In the wake of the censorship and “cancelling” that took place on social media platforms during the Trump presidency, one of the platforms that rose as a sanctuary for political writers and others was Substack.com. I haven’t (yet) decided to move Daily Broadside over to that space, but I do subscribe to a number of independent writers and podcasters. Many of them are able to survive in a hostile environment because they aren’t dependent on the biased whims of monopolies like Google or Twitter or Amazon, instead being financially supported by readers.
Today I want to simply offer related content from two Substacks to which I subscribe. The first is Don Surber, who offers his content for free, and to whom I strongly recommend you subscribe. In his latest essay, he writes,
Meanwhile, Biden went to India and made an ass of himself. First, he messed up the name of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, then he went to Vietnam and messed up an international press conference.
Earlier, he accused the crown prince of murder — and then asked for him to cut the price of oil. The prince almost laughed in his face. After 80-plus years of being a trusted ally, the House of Saud is aligning with Russia and Red China.
These mistakes are deliberate. Biden is weakening America and ending its post-USSR status as the world’s only superpower. The world tires of dealing with a bipolar America that one year is the leader of the free world and the next year a doddering old fool.
Trump held NATO accountable and forced our allies to live up to their commitments to spend money on their militaries. Biden made an Irish exit from Afghanistan without telling our allies. The Council on Foreign Relations cheered.
There’s no doubt that in my mind that undermining American strength is exactly what is intended. It started with Obama’s replacing hundreds of officers in the armed forces with handpicked replacements who have turned our military into a laughing stock. It continues with a lack of urgency for our Navy, whose number of ships are well behind China’s navy, the world’s largest. Add to that a cratering of recruitment numbers and the depletion of our strategic oil reserves by Brandon, and you have a serious problem of battle readiness on your hands.
You see, friends, Washington not only does not want to make America great again but DC denizens do not want the USA to be a superpower. They want Red China to be No. 1.
Consider Congress. Eric Swalwell had an affair with a Chinese spy. He did not lose his seat on the Committee on Homeland Security. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s chauffeur for two decades turned out to be a Chinese spy. She did not lose her seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
When Obama told token Russian president Medvedev he would be more flexible in his second term, Republicans did nothing because they agreed. How ironic that in a debate, he mocked Romney’s anti-Russian rhetoric by saying, “the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Now all of Washington is anti-Russian as they shovel billions in unmarked bills to the Money Laundering Republic of Ukraine, where prosecutors who ask too many questions lose their job. Putin fires his prosecutors — with a cannon.
It’s almost impossible to believe that’s true, but consider the evidence. Now add what CDR Salamander says in the second Substack account I want to quote.
The Pacific is dominated by the tyranny of distance. Logistics, and specifically the ability to get fuel to forward deployed forces and keeping them in the fight, it one of the most critical parts of being able to reach across that vast water to project power. [The Navy’s underground Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility at Pearl Harbor] exists as a result of the hard lessons of the previous large war in the Pacific. Without its capacity – there is no substitution.
People forget that for much of the opening year+ of WWII, many of our battleships were not sent to the Southwest Pacific because we had yet to generate the capacity to transport the fuel to support them.
CDR Salamander is writing about a plan to close the Red Hill fuel depot while maintaining battle readiness. He calls this reassurance a lie and goes on to write,
At the opening of WW2, Hawaii held 4.5 million barrels. That is 189 million gallons.
Red Hills’ capacity was 250 million gallons.
Spin is one thing. Deflection is another thing. This is something altogether different.
I will remind everyone that the disaster at Red Hills derives from the same problem that begat the fires in Lahaina this summer. Anyone who has lived in Hawaii knows what it is and that this to true. The strategic stability of the entire nation in the Pacific is being sacrificed to avoid upsetting the system of political and union corruption, patronage, cronyism, and incompetence that characterizes the state, local, and federal civilian controlled projects in that one-party state.
We are tempting defeat in any war west of the International Date Line because we refuse to hold people accountable and speak truth to long standing problems that are, in the end, people based and politically centered.
Hawaii’s problem is now our military’s problem … but in some ways, it is the same problem.
A culture of petty lies with big consequences.
It’s almost impossible to imagine that anyone wants to degrade our ability to compete economically or militarily with China or any other large nation, but if you pay attention to what’s happening, it’s equally as difficult to imagine THAT’S NOT what is happening.
Hold onto your hats. It’s going to get worse — much worse — before it gets better.
If it ever gets better.
Have a good weekend.