Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

America’s Declaration of Independence; Former Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die on same day; Israel’s raid at Entebbe; West Point opens; Lou Gehrig’s farewell to baseball; Neil Simon born.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

John Adams

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Something on your mind Steve?

Ouch.

That gotta leave a mark.

Discussion of Russian bounties thrusts deaths of three Marines into spotlight
By Dan Lamothe, Missy Ryan, and Paul Sonne, Washinton Post
July 2, 2020

Slutman, a 43-year-old married father of three, had served 15 years in the New York City Fire Department. Hines, 31, was engaged to be married when he returned home. The body of Hendriks, 25, was escorted home to the United States by his brother, Joseph, who also is a Marine, his family has said in past interviews.
…
The men were members of the 25th Marine Regiment, a reserve unit, and had volunteered for a deployment with Georgia Liaison Team 8, a unit of several dozen Marines who advised a battalion of nearly 900 soldiers from the Republic of Georgia.

They were based at Bagram, an installation that is still home to a former Russian air tower and a mass grave that is marked as the final resting place of Afghans who died during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The deployment was part of an ongoing collaboration that goes back more than a decade. Georgians, seeking membership in NATO and American backing against Russia, deployed alongside U.S. troops in the Iraq War and pivoted to deploying a battalion of soldiers at a time to Afghanistan, beginning in 2009.

The joint U.S.-Georgian unit’s operations included manning security checkpoints at Bagram and patrolling outside the base in search of evidence of Taliban operations such as rocket attacks on the air base.

Yeah, Country Georgia not State Georgia.

Oh, and-

“Do people still not understand that this is all a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party?” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. “I was never briefed because any info that they may have had did not rise to that level.”

To continue-

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) excoriated the Trump administration as doing too little to ensure the president was aware of the information.

“The White House put on a con that if you don’t have 100 percent consensus on intelligence, that . . . it shouldn’t rise to a certain level,” she said. “We would practically be investigating nothing if you had to start off at 100 percent. . . . Just because they didn’t have 100 percent consensus, should this be not briefed to the president of the United States?”

Uh… Benghazi?

Bounty

Betrayed

Fellow Traveler

Rushmore

This captures an interesting little cultural moment. In March of 2020, just before Les Stroud decided he might maybe want to get back to Canada before they closed the border eh?, he was in Las Vegas and hooked up with his friend, comedian Bill Engvall, who had his gig canceled and nothing much to do.

So they went Survival Camping in the Sierra Nevadas.

Don’t lie to me and say you never watched Bugs Bunny.

Chickamauga was the bloody end of a Union Offensive by Bill Rosencranz into North Georgia in September of 1863, delivered at the hands of Braxton Bragg. It featured the second highest number of casualties to date after Gettysburg.

It was made more shocking because up to that point Rosencranz had been quite successful in outmaneuvering Bragg with Flanking Actions that had driven him from Chattanooga all the way across Eastern Tennessee with few losses.

The first day was indecisive but the second was quite disastrous. Rosencranz made a mistake about his dispositions relative to Bragg and, attempting to correct, exposed a massive hole that Bragg, and the newly arrived James Longstreet, were quick to exploit.

The Union Line crumbled with a Third of the Troops fleeing in a rout, Rosencranz himself rushed back to Chattanooga before the issue was decided. Not a good look, ask Horatio Gates.

The rest of the Troops reorganized under George “The Rock of Chickamauga’ Thomas and withdrew in order but it was a loss, no doubt about it, and they followed Rosencranz back to Chattanooga.

Umm… very interesting, but what does it mean?

The Civil War was by far the most sanguinary conflict in United States History with over 655,000 dead (as is customary, both North and South, Civilians excluded). With a total population of 31,443,322 as of the 1860 Census, that amounts to about 20 of every 1000 people. Today’s equivalent would be roughly 6,600,000.

So, there’s your benchmark for how bad things can get.

U.S. sets record for new coronavirus cases, surpassing 55,000
By Kim Bellware, Siobhán O’Grady, Hamza Shaban, Hannah Knowles, Jacqueline Dupree, Felicia Sonmez, Colby Itkowitz, Steven Goff, and Michael Brice-Saddler, Washington Post
July 2, 2020

The United States reported 55,220 new coronavirus cases Thursday, surpassing Wednesday’s record of 52,789, previously the largest single-day total since the start of the pandemic, according to data collected by The Washington Post.

Florida on Thursday reported 10,109 new cases of the coronavirus, marking a new single-day record for the state, which reported 6,563 cases on Wednesday. There were 68 deaths, for a total of 3,718. It’s the 25th consecutive day that Florida has set a record high in its seven-day rolling average. Georgia, one of the first states to loosen restrictions, joined Florida and several other states in setting single-day records of new cases. Georgia reported 3,472, up from 2,976 on Wednesday.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Thursday issued a statewide mandate requiring Texans to wear masks in public in any county with 20 or more positive covid-19 cases — a dramatic move that comes as cases in the state continue to climb. On Thursday, Texas reported 7,915 new cases of the coronavirus.

Fauci Says U.S. Could Reach 100,000 Virus Cases a Day as Warnings Grow Darker
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Noah Weiland, The New York Times
June 30, 2020

The government’s top infectious disease expert said on Tuesday that the rate of new coronavirus infections could more than double to 100,000 a day if current outbreaks were not contained, warning that the virus’s march across the South and the West “puts the entire country at risk.”

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, offered the grim prediction while testifying on Capitol Hill, telling senators that no region of the country is safe from the virus’s resurgence. The number of new cases in the United States has shot up by 80 percent in the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database, with new hot spots flaring far from the Sun Belt epicenters.

“I can’t make an accurate prediction, but it is going to be very disturbing, I will guarantee you that,” Dr. Fauci said, “because when you have an outbreak in one part of the country, even though in other parts of the country they are doing well, they are vulnerable.”

Ok. One Hundred Thousand a Day is 1 Million every 10 Days so in 3300 Days (a little over 9 Years) every single person in the United States will have become infected.

Das Vadanya Rodina (ironic salute by Russian Strategic Warriors embarking on their suicidal Nuclear Holocaust missions).

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count
The New York Times
Updated July 3, 2020

More than 2,758,800 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 128,800 have died, according to a New York Times database.

So how bad is that exactly?

Well, it gives a Fatality Rate of 4.6 per Thousand which, while not as bad as it could be (‘There’s definitely a very slim chance we’ll survive.’), is plenty bad indeed.

It means that Every Day 464 people will die.

Total Fatalities at maximum Rates (there are self limiting factors I’m ignoring for clarity) around 151,800. For comparison there will be 329.040 Traffic Fatalities in the same time period.

50% as many Deaths as Traffic is not exactly a favorable contrast.

Coronavirus has been twice as costly as the Vietnam War (8 Years, 58,177) and worse than The Great War (1 Year 116,516). If not yet at Civil War levels (and not projected to get there by this method) it’s still pretty horrible.

These are simple calculator exercises, I’m not a Doctor and claim no special expertise.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Union forces win the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War; George Washington takes charge of the Continental Army; Algeria gains independence; Actor Tom Cruise born; Singer Jim Morrison dies

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

Franz Kafka

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Not everyone has HBO money (not to mention 5 Wax Presidents, he raffled off Russell Crowe’s Jock to benefit the last Blockbuster).

Sawdust and Spotlights.

$100,000.

There is nothing funny about it.

Afghan Contractor Handed Out Russian Cash to Kill Americans, Officials Say
By Mujib Mashal, Eric Schmitt, Najim Rahim and Rukmini Callimachi, The New York Times
July 1, 2020

Rahmatullah Azizi stands as a central piece of a puzzle rocking Washington, named in American intelligence reports and confirmed by Afghan officials as a key middleman who for years handed out money from a Russian military intelligence unit to reward Taliban-linked fighters for targeting American troops in Afghanistan, according to American and Afghan officials.

As security agencies connected the dots of the bounty scheme and narrowed in on him, they carried out sweeping raids to arrest dozens of his relatives and associates about six months ago, but discovered that Mr. Azizi had sneaked out of Afghanistan and was likely back in Russia. What they did find in one of his homes, in Kabul, was about half a million dollars in cash.

American and Afghan officials have maintained for years that Russia was running clandestine operations to undermine the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and aid the Taliban.

But U.S. officials only recently concluded that a Russian spy agency was paying bounties for killing coalition troops, including Americans, which the Kremlin and the Taliban have denied.

According to officials briefed on the matter, U.S. intelligence officials believe the program is run by Unit 29155, an arm of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the G.R.U. that has carried out assassinations and other operations overseas.

That a conduit for the payments would be someone like Mr. Azizi — tied to the American reconstruction effort, enmeshed in the regional netherworld, but not prominent enough to attract outside attention — speaks to the depth of Russia’s reach into the increasingly complicated Afghan battlefield, exploiting a nexus of crime and terror to strike blows with years of deniability.

The public revelation last week of that conclusion has touched off a political firestorm in Washington. White House officials said at first that President Trump was never briefed on the matter, but it emerged that the intelligence assessment was included in a written briefing to the president in late February, if not earlier.
…
Details of Mr. Azizi’s role in the bounty scheme were confirmed through a dozen interviews that included U.S. and Afghan officials aware of the intelligence and the raids that led to it; his neighbors and friends; and business associates of the middle men arrested on suspicion of involvement. All spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation.

U.S. intelligence reports named Mr. Azizi as a key middleman between the G.R.U. and militants linked to the Taliban who carried out the attacks. He was among those who collected the cash in Russia, which intelligence files described as multiple payments of “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Those files were among the materials provided to Congress this week.

Through a layered and complex Hawala system — an informal way to transfer money — he delivered it to Afghanistan for the missions, the files say. The transfers were often sliced into smaller amounts that routed through several regional countries before arriving in Afghanistan, associates of the arrested businessmen said.

Afghan officials said prizes of as much as $100,000 per killed soldier were offered for American and coalition targets.

Stop.

Think about that.

And we know for as certain as things ever are in Spooky World that these were direct with drawls from accounts controlled by the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The NSA has the receipts.

And it wasn’t just the $500,000 found in Azizi’s house. It was Millions and Millions paid out since at least 2014.

Unindicted Co-Conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio and his staff know this and have known this since February 2019.

And he and his Republicans have done nothing and continue to do nothing, not even send a letter.

About six months ago, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, raided the offices of several Hawala businessmen both in Kabul, the capital, and in Kunduz, in the north, who were believed to be associated with the bounty scheme, making more than a dozen arrests.

“The target of the operation was Rahmat, who was going back and forth to Russia for a long time and said he worked there but no one knew what he did,” said Safiullah Amiry, the deputy head of Kunduz provincial council, referring to Mr. Azizi. But by the time the raid took place, “Rahmat had fled.”

“From what I heard from security officials, the money had come from Russia through Rahmat,” he added.

Russia was initially seen as cooperating with American efforts after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, as its interests in defeating Al Qaeda, an international Islamist terror group, aligned with those of the United States.

But in recent years, as the two powers clashed elsewhere, the Kremlin grew wary of the prolonged United States presence and moved closer to the Taliban, hedging its bets on who would take power in a post-American Afghanistan.

The Russians also saw an opportunity for long-awaited payback for the Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the Red Army withdrew after being unable to defeat a United States-backed insurgency.

Russia has walked a fine balance in recent years, eager to bloody the American nose, but wary of Afghanistan collapsing into a chaos that could spill over its borders. Publicly, Russia has admitted only to information-sharing with the Taliban in fighting the Islamic State in Afghanistan, a common foe.

The U.S. conclusion in 2019 that the Russians were sending bounty money to the Taliban came at a delicate time in the conflict, just as the United States was deep into negotiations with the insurgents over a deal to withdraw the remaining American troops from the country.

Some of the attacks believed to be part of the bounty scheme were carried out around the time the Trump administration was actively reaching out to Russia for cooperation on those peace talks. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy leading the talks, repeatedly met with Russian officials to build consensus around the American endgame.
…
Mr. Azizi, who neighbors and relatives said is in his 40s, thrived in that convoluted, murky environment.

A friend who has known him since his early days in Kunduz, as well as later in Russia, said he had started off with smuggling small shipments of drugs into Iran in his 20s, but that venture was not very successful. He had returned to northern Afghanistan, and somehow won contracts from the American-led coalition forces to build stretches of a couple roads in Kunduz, before making his way to Russia.

None of those interviewed who know Mr. Azizi were surprised when his associates were raided about six months ago and one of his brothers taken into custody with the half a million dollars in cash. As one of his friends put it, he had gone from “not even having a blanket” to having multiple houses, fancy cars, and security escorts.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Continue reading