Gary Varvel for June 16, 2024

From Jim Wright’s post on FB:

Yeah, it’s a message all right. That rusty bucket is one of Putin’s very few remaining strategic nuclear assets.I believe this is the Kazan, a Russian Yasen-M class fast attack boat. Pretty modern and fairly capable. But one of the very few modern vessels they have. Note: It’s nuclear POWERED, not armed with nuclear bombs.(though, yes, it could technically carry tactical nuclear armed cruise missiles, though it would be unlikely for that ordinance to be onboard. Conventionally armed cruise missiles are a lot more useful)

You see many ads these days advocating for building more submarines. Your military-industrial complex in action.

If elected, maybe Trump can build a wall around all coastal regions of the US. Then we’ll be safe, truly safe.

Another triumph from the genius foreign policy of the Usurper in Chief. Idiot.

We’re all being watched, dummy. Uh… satellites?

Much ado about nothing in Cuba. Russians and millions of others are crossing Biden’s wide open border.

Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel and Russia’s Vladimir Putin owns Joe Biden.

I thought Russia was your friend Gary?

It does worry me, but Russia has visited Cuba before, it is just a chance to needle the U.S. which shows how powerless Putin has become. The thing is, Putin, isn’t playing with a full deck anymore, too long in power in his case. This kind of needling, tic for tac kind of games while running a war in Europe isn’t a good idea.

I suspect Americans in Cuba are being watched by their own government as well.. given what it takes for them to get permission to go there in the first place.

Is that the Red October?

Gee, Russia spies on the US the US spies on Russia. Who would have thought?

Yeah, we’re being watched. By Google, Facebook… ..GoComics…

American’s are just stupid. They’re being watched by cameras just going to the grocery store. We aren’t quite as bad as China on spying on citizens, but we’re working on it.

I wrote this a couple of days ago, when the Russians sending a sub to Cuba was news.

A U.S. Fast-Attack was on the Russian sub’s tail ever since it crossed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. If Russia tried anything, that sub would have been sunk before their sailors could finish their boiled potatoes for dinner.

Figures Gary is about 5 days late.

Followed into port by a U.S. Attack Submarine, and a Canadian war ship.

Americans are being watched by their own government. Remember Orwell: “Big Brother is watching you.”

Again, Varvel is too lazy to be relevant…

Hey, Gary, aren’t you a big Putin fan? Don’t you approve of this?

Putin has already bought and terrified the Repubs into submission. Let’s save them, by voting every last one of the cowardly Repub traitors out of office this fall.

This is hilarious. Trump actually had Russia’s top spy’s as his guests in the Oval Office making jokes about America’s Intelligence Agencies. That’s a lot closer than this sub.

While having the Russian and sometimes Chinese fleets near our shores is scary, we do it all the time with our fleets in various hot points in the world. A few years ago Russia and the US were on friendlier terms. I was in Vladivostok 10 years ago. Docked next to several Russian frigates was a US Navy destroyer or a friendship call. Settle down. This is not 1960 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. They are definitely watching us and a we are watching them. Trust but verify.

And after all the US has done for the Cubans! /s

Biden’s about-to-end term in office has seen one unnecessary war after another, and all of them caused by the world’s perception that he is weak. The “world” is paying attention to his appeasement of Iran, to the tune of $70+ billion. What was the result? Well, for the first time since WWII, a US cargo ship has been hit by enemy missiles, courtesy of the Houthis in Yemen .

As a public service toward the continuing non-DEI education of Democrats, the Houthis didn’t manufacture those missiles. The Iranians did, and guess where they got the money?

As a further contribution, it’s not “DEI” anymore. AI pioneer Alexandr Wang offers the replacement acronym “MEI”, for Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence.

Much ado about nothing? “ Canadian warship sharing an anchorage with Russian vessels in Cuba” (CBC). Political hysteria in an election year.

The U.S. Navy has deployed warships and aircraft to track a Russian naval flotilla after the Russian vessels sailed less than 30 miles off South Florida’s coast Tuesday, U.S. officials told McClatchy and the Miami Herald.

Last week, Moscow sent three ships and a nuclear-powered submarine to the Caribbean for what U.S. officials say will be a set of extensive military air and naval exercises — the first of their kind in at least five years.

“In accordance with standard procedures, we’ve been actively monitoring the Russian ships as they transit the Atlantic Ocean within international waters,” the NORTHCOM official said. “Air and maritime assets under U.S. Northern Command have conducted operations to ensure the defense of the United States and Canada. Russia’s deployments are part of routine naval activity which pose no direct threat or concern to the United States.”

The U.S. deployment includes three guided-missile destroyers — the USS Truxtun, USS Donald Cook and USS Delbert D. Black — as well as a Coast Guard cutter, the Stone, and a Boeing P-8 maritime patrol aircraft. – Tampa Bay News

That’s the message that Putin wants to send.

I went to Jim Wright’s web site (Facebook wants me to belong, and I don’t so no Facebook). His exposition on MTGs space lasers (this was something newer than the old Jewish Space Laser forest fire starter) was pretty funny. I twice worked on Space Based Laser projects for shooting down ballistic missiles, as well as the Airborne Laser Program.

The Israeli Iron Beam is for shooting down small objects near the surface. It would be pretty useless in space as you’d have to get close to the target to do more than trigger the laser warning sensors onboard. And then there is the issue of power for the laser… MTG is simply an idiot.

She wants to use it at the southern border? She probably wants to fry people. But bullets would be cheaper. And once again, the laser is a line of sight tool. How many of these does the yo-yo think will be needed for her cruelty?

Maybe she would like to have F105s dropping napalm bombs along the border? “I love the smell of burning immigrants any time of day!”

As for Russian submarines, I visited the Russian sub on display in San Diego. Scared me to see the shoddy construction after having visited the Bowfin (WW2 sub) in Honolulu. Bowfin was clearly better built and less user hostile. Yes, the Russian subs still pose a risk to the US, but our boomers are still a bigger threat to Putin and his ambitions.

Somewhere I saw that the U.S. armed forces were using this opportunity to tune up their own response.