Newsom has said he will appoint a caretaker, not someone who is running for the seat. Dems have a problem.
I read a lot of comments in blogs that we are depleting our military stores by sending all the military gear to Ukraine. We are sending artillery eq. and shells, Tanks, Small Arms ammo and other types of equipment. A war with China will not be a land war, it will be a Naval and Air War. We should be expanding our Navy (and maintaining what we have) and Air assets (Air Force and Navy). We should buy ships that we can’t build, buy them from Italy and France who are building great Frigates. Need more Destroyers and Subs. That is what we need to face China.
Kate–
I see that DiFi was worth a cool $94 million, probably thanks to her third husband, who is an investment banker. “The seasoned politician married three times, first to Jack Berman. The two divorced after a few years, and she got remarried to neurosurgeon Bertram Feinstein, who died in 1978. She then married Richard Blum, an investment banker, in 1980. She is survived by her husband and her daughter from her first marriage, Katherine Feinstein Mariano.”
Predictable buzz going around as to whether Kamala will be “persuaded” to fill Feinstein’s empty Senate seat.
I wonder if there’s a case for elder abuse regarding all the people around Dianne Feinstein. Is it possible that all these careerist staffers shortened here life by a year or two?
If I might, a second comment. Will Newsom appoint Pelosi’s Daughter to replace Feinstein?
When you refer to Feinstein’s empty seat, were you meaning it was empty only after she died, or before too?
Oh sorry — we are not supposed to speak ill of the dead. OTOH, Alice Roosevelt. Longworth is said to have uttered the immortal “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.”
”I read a lot of comments in blogs that we are depleting our military stores by sending all the military gear to Ukraine.”
We aren’t. At the start of 2022 we had a stockpile of 25 million 155 mm and 105 mm artillery shells. We’ve given Ukraine 2 million. We could continue to send Ukraine shells at this rate for another 20 years before we run out.
When we’re not at war the Army and Marine Corps pull a few ten thousand shells a year out of storage and fire them off in live-fire exercises. Industry then replenishes those shells. Some dishonest people are getting a lot of mileage out of comparing wartime usage rates to peacetime replenishment rates, but that’s why we have a stockpile. No one fights a war with just-in-time inventory.
By about this time next year we’ll be making new shells at the rate of about 1 million shells a year. So will Europe. We aren’t going to run out.
And as you said, we’re not going to be having tank or artillery duels in the middle of the Taiwan Strait. Even if we had to fight Russia, we wouldn’t use a lot of artillery. In the closest analog, the first Gulf War, we only fired 60,000 shells the whole war. When you have Eagles, Hornets, Falcons, and Apaches armed with Mavericks, Hellfires, and Laser JDAMs, enemy armor is destroyed long before it gets in range of artillery.
It’s an issue worth watching, but I’m more concerned with retiring the JSTARS and Ticonderogas without replacements than I am about running out of ammo.
Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, died last year.
mkent, agreed on ship replacements. China is building ship, good ships, much faster than we are.
I did not say I subscribe to the idea we are depleting our military stores to a dangerous level. It is good we are sending older eq. and replacing with newer eq.
BUILD SHIPS!
Regarding US Navy Ships: I’m glad they at least ended the expensive boondoggle known as the “Littoral Combat Ship” program in favor of the more sensible Constellation-class design.
F–
I meant that DiFi’s seat is empty in the same sense that Fetterman’s is. Speaking of the Senate’s current model of male déshabillé (that’s huxley’s French lesson for the day), I see that he’s been slapped with a reinstatement of the Senate’s dress code: “[T]he new, revised simple code will require lawmakers to wear ‘business attire’ in the chamber. The bipartisan resolution, though, only defined business attire for men, describing it as a coat, tie and long trousers. It did not address sleeve length or neckline height for women’s clothes, two sources of controversy in recent years.”
Treating the service acadamies as just another higher education indoctrination factory (university) is intentional and intended to decimate the nations military.
H/T Instapundit
As soon as interest rates come down I’m out of here:
I’d bet against more shipyards being built (Which is what we need). On the CDR Salamander blog we have been talking about this for 20 years. The knowledge base is old, the people that actually do Naval ship building. It is not easily built up and takes many years. Like refineries there is no shortage of organizations that don’t want to see them built, and government red tape that stifles them. What corporation is going to want to invest billions in an industry that depends on government largesse? And will the exist two yards that have that business now not fight against them to keep their monopoly position? Short term thinking is going to kill us.
Hard to believe that diamonds and graphite are both pure carbon.
I recall an episode of the Superman TV show – late 1950s, early 60s – where Superman took a piece of coal, compressed it between his hands, and bingo, he produced a perfectly cut and faceted diamond, thus eliciting from the Daily Planet’s cub reporter, Jimmy Olsen, his usual outburst; “golly gee Superman.”
Inspector Henderson and Lois Lane, as you would expect, were also witnesses to this amazing feat, as were the several bad guys that Superman took care of.
And as usual, inspector Henderson showed up AFTER Superman saved his Daily Planet colleagues, demonstrating yet again that when seconds count, the cops will be there in minutes.
Superman had no need to use a Sarin machine (or it’s equal).
Ironically, Sarin is also the name of a deadly chemical weapon nerve gas.
How do you get into the business of diamond cutting, I wonder? The video refers to knowledge passed down through generations, which today may not refer to familial generations, though surely it did in the past. But today – like, do you take shop in high school? Apprentice yourself to a pipe fitter or tile installer? Or are you a mechanical engineer?
Brother in law is a diamond cutter. Went to school for it. Couldn’t make any money at it, became a power engineer. Now does gems as hobby.
As far as our artillery stockpiles are concerned, do you really think that we only need to worry about China? As war after war has proved, you always run out of supplies, especially ammo, faster than you project. God help us if we go into a North v. South Korea war.
We could buy ships from Italy and France. They are producing very good ones. But that would be too easy. I think Commander Salamander has mentioned this already. He is a very good source to go to.
What’s your point miguel? Was 18 y.o. Rota Hunka a Nazi or was he a Ukrainian patriot who joined the Waffen SS to avenge Stalin’s murder of millions of his countrymen during the Holodomor. I think the story is more complex than what is now presented.
I am getting confusing reports from California.
Newsom says he’ll appoint a Black woman.
So it’s Barbara Lee?
Newsom says he won’t appoint anyone who’s currently running for the seat.
So, as crazy as it seems, will he actually appoint Kamala Harris?
Or will it just be some party hack or lobbyist or bureaucrat or university head?
Barbara Lee is not happy with what she sees as the idea that a Black woman can only be a token placeholder, and not a fully-fledged senator.
_________
I’m also hearing “Governor Hair Gel” referred to as “Patrick Bateman.”
Rock polishing/tumbling was a thing when I was a kid, at least with some of my dad’s acquaintances.
I have not heard anything about it in 50 years.
”I’m glad they at least ended the expensive boondoggle known as the ‘Littoral Combat Ship’ program in favor of the more sensible Constellation-class design.”
I agree with you there. But besides planning to retire all 27 Ticonderogas before the first DDG(X) replacement is fielded, the Navy also retired all five Tarawa-class LHAs before fielding any of the replacement America class. Even worse, they’re retiring all four Harpers Ferry and all eight Whidbey Island LPDs before the replacement San Antonio Flight IIs are fielded — and then **cancelled the Flight IIs**.
I think the greatest threat to the U. S. Navy right now is senior Navy leadership.
Constitutional scholars out there . . .
Is there any *constitutional* reason that Kamala Harris cannot simultaneously serve as *both* a senator *and* the vice president?
(That would ease a transition from vice president to senator, I might think.)
(I know it would be a demotion (so be it). I’m writing theoretically.)
”…do you really think that we only need to worry about China?”
No, I already mentioned Russia, and defeating either Russia or China would require very little artillery. North Korea is the only major power on which we would need to use a lot of artillery in order to blast out their positions dug into the side of mountains. And for that we would have help* from the South Koreans, who have 6,000 field artillery, 4,000 mortars, and 550 MLRS of their own.
We don’t fight like the Russians do, who turn square mile after square mile into indiscriminate rubble. We fire precision weapons that fire one round one time to take out one target. For that 500,000 JDAMs, 100,000 PGKs, 77,000 Mavericks, 50,000 GMLRS, 50,000 Laser JDAMs, 40,000 SDBs, 30,000 Hellfires, and 9,000 ATACMS are more than enough to take out every target in China, Russia, and North Korea many times over.
And if not, we can make 4,000 Javelins, 10,000 GMLRS, and 50,000 JDAMs a year.
Worry about ships. Worry about anti-ship missiles (both ours and theirs). Worry about strategic airlift. But weapons stocks are something to keep an eye on (which is happening), not to panic over.
*By “help” I mean “do most of the fighting while we assist.”
Richard Cook:
I have been posting links to Cdrsalamander here for years, and now subscribe to his substack.
His analysis and insight are exceptional.
Xylourgas:
Indiscriminate disinformation is the point of Vlad and his useful idiots.
The 18 year old may have been mistaken in picking which totalitarian regieme to fight against. An easy choice to judge 80 years later.
Om
Wholeheartedly agree.
SHIREHOME:
Uhhhh….no. European standards for naval ships and U.S. standards are way different. It’s not that easy. And every time this is brought up the sending jobs overseas trope is played. Reality: we don’t know what the hell we are doing.
Here are my own lyrics, to the 1990 song, “Particle Man” by [the band], They Might Be Giants.
As I mentioned in my first comment on this subject, there have been sporadic reports about groups of “youts” charging into things like WAWA convenience stores and looting and destroying these smaller stores.
In my original comment on this topic I linked to a report which mentioned the looting, a couple of days ago, of three different stores.
According to this, later reporting the looting was far more widespread, and continued for a second day, with dozens of stores in several different parts of Philly hit.*
What an advertisement for locating your store in the “City of Brotherly Love.” No doubt if these stores pull out of Philly there will be loud cries of “racism.”
P.S. It does seem as if–more and more–public order is breaking down in Philly, and that–if this keeps up–we will see what happens when a major city devolves into some form of actual anarchy.
Does any official have the guts to call in the National Guard? Will tanks end up petrolling the mean streets of Philly?
Abraxas Rock polishing/tumbling was a thing when I was a kid, at least with some of my dad’s acquaintances. I have not heard anything about it in 50 years.
My paternal grandparents were rockhounds. Along that line, my grandfather had a tumbler to polish rocks/gems.
My grandparents died 50 years ago.
cb
Man made diamonds are probably more used in the oil parch for drill bits than for gem stones. Polycrystalline Diamond Compact bits:
The downhole motors used to turn the drill bit also use bearings made from PCD material. Diamonds are a directional driller’s best friend?
Banned Lizard:
Be careful what you wish for. RFK could just as easily – or perhaps even more easily – take votes away from Trump or whoever ends up being the GOP nominee as opposed to taking them from Biden. Hard to tell.
A lot of the stuff we’re handing to Ukraine are near end-of-life. As an example, IR seeker heads have a finite lifespan, and would need to be replaced anyway. Much of our hi-tech munitions have the same sort of issues.
RE: Looting in Democrat run cities, and the extent and effects of that looting
According to the linked video below, the estimated nationwide losses from retail theft and looting in 2022 were pegged at $112 Billion dollars, up from $94 billion dollars in 2021.
(The former Target executive also mentioned the interesting fact that Target expends around $10 million dollars to set up a new Target store.)
So this is no small problem, and it’s obviously growing.
Add this to the other negative quality of life issues–things like the threats of random violent attacks, carjackings, reductions in police forces and policing, light or no prosecution (see current Philly DA Larry Krasner), homeless encampments, crazy people ranting in the streets, open drug use, garbage, needles, graffiti, broken glass, and human feces everywhere–and it seems to me that there should be a general exodus from these cities, if it hasn’t already gotten underway.
At some point, a lot of people are going to decide that these Democrat paradises are simply unlivable, and they’ll vote with their feet.
Hopefully (but, I doubt it) they will have learned a lesson, and will not be contaminating the places they move to with the same political ideas which turned their former domiciles into hell holes.
Dianne Feinstein has died. RIP.
Newsom has said he will appoint a caretaker, not someone who is running for the seat. Dems have a problem.
I read a lot of comments in blogs that we are depleting our military stores by sending all the military gear to Ukraine. We are sending artillery eq. and shells, Tanks, Small Arms ammo and other types of equipment. A war with China will not be a land war, it will be a Naval and Air War. We should be expanding our Navy (and maintaining what we have) and Air assets (Air Force and Navy). We should buy ships that we can’t build, buy them from Italy and France who are building great Frigates. Need more Destroyers and Subs. That is what we need to face China.
Kate–
I see that DiFi was worth a cool $94 million, probably thanks to her third husband, who is an investment banker. “The seasoned politician married three times, first to Jack Berman. The two divorced after a few years, and she got remarried to neurosurgeon Bertram Feinstein, who died in 1978. She then married Richard Blum, an investment banker, in 1980. She is survived by her husband and her daughter from her first marriage, Katherine Feinstein Mariano.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate/dianne-feinstein-dead-90-five-term-senator-oldest-member-congress-dies
Predictable buzz going around as to whether Kamala will be “persuaded” to fill Feinstein’s empty Senate seat.
I wonder if there’s a case for elder abuse regarding all the people around Dianne Feinstein. Is it possible that all these careerist staffers shortened here life by a year or two?
If I might, a second comment. Will Newsom appoint Pelosi’s Daughter to replace Feinstein?
Trust the Babylon Bee…https://babylonbee.com/news/senator-feinstein-death-not-expected-to-affect-re-election-campaign?fbclid=IwAR1Rgohayfl0J4TPfOmCjVPIvEE89mtcwRL5_lObOwXL5HD7bce_SY8_ves
PA+Cat:
When you refer to Feinstein’s empty seat, were you meaning it was empty only after she died, or before too?
Oh sorry — we are not supposed to speak ill of the dead. OTOH, Alice Roosevelt. Longworth is said to have uttered the immortal “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.”
”I read a lot of comments in blogs that we are depleting our military stores by sending all the military gear to Ukraine.”
We aren’t. At the start of 2022 we had a stockpile of 25 million 155 mm and 105 mm artillery shells. We’ve given Ukraine 2 million. We could continue to send Ukraine shells at this rate for another 20 years before we run out.
When we’re not at war the Army and Marine Corps pull a few ten thousand shells a year out of storage and fire them off in live-fire exercises. Industry then replenishes those shells. Some dishonest people are getting a lot of mileage out of comparing wartime usage rates to peacetime replenishment rates, but that’s why we have a stockpile. No one fights a war with just-in-time inventory.
By about this time next year we’ll be making new shells at the rate of about 1 million shells a year. So will Europe. We aren’t going to run out.
And as you said, we’re not going to be having tank or artillery duels in the middle of the Taiwan Strait. Even if we had to fight Russia, we wouldn’t use a lot of artillery. In the closest analog, the first Gulf War, we only fired 60,000 shells the whole war. When you have Eagles, Hornets, Falcons, and Apaches armed with Mavericks, Hellfires, and Laser JDAMs, enemy armor is destroyed long before it gets in range of artillery.
It’s an issue worth watching, but I’m more concerned with retiring the JSTARS and Ticonderogas without replacements than I am about running out of ammo.
Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, died last year.
mkent, agreed on ship replacements. China is building ship, good ships, much faster than we are.
I did not say I subscribe to the idea we are depleting our military stores to a dangerous level. It is good we are sending older eq. and replacing with newer eq.
BUILD SHIPS!
Regarding US Navy Ships: I’m glad they at least ended the expensive boondoggle known as the “Littoral Combat Ship” program in favor of the more sensible Constellation-class design.
F–
I meant that DiFi’s seat is empty in the same sense that Fetterman’s is. Speaking of the Senate’s current model of male déshabillé (that’s huxley’s French lesson for the day), I see that he’s been slapped with a reinstatement of the Senate’s dress code: “[T]he new, revised simple code will require lawmakers to wear ‘business attire’ in the chamber. The bipartisan resolution, though, only defined business attire for men, describing it as a coat, tie and long trousers. It did not address sleeve length or neckline height for women’s clothes, two sources of controversy in recent years.”
Photo of Fetterman in a two-piece black outfit of knee-length shorts and some kind of large overshirt at the link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66951076
If he starts to identify as a birthing person (formerly known as a “woman”), he can claim he needs loose garments to accommodate his pregnancy.
Shirehome:
The service academies desperately need to wake up and throw out the DEI comisars and safe space morons:
https://streetwiseprofessor.com/the-service-academies-either-toughen-them-back-up-or-close-them/
Treating the service acadamies as just another higher education indoctrination factory (university) is intentional and intended to decimate the nations military.
H/T Instapundit
As soon as interest rates come down I’m out of here:
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/09/michigan-is-first-state-to-require-judges-to-use-pronouns-preferences-of-lawyers-and-parties.html
Nonapod and SHIREHOME
I’d bet against more shipyards being built (Which is what we need). On the CDR Salamander blog we have been talking about this for 20 years. The knowledge base is old, the people that actually do Naval ship building. It is not easily built up and takes many years. Like refineries there is no shortage of organizations that don’t want to see them built, and government red tape that stifles them. What corporation is going to want to invest billions in an industry that depends on government largesse? And will the exist two yards that have that business now not fight against them to keep their monopoly position? Short term thinking is going to kill us.
https://substack.com/@cdrsalamander?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
OM
Check out “Diversity Thursday” on the CDR Salamander blog.
https://substack.com/@cdrsalamander?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Oh, yeah. This is where we are at with the Navy.
https://news.usni.org/2021/07/12/lawmakers-survey-94-of-sailors-say-damaging-operational-failures-related-to-navy-culture-leadership-problems
Hard to believe that diamonds and graphite are both pure carbon.
I recall an episode of the Superman TV show – late 1950s, early 60s – where Superman took a piece of coal, compressed it between his hands, and bingo, he produced a perfectly cut and faceted diamond, thus eliciting from the Daily Planet’s cub reporter, Jimmy Olsen, his usual outburst; “golly gee Superman.”
Inspector Henderson and Lois Lane, as you would expect, were also witnesses to this amazing feat, as were the several bad guys that Superman took care of.
And as usual, inspector Henderson showed up AFTER Superman saved his Daily Planet colleagues, demonstrating yet again that when seconds count, the cops will be there in minutes.
Superman had no need to use a Sarin machine (or it’s equal).
Ironically, Sarin is also the name of a deadly chemical weapon nerve gas.
How do you get into the business of diamond cutting, I wonder? The video refers to knowledge passed down through generations, which today may not refer to familial generations, though surely it did in the past. But today – like, do you take shop in high school? Apprentice yourself to a pipe fitter or tile installer? Or are you a mechanical engineer?
https://www.frontpagemag.com/praising-a-nazi/
Brother in law is a diamond cutter. Went to school for it. Couldn’t make any money at it, became a power engineer. Now does gems as hobby.
As far as our artillery stockpiles are concerned, do you really think that we only need to worry about China? As war after war has proved, you always run out of supplies, especially ammo, faster than you project. God help us if we go into a North v. South Korea war.
We could buy ships from Italy and France. They are producing very good ones. But that would be too easy. I think Commander Salamander has mentioned this already. He is a very good source to go to.
What’s your point miguel? Was 18 y.o. Rota Hunka a Nazi or was he a Ukrainian patriot who joined the Waffen SS to avenge Stalin’s murder of millions of his countrymen during the Holodomor. I think the story is more complex than what is now presented.
I am getting confusing reports from California.
Newsom says he’ll appoint a Black woman.
So it’s Barbara Lee?
Newsom says he won’t appoint anyone who’s currently running for the seat.
So, as crazy as it seems, will he actually appoint Kamala Harris?
Or will it just be some party hack or lobbyist or bureaucrat or university head?
Barbara Lee is not happy with what she sees as the idea that a Black woman can only be a token placeholder, and not a fully-fledged senator.
_________
I’m also hearing “Governor Hair Gel” referred to as “Patrick Bateman.”
Rock polishing/tumbling was a thing when I was a kid, at least with some of my dad’s acquaintances.
I have not heard anything about it in 50 years.
”I’m glad they at least ended the expensive boondoggle known as the ‘Littoral Combat Ship’ program in favor of the more sensible Constellation-class design.”
I agree with you there. But besides planning to retire all 27 Ticonderogas before the first DDG(X) replacement is fielded, the Navy also retired all five Tarawa-class LHAs before fielding any of the replacement America class. Even worse, they’re retiring all four Harpers Ferry and all eight Whidbey Island LPDs before the replacement San Antonio Flight IIs are fielded — and then **cancelled the Flight IIs**.
I think the greatest threat to the U. S. Navy right now is senior Navy leadership.
Constitutional scholars out there . . .
Is there any *constitutional* reason that Kamala Harris cannot simultaneously serve as *both* a senator *and* the vice president?
(That would ease a transition from vice president to senator, I might think.)
(I know it would be a demotion (so be it). I’m writing theoretically.)
”…do you really think that we only need to worry about China?”
No, I already mentioned Russia, and defeating either Russia or China would require very little artillery. North Korea is the only major power on which we would need to use a lot of artillery in order to blast out their positions dug into the side of mountains. And for that we would have help* from the South Koreans, who have 6,000 field artillery, 4,000 mortars, and 550 MLRS of their own.
We don’t fight like the Russians do, who turn square mile after square mile into indiscriminate rubble. We fire precision weapons that fire one round one time to take out one target. For that 500,000 JDAMs, 100,000 PGKs, 77,000 Mavericks, 50,000 GMLRS, 50,000 Laser JDAMs, 40,000 SDBs, 30,000 Hellfires, and 9,000 ATACMS are more than enough to take out every target in China, Russia, and North Korea many times over.
And if not, we can make 4,000 Javelins, 10,000 GMLRS, and 50,000 JDAMs a year.
Worry about ships. Worry about anti-ship missiles (both ours and theirs). Worry about strategic airlift. But weapons stocks are something to keep an eye on (which is happening), not to panic over.
*By “help” I mean “do most of the fighting while we assist.”
Richard Cook:
I have been posting links to Cdrsalamander here for years, and now subscribe to his substack.
His analysis and insight are exceptional.
Xylourgas:
Indiscriminate disinformation is the point of Vlad and his useful idiots.
The 18 year old may have been mistaken in picking which totalitarian regieme to fight against. An easy choice to judge 80 years later.
Om
Wholeheartedly agree.
SHIREHOME:
Uhhhh….no. European standards for naval ships and U.S. standards are way different. It’s not that easy. And every time this is brought up the sending jobs overseas trope is played. Reality: we don’t know what the hell we are doing.
Here are my own lyrics, to the 1990 song, “Particle Man” by [the band], They Might Be Giants.
Reporter man, reporter man!
Doing the things a reporter CAN.
When Biden SPEAKS, the reporter CAVES.
Reporter man!
There are diamonds… and there are …
Inside India’s lab-grown diamond industry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTUaWnvIOp4
RE: Looting in Philadelphia
As I mentioned in my first comment on this subject, there have been sporadic reports about groups of “youts” charging into things like WAWA convenience stores and looting and destroying these smaller stores.
In my original comment on this topic I linked to a report which mentioned the looting, a couple of days ago, of three different stores.
According to this, later reporting the looting was far more widespread, and continued for a second day, with dozens of stores in several different parts of Philly hit.*
What an advertisement for locating your store in the “City of Brotherly Love.” No doubt if these stores pull out of Philly there will be loud cries of “racism.”
* See https://www.fox29.com/news/philadelphia-looting-night-2-smash-and-grabs-continue-as-stores-close-police-increase-patrols
Best news I’ve heard all month:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Planning to Announce Independent Run
P.S. It does seem as if–more and more–public order is breaking down in Philly, and that–if this keeps up–we will see what happens when a major city devolves into some form of actual anarchy.
Does any official have the guts to call in the National Guard? Will tanks end up petrolling the mean streets of Philly?
Abraxas
Rock polishing/tumbling was a thing when I was a kid, at least with some of my dad’s acquaintances. I have not heard anything about it in 50 years.
My paternal grandparents were rockhounds. Along that line, my grandfather had a tumbler to polish rocks/gems.
My grandparents died 50 years ago.
cb
Man made diamonds are probably more used in the oil parch for drill bits than for gem stones. Polycrystalline Diamond Compact bits:
https://www.slb.com/products-and-services/innovating-in-oil-and-gas/drilling/bottomhole-assemblies/drill-bits/pdc-bits
The downhole motors used to turn the drill bit also use bearings made from PCD material. Diamonds are a directional driller’s best friend?
Banned Lizard:
Be careful what you wish for. RFK could just as easily – or perhaps even more easily – take votes away from Trump or whoever ends up being the GOP nominee as opposed to taking them from Biden. Hard to tell.
A lot of the stuff we’re handing to Ukraine are near end-of-life. As an example, IR seeker heads have a finite lifespan, and would need to be replaced anyway. Much of our hi-tech munitions have the same sort of issues.
RE: Looting in Democrat run cities, and the extent and effects of that looting
According to the linked video below, the estimated nationwide losses from retail theft and looting in 2022 were pegged at $112 Billion dollars, up from $94 billion dollars in 2021.
(The former Target executive also mentioned the interesting fact that Target expends around $10 million dollars to set up a new Target store.)
So this is no small problem, and it’s obviously growing.
Add this to the other negative quality of life issues–things like the threats of random violent attacks, carjackings, reductions in police forces and policing, light or no prosecution (see current Philly DA Larry Krasner), homeless encampments, crazy people ranting in the streets, open drug use, garbage, needles, graffiti, broken glass, and human feces everywhere–and it seems to me that there should be a general exodus from these cities, if it hasn’t already gotten underway.
At some point, a lot of people are going to decide that these Democrat paradises are simply unlivable, and they’ll vote with their feet.
Hopefully (but, I doubt it) they will have learned a lesson, and will not be contaminating the places they move to with the same political ideas which turned their former domiciles into hell holes.
See this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wWdel6uBJ4&t=236s