Caption: Detail from “Ambush in Westchester.” This depicts Lee’s Legion Dragoons attacking a party of Mounted and Hessian Foot Jagers on the Post Road near Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. The Hessians were cut to pieces. Joseph Plumb Martin apparently was also at this event. In the background is the Hudson River and Palisades. Today, it’s often known as the Battle of Edgar’s Lane. https://artofdontroiani.com/
Bullet Points:
** They see themselves as the cowboys of the drug trade, highly experienced crews that ferry narcotics on small boats across the open seas, running on a mix of bravado, skill, and dreams of a massive payday. https://on.wsj.com/4ru21pf Now, designated as terrorists by the Trump administration, they face not only the perils of a capricious sea but the new danger of getting blown out of the water by the U.S. military. The trade’s unofficial motto—“deliver or die”—has never rung so true. Many of the pilots and crew of the go-fast boats got their start as fishermen before transitioning into smuggling. Three men who have manned these drug boats spoke to The Wall Street Journal, describing a once little-known but essential part of the narcotics trade that is now in President Trump’s sights. They run drug cargoes worth as much as $70 million on the sleek 40-foot-long boats. These boats are the workhorses for the traffickers along 2,000 miles of Colombian coastline—and hundreds more miles in Ecuador and Venezuela. “The ocean is very big, very big,” said one Colombian pilot who plies the Caribbean. “These drug organizations live from trafficking. They will continue to do this. This doesn’t end. This will continue even if the United States continues its bombings.”
Some people who have been on the take from Cartels are pushing Washington, DC to stop striking drug boats as they carry their cargoes north. Factor that into the mix when you hear of the opposition to the current campaign in the War on Drugs.
** Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. — Thomas Sowell
** What if? Winston Churchill –
** Would re-homing 10,000 feral pigs to the streets of Dearborne resolve the city’s fanatical Muslim infestation?
** The Chinese Consul General didn’t “misspeak.” He openly threatened to behead the Japanese Prime Minister and the U.S. Secretary of War. This isn’t diplomacy. This is state-sanctioned gangsterism — the logical result of a regime that rewards violence, punishes truth, and exports intimidation wherever it can.
** Karens
** The five richest Muslim countries have not taken in refugees from other Muslim countries, citing the risk of terrorism.
** U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the U.S Department of Agriculture would halt federal funding to states that refuse to share their data on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to root out fraud.
** Secretary Kristie Noem tweeted, “I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.” Good thing for Congress that it isn’t a country.
**VM Editorial Note: Thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts and condolences in the passing of my mother-in-law. MRSLL, her sister, and two brothers are working through things. I am available for support. MRSLL’s father died somewhat suddenly at age 40 of meningitis, diagnosed too late to save him – if he could have been saved. She recounts how, at the time, she thought that he was at an advanced age. I think she was fifteen. Her mother and father both came from the Old Dominion. My mother’s people, too, came from Northern Virginia. My mother was proud of her Virginia and Carolina roots until I discovered that her father (my great-grandfather) was of pirate stock while researching family history. They did sail with cargo in the ‘shipping business’, but the sail and the cargo weren’t always “theirs.” They were active in the Golden Age of Piracy in and around Hatteras and were successful enough to have offspring that survived. The rest is history. (Yes, there’s still a pirate novel/historical fiction to be written)
Migrant Scams
An Afghan migrant in California asks his boss to pay him in cash so he can keep getting $84,000 a year in welfare benefits, Steve Hilton, California Gubernatorial candidate, says. Hilton says this isn’t isolated; in fact, California, under Gov. Gavin Newsom, has a bigger fraud problem than Minnesota. According to sources close to the situation, the migrant was resettled in the Golden State after Biden’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. He immediately started receiving multiple different welfare benefits – think Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) and the Afghan Support and Investment Program (ASIP). Hilton says Afghans rake in thousands each month in healthcare, housing, food stamps, and more. But since you can’t receive benefits if you make more than a certain amount, the migrants open work under the table for cash, avoiding taxes and keeping their taxpayer-funded benefits. “A few weeks ago, a business owner here in California told me that one of his new employees asked to be paid in cash, not on payroll.”
“Why, the business owner asked? Well, because the employee from Afghanistan was worried that he would lose his welfare payments. How much is that? $7000 a month. That’s 84 thousand dollars a year here in California.” “So when we look at this massive scandal in Minnesota, a billion dollars from the social services system, and fraud and corruption. You can be sure it is much worse right here in California.”
“We already know that over $20 billion in pandemic funds from the EDD scandal were sent as welfare payments to people in jail on death row, people who are dead. We know over 24 billion is completely lost home business spending.” California’s Refugee Cash Assistance provides up to $1,400 per household per month in cash and CalFresh benefits. This is layered on top of Medi-Cal health coverage and housing vouchers—often totaling far more than $7,000 per person per year, scaling up quickly for families. Since 2021, California has pumped over $500 million into Afghan resettlement alone, per state audits—and with Newsom’s sanctuary-state stance blocking federal immigration checks, fraudsters face zero blowback.
Pick one or the Other.
Details
The U.S. proposal to establish a fortified military hub at the Dumayr airbase near Damascus signals more than a tactical adjustment—it marks the early architecture of a forward buffer between the looming Israel–Turkey confrontation and a potential second “Bagram,” positioned strikingly close for contingency operations against Iran. Washington’s presence in Damascus should complement—never replace—its indispensable partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces, whose role remains critical to containing ISIS and limiting Iranian influence.
This has been discussed for a couple of months now and was a topic when I was last in Baghdad, about two months ago. Since then, President Trump sat down with the new President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Sultan-for-Life of Turkey, and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House. Though I was not a fly on the wall, the newly conceived base at Dumayr was likely high on the topics of discussion. I can say this from personal experience: PM Mohammed Al Sudani of Iraq welcomes the move.
Syria’s gradual tilt away from Tehran and Moscow opens an unexpected strategic aperture: a government newly invested in countering extremist networks, restoring internal security, and blocking Iranian weapons corridors. Its integration into the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and its recent joint missions with U.S. personnel confirm a pragmatic shift.
Yet preventing ISIS prison breaks, checking Iranian rearmament, and stabilizing Syria require sustained cooperation, broader international burden sharing, and a posture that avoids the premature withdrawals that have historically invited costlier returns. In this context, American engineers’ rapid work at Dumayr—supported by elements of the Free Syrian Army and the SDF’s al-Sanadid forces—reveals a base designed not merely to endure, but to anchor Washington’s next decade of strategic leverage in the Levant.
Identify the Ship
1
Identify the Aircraft
2
3
4
Parting Shot
Barack and his husband certainly deserve each other.
End
(1) DDG -123, USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee, Arleigh Burke class.
(2) Kamov Ka-50 Hokum-A / Black Shark.
(3) Looks like an NH-90, but IDK what particular one.
(4) Beechcraft T-6 Texan II
– Kle.
Very good, Kle.
1 is USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee is an Arleigh Burke-class
4 is Hawker Beechcraft AT-6
On point, RCC.
Australia has the largest number of feral camels in the world. Up to one mill.
Tomorrow is NFO’s 99th Birthday, and he’s on a blogging vacation, so join me here on the morrow to roast him.
99? Wow! Well done.
Doesn’t look a day over 95!
A coincidence that “Karen” bears a somewhat more than passing resemblance to Elisabeth “Warpath” Warren? I think not.
I can’t control the coincidences. I don’t think Karen looks the least bit Indian, but she could be self-identifying.
1 – SS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee Arleigh Burke-class (Flight IIA) Aegis guided missile destroyer
2 – Russian Ka-52 Alligator
3 – Royal Netherlands Navy NH90 NFH
4 – Beechcraft AT-6 Wolverine
Very comprehensive!
#3 Very cool picture no matter I wouldn’t know what it is without the savants here ID’g the craft.
***
Opener: Only an artist who understands the subject very well could create such detail in both horses and soldiers. Amazing.
***
Camel-Swine map- Not surprising. The Dearborne (add Minneapolis for good measure) would be worth the drone footage PPV.
***
AgSec Rollins: You go girl! No surprise she’s from Texas. Same with Noem, no nonsense, and what we voted for. Seems these woman have more..ahem…fortitude…than half the men in Congress.
Sidebar: PDJT rolled back Biden’s idiotic and punitive CAFE standards. About time. And when did the Federal government decide it was their duty to meddle (and fiddle) with car requirements that force design standards? Let the consumer decide, not some bureaucrat in DC who wouldn’t know where the fill nozzle goes if you showed them. I’ll take the small Time For A Reset ™ victory.
Indeed.
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https://x.com/UtahFlatRanger/status/1996359675928003011?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1996359675928003011%7Ctwgr%5E84cbd779d83d821a2ec3967861ac731282931290%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fappalachianrenegade.com%2F
Bravo! Looks like my 1985, except mine was red. Ran it for a long time then gave it to a friend…still going as far as I know.
I might finally get my HiLux. I can trade in the Ford Raptor.
If they rolled it back to 20mpg, we’d be getting somewhere.
Next they can do all the ridiculous safety (and “safety”) crap.
– Kle.
Caption art. Looks a little late getting that Sabre out of the scabbard
I’d be more comfortable with a shotgun (or two) in a melee like that. I realize that they didn’t have break breach guns then, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t have a saber available after you’ve fired four times.
I don’t know how the grift in some states can be lessened, except for a national law that requires identification showing citizenship for voting. I’d rather in person voting, dipping a finger in indelible ink after voting, and losing that finger if found to be voting illegally.
It works in the Third World. It will work here.
At first, I was interested in the way pigs and camels per capita look like mirror images of each other on those maps, but seems like it ought to be that way, given the Islamic countries there. Then I thought of how much pork I have in the house right now, and a rough guess would put it about a quarter pig so 1/8 pig per capita. Since the number on the map seems to say 0.2 to 0.5 per capita, we’re running low on that.
Greenland. If you live there you don’t have to put up with either pigs or camels.
My daughter has a friend that grew up in Greenland. When she had chance to choose, she chose pigs.
Denmark, which claims Greenland, appears to be the most pig intensive country on the map. That gives some idea on just how inhospitable Greenland is to traditional farming.
There are plenty of cod in the oceans. (Lutefisk anyone?)
You first.
(Denmark is very particular with their swine production, won’t take American pigs because today – save for the small farm – the majority are raised in bio secure government regulated facilities. Maybe that’s the problem; government. Nah, couldn’t be that…because our cars have gotten so much cheaper since CAFE standards were imposed.)
CAFE…..Another useless feel-good piece of legislation.
Designed solely to impoverish Americans, and limit their freedom of movement.
– Kle.
Drug Smugglers: Americans have forgotten or are just ignorant of the boats and planes destroyed during the 80s and early 90s by US and Central or South American nations. A-37s and other planes were used to stop drug running planes. I’m not sure what methods were used to deep six the drug boats, but read about their destruction decades ago.
Of course, there were older US planes running material south and returning with cargo. One of the pilots I knew mentioned that it was worth $25,000 per flight. There is so much money involved in the drug business that it will take more than blowing up a few runners to stop the transport and it will take God to intervene in the the users lives to stop their desires for a drug induced high.
*****
Virginia is the birthplace of both great statesmen, businessmen, crooks and pirates of all descriptions. Your family should be proud to have a Virginia pirate as an ancestor. Especially if he didn’t wind up as yard arm ballast. “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” HL Mencken
*****
Pigs: Texans and other Southern states with pig problems are missing the boat. This is a huge opportunity to help themselves get rid of the pigs and to help others. Dallas-Fort Worth are in need of pigs as are Dearborn, Minneapolis, NYC and a few other such places need lots of pigs with a bit of grease slathered on their backs. Just think of the great YouTube videos which would result from this tiny black flag activity! The blocked streets would be cleared in a hurry and may rival the running of the bulls for fantastic laughs.
Some of that part of the family were sentenced by the Admiralty courts (records still exist) and ended up in the gibbet. The smart ones reproduced, and I’m proof. The slow and unlucky met an untimely end.
Wow…cool actually. So your Navy ‘bent’ is built into the wiring. Finding ones ancestral roots shows from whence we get our wheelhouse proclivities. Have my great great grandfathers drafting kit, T-square was handmade by him. My tendencies make sense.
The Lamberts were great sailors. Captain Henry Lambert is best known for commanding the British frigate HMS Java when it was captured by the USS Constitution in 1812. I’m not suggesting that they sailed effectively, but they did sail.
More classic Churchill.
—
She: “Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your tea!”
—
Churchill: “Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it!”
Correct me if I’m wrong (which I often am), but the Muslim religion/cult forbids eating of pork, doesn’t mean necessarily that they don’t like the company of pigs (another topic). However, they actively dislike dogs as evidenced by kicking people with support/companion dogs out of cabs/Uber/Lyft, in addition to Muslims insultingly referring to non-Muslims as dogs.
Would wolves and coyote be just as despised as dogs? If so, I suggest rehoming packs of wolves and coyotes in addition to feral dogs into the concentrations of the said cult…
One would think Wolves would prosper in that environment with so much meat available. But even though a wolf can gnaw on a two-month-dead carcass and not get sick, could it digest a Somali safely?
Wolves did prosper in much of that environment, as did leopards and lions. At least, during the Bronze Age, they did.
I’ve wondered if the real problem with pigs in that part of the world is that it’s largely semi-arid to desert, and water is a precious resource. Pigs compete with humans for food and water, so how to discourage people from keeping and eating pigs? Make it a religious taboo, not merely a decree from the king.
They eat camels. I’ve never knowingly had camel meat and I wouldn’t walk a mile for a Camel, so there we are.
Scams and fraud are endemic in the third world countries as we both know… They just brought it with them!
X2
X3….It’s their way of life….