NEWS REVUE
Putin Shamed! Iran Enflamed! Walz Blamed! Karen Gamed!
This column was published earlier today by Santa Barbara Current.
“Coming for Vlad” (The Sun)
Putrid Putin is purported to be panicking over Ukraine’s military sorties into Russian territory.
Says Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, Mad Vlad “is getting involved in tiny tactical battles,” which, he points out, “was Hitler’s downfall.”
“Russia Evacuates More Border Areas Amid Ukrainian Advances” (The Moscow Times)
Since last week, over 120,000 Russians have fled their homes.
Meantime, Ukrainian forces delve deeper and deeper into Russia.
The payback is always a bitch.
“Fleeing Russians Tell of Panic After Ukraine’s Invasion of Kursk Region” (Daily Telegraph)
Russians who fled describe running for their lives as local government control collapsed.
“We don’t understand why they don’t tell the truth,” one woman told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. “On TV, they kept saying, ‘this is an emergency’.
“What kind of emergency is it when there are foreign tanks on our land. This is already a real war.”
Oh, I see. I guess it wasn’t a real war until they found out what it’s like to see foreign tanks storming through your neighborhood—as their own military has been doing to Ukrainian neighborhoods for two-and-a-half years.
“Iran to Deliver Hundreds of Ballistic Missiles to Russia” (VOA News)
The Axis of Evil (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea) continues to consolidate (or perhaps commiserate).
But irate Iranians may want to pull back from what they’re offering Russia, maybe hold onto what they got.
For if the ayatollahs implement their threat to attack Israel, they will hand to the Israelis, on a silver platter, the excuse Israel has been craving to wipe out Iran’s nuclear weapon-producing plants.
“The Dangerous New Iranian Nuclear Reality” (WSJ)
Number One Target: The Bushehr nuclear power plant, said to be on the cusp of using enriched uranium to weaponize nuclear power.
“Backlash Grows Against Turkey’s Stray Dog ‘Massacre’ that has Left Millions of Pooches Dead” (Daily Mail)
I’m very fond of dogs.
And since my maternal grandmother was Armenian, I’m generally not fond of Turks.
So excuse me for thinking that, in a just world, it should be the other way round.
“Former Leader of Tim Walz’s Unit Joins Stolen Valor Attacks” (NY Post)
A few months after “Tampon Tim” retired from the national guard, John Kolb became a lieutenant colonel in Walz’s unit.
He writes on FaceBook that Walz “did not complete the Sergeant Major’s Academy, broke his enlistment contract, did not successfully complete an assignment as a Sergeant Major.”
Kolb adds that the Kamel’s running mate “unwittingly got out of the way for better leadership.”
Thomas Behrends, who replaced Walz, “earned the privilege of being Sergeant Major,” writes Kolb. And, Behrends, “like a great leader, ran toward and not away from the guns.”
Kolb concludes: “It is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot. When the demands of service and leadership at the highest level got real, he chose another path.”
“TIME Propaganda Profile of Kamala Harris Ripped for ‘Worshipping’ Democratic Nominee” (NY Post)
About which journalist Glenn Greenwald posted on X: "The way the US corporate media transformed Kamala Harris from a national embarrassment to a transformative pioneer overnight—without even pretending to care about anything that she thinks or believes—is a powerful testament to how potent the science of propaganda is."
If the corporate mainstream narrative was honest, this would be TIME’s cover…
“Ritzy California Coastal Town at War as Multimillionaire Malibu ‘Karens’ Post Fake Private Property Signs to Keep Off Public Beaches” (Daily Mail)
Welcome to Malibu (and Montecito) where entitlement issues abound.
I always enjoy a good Karen news item.
That’s because it provides me the opportunity to tell my own Karen story, up close and personal.
It was during COVID (when the Karen phenomenon began, mostly over scolding and shaming those who walked around in public without masks. It drove kookie Karen bonkers.)
Around December 2020, my friends and I decided we’d had enough of the reckless, ridiculous draconian lockdown. And had enough of Karen.
Ca’Dario on Coast Village Road in Montecito was open for take-out.
So we set up a portable table and chairs nearby and proceeded to eat our “take-out”pizza and pasta in the open air.
Enter Karen.
Outraged, she screamed at us a) for not wearing masks and b) for not distancing ourselves from one another.
We laughed at her.
So Karen took our photograph.
And then she called the cops.
Thereafter, Karen got into her car and waited for the cops to arrive.
And waited.
And waited.
Losing patience, poor Karen phoned the police again.
And again.
We knew what to say if any cops actually showed up:
This is a protest.
The nation had already come to understand, earlier in the year, that protests were the one type of public assembly democratic-run cities decided was permissible during the lockdown (but only if such “free speech” included looting and setting buildings alight).
Our protest, if asked?
Blue Lives Matter.
But our spiel wasn't necessary.
Because no cops ever appeared.
Clearly, Santa Barbara’s finest had zero interest in enforcing what autocratic, hypocritical goofy Gav tried to mandate.
After an hour, Karen finally gave up and drove off.