Politics

[Zambezi]

Grow menthol pot. that will confuse them.

 

[Hunt anything]

I wonder how the media & public will respond to the Ukraine/Russia war after this administration changes in 2025 and support for Ukraine doesn't have the baggage of the Biden family's corruption tied to it.

I just hope we see what happens when the administration changes. After last night’s off year elections I’m not very confident the regime will change.

 

[ActionBob]

O

I just hope we see what happens when the administration changes. After last night’s off year elections I’m not very confident the regime will change.

Obviously the management team behind the Republican Party and the candidates managers need to be changed.

 

[Hunt anything]

O
Obviously the management team behind the Republican Party and the candidates managers need to be changed.

You said a truthful mouthful!

 

[Wathe208]

Off recent discussions but still political... A neighbor had his shed broken into yesterday and we actually saw the car with a young brown haired woman in it. Thought it was a family member until we saw the door busted out of the frame.

We called the owner and asked him to please call the sheriff. I met a deputy to explain what we saw and was trying to encourage increased patrols as we've never had any issues. This is at our Minnesota place. Nothing apparent was stolen, probably because we and a contractor doing road maintenance interrupted them...

But the big take away to me was I asked the deputy if maybe they were scoping this shed out to cook meth... He replied that doesn't happen anymore.... He went on to explain that there is so much meth and other drugs coming across the border now that it has gotten so cheap that locals don't cook it anymore as the ingredients are more expensive than they can buy the product for! And the consequences of being caught cooking are much more severe that buying/using so nobody does that anymore.

I guess Capitalism is at work in the illegal drug trade. Disgusting how porous the border is and that the cartels are running drugs all the way up to Northern Minnesota. Of course the main reaction by the POS Democrap governor here was to legalize Marijuana....

My cousin and I often archery hunt pigs in Southern AZ. About 10 years ago, he was trying to convince me to come hunt and sent me trail cam pics he'd set up for coues deer. About 30 pictures, 2 had animals, the remainder were Mexican illegals. I laughed and asked him where he got the pics as I naively thought it was a joke. It wasn't, and he wasn't laughing.

He the told me about watching a fully packed up pack string of mules with heavily armed mexican cartel folks moving up a canyon he was watching the prior year. He laid down and called BP on his cell. They told him to stay hidden until they were gone, as they didn't have the manpower to come get them.

Shortly after, his little brother was hunting birds and was stopped on a road when 3 illegal Mexican males came out of the bush towards him. They were calling "Agua, Agua, por favor." He told them three times he had none, and to turn around. After his 3rd reply, they started to split up to surround him. They did not know he knew spanish and was surprised when he pulled his gun and told them they had 3 seconds to run or he'd open up. They were speaking to each other in spanish about who would get his attention, who would bash him with a rock, and who would get the keys to take the truck. He sold his company and moved to ID very shortly after that.

You can't find tree or bush down there that's not completely strewn with garbage from those crossing illegally, either carrying drugs, looking for a better life, or intending to do harm to the US.

None of what you said surprises me, in particular, the ability to run drugs up to Northern MN, it is quite literally, an open border. What a cluster....!

 

[wesheltonj]

Off recent discussions but still political... A neighbor had his shed broken into yesterday and we actually saw the car with a young brown haired woman in it. Thought it was a family member until we saw the door busted out of the frame.

We called the owner and asked him to please call the sheriff. I met a deputy to explain what we saw and was trying to encourage increased patrols as we've never had any issues. This is at our Minnesota place. Nothing apparent was stolen, probably because we and a contractor doing road maintenance interrupted them...

But the big take away to me was I asked the deputy if maybe they were scoping this shed out to cook meth... He replied that doesn't happen anymore.... He went on to explain that there is so much meth and other drugs coming across the border now that it has gotten so cheap that locals don't cook it anymore as the ingredients are more expensive than they can buy the product for! And the consequences of being caught cooking are much more severe that buying/using so nobody does that anymore.

I guess Capitalism is at work in the illegal drug trade. Disgusting how porous the border is and that the cartels are running drugs all the way up to Northern Minnesota. Of course the main reaction by the POS Democrap governor here was to legalize Marijuana....

Unfortunately, that’s not the case near your Texas house.

 

[Wathe208]

Unfortunately, that’s not the case near your Texas house.

Another story if you'll permit me (this time in TX). I was hunting Aoudad outside of Bracketville a number of years ago. I knew of 3 huge rams in a band and was hoping I would eventually get a Crack. About the third evening, I was in the stand alone and I got that sixth sense (you hunters know what I mean). I slowly turned in the blind and there they were, 3 whoppers. I waited, not moving for about 30 minutes, until it was just maybe on the "too dark to shoot" per the reg's, but would have been an easy 100yd shot and man, was I ready. I only needed maybe 20 more seconds for them to move to my side when they bolted off, no shot. Then I heard the helicopter and saw the spotlights of the BP. The guide later told me they get that often and if I ever see illegals crossing, just hide, do not interact. Never did see any, but didn't see the rams again either.

As I said, cluster...!

 

[Wheels]

 

[USN]

Was huntmaster for navy at bombing range in freer Texas. Had a pipeline that intersected the property and even back then would see them crossing with identical burlap backpacks. Had a standing rule no interaction and just let ‘em pass. Law enforcement and navy security were at least an hour out just to get to lodge, then extra time depending on where on the property. Mid 90s

 

[USN]

View attachment 568340

Hell I would have consulted to not use consults for 650,000. Would have took CAD’s no exchange rate.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

@Wheels ... Um... it's good work if you can get it?

 

[Hunt anything]

Grow menthol pot. that will confuse them.

Seems to me that a lot of them are already somewhat dazed and confused.

 

[Red Leg]

Was huntmaster for navy at bombing range in freer Texas. Had a pipeline that intersected the property and even back then would see them crossing with identical burlap backpacks. Had a standing rule no interaction and just let ‘em pass. Law enforcement and navy security were at least an hour out just to get to lodge, then extra time depending on where on the property. Mid 90s

Was hunting quail near Kingsville a couple of years ago, and we noticed a group of low circling buzzards. Our guide stopped the truck and called ranch security with the location. I looked him oddly and he shrugged, "could be a dead calf or deer, but almost as likely a migrant. If it is and we go over there our hunt is over for the day. We'll let ranch security check it out." He said they find several a year. Most are murdered young women.

 

[Red Leg]

Apparently this "racist and vile" cartoon has the "Squad" deeply unhappy. It apparently ran in the Washington Post.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Supposedly, US did some air strikes in Syria.

 

[steve white]

Those are all absolutely valid points everyone is making (ok maybe not the likelihood of hordes of DRNK troops entering the fray). I would simply suggest that even operational-level positional warfare is not necessarily a war of attrition. Warfare, particularly since the dawn of the industrial age, rarely is just about numbers, it is about combat power.

As someone noted, the Confederacy was indeed dramatically outnumbered, and once Lincoln found a general willing to take the casualties to achieve ultimate victory, Grant wore down the Army of Northern Virginia in the Overland Campaign of 1864/65. But was that really attritional warfare?

I would argue it was something very different. Though Grant inflicted unsustainable casualties on Lee and suffered enormous ones himself, he did it through operational maneuver. The few occasions he forgot that, such as Cold Harbor and the first attacks at Petersburg, it was he who faced unsustainable casualties and very nearly had a mutiny on his hands among his subordinates.

Lee showed absolute brilliance in the handling of his army following the battle of the Wilderness until the end of the war. Historians have often argued over what may have happened had Lee taken the lessons of Sharpsburg to heart in 1862 and gone over to the operational defensive for the remainder of the war. That would have looked far more like what we see in Ukraine today than anything that actually happened during that war. Without a Gettysburg, I am confident most of historians would agree that the war at least would not have ended in 1865. I think most historians would also agree that sustaining support for the war beyond 1865 would have been very difficult if not impossible.

History offers us numbers of other examples where the operational defensive likely would have been or was the correct strategy. For instance, in the war of the Sixth Coalition the army of France was outnumbered by those of the UK, Russia, and their allies. I can think of very few students of the Napoleonic campaigns who believe Napoleon would have died anywhere but his bed in Paris had he not taken the Grand Army on its Quixotic march into the heart of Russia.

To date at least, following the catastrophe of the initial invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Army has shown little ability to operationally maneuver against Ukrainian forces. Perhaps one could point to the battle of Bahkmut, but I would argue we have not yet seen the final outcome of that campaign. Indeed, I would suggest they have shown no ability to even mass combat power operationally to achieve a decisive battle.

I also wonder about the actual casualty exchange rates in this conflict. The figures we are citing are those being publicly discussed by the US and British DOD and MOD respectively. They are therefore conservative. But what if one side or the other is half again higher, perhaps even 2X? I find it highly unlikely that would be the case of Ukraine, but because they continue to attempt the tactical offensive, I would not at all be surprised if Russia isn't actually approaching, even exceeding half a million.

For instance, as of yesterday, Ukraine claims to have killed 306,860 Russian troops. I think everyone would agree that number is inflated. We'll come back to it in a moment. The next question is what is the Russian WIA to KIA rate? For US forces in the European Theater of Operations in WWII it was roughly 3 to 1. I suspect those rates are closer to the campaign in Ukraine than modern US ratios which can be 10 to 1. Russian field medical capability in particular seem far closer to mid-twentieth century than twenty first century standards.

So let's cut Ukraine's claim by in half to 150,000. Assuming that 3 to 1 casualty ratio, that means Russia has already suffered 600K total casualties in this conflict. Even if their field medical services are far worse than we believe, a 2 to 1 casualty rate leaves us with 450,000 total casualties.

Moreover, this is also a war of technology - of combat power. The vast majority of Russia's modernized army is scrap metal on the steppes of Ukraine. That means these columns of attacking forces that are being immolated almost daily on the Avdiivka front are going into battle with ever more ineffective and easily destroyed equipment. So excluding casualties for a moment, I don't think many informed observers would argue that the combat capability correlation of forces hasn't gradually been tipping in Ukraine's favor for most of the war. Therefore, in modern warfare, attrition is as much about erosion of combat power as numbers of troops - in my view, far more so.

So, we come back to casualties. Again, in my view, I think casualty rate has become the latest, or perhaps last refuge of those who have been saying Ukraine can't win this war. There are more Russians, Putin will never quit, ergo Russia wins.

We will see. I believe Putin has lost the window to mobilize additional forces beyond the usual annual draft. If politically, that window ever existed. PRNK troops are not going to be deployed in their tens of thousands to Ukraine. The troops he does have are fighting with ever more inferior equipment than that of their adversaries. That is a formula that looks far more like 1917 than 1945 to me.

One of these two combatants will begin to lobby for a ceasefire and negotiations. Thus far, it clearly is not Ukraine.

And we thought 50K dead in Viet Nam was unbearable.

 

[Brent in Az]

My cousin and I often archery hunt pigs in Southern AZ. About 10 years ago, he was trying to convince me to come hunt and sent me trail cam pics he'd set up for coues deer. About 30 pictures, 2 had animals, the remainder were Mexican illegals. I laughed and asked him where he got the pics as I naively thought it was a joke. It wasn't, and he wasn't laughing.

He the told me about watching a fully packed up pack string of mules with heavily armed mexican cartel folks moving up a canyon he was watching the prior year. He laid down and called BP on his cell. They told him to stay hidden until they were gone, as they didn't have the manpower to come get them.

Shortly after, his little brother was hunting birds and was stopped on a road when 3 illegal Mexican males came out of the bush towards him. They were calling "Agua, Agua, por favor." He told them three times he had none, and to turn around. After his 3rd reply, they started to split up to surround him. They did not know he knew spanish and was surprised when he pulled his gun and told them they had 3 seconds to run or he'd open up. They were speaking to each other in spanish about who would get his attention, who would bash him with a rock, and who would get the keys to take the truck. He sold his company and moved to ID very shortly after that.

You can't find tree or bush down there that's not completely strewn with garbage from those crossing illegally, either carrying drugs, looking for a better life, or intending to do harm to the US.

None of what you said surprises me, in particular, the ability to run drugs up to Northern MN, it is quite literally, an open border. What a cluster....!

I've lived in southern Arizona for 50 years. I quit hunting the units south of tucson and I-10 from Tucson to the New Mexico border.
Those groups of smugglers will often have an armed Scout out ahead of the main group, and they communicate by 2 way radio.
Democrats open border policies have created a wasteland of bad things.

 

[Brent in Az]

China has been getting more bold and provocative in the South China Sea.

 

[Brent in Az]

Southern Arizona staging areas for Illegal aliens.

 

[fourfive8]

Wake up!.... shhhhhhh- little Sally is worried about where to get a free abortion, Vinnie and the boys are planning the beer and pizza for this weekend's big game, Brad is trying to score some cheap weed, Nero is fiddling, Brandon is day dreaming about Corn Pop and the turtle is sleeping