[YouTube] Fourteen minutes. Bright, young Navy sailor, angered by the anti-Black racism he was unprepared for, Mark James Robert Essex joined the Black Panthers and was discharged after going AWOL.
January 7, 1973. Downtown New Orleans becomes the center of one of the most extraordinary law enforcement operations in American history.
As a rapidly escalating crisis unfolds at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge, local authorities face an increasingly desperate situation. With severe weather limiting aerial support, decorated Marine Corps aviator Lt. Col. Charles "Chuck" Pitman makes a remarkable decision.
Without waiting for authorization, Pitman assembles a volunteer crew, launches a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter, and navigates the Mississippi River in near-zero visibility to assist the New Orleans Police Department.
What follows is an extraordinary demonstration of courage, ingenuity, and cooperation between military personnel and local law enforcement.
This is the remarkable true story of the 1973 New Orleans incident and the Marine pilot who risked his career to bring it to an end.
[FOX] Ground beef just hit a record $6.92 a pound, nearly 60% more than Americans were paying just five years ago.
For millions of families, beef isn't a ribeye at a steakhouse; it's the largest source of protein in their diet. It's hamburgers on the grill, taco night, meatloaf, a roast in the crockpot.
America didn't forget how to raise cattle. We made it harder to do it, and American families are paying the price for a country that won't let its own ranchers feed it.
The Trump administration is attempting to bring relief quickly. A temporary order took effect Sept. 1, expanding lower-tariff access for 300,000 metric tons of imported lean beef trimmings, putting more beef in the market while the herd rebuilds. It did not go over well in ranching country. Producers argue that flooding the market with cheaper foreign beef pushes cattle prices down at the very moment American ranchers need stronger prices to justify rebuilding the herd.
But the question has never been how much beef we should import. The real question is why it can be cheaper to raise and process beef on the other side of the world, ship it thousands of miles to America, and sell it here than to simply produce it at home.
Yes, American wages are higher, American beef is also the best in the world, and Americans have shown they'll pay for that. But none of that fully answers the question.
Here's what does: foreign beef can cross an ocean and land on a shelf in New York City more easily than a Nebraska rancher's beef can cross the state line into Iowa. A rancher who has his cattle processed under his own state's inspection program, one the USDA has certified as equal to the federal standard, still can't sell that meat one mile over the border. The bureaucracy has built a system where importing is simpler than selling to a neighboring state.
And that is only part of the problem.
Just look at beef processing. Four companies, two of them Brazilian-owned, control roughly 85% of American beef processing capacity, up from 36% in 1980. This isn't the free market. Crushing regulations, excessive permitting, and the capital cost of running a federally compliant plant are so steep that only a handful of operations can absorb them. This is a government-enabled monopoly. A small processor can't open a competing plant, so the giants stay giants, and cattle producers finishing and selling fed cattle across enormous stretches of the country are left with one or two buyers. A producer without competition for offtake doesn't set the price. He takes the only one he's handed.
The same scenario shows up again when a rancher tries to tap the free market and sell straight to locals who actually want his beef. A neighbor who wants to buy a quarter of beef directly from the rancher down the road can't just buy it. The animal has to go through an inspected facility, and if the nearest one is hours away and booked out for months, that transaction simply doesn't happen. Ranchers who could be selling directly to consumers at a fair price, cutting out the distant packer entirely, are blocked not by a lack of demand but by a lack of anywhere nearby to legally get the job done.
Remember a contributing factor to Higher Beef Prices is a handful of large companies control the beef processing in the United States and set the prices.
But congress has not seriously looked into the price fixing because of the $$$$$$ the industry passes around.
#5
We have been using a local meat slaughter house, as it offered the same beef at about 20 to 30% less than stores. But it just announced it is laying off 100+ staff. Yep, it seems 1 of the big meat barons is acquiring control of it.
[AmericanTribune] Things had already become interesting when I was a schoolgirl in the mid- to late-1970s. I was not permitted by my parents and my more sophisticated friends to take the bus and go to downtown Buffalo, NY on my own, lest Bad Things happen, which limited me to biking to friends’ houses in my very safe suburb, as there also wasn’t money to get me drivers insurance. But the small, 1950s ranch house my parents bought for the excellent school district sold a few years ago for a little over $300,000 even though the school district is still rated excellent and the community is still very safe. So that $600K thing, which certainly deserves to be protested, must be specific to much bigger cities — I just checked the internet, and the average house price in my Cincinnati exurb is about $350,000. So the key seems to be to stay away from places like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City.
#2
They didn't have school shooter drills when anyone was in school. They do today.
The house at the link is $321,000.
There was a thing a while back when they asked older people to guess how much a house was and they guessed not just wrong but wildly wrong.
They all bought their houses decades ago and have no idea what it's out there now for the young.
Higher property values HELP them. They don't want lower prices.
#4
Skimming the article, it's about how the 'common' townhouses, parks, transport, pools, and schools became less safe because of restricted enforcement - Soros DAs, reduced police, lawsuits, no-go zones. So people moved out to the suburbs, wanted a big backyard., with their own pool, and a safer private school.
Of course, the younger generation wants to start off at 22 at the level their parents achieved when they were 52. I remember that feeling from when I was 22.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/25/2026 7:46 Comments ||
Top||
#5
They didn't have school shooter drills when anyone was in school. They do today.
Back in those days we didn't tolerate feral youths. Today we have a catch and release (if they even bother to catch) program for juvenile justice for adult crimes. The release programs encourage a growing escalation of destructiveness till there is mass carnage. Then the people in the process wipe their hands and say 'who could have seen it coming'. Hammer them early as an encouragement for others.
Back in 'those' days, we had 'duck and cover' drills.
#6
...I read all the comments here, and decided to check to see what my humble abode ($110,000 in 2009) was now worth.
To put this in context, I kept telling my darling bride that the next time I get a spam from one of these clowns who want to know if I'll sell, I'm gonna tell 'em $200k, and I want it in 72 hours.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Alexey Statsenko
[Regnum] Eighty-five years ago, on September 24, 1941, the military council of the ODR (Odesa Defensive Region) summarized the results of the first successful Soviet amphibious landing since the beginning of the war. It was named the Grigorievsky landing, after the location of the landing near the village of Grigorievka.
Special thanks were given to the soldiers of the 3rd Black Sea Marine Regiment, who, having landed from ships arriving from Sevastopol, were the first to engage in combat. The two-day attack—a combined strike by marines, paratroopers, and ground forces—became a model for subsequent operations during the Great Patriotic War.
Meanwhile, the command was in a state of tremendous elation. Despite initial problems (for example, German aircraft managed to disable the destroyer Frunze, which housed the operation's headquarters and all its plans), everything went incredibly well.
The Nazi allies, the Romanian troops advancing on Odessa, were pushed back 8-10 kilometers from the city, the OOR defense area increased, and the artillery batteries shelling the city were destroyed.
Before this, the defenders of Odessa, facing a much larger enemy force, had a very difficult time.
By the middle of the 20th of August 1941, the Romanians on the eastern front of Odessa's defense had driven the Soviet troops out of the area between the Adzhalyk and Bolshoy Adzhalyk estuaries.
Enemy artillery, which had moved closer to the city in the eastern defensive sector, began to target the port. Consequently, ships and vessels could now only enter the port to unload and load at night. Something had to be done about this.
The operation plan was developed by the Black Sea Fleet command. The 3rd Black Sea Marine Regiment was formed in Sevastopol for the task, with Captain Kuzma Koren assuming command.
A group of volunteers for parachute landings was recruited from the ground forces of the naval aviation units—23 people in total—whose task was to disrupt communications in the Romanians' rear.
But the main force was not the sailors at all, but the 157th Rifle Division, which was supposed to concentrate in the eastern defense sector by September 21.
She was supposed to support the landing with a synchronized attack in the eastern direction beyond the Bolshoy Adzhalyk Estuary, together with riflemen from the 421st Division, formed in Odessa and already quite exhausted by the fighting.
Our troops were confronted here by three Romanian divisions: two infantry and one cavalry.
To synchronize actions, the head of the Black Sea Fleet's operations department, Captain Second Rank Oskar Zhukovsky, and other staff members were sent from the Black Sea Fleet headquarters to Odessa.
The original plan was for the Joint Operational Forces and naval aviation to attack airfields and enemy concentrations during the day of September 21st and the night of the 22nd. That night, naval detachments would approach the shore near the Adzhalyk Estuary's barrage (the barrage was the dam separating the estuary from the sea at the time) from the village of Grigoryevka. They would suppress enemy resistance with artillery fire, after which a landing force would be deployed before 5:00 a.m.
He needed to occupy Chabanka, Novaya and Stara Dofinovka and consolidate his position along the line between the estuaries.
SAVE REAR ADMIRAL VLADIMIRSKY
Rear Admiral Lev Vladimirsky was appointed to command the operation and the squadron.
The detachment of landing ships was led by Rear Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, the future outstanding naval commander and creator of the Soviet ocean fleet.
Gorshkov's lead ship was the cruiser Krasny Kavkaz. The support detachment was led by Captain 2nd Rank Sergei Sergeyev, commander of the auxiliary cruiser Anastas Mikoyan (converted into an icebreaker at the start of the war).
However, it all began with a misfortune. On September 21, near Tendrovskaya Spit Island (or simply Tendra), a cruiser spotted the gunboat "Krasnaya Armeniya," which was under attack by enemy aircraft and sinking.
Contrary to all instructions, the destroyer set out to rescue the gunboat's crew and was immediately "covered" by German dive bombers.
Two small tugboats with two barges left Odessa to rescue the ships, but enemy aircraft sank them as well. Another ship from the relief group, a small hunter, ran aground on the Tendra River while escaping bombs.
The few survivors, including Rear Admiral Vladimirsky, were rescued by Soviet torpedo boats.
Gorshkov, who was unaware of this, sent the following message to the OOR command:
"1. Continue the operation. Landing begins at 1:00 on September 22. Landing is to be completed at 3:00. 2. After firing, cruisers are to proceed to Sevastopol, with the expectation of breaking away from Tendra during the hours of darkness. 3. Destroyers are to remain to support the landing force... 4. Destroyers and landing force are to be covered from the air by OOR fighters. "
THE MAIN ADVANTAGE OF THE BARGE
The embarkation of the landing force aboard the ships began early in the morning in Sevastopol's Cossack Bay. For almost a week prior, the marines had been practicing every night how to embark and quickly disembark from boats, launches, and dinghies. This experience proved invaluable during the landings.
In total, the ships took on board 1,617 personnel, armed with machine guns and mortars in addition to rifles and submachine guns. Five longboats were also loaded onto the cruisers.
In total, 12 small KM boats, ten small hunters and a tugboat also took part in the landing.
At half past one in the morning on September 22, at the signal from the flagship, the ships opened fire and 15 minutes later the landing party set off from the ships – they were less than three kilometers from the shore.
Red Navy sailor Vasily Ankhimov, who was in charge of one of the boats, recalled:
"The launch was packed with people, the paratroopers were standing right next to each other, the vessel was right up against the shore, the guys jumped out onto the ground, after which our launch rose on a wave and went back out to sea...
Before the landing, the paratroopers were in a normal, combat-ready mood. The main advantage of the longboat was that the men jumped straight onto the shore, not into the water. Our only armament was a light machine gun, which I used to fire at enemy emplacements along the shore.
The marines from the first launches lit fires on the shore, which everyone was already orienting themselves towards.
"BOUQUET" FOR AN IMPORTANT INSTITUTION
The landing came as a complete surprise to the Romanians. During the landing, only three soldiers were wounded by stray bullets.
At the same time, at 1:30 a.m., on one of the commanding heights near Grigoryevka, a TB-3 heavy bomber dropped off paratroopers from the detachment of Sergeant Major Anatoly Kuznetsov.
Things weren't so good here—the paratroopers were new, and the aircraft wasn't well-suited for airborne assaults. The wind scattered the soldiers—two were missing in action, one was captured, and eight were killed.
But the remaining paratroopers cut five landline communications, killed up to 30 enemy soldiers and officers, and sowed such panic that the enemy decided that several hundred had landed in their rear with artillery and tankettes.
Red Navy sailor Mikhail Negreba single-handedly destroyed a major enemy command post, presumably a regimental headquarters, for which he was awarded the Order of Lenin. He recalled:
"Four horsemen were rushing straight towards me. They dismounted near the house, tied their horses to the fence, and dove somewhere below. I crawled and saw a cellar near the house.
…I could clearly hear the telephone ringing and someone speaking in a rough, harsh voice in a foreign language. Through the window, I saw a table in the middle of the cellar. Several officers were sitting at it, hunched over a map.
I realized it was the enemy headquarters. I picked up the grenade, pulled the safety catch, and… didn't throw it: one grenade was too little for such an important institution. I pulled out three more, tied them together with a strap, and hurled this hefty "bouquet" through the window. There was a deafening explosion, the horses broke loose and ran away, and the sentry fell.
"THERE WILL BE NO MORE SHOOTING."
Meanwhile, at 4:00 a.m., Odessa's defenders' artillery struck enemy positions near Sverdlov and Kubanka. OOR fighters raked enemy airfields near the German colonies of Baden and Selts (now the villages of Blagovatnoye and Limanskoye).
Future Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot of the 69th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Senior Lieutenant Alexei Cherevatenko recalled:
"They appeared over the airfield so suddenly that the anti-aircraft guns didn't open fire right away. At the commander's signal, we first fired cannons and machine guns at the tents where the Nazis were probably still sleeping.
After the turn, they began destroying the aircraft, the fuel depot, and the ammunition stacks. Il-2 attack aircraft suppressed the anti-aircraft guns... The enemy lost practically everything there."
At 7:00 a.m., Soviet aircraft launched an airstrike on the enemy's second echelons.
At the same time, units of the 157th and 421st Rifle Divisions attacked enemy positions in the eastern sector.
Among them was the 1330th Rifle Regiment of the legendary defender of Odessa, Colonel Yakov Osipov. On September 3, the 1st and 2nd Black Sea Marine Regiments had been merged into it. These soldiers, "with special feeling," captured the command post in Chabanka and a four-gun long-range battery of 105-mm howitzers, which had been shelling Odessa.
These guns were later displayed in the city center with the inscription: “There will be no more shooting at Odessa.”
The enemy quickly abandoned its positions. Soviet troops liberated Gildendorf, then Fontanka, and by 4:00 PM, the Romanian retreat had become disorderly.
As a result, the 13th and 15th Romanian infantry divisions were routed. The enemy lost up to 1,500 men killed and captured, was driven back 8-10 kilometers from Odessa, and lost the ability to shell its port.
During the fighting, Soviet units lost 29 men killed and 407 wounded. Marines of the 3rd Black Sea Regiment destroyed two tanks and two anti-tank guns.
MARSHAL ANTONESCU'S PYRRHIC VICTORY
On the night of September 23, a regrouping was carried out. The 157th Rifle Division was redeployed to the southern and western defensive sectors for offensive operations.
The OOR units held their new positions until our troops left Odessa, never allowing the enemy to get within artillery range again.
After 73 days of heroic defense, Soviet troops were forced to abandon Odessa. But at Hitler's headquarters, news of Ion Antonescu's army's "victory" (achieved with the help of the superior Wehrmacht) in October 1941 was met with irritation.
The clever actions of the Soviet Coastal Army delayed the capture of the most important port, industrial center, and railway junction for more than two months, tying up the forces intended for a rapid "Drang nach Osten"—an onslaught to the east.
Total Romanian losses amounted to over 98,000 men, with the Coastal Army and Black Sea Fleet losing 41,000 killed and wounded. The remnants of Antonescu's 4th Army had to be withdrawn from the front and sent back for reorganization.
While Berlin and Bucharest were developing plans to combat the Soviet underground, centered in the quarries (which successfully carried out operations against the occupiers until the liberation of the city in April 1944), our headquarters and military academies were hastily studying the experience of the Grigoriev landing – which would come in handy many times over.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics
[ColonelCassad] Britain uses the Akrotiri military base in Cyprus for the secret transportation of equipment and conducts extensive intelligence operations there for the US and Israel, according to declassified Ministry of Defence documents from 1993.
The base is located 220 miles from Gaza and has already hosted dozens of British and American transport aircraft, as well as hundreds of RAF reconnaissance sorties in support of Israel.
Britain is currently planning to seize 450,000 square meters of land from Cypriots to install 136 new antennas, although Kourion Mayor Pantelis Georgiou initially announced plans for only 20 installations.
Previously, this same base was mentioned in reports about the delivery of various cargo to Ukraine and the preparation of operations related to attacks on the Crimean Bridge. During the war against Iran, there were several visits there, which were certainly not enough to disable it.
[Townhall] The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is apparently seeking regulatory guidance on a very serious campaign-finance matter: how exactly should it report Hasan Piker’s
…far left Turkish-American Millennial influencer who spent much of his childhood in Erdogan’s Turkey, where his Jew/Israel- and America/West-hating ideas were formed. He is the beloved nephew of that noisy leftwing ass, Cenk Uygur, who shares all the same stupid ideas, just expressed in a more mature idiom…
generous contributions to the Republican Party?
In a letter to the Federal Election Commission, the NRSC asked how it should quantify the value of Piker’s commentary, which reaches millions across Twitch and other digital platforms. After all, when a prominent left-wing streamer repeatedly says things so inflammatory, divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... , and politically self-defeating that they may as well be GOP advertising, surely someone has assigned a dollar value to the service.
"His direct campaign activities, joint streaming events, and endorsements are invaluable to the NRSC’s mission of electing more Republicans and highlighting the extreme agenda of the Democrat Party," the letter, exclusively obtained by Townhall, read. "Accordingly, the NRSC requests guidance from the Commission on how to accurately report these in-kind contributions to the Republican Party."
Hasan Piker has become something of a political gift to Republicans, and an increasingly awkward liability for the movement he claims to support, or perhaps "overthrow," depending on the day. At a time when Republicans argue they have won the argument on basic cultural common sense, Piker offers voters a constant reminder of exactly the sort of politics many Americans hoped they were voting to leave behind.
Piker has said that "America deserved 9/11," argued that the United States
is worse than al-Qaeda, suggested the Middle East would be more stable if Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... had a nuclear weapon, accused American Jews who support Israel of inciting violence, and compared Israelis to the Ku Klux Klan. He has also called for a Mao-style "Cultural Revolution" within the Democratic Party, flirted with political violence, and promoted Maoist communism.
Those lines may play well in the most online corners of the progressive left, but to normal Americans, they sound less like a political platform and more like a warning label.
That creates a problem for Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... , because Piker is not merely yelling radical ideas into the void. His enormous online platform has made him a political force for candidates on the party’s far-left flank, from Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Troy Jackson in Maine to James Talarico in Texas and Zohran Mamdani in New York. So Democrats are left attempting the familiar "big tent" balancing act: insisting they do not agree with Piker’s comments while continuing to court the activist base that treats him as an indispensable voice. They may call that coalition-building, and they absolutely can, but Republicans will call it what it really is: an in-kind contribution to the Republican cause.
[FOX]
As one who has had the honor to consult for NASA and the Space Shuttle team in the past; work space-defense related issues in the Pentagon; speak with all twelve men who walked on the Moon; and author tens of columns on the subject, I have been "Johnny One-Note" over the last decade or so warning that the People’s Republic of China is seeking to establish itself as the dominant military power in space for decades to come. Did anyone in authority care? Not so much.
That may now be changing. Two recent stories in the news have certainly elevated not only interest, but apprehension.
The first being when Air Force Secretary Troy Meink recently confirmed that the U.S. has weapons stationed in Earth orbit. Said Meink, in part, presumably as a warning to China and, to a lesser extent, Russia at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference: "Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist. This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action…"
The second — and potentially much more intriguing — was highlighted in the site "Defense One" via the headline: "The Pentagon must prepare for battles around the moon: Joint Chiefs chair."
During the same Air, Space, and Cyber conference in which he delivered the Keynote address, it was reported that General Dan Caine — who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — said in part: "Our task, my friends, is to adapt right now, so the Joint Force is prepared to fight, endure, and win, in global contested environments, from the seabed to cislunar space…"
[FOX]
Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs warned Wednesday that military cooperation between Russia and Iran poses a growing security concern, telling Fox News Digital in an on-camera interview that Iranian drone technology has helped Moscow wage war in Ukraine as Latvia prepares to contribute to a U.S.-led effort in the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Rinkēvičs said Latvia, a country of approximately 1.84 million and still a core member of NATO's eastern flank, has already made the political decision to send military specialists to support international operations in the Middle East in response to President Donald Trump's request for European assistance.
"Yes, I am concerned. Actually, we have already seen Iran helping Russia a lot, especially at the very beginning of Russia's aggression against Ukraine," Rinkēvičs said when asked about the growing cooperation between Moscow and Tehran.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...every time you hear the phrase 
