and coworkers at CNN understood the difference.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS IN THE SHOP FOR MAINTENANCE FOLLOWING THE MUELLER REPORT: Look Who’s Holding Secret Fundraisers with Islamic Groups Tied to Terror. “And the winner is…Rep. Ilhan Omar.”

MUELLERMAGEDDON: The Mueller Report Has Been Delivered.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Werewolf Murder: The Beatles ‘Let it Be’ Encouraged Suspect to Kill.

HMM: Did Michelle Obama’s Chief of Staff Help Prop Up the Jussie Smollett Hate Hoax?

SMART. NOW LOOK AT CHINA. Key Lawmakers Press Trump Admin to Revoke Iranian Student Visas.

IMPEACH: Wisconsin Democratic Judge Says Duly Elected Republicans Can’t Pass Laws.

PEOPLE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS PROBABLY WEREN’T BUYING VOLVOS ALREADY: Volvo to Deploy In-car Cameras to Monitor Your Behavior.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTION: Why are 2020 Democrats so weird?

BUT THE NARRATIVE: The Myth That Australia’s Gun Laws Reduced Gun Homicides. “The situation is more complicated than reporters suggest.”

It usually is:

Part of the reason that the collection of homicide data in Australia is so recent a phenomenon is because it has tended to be so rare. Politically, it simply wasn’t a national priority. Australia is a small country, with only a few more million people than Florida spread out over an entire continent. In the relatively high homicide days of the early 1990s, Australia’s homicides totaled around 300. This means in a bad crime year, in which homicides increase by only 20 or 30 victims, it could swing overall rates noticeably.

This brings us to our other problem with using post-1996 homicide data as definitive proof of anything. The numbers are too small to allow us to extrapolate much.

That won’t stop the usual suspects from doing just that, however.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: As Biden and Kerry Went Soft on China, Sons Made Nuclear, Military Business Deals with Chinese Gov’t.

FEATURE NOT A BUG: What’s Up With Medicaid’s Sloppy Oversight? “Senators say CMS hasn’t recouped any wasted money since 1992…”

A.I.: Walmart Builds a Secret Weapon to Battle Amazon for Retail’s Future. “The world’s largest retailer is using Jetblack, a money-losing personal-shopping service, to develop artificial intelligence to compete with e-commerce giant Amazon.”

Walmart executives are betting the upstart becomes a powerful weapon in an escalating technological ground war with Amazon.com Inc., as the two companies battle over shoppers who are increasingly making all sorts of purchases online. Amazon reset the landscape with Prime, in which more than 100 million people globally get two-day delivery and other perks for $119 a year. Even though Walmart is bigger in sales overall, it is an underdog online, and it is fighting for a larger presence.

Walmart is using Jetblack’s army of human agents to train an artificial intelligence system that could someday power an automated personal-shopping service, preparing Walmart for a time when the search bar disappears and more shopping is done through voice-activated devices, said Jetblack CEO Jenny Fleiss.

“It’s the tech of the future, right? It’s not what everyone is doing today,” said Ms. Fleiss, who previously co-founded apparel rental company Rent The Runway. The CEO said it could be five to seven years before the system is mostly automated and less reliant on humans. “This is a long journey,” she said. “And I think we were aware of that going in.”

This one is behind the WSJ paywall, but you might find a way around it here.

OH: Clinton, in newly revealed emails, discussed classified foreign policy matters, secretive ‘private’ comms channel with Israel.

A newly unearthed batch of heavily redacted, classified emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal email server revealed that the former secretary of state discussed establishing a “private, 100% off-the-record” back channel to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that one of her top aides warned her that she was in “danger” of being “savaged by Jewish organizations, in the Jewish press and among the phalanx of neoconservative media” as a result of political machinations by “Bibi and the Jewish leadership.”

Paranoid, but not paranoid enough to protect her classified emails.

TYLER O’NEIL: 5 Paths to Victory: How Trump Can Beat the Democrat in 2020.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Bus full of children set on fire and much, much more. “Italy’s interior ministry said in a statement that the driver had been previously caught driving while drunk and had sexually assaulted a minor.”

IF CONGRESS IS UNHAPPY, MAYBE THEY COULD STOP CEDING SO MUCH AUTHORITY TO THE EXECUTIVE: The Supreme Court will likely approve Trump’s wall.