Even for well-reported 20th century wars, decades later, historians are still seeking to improve our understanding of them. With the Ukraine conflict, we’re in the midst of the unprecedented experience of being able to discern a remarkably high proportion of what is afoot, albeit with a great deal of noise in the signal between aggressive propagandizing and issues of sourcing with various purported close-to-the-action accounts.

But the war has gone at a seemingly slow pace, due to Russia shifting strategy to attrition (rather than trying to force negotiations), the time required to break extremely well-fortified lines (without incurring huge and unnecessary human costs), and Russia choosing to grind down other elements of Ukraine’s military, notably its air defenses. That’s lead commentators to focus on battles and even hot spots on the line of contact, in part because that’s where the action has been, in part because close observers hope they’ll be able to find clues of when and where the fighting might shift into bigger, more decisive-looking campaigns.

However, the ongoing focus on comparatively local contests, and even the watch for the start of the Great Overanticipated Ukraine Counteroffensive appears to have distracted commentators from what will drive the broad timing of the resolution of the conflict, absent a nuclear escalation.

It’s the stuff, as in how much, or more accurately, how little Ukraine has. A tacit assumption has been, since attritional wars (per John Mearsheimer in his latest talk) are artillery wars, that artillery will serve as the limiting reagent. From LibreTexts:

When there is not enough of one reactant in a chemical reaction, the reaction stops abruptly. To figure out the amount of product produced, it must be determined which reactant will limit the chemical reaction (the limiting reagent).

LifeSiteNews first reported on the incident Saturday. Local pro-lifer John Roswell told the outlet via email that Dick Schafer and Mark Crosby are the men who were allegedly attacked and seriously injured. 

The pro-life outlet obtained photographs of what appear to be facial injuries. Roswell said that Schafer is “recovering at home” and Crosby was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

“Detailing the extent of the injuries, Roswell wrote that Crosby’s ‘plate bone in his upper right cheek is completely fractured,’ and that he ‘is bleeding from some unidentified area behind his eye and the bone eye orbit is completely shattered and will have to be replaced with metal,”‘ according to the report. 

Black actors and screenwriters have accused the showrunners of hit TV show Lost of creating a 'toxic' and 'racist' work environment.  

The series, that followed the lives of survivors of a plane crash as they struggled to exist on a mysterious island, became an instant hit when it aired in 2004. 

At its peak the show brought in an average of 16 million viewers per episode, running for six series before wrapping in 2010.  

As part of a new book by Maureen Ryan, some who worked on the show, either as writers, actors or in other behind-the-scenes roles, have revealed their shocking claims of racism and abuses of power on the show.

The claims against showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse include firing an actor after he raised concerns involving race, and making overtly racist comments that contributed towards a toxic work environment. Both deny the allegations.  

Webmaster addition: I was the Visual Effects Producer on LOST and I never saw anything that I considered racist happening. The crew was very happy to be working on a hit show. There was a lot of mutual respect. Everyone wanted the show to be the best it could be and went out of their way to help each other as far as union rules would allow. This story appears to be a grab for attention and sympathy by the "perpetual victims" at the expense of everyone else who worked on the program! Not to mention selling a book.

The Durham Report fails to identify the ringleader of the Russiagate fiasco, John Brennan. It was Brennan who first reported “contacts… between Russian officials and persons in the Trump campaign”. It was also Brennan who initially referred the case to the FBI. It was also Brennan who “hand-picked” the analysts who cobbled together the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which said that Putin was trying to swing the election in Trump’s favor. And, it was also Brennan who hijacked the “Trump-Russia-meme” from the Hillary campaign in order to prosecute his war on Trump. At every turn, Brennan was there, massaging the intelligence, pulling the strings, and micromanaging the entire operation from behind the scenes. So, while it might seem like the FBI was ‘leading the Russiagate charge’, it was actually Brennan who was calling the shots. This is from an article by Aaron Mate:

“…it is clear that Brennan’s role in propagating the collusion narrative went far beyond his work on the ICA. (Intelligence Community Assessment) A close review of facts that have slowly come to light reveals that he was a central architect and promoter of the conspiracy theory from its inception... Brennan stands apart for the outsized role he played in generating and spreading the (collusion) false narrative.” The Brennan Dossier: All About a Prime Mover of Russiagate, Aaron Mate, Real Clear Investigations

The nation’s biggest tech conglomerates continued hiring foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, even as they carried out mass layoffs of American employees, investigative reporter Lee Fang details.

Since the start of the year, hundreds of thousands of Americans in tech jobs have been laid off, with about 12,000 cut at Google, 10,000 out at Microsoft, close to 20,000 laid off at Amazon, and 10,000 cut from Meta Platforms which owns Facebook and Instagram.

Just weeks after announcing such layoffs, though, the same tech corporations continued hiring foreign workers on the H-1B visa program — known as the “outsourcing visa” to many Americans.

CNN spoke with four women who “married themselves” — a self-marriage officially referred to as “sologamy.”

The left-leaning news outlet painted “sologamy” as pertaining more to mental health and “self-love.” rather than an extension of living an “auto-sexual” lifestyle — being sexually attracted to oneself — which has been addressed in other news articles on the topic.

“The concept of self-marriage, or sologamy, has been around for years…No data exists on how many people celebrate sologamy with ceremonies, but the practice has been explored in a handful of recent news articles,” CNN reported.

The women interviewed “described the act as a symbolic expression of self-love and an affirmation of a deep meaningful relationship with one’s self.”

Los Angeles County is finalizing plans for a pilot project in congestion pricing that could see drivers charged an additional fee to use certain high-frequency routes on freeways, in a bid to reduce traffic in the congested city.

The May 24th bulletin, reported by Just the News on Tuesday, states:

In the coming months, factors that could mobilize individuals to commit violence include their perceptions of the 2024 general election cycle and legislative or judicial decisions pertaining to sociopolitical issues. Likely targets of potential violence include US critical infrastructure, faith-based institutions, individuals or events associated with the LGBTQIA+ community, schools, racial and ethnic minorities, and government facilities and personnel, including law enforcement.

Although many assume that the existence of sizable disparities in average IQ among the races simply must be “pseudoscience,” that different ethnicities average different levels of mental ability is one of the most overwhelmingly well-established findings of the social sciences.

Exactly why ancestral groups have varying IQs remains controversial, but the fact that they do is not disputed among the well-informed. A general rule of thumb among researchers has long been that whites and blacks differ in average IQ by about one standard deviation.

“Racial intelligence differences are real, large, crucial for understanding American society, and not going away anytime soon.”

For example, the 2001 meta-analysis by Roth et al. of 105 cognitive test studies with a sample size totaling over 6 million found an average gap of 16.5 IQ points, or 1.1 standard deviations.

Troops from the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR) on Wednesday put up barriers in the northern town of Zvecan following clashes with ethnic Serbs.

The soldiers secured the perimeter of the building with metal fences and barbed wire barriers.

30 soldiers from the force were wounded in the clashes on Monday, while 52 protesters were injured. Five Serbs were arrested for taking part in the skirmish.

The NATO military alliance decided to send 700 additional troops following the clashes. Serbia put the country on its highest state of alert and sent troops to the border with Kosovo.

A correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that Serb protesters on Wednesday were holding a large Serbian flag that stretched over 200 meters (660 feet) from the town hall to the center of Zvecan.

The deal to suspend the limit on federal government debt until 2025 removes one of the obstacles to another Federal Reserve rate increase.

It was highly unlikely that the Fed would have decided to raise rates without a deal. Federal Reserve officials regarded the possibility of crossing the “x-date”—the point at which the government would no longer have enough available funds to pay bills as they come due—with sufficient alarm to forestall a hike even if other economic data were supportive of higher rates. Monetary policy, in other words, would have become a captive of fiscal policy.

This is one of the unheralded risks posed by the debt limit. It threatened to push the central bank away from further tightening even if that is what the data were to prescribe. The result might have been an acceleration or prolonging of inflation. The debt deal clears the road for Fed officials to pursue monetary policy according to economic fundamentals instead of navigating around a battle over fiscal policy.

Sudan's army suspended talks with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Wednesday, according to reports citing a government official.

Talks between Sudan's warring factions have been ongoing since early May and have produced two short-term cease-fire deals.

What has happened so far in the talks?

The army and the RSF had agreed to extend a previous truce by five days just before it was due to expire late on Monday.

The brokers of the cease-fire, Saudi Arabia and the United States, say it has been violated by both factions.

A simple confession: I wish I didn’t care about this stuff. Life would be simple.

Easy.

But just nearly twelve years ago, a childhood friend was murdered on the streets on Atlanta by a black male dedicated to fighting white privilege and thus was born the character behind SBPDL.

In the dying days of the American Empire, we know more names will emerge to share the same fate of Brittney Watts.

His Name is John Materna.

Following the death of George Floyd, America’s major corporations united to provide moral and financial support to Black Lives Matter rioters in the name of racial equity.

In June 2020, Target announced $10 million dollars to support various minority racial causes. Walmart earmarked $100 million to a “Center for Racial Equity,” dispersed as donations to fund Non-Governmental Organizations that preach racism against white people as well as demonize local law enforcement. Home Depot provided $1 million dollars to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an organization that weaponizes civil law to silence news publications and intimidate individuals who engage in criticism of black grievance activists.

As we approach the third anniversary of the beginning of the capitalist financed race revolution, society-wrecking CEOs and shareholders are now reaping what they sow.

According to data compiled by the National Federation of Retailers (NFR), theft and fraud amounted to a loss of $61.7 billion dollars in 2019. Following the changes in how states police black people in 2020, the NFR reports that this figure ballooned to $90.8 billion and then $94.5 billion in 2021. David Johnston, an NFR representative, has told the financial press that 2023 numbers are going to be even higher. Target has projected that 2023 will cost the company $1.3 billion in shrink, up from $800 million last year.

Chick-fil-A, the chicken sandwich chain long beloved by conservatives for its longstanding opposition to same-sex marriage, is now sparking boycott calls after announcing that it has hired an executive in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Atlanta-based company announced on Tuesday that it was naming Erick McReynolds to the post of vice president of DEI — igniting angry denunciations on Twitter from conservatives who allege that the firm has “gone woke.”

McReynolds has been employed by Chick-fil-A since 2007.

He was promoted to the position of vice president of DEI in November 2021, according to his LinkedIn page.

But the recent LGBTQ controversies involving brands such as Bud Light, Target, and Kohl’s have triggered scrutiny of other corporate actors.

A new investigation reveals the use of Pegasus spyware in an international war context.

The report, released on May 25, is a joint investigation between Access Now, CyberHUB-AM, the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto (the Citizen Lab), Amnesty International’s Security Lab, and an independent mobile security researcher Ruben Muradyan.

According to its findings, at least 12 Armenian citizens were targeted with the spyware between October 2020 and December 2022. The list includes Armenia’s Ombudsperson, two Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Armenian service journalists, a United Nations official, a former spokesperson of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry, and seven other representatives of Armenian civil society.

The evidence collected and presented in the report demonstrates that “the targeting is related to the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Nine teenagers have been arrested over the savage beating of three Marines on a California beach over Memorial Day Weekend. 

Orange County officials said four boys and one girl were charged with assault with a deadly weapon on Tuesday and held at juvenile hall.

And another four minors were charged with misdemeanor assault and battery, CBS News reported. 

The Marines were brutally attacked along San Clemente beach, just south of Los Angeles, by a group of up to 40 teenagers at 10pm on Friday after the service members confronted them about setting off fireworks. 

The incident was caught on video and the men, who sustained minor injuries, refused to be transported to a local hospital in the aftermath. 

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed the fungus Candida auris is spreading rapidly through U.S. health care facilities.

Also known as C. auris, reports of cases linked to the drug-resistant fungus have doubled in 2021.

In addition, the fungus is behind an outbreak in Mississippi that began in November, infecting at least 12 people and potentially responsible for about four deaths, according to figures provided by the state Department of Health to ABC News.

Although C. auris does not present a threat to most healthy people, and infections are rare, it can affect vulnerable groups of people and can be resistant to several classes of drugs.

The collateral damage of the pandemic response was “substantial, wide-ranging and will leave behind a legacy of harm for hundreds of millions of people”, a major new study has found.

Reviewing and synthesising 600 publications focused on the impact of the pandemic response, Dr. Kevin Bardosh of the Universities of Washington and Edinburgh concluded that these wide and deep societal harms “should challenge the dominant mental model of the pandemic response”.

The abstract provides a succinct summary of the study, which is currently in pre-print:

Just a few weeks after Special Counsel John Durham revealed significant failures to investigate allegations against Hillary Clinton’s family charity, a U.S. Tax Court judge has once again breathed new life into a years-long whistleblower case alleging IRS improprieties involving the controversial Clinton Foundation.   

U.S. Tax Court Judge David Gustafson has already once before denied an IRS request to dismiss the whistleblower case, first brought in 2017. And three years ago, he ordered the tax agency to reveal whether it criminally investigated the foundation, citing a mysterious "gap" in its records.

The IRS filed a new motion to dismiss, and all parties filed arguments over the last year. But on Monday, Gustafson postponed ruling on those motions, instead asking for new arguments in light of three recent precedent-setting court rulings, once again frustrating IRS efforts to make the case go away.

A Los Angeles man who avoided jail time after stabbing a construction worker in the neck in November 2020, was arrested last week for murdering his upstairs neighbor.

LAPD arrested Stefen Sutherland, 31, and charged with assault with a deadly weapon for stabbing a construction worker for making too much noise.

A probation department recommended prison time for Sutherland, however, Marxist, Soros-backed LA District Attorney George Gascon agreed to give him “mental health diversion” instead.

Two-and-a-half years later Sutherland was charged with murdering his upstairs neighbor.

Congressional Democrats are dismissive over the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) refusal to hand over a document purporting to detail a $5 million pay-for-play scheme that involved then Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national, according to Breitbart News. A whistleblower previously revealed the existence of this document which was confirmed when neither the Bureau nor the Department of Justice denied the existence of the record. The House of Representatives has been in a prolonged battle with the FBI over the unclassified document that the FBI has failed to turn over.  

The Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, has scheduled a meeting with Representative James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, for this week to discuss the status of the document and the FBI's compliance. 

This came after Comer threatened to hold contempt proceedings against the director over the document scandal. Comer also revealed on Twitter that there may be more than one document detailing criminal schemes between Joe Biden and a foreign national. He wrote, "The FBI’s refusal to provide a single, unclassified document is obstructionist. The document allegedly details a criminal scheme involving then-VP Joe Biden and a foreign national. Now, the FBI tells [the GOP-controlled Oversight Committee that] there is MORE than one document."

Walmart is closing 21 retail locations across the US this year, including four in Chicago, citing poor financial performance at each.

The recent closures follow a trend of Walmart closing a handful of stores across various states each year, with the company saying that the stores are "underperforming" without providing specifics.

Most recently, Walmart confirmed that it would close a Neighborhood Market store in Kansas City, Kansas, on June 2 following a review of several factors including current and historic financial performance. The retailer announced in April that it was closing four of its eight Chicago stores, saying that they "lose tens of millions of dollars a year."