ICE-Berg, Right Ahead?; Nice Shootin’ Volodymyr! – International News With Local Implication

Ch-ch-cha-changes – as Mr. Bowie used to sing. No matter your leanings we think you’ll agree we’re headed for some re-direction in our social landscape in the days and months to come.

We’ll admit it feels as if we’re suffering from some kind of mind fracture of late, with actual discourse on whether to livestream a Paths of Glory-type execution, runaway government officials, and daily revelations of senators, congressmen and a certain ambassador to Greece selling out their positions to anyone with a hundred grand to spare. Homeland Security agents are also in the process of executing a search warrant at the home of a sitting member of congress today, so… stuff is churning.

You “there he goes, all non-local again” naysayers are probably warming up your keyboards to bring down hell on your inoffensive and generally well-meaning local scribbler but there’s a reason our train of thought is taking us down this particular stretch of track this morning.

Our Flash Subscribers report sightings of camo-clad ICE agents at various locations in the East Bay and video of encounters is starting to circulate as public discourse on ICE and its mission carries on at the national level. Another international development with local implications appears to have been the recent, particularly well-aimed drone attacks by Ukraine defense forces against key targets in Russia.

Now, many Russians and apparently some American-type people questioned Ukraine’s ability to reach out and touch the aggressor nation pressing in on its borders and killing its people but Ukraine and president Volodymyr Zelenskyy dispelled that notion with effective weekend strikes on oil refineries, data centers, and other key infrastructure.

Those Russian data centers appear to have been home to state-sponsored “bot farms” which have been churning out a great deal of the coincidentally identical “Veteran, Christian, Father, MAGA”-themed bull whackery inundating our little patch of independent journalism since, oh, the day after Election Day 2016.

We noted its arrival at the time and remarked that each meme and missive seemed curiously identical to the hundred or so preceding it – marked by the same misspelled words, bad punctuation and surety of messaging more common to your garden variety GRU operative than your home-grown ‘Merican patriot. Turning these bot farms into smoking ruins had an immediate impact on the influx of Texas separatist/2nd Amendment/Anti-Biden messaging we’ve endured over the years and, we must say, it is appreciated.

So, good shooting Volodymyr – you accomplished with a few $500 drones and some Semtex what our government couldn’t/wouldn’t deal with since Russia began it’s not-so-subtle campaign to peel our country apart so many years ago.

As nice as that little victory is it’s also crystal clear there’s still a lot of work left to do. We’re committed to staying in the fight long enough to see the country get back on track, descend into obscurity or reach the Final Incarnation of Hell our enemies envision for us.

We’ll just have to see how that plays out.