MAIN DESK—BIDEN’S BIG BOY SUMMIT—The roundtable discusses Biden’s carefully scripted but underwhelming “Big Boy” press conference, which, to no one’s surprise, turned out much more an electoral campaign speech—often mumbled—than a presidential presser, the whole concoction punctuated by hilarious gaffes that Biden’s mental deterioration now make almost inevitable (like confusing Zelensky with Putin—of all people). In addition, guest Jeff Brown paints a comprehensive picture of the global strategic situation, with a focus on Asia, where America’s futile attempts to surround China with military bases and alliances in order to stop its rise to global prominence, (already a fait accompli), is opening yet another front for a major kinetic war threatening humanity with nuclear Armageddon. A SECOND VIDEO-THE WEAPONISATION OF IGNORANCE—is also part of this outstanding package.
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MIKE MIHAJLOVIC—At the start of the war, the Ukrainian Air Force had about 120 functional combat aircraft. The attrition level reduced this fairly large force to just a fragment, with no more than a few dozen or even fewer available at the time of writing. The opponent’s force is far superior. The Russian planes are far more modern, and equipped with long-range missiles that give them a decisive advantage in air-to-air combat. It can be said with certainty that the Russian Air Force controls the sky over the battlefield. The commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleschenuk, said in an interview that the Ukrainian planes are under threat of attack immediately after takeoff from the airfield. According to him, one Ukrainian aircraft is attacked simultaneously by up to 9 Russian ones (this can be taken with a grain of salt). He also stated that the strike range of the Russian Su-35 aircraft is 200 km, while the Ukrainian MiG-29s strike at 25-30 km.
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ALEKS—Much of what we will discuss in this article will deal with the number of Russian casualties, as alluded to in the introduction. Russia suffered a horrendous number of dead soldiers within the first few weeks of the conflict, maybe up to 10,000. That’s the price of big arrows on modern battlefields with full intelligence/information/reconnaissance/artillery/drone coverage of the battlefields.
However, (up to) 10,000 dead is still a price that would have been worth paying to achieve the goals in Ukraine without going into a full-scale war. Had there been an agreement in Istanbul that would have terminated the conflict, ensured the rights of Russians in Ukraine, and kept Ukraine out of NATO and NATO out of Ukraine, one could remotely argue that “it was worth it.”
We all know what happened instead. As with all agreements that are not guaranteed with a gun on the West’s head, the West will ignore or scrap it at will. As happened with the Istanbul agreement.
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—“Russia’s missile strikes that today killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians and caused damage and casualties at Kyiv’s largest children’s hospital are a horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality,” tweeted whoever runs the US president’s Twitter account, adding, “It is critical that the world continues to stand with Ukraine at this important moment and that we not ignore Russian aggression.”
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JEFF J. BROWN—The United States hasn’t had an honest election since George Washington. But, I mean, it’s built into the US Constitution just with each state having to be given the responsibility of conducting the elections. And of course, if the Democrats are in power, they’re going to make sure that they get reelected. And if it’s a Republican, they make sure they get reelected. And so all kinds of ballot stuffing stolen ballots, etc. And then of course, now with the United States almost exclusively electronic voting machines, all you have to do is control that little chip in the hard drive and you can predetermine the election.
And so there’s that problem. And the fact that again, Macron has had most of the votes in the legislature since 2022 makes it more difficult for the Right. What’s more disturbing in this situation for July 7th, the final round, is when the Right won the first round again handily beating the Left and Macron again came in third. He’s destroyed his movement. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about the people. And so Macron and Mélenchon got together and colluded.
