[NYPost] State Attorney General Tish James should be digging into the $100 million pit of waste, lost opportunities and likely self-dealing that is the West Harlem Development Corp., but she’s too busy posing for cameras and losing lawsuits against the Trump administration.
Columbia University funded the WHDC in 2009 as a payoff to local powerbrokers as it got the state to use eminent domain to help it swallow a huge chunk of the neighborhood.
Another winning move by Columbia U.
The nonprofit was supposed to invest those tens of millions of bucks in Harlem economic-development projects, with $20 million earmarked to build affordable housing.
Instead, the WHDC became a spout of political patronage, handing out grants to small local Harlem arts or youth organizations, paying fat salaries to politically connected insiders and — bizarrely — allegedly helping to formulate the Council on American Islamic Relations’ “strategy on responding” to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and hostage-taking.
Joining the Columbia U obsession with supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s branch in the Palestinian Territories as they took their next step toward erasing Jews from the face of the Earth.
Economic development and affordable housing? Not so much at all; just a conduit for money, power and influence in the hands of highly connected insiders like current Chair Milton Tingling and Executive Director Zead Ramadan, a board member of CAIR-New York.
Tingling, a retired judge, was just named to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new Jew-free advisory panel on judicial appointments.
Ramadan is the central figure in a federal lawsuit against the WHDC, brought by its terminated director of housing development, Vincent Morgan, who taped his boss Ramadan’s allegedly racist rants about Dominicans, African-Americans, Zionists and Jewish control of New York City. (Ramadan has denied any wrongdoing.)
The dysfunction at the WHDC is well-known among uptown pols, who won’t go on the record about the noxious organization; Columbia has washed its hands of the whole thing after years of peeping about the waste and abuse.
But where’s crusading AG James, whose duties include policing New York tax-exempt charitable organizations?
She hasn’t been shy about suing groups whose positions she dislikes, from the NRA to the Catholic Church, but declines to lift even an eyebrow about the scandalous WHDC.
The West Harlem Development Corp. is a poster child for the neglect and deep-rooted waste that defines so much “economic development” in New York, and the “community benefits” blackmail surrounding most large projects.
And that, no doubt, is why Tish James won’t do a thing to liberate the tens of millions still in the WHDC hoard for the actual good of the community.
[GloobalDecipher] According to sources, around 25 Taliban affiliates were killed in a fierce gun battle with Islamic State Khorasan affiliates in the Mamand area of Achin District, Nangarhar, Afghanistan. Achin district has a long-standing ISKP presence and is one of the group's strongholds. The region saw intense clashes between the ISKP and Taliban since the inception of the Islamic State in 2015. The group drew significant manpower from the district.
The district saw a significant surge in ISKP activity following the Afghan Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, with a record 181 incidents in the same year out of total 353 ISKP related attacks. The recent attacks demonstrate the surge in ISKP activity in the province. Furthermore, some of the areas, such as Achin, seem to be a no-go area for the Afghan Taliban as they get frequently targeted by VBIEDs, such as in August 2024 in Darai Nur District, when ISKP targeted an Afghan Taliban vehicle in a VBIED attack.
🚨 IRAN MAY HAVE ALREADY LOST THE BATTLE FOR THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
According to Israeli journalist Tamir Morag, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Gulf states are now moving roughly 15 million barrels of oil per day — around 9 million through Hormuz itself and another 6 million through… pic.twitter.com/ipiUl2eo7X
🚨 IRAN MAY HAVE ALREADY LOST THE BATTLE FOR THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
According to Israeli journalist Tamir Morag, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Gulf states are now moving roughly 15 million barrels of oil per day — around 9 million through Hormuz itself and another 6 million through alternative routes and expanded pipeline infrastructure.
Morag says a significant share is being moved discreetly under protection of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and therefore does not appear in public tracking data.
But the clearest indicator may be the oil price itself.
Instead of exploding toward the widely predicted $150+ per barrel, prices have remained around $85–$90.
Combined with weaker Chinese demand and increased Venezuelan production, Morag argues that the global market is now compensating for most of the roughly 20 million barrels per day that moved through Hormuz before the war.
If that assessment is correct, Hormuz is no longer what is restraining Trump from unleashing the full force of the U.S. military against Iran.
The real concern now is Iran attacking Saudi and Gulf oil infrastructure directly.
#3
A 5M barrel/day deficit from the Persian Gulf isn't too horrible in the short run.
If it goes another 4 months it will start to really hurt Europe (which depends on oil for winter heat) and if it goes another 4 or so months after that it will really hurt the USA (which requires a lot of gasoline starting in late spring).
The USA is producing quite a bit more of natural gas than last year but only a little bit more of crude.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
08/19/2026 11:16 Comments ||
Top||
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Daniil Pelymov
[REGNUM] In July, restoration work was underway at the Archangel Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin: the floor slabs above the burial site of the Grand Dukes had sunk, threatening to destroy the tombs.
During the excavations, three sarcophagi were found, one of which belonged to the holy and faithful Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy. The authenticity of the remains was confirmed by anthropological research, the archaeological appearance of the burial, and a comprehensive set of historical data.
Patriarch Kirill blessed the examination of the relics by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and the placement of three fragments in three reliquaries for veneration by the faithful.
Dmitry Donskoy's personality in national memory has long transcended the standard biography of a medieval ruler. His image is, above all, a symbol of uncompromising defense of the Fatherland, military victory over a superior systemic enemy, and the assertion of state sovereignty. It's no wonder his name was inscribed on tanks during the Great Patriotic War.
The official canonization of the prince in 1988, timed to coincide with the millennium of the Baptism of Rus', went beyond the confines of a church act and became a state recognition of his merits as a builder of an independent Russia.
At the end of the summer of 1380, the Grand Duke of Moscow and Vladimir, Dmitry Ivanovich, took a step that turned the entire geopolitical reality of Eastern Europe upside down.
By announcing a general assembly of Russian regiments in Kolomna, he de facto annulled the previous status quo in relations with the Golden Horde. The Battle of Kulikovo was only a few weeks away, but the major mental and political victory was achieved when the disparate appanages agreed to march under a single Muscovite banner.
POLITICAL LEGACY
To understand the scale of Dmitry Ivanovich's accomplishments, it is necessary to reconstruct the historical abyss in which Moscow found itself in the mid-14th century.
The future conqueror of Mamai was born in 1350 and inherited the Moscow throne at the age of nine. The death of his father, Ivan II the Red, triggered an immediate systemic crisis. The model of stability built by Ivan Kalita was based on personal diplomacy and loyalty to the Horde, but the new prince's youth nullified these achievements.
The neighboring principalities immediately went on the offensive. The title to the Grand Duchy of Vladimir was immediately seized by the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich. Moscow risked forever losing its status as a pan-Russian center and becoming a secondary fiefdom.
At this critical moment, the Moscow boyars and Metropolitan Alexy, who assumed the role of regent, played a key role. But as Dmitry Ivanovich matured, he increasingly took over the reins of power, demonstrating a pragmatism and ruthlessness that was astonishing for a young man.
By the age of thirteen, the young prince had not only regained the Vladimir yarlyk through diplomatic pressure and direct military threat, but had also personally traveled to Vladimir to assume the throne. This was the first clear signal to his neighbors: Moscow had no intention of relinquishing its leadership.
Dmitry had to solve three strategic problems simultaneously: eliminate the ambitions of Tver and Ryazan, stop the expansion of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the west, and develop a fundamentally new defense doctrine in relations with the Golden Horde, which at that time was plagued by civil strife.
ARCHITECT OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN DEFENSE
Realizing that a large-scale military clash with external forces was only a matter of time, Dmitry Ivanovich began a radical modernization of, in modern terms, the defense industry.
After a devastating fire in 1365, which destroyed the previous wooden fortifications, the prince made a decision unprecedented in scale and expense: to build the first stone Kremlin in Moscow. Construction, which began in 1367, proceeded at a rapid pace. In record time, a colossal amount of limestone was delivered from quarries near Moscow to Myachkovo.
The emergence of the white-stone fortress radically altered the military-political balance in Eastern Europe. Moscow became a first-class citadel, the assault of which required incomparable human and time resources from the enemy.
The effectiveness of this "strategic investment" was immediately confirmed. In 1368, 1370, and 1372, the Lithuanian prince Olgerd launched large-scale campaigns against Moscow, ravaging undefended settlements, but, approaching the walls of the new Kremlin, he encountered an insurmountable barrier. The expansive "Lithuanian Empire" failed precisely because of the Moscow prince's engineering and financial decisions.
At the same time, Dmitry Ivanovich harshly crushed the separatism of the appanage rulers within Rus'. Moscow's main domestic opponent remained the Tver Principality, which regularly relied on Olgerd's military assistance and the Horde's diplomatic resources.
In 1375, when Prince Mikhail of Tver once again attempted to challenge Moscow's authority, Dmitry Ivanovich mobilized a massive coalition, including regiments from Yaroslavl, Rostov, Suzdal, and other lands. This massive army laid siege to Tver, forcing its complete capitulation.
The signed treaty forever changed the hierarchy of Russian rulers. The Prince of Tver officially recognized himself as the "younger brother" of the Prince of Moscow and pledged to participate in all of his foreign policy actions, including potential defensive and offensive wars against the Horde.
This was Dmitry's most important achievement: he eliminated the internal front and created the legal basis for the formation of a unified all-Russian army. Land defense ceased to be the private concern of individual cities; it became a collective responsibility under the auspices of Moscow.
BREAKING THE HORDE'S DICTATORSHIP
Before Dmitry Ivanovich, the relations between the Russian principalities and the Golden Horde were built solely on the logic of subordination, tribute payments, and diplomatic maneuvering. The Moscow prince was the first to move from passive defense to a long-term strategic offensive.
In the 1370s, the temnik Mamai seized de facto power in the Horde. Not a Chingizid, he had no legal claim to the khan's throne, but he exercised tight control over the empire's western uluses. To maintain his personal power, Mamai needed to restore the previous level of financial revenues from Rus', which Moscow had virtually ceased to pay by that time.
The first serious clash occurred in 1378 on the Vozha River in the Ryazan lands. The Tatar army, commanded by Murza Begich, attempted to punish Moscow for its economic and political boycott. Dmitry Ivanovich personally led the Russian regiments, employed a clever tactical formation, and engaged the enemy in a head-on battle at the river crossing. The Horde cavalry was utterly routed and put to flight.
The Battle of the Vozha proved to all Russian society that the tactics of steppe raids were vulnerable in the face of disciplined infantry and heavy cavalry acting according to a unified plan.
Mamai could not accept the loss of his authority. In the summer of 1380, he assembled a gigantic coalition, including not only the steppe hordes but also mercenaries from Crimea, the Caucasus, and the Volga region. At the same time, Mamai formed an alliance with the new Lithuanian prince Jagiello and the Ryazan prince Oleg.
The enemy's plan was to unite their forces on the Oka and stage a demonstrative defeat of Moscow, returning Rus' to a state of complete submission similar to that of the 13th century.
Dmitry Ivanovich acted preemptively, demonstrating outstanding qualities as a military leader. Having declared a general assembly in August, he did not wait for the enemies to unite their armies on Russian territory. The Moscow prince's strategic plan was to march swiftly to meet Mamai, cross the Oka, and engage in a decisive battle on neutral territory before the Lithuanians arrived.
The victory at Kulikovo demonstrated the absolute superiority of the Russian military school, the flexibility of tactical thinking, and the personal courage of the prince, who refused to remain in the rear, donned the armor of a simple warrior, and fought in the vanguard regiment alongside his soldiers.
The "Zadonshchina" records the true scale of this victory and the terrible price Moscow paid for the right to remain sovereign. The chronicler recounts the words of the surviving participants in the battle, surveying the field after Mamai's defeat:
"And the Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich said: "Count, brothers, how many voivodes are missing among us, and how many young men?" Then Mikhail Andreevich, the Moscow boyar, answers Prince Dmitry Ivanovich: "Lord Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich! We are missing forty great Moscow boyars, twelve Belozersk princes, thirty Novgorod boyars, twenty Kolomna boyars, forty Pereyaslavl boyars, twenty-five Kostroma boyars, thirty-five Vladimir boyars, fifty Suzdal boyars, seventy Ryazan boyars, forty Murom boyars, thirty Rostov boyars, twenty-three Dmitrov boyars, sixty Zvenigorod boyars, fifteen Uglich boyars.
"And two hundred and fifty thousand of our entire army perished. And God had mercy on the Russian land, but countless Tatars fell."
The chronicle of these losses vividly illustrates the price Northeastern Rus' paid for leaving the Horde political system. A significant portion of the former military aristocracy fell at Kulikovo Field, yet it was precisely this sacrifice that cemented the new all-Russian elite.
From that moment on, Moscow's right to leadership was based not on the khan's charters, but on a common military feat that forever linked the once-competing cities with the logic of a single state.
"HE KNEW RUSSIA AND THE STATE'S INTERESTS"
In the Orthodox tradition, princes are recognized as saints not for their monastic ascetic feats, but for their selfless fulfillment of their public duty. This is a recognition of the sacredness of service to society, the protection of one's people from physical destruction, and the preservation of civilizational identity.
Therefore, the canonization of Dmitry Donskoy by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church restored spiritual and historical justice, paid tribute to one of the fathers of Russian statehood, preserving the memory of his deeds many hundreds of years later.
Dmitry Donskoy ruled the country during an era when the very survival of the East Slavic super-ethnos was in question. His canonization is a national marker of the legitimacy of the harsh, centralizing policies pursued by Moscow. Church and secular recognition cemented the prince's status as a national leader whose historical authority is impeccable and beyond question.
Even the most severe blow dealt by fate later—the sudden raid of the legitimate Khan Tokhtamysh in 1382, the burning of Moscow, and the forced resumption of tribute payments—could not nullify Dmitry Ivanovich’s strategic achievements.
The psychological system of the Horde's dictatorship was broken forever. Rus' realized that the Tatars could be defeated, and the Horde realized that the outright liquidation of the Muscovite state was no longer within its power.
The prince's main political outcome is reflected in his last will and testament. For the first time in Russian history, Dmitry Ivanovich transferred the Grand Duchy of Vladimir to his eldest son, Vasily, as his personal, Muscovite patrimonial estate, completely ignoring the need for the khan's permission or sanction for succession.
A quiet revolution took place: Moscow legally secured its status as the capital of Rus', regardless of the opinion of the Horde.
In his "History of the Russian State," Nikolai Karamzin characterizes the prince's image as imprinted on the national consciousness, emphasizing that his colossal authority rested on deep popular support and a clear understanding of national interests:
"None of Yaroslav the Great's descendants, except for Monomakh and Alexander Nevsky, was as beloved by the people and boyars as he was, for his generosity, love for the glory of the fatherland, justice, and kindness. Raised amid the dangers and turmoil of war, he lacked the knowledge gleaned from books, but he knew Russia and the good of the state."
The Grand Duke died early, at the age of 38, exhausted by the physical wounds he sustained at Kulikovo Field and the enormous strain. He left behind a fundamentally different order of relations in Eastern Europe.
Before his rise to power, Rus' was a conglomerate of weak, intimidated, competing autonomous regions, currying favor with external powers for short-term gain. After his rise, it became a centralized state, recognizing its historical right to complete independence and possessing sufficient military might to defend it.
It was precisely this will, which transformed disparate appanages into a single monolith, that makes Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy one of the fundamental supporting figures on whom Russia's historical self-awareness and sovereignty rest to this day.
[FoxNews] Rooftop Revelations: I believe in taking care of our own home first. It puts us on the right footing to extend a strong, helping hand to others
The numbers for the elementary school down the block from my church are discouraging. The latest CPS data for Dulles Elementary School show that just 13.7% of Dulles students are proficient in English language arts and 3.9% are proficient in math. Dulles spends significantly less per student than some districtwide estimates of CPS spending. This is shocking, mind-boggling, and if this isn’t a crime against humanity, then I don’t know what is.
The numbers only get worse. The school spends about $16,200 per student. The Chicago Public Schools district average is roughly $27,000 to $32,000 per student. How is this inequity possible in this age of DEI?
We live in one of the bluest cities in America, and our mayor, Brandon Johnson, brags about having the "Blackest administration" and always talks about fighting White supremacy. And yet he is comfortable with this disparity in school spending? Why aren’t all the White DEI folks on the North Side of Chicago outraged over this inequity?
On top of this, Chicago Public Schools is staring down a roughly $732 million budget deficit. Just last summer, the district laid off 1,458 employees, including 432 teachers and 677 special education assistants. This year, the board restored proposed cuts in part by assuming an additional $150 million from the state that lawmakers have not committed. But this is not a solution, and it will only lead to more debt.
Now here is what is infuriating to me. Guess how much the city spent on services for the migrants and asylum seekers coming into town between August 2022 and the end of 2024. Chicago’s inspector general found that roughly $639.6 million in city and grant funds was spent on services for new arrivals between August 2022 and the end of 2024. Why weren’t more unrestricted city resources directed toward our struggling schools instead?
I am a pastor. I believe in compassion. But it is morally wrong to assign so many of our taxpayer dollars to noncitizens who came to the United States and are now receiving taxpayer-funded services in Chicago. Every dollar of unrestricted public money spent on one priority is a dollar that cannot be spent on another, including our schools. We can apply the cold tools of cost-benefit analysis here, and I’m always going to take the side of our children. I believe in taking care of our own home first because it puts us on the right footing to extend a strong, helping hand to others. Right now, we are creating children weak in the mind, and in what universe is that moral or right?
What I want to know is why we have chosen to prize the newly arrived over those of us who were born, through no fault of their own, into generational poverty.
Just a few years ago, nearly every leader in Chicago was chanting "Black Lives Matter!" I guess that was just an empty slogan and they’re insincere people.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] The six-month-long war against Iran has sparked a full-scale crisis in the US Navy. Sailors aboard one of the US aircraft carriers stationed in the Middle East have launched a noisy media campaign demanding their return home. Yeah, yeah. Whatevs, dude.
The US military machine is increasingly deteriorating and is completely unprepared for the current conflict.
Back in the spring, a major scandal erupted over the conditions on board the USS Gerald Ford, America's most modern aircraft carrier. A fire broke out in the laundry room and raged for over 30 hours. Several hundred cabins burned to the ground.
It was a ship. The ground was something like a mile underneath its keel.
Suspicions immediately arose that the aircraft carrier could have been the victim of an Iranian attack. But another theory was also circulated: the sailors deliberately set fire to their own carrier, attempting to express their dissatisfaction with their participation in the war and force their commanders to send them home.
Now, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln is under attack. It has been deployed to the Middle East for almost a year without rotation. Many sailors, trapped in their holds, have not seen the light of day during this time. Supply shortages are occurring due to logistical difficulties.
Parcels from relatives of service members aren't reaching the aircraft carrier. The standard carrier combat duty period of 6-8 months has long been exceeded. But replacing the ship is also facing serious challenges.
Most American aircraft carriers are currently undergoing repairs. When the Abraham Lincoln scandal erupted, the Pentagon decided to send the George Washington to the Strait of Hormuz instead. The latter had to be towed from the South China Sea.
Now the US has completely lost its carrier presence in the Asian region. And the George Washington has also long been in need of rotation—it has been on duty for over 200 days.
Crises in the US Navy have been building for some time, and the war with Iran has only exposed and dramatically exacerbated them. For example, the Pentagon is being forced to postpone the decommissioning of its oldest aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, even though it has long been in poor condition.
The next aircraft carrier, the John F. Kennedy, is scheduled to be launched in 2027. It was supposed to be commissioned four years ago. But the deadline kept getting pushed back.
The Pentagon is currently decommissioning more old ships than it is acquiring new ones. The size of the American navy is steadily shrinking, now numbering fewer than 300 ships. Aircraft carriers are being completed with a six-year delay, and the situation with submarines and destroyers is no less dire.
And ahead lie the "heroic attempts" to build Donald Trump's "golden battleships," each costing tens of billions of dollars. US military experts fear they will never see the light of day.
In the spring, the large amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, carrying several thousand Marines, was sent to the shores of Iran. In the summer, it was quietly returned to its home port in Japan without much fanfare. This marked the end of any attempts to stage a ground operation in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Marines' morale was likely also at rock bottom after months of stranding in the Indian Ocean. Any potential landing would have resulted in heavy casualties among the American troops.
The Pentagon's shortage of missiles and ammunition is becoming increasingly acute. It has barely half the pre-war number of Tomahawk missiles left, and fewer than a hundred are produced annually.
Almost all long-range ATACMS missiles and their replacement, the PrSM, have been expended. Less than a third of the previous PAC-3 interceptor missile stockpile remains. The American military-industrial complex is unable to produce more weapons.
The US military-industrial sector, monopolized to the extreme, proved to be simply unprepared for external shocks like the conflict in Iran. American defense giants are accustomed to producing one-off goods and spending the lion's share of their profits on financial transactions—paying dividends to investors and buying back their own shares on the stock exchange.
This still costs many times more than research and development or the expansion of military production. And even the creation of new factories doesn't guarantee increased weapons production. After all, there are often shortages of components, raw materials, and skilled labor. Trade wars with China have played a significant role, resulting in disruptions in the supply of a large number of goods from the Middle Kingdom.
The entire American military-industrial complex is currently under Chinese sanctions. It has been revealed that its production chains are 75% dependent on products from China. Although a formal commitment to import substitution has been declared, it is not being implemented in practice. US military giants are even forced to recycle night vision goggles and tank safety glass in an attempt to extract scarce rare earth metals from them.
A separate factor is the growing rift in Washington. Congress went into summer recess without appropriating any funds for the Trump administration to replenish military stockpiles or continue the campaign against Iran.
In September, lawmakers will be desperately trying to agree on a defense budget for the next tax year, which begins on October 1.
We most devoutly hope so — our Republican senatorial leadership has not been taking its responsibilities nearly seriously enough this session.
Senate Democrats are blocking the next Pentagon budget, demanding that Trump end the war in Iran. Without funds and resources, continuing the operation for any length of time will be simply impossible.
Now, a clear rift is emerging within the White House team itself. The remaining hawks in the American president's entourage are making plans for a "final operation" against Iran on the eve of Labor Day, celebrated in the United States on the first Monday in September. However, even they estimate that military resources will only last for a week and a half to two weeks of campaigning.
Realists are calling on Trump to return to negotiations and make concessions in order to exit the war in time for the November congressional elections. Trump, however, has taken a more middle-of-the-road approach: he is not resorting to military action (the ceasefire agreement was extended on August 17, according to media reports), but he is not abandoning his pressure campaign against Iran.
However, the naval blockade of Hormuz hasn't helped the Americans in any way so far. On the contrary, they are experiencing problems themselves due to rising fuel prices in the US and the depletion of their strategic oil reserves.
In the near future, the White House may attempt to impose secondary sanctions on Chinese banks that process transactions for Iranian oil. However, this would provoke Beijing to respond in kind and strengthen its sanctions against the US industrial sector. This would further worsen the situation with missile and weapons production. This would create a vicious circle from which it is impossible to escape.
In the 1990s, the United States' military doctrine included the ability to wage two major regional wars simultaneously. The experience with Iran has shown that America is currently incapable of winning even a single war, especially against an opponent far weaker than itself.
The negative consequences of the Iranian adventure will be long-lasting. Replenishing weapons stockpiles will take at least five to seven years, which will be of use to all key US competitors, such as China.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has determined that the final cost of the war in Iran will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. This will place a heavy burden on a budget already facing debt problems.
Not to mention the colossal reputational damage. Aircraft carriers with mutinous sailors—future generations will remember the US-Iran conflict, which exposed Washington's inability to project its power—or at least the illusion of it—before everyone's eyes.
[CSIS] The emergence of drone warfare, AI-infused targeting cycles, and the “transparent battlefield” in Ukraine and Iran today have intensified debates over the role of U.S. ground forces within the nation’s joint force. In response, CSIS has launched a yearlong Future of Land Power study to explore the enduring importance of U.S. land forces, their contribution to deterrence and stability across key regions, and how they must adapt to remain effective in an era defined by great power rivalry, technological change, and all-domain warfare.
The project’s first working paper, “The Value of U.S. Land Power,” argues that land power, or “the ability—by threat, force, or occupation—to gain, sustain, and exploit control over land, resources, and people,” is essential for the United States to determine political outcomes and achieve strategic objectives. Through integrating historical, institutional, and policy perspectives, the report finds that the roles and responsibilities of land power are rooted in certain inherent characteristics that transcend changing technologies and threats:
Through its persistent, human presence, land power offers the ability to secure, hold, and control territory and the power to deter and decisively defeat foreign aggression.
Land forces, or the personnel and capabilities in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, are the binding agents of the joint force, enabling power projection far from U.S. shores by protecting ports, airfields, and command and control infrastructure; holding enemy air and naval assets at risk; and transporting U.S. personnel and supplies across terrain.
Land forces’ wide-ranging capabilities and modular force structures equip policymakers with a flexible and cost-effective range of military options across the spectrum of conflict.
U.S. land power is expeditionary and dependent upon allies and partners for access, basing, and overflight, enabling U.S. force projection to distant regions.
The use of land power has greater potential for casualties and therefore carries a higher political risk.
[NYTimes] The power grid relies on thousands of aging, hand-built transformers. If enough fail, the blackout could last years.
Yes, we know. We’ve been concerned about it for years. But it’s good the the Grey Lady has caught up.
The snipers had been shooting for nearly 10 minutes before someone called 911. A man driving down the highway told the police he thought he heard fireworks as he passed Pacific Gas and Electric’s Metcalf electrical substation, 15 miles southeast of San Jose. An engineer at a nearby power plant said he thought it was gunfire. Maybe more calls would have come in, but the communication link between the substation and PG&E, along with several phone and internet cables, had been severed. It was April 16, 2013.
The shooters — two, maybe more — took up positions 30 to 40 yards outside the substation fence, in the dry scrubland near Coyote Creek. At 1:31 a.m., after a security camera recorded what looked like a signal from a flashlight, they began firing high-powered rifles into the facility. Sparks flew into the air whenever the bullets grazed the chain-link fence, but most of the shots hit their apparent targets: a row of truck-size power transformers, which step down high-voltage electricity to lower voltages so it can be sent to local homes and businesses. Because this was Silicon Valley, those customers included some of the largest tech companies in the world.
After some 120 shots, 17 of Metcalf’s transformers had been disabled. The attackers knew to aim for the units’ cooling systems, oil-filled fins similar to those on a radiator, which draw heat away from the electrified core. That allowed the oil, 52,000 gallons of it, to drain out slowly so that the transformers wouldn’t fail right away, which would have triggered an alarm. The gunmen could take their time.
At 1:50 a.m., there was another flicker from a flashlight, and the shooting stopped. One minute later, the police arrived at the substation, but by then, the shooters were gone. The police looked around and, finding nothing suspicious, left as well. It wasn’t until a utility worker arrived at 3:15 a.m. that the extent of the damage was clear.
The president of PG&E called in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is responsible for ensuring the reliability of the bulk power system — that is, the grid. Though the company had avoided a blackout because power was rerouted quickly, the attack seemed intended to put large portions of the Bay Area in the dark.
Jon Wellinghoff, then the chairman of FERC, flew out to Metcalf a few days later. Wellinghoff has close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and the no-nonsense sternness of a technocrat, softened slightly by the Western cadences of his speech, the product of a childhood spent in California and Nevada. He remembers entering a trailer at the substation where two F.B.I. agents and a handful of security people from the utility had gathered. “We asked them what happened,” Wellinghoff told me, “and they said: ‘Well, we think a couple of guys just came in and kind of shot up these transformers. We think it may be a disgruntled employee, but really we don’t know.’” Investigators found no fingerprints on the shell casings, no tracks in the dust.
#2
Distributed power generation, neighborhood-sized, is necessary. I have been working on this for 40+ years. Amazing pushback from government at every level so far. Rice bowls issues.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/19/2026 3:15 Comments ||
Top||
#3
^^^^Amazing pushback from government at every level so far. Rice bowls issues.
Centralized control is the key. You can pick up your company house key, at the company store. What are your questions ?
#5
Somehow the world survived without it a mere century ago. Of course if your concept of history is that it didn't exist till you were born, that may be totally unfathomable.
#7
We are totally off grid for energy and water here and it is the best decision we have ever made. The Australian grid is no longer fit for purpose - the old power generation system is being dismantled and the new, shiny system can’t and won’t step up. The politics of it all is increasingly panicky. It’s all a bit spooky. There’s no consideration for the downstream economic consequences of unreliable electricity happening- a local supermarket had a freezer compressor fail over the weekend a while ago and on the Monday threw out a hundred thousand dollars worth of spoiled food.
#8
Many in my area notice their clock suddenly decided to reset themselves?
The wild conspiracy, which has been widely shared online since December 2025, alleged that NASA secretly detected the gravitational waves of two black holes which collided millions of years ago heading toward Earth like a killer beam of energy.
Those waves would be so powerful that they would cancel out the force which holds all life from simply floating off the planet for 7.3 seconds ...
[Reuters] China’s Unitree Robotics – among the world's biggest producers of humanoid and quadruped robots – based designs for its most successful robot dogs on innovations funded by the U.S. military, according to a former U.S. defense technology official and three top researchers involved in the project.
Unitree’s $1,600 Go2 model, launched in 2023, helped the company rapidly dominate the global quadruped robot market — its Shanghai IPO has drawn frenzied demand. Another Unitree robot has been shown on Chinese state television, armed and accompanying People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops on an exercise.
These robots draw on breakthroughs in quadruped movement financed by the U.S. DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and other military programs, the researchers and the former official told Reuters.
The Army-funded project turned into, “basically, the first Unitree robot that had any kind of scale," said Gavin Kenneally, a former University of Pennsylvania researcher involved in the program.
Ben Katz, who worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Biomimetic Robotics Lab, among a consortium of universities financed by the military programs, said the dimensions of Unitree’s popular Go series were “to the millimeter” almost identical to a groundbreaking robot he helped develop called Mini Cheetah.
The episode underscores broader problems with the United States’ ability to compete with China’s state-directed manufacturing sector in high-tech strategic industries, including those critical to national security. Backed by subsidies, clusters of component factories, and a tolerance for heavy losses, Chinese companies have seized market share across industries such as solar panels, drones, EVs and quantum communications, many of which were first developed in the U.S. with government or military backing.
Kenneally commercialized the U.S. breakthroughs through his company Ghost Robotics, which supplies U.S. special forces with advanced, ruggedized robots. But compared to Unitree, its production is small, and costly.
In June, the Pentagon added Unitree to a list of Chinese military companies, calling it a “contributor to the Chinese defense industrial base.” That designation falls short of a sanction but limits the U.S. military’s future use of Unitree’s technology. Unitree has said its robots are for civilian use.
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.
[FoxNews] Rooftop Revelations: I believe in taking care of our own home first. It puts us on the right footing to extend a strong, helping hand to others
