Via Reeko:
On Monday, 25 January 2016, a US recon aircraft was intercepted over international waters in the Black Sea well over forty miles from the Crimean coastline. A US RC-135U, designated a “COMBAT SENT” aircraft, was aggressively intercepted by a Russian Sukhoi 27, NATO codename “Flanker”, which reportedly came within 15 feet of the much larger reconnaissance aircraft. The Flanker then performed what is being described as an “aggressive banking turn” which in turn “disturbed the controllability” of the RC-135. The US aircraft eventually recovered to stable flight enough to return to base relatively safely.
Several things are very important to note here. For one, this incident happened just a few days before the US and Russia announced a joint flight safety memorandum on specifically, this type of incident in the AO (area of operations) around Turkey, Syria, Iraq and littorals. Another important note is that Russia has done this type of provocative and dangerous intercept of our intelligence platforms many times in the past. Most recently, they did almost the exact type of intercept in the Baltic just this past summer.
Please note that these aggressive intercepts are not just merely a close “look and see” fly-by of the supersonic fighter jets. In the crews’ terms, these are routinely called “bump and runs” and are usually played out by the fighter jet sliding up and under/off one of the wings of the much larger (Boeing 707-type) recon aircraft which usually carries over 20 souls on board. The fighter jet slips and rocks wings up and down then slides either up over or down under the larger jet while pushing his throttles up to come out ahead of the recon aircraft.
Remember, all of this deliberate airplay is not play at all – it is life-threatening and on purpose. Their normal cruising altitude is anywhere from 20 to 35 thousand feet and their speeds can be around 400 to 500 mph. The turbulence from a fighter’s wing-waggle/wing-slip and then pulling ahead is enough to throw the larger aircraft into a very turbulent wake, rocking and shaking everything and everybody inside to pieces. If that isn’t enough, there have been times when the coup-de-grace would then be delivered by the intercepting jet pilot while he is out in front of the larger plane: he would hit his afterburners. Ka-boom.
For those who don’t know, an afterburner is literally an extension of a jet engine that shoots gallons of gas into the almost 1000 degree exhaust coming from the engine itself, igniting into a plasma blast of well over 2000 degrees and exploding out the tail pipe of the jet. Most afterburning jets can get up to 80 percent more power from the afterburner kicking in alone, and a SU-27 Flanker has not one, but two very bad-ass afterburning engines. In the rarified air of the cruising altitude of an RC-135, and within sometimes less than 100 feet directly in front of the nose of the aircraft, any afterburners being lit off is quite literally the equivalent of bombs going off directly in your flight path. The compression/air burst effects are physically the same as bombs. A fighter’s afterburner could completely disintegrate an aircraft flying in close tail. The Russian pilots know that, and so do the terrified recon crews flying – unarmed and unafraid.
A final note is that I personally have flown on almost every RC-135 in the USAF, and not only watched a fighter jet off our wing do this type of threatening maneuver, but I lived to fly and fight another day. Yet, I can still see the faces and name the names of those who didn’t come back from long ago… These airmen this last week will have a story or two to tell that is for sure. Hell, if I get to meet them I will buy them all a drink. They deserve it. God bless our airmen, and may His angels protect them all. Amen.
***NEWER UPDATE: 31 January 2016***
The word of the day: “boltanut” – whatever that means… 😉
Since there is a lot more on the interwebs today about this particular incident, it has become clear that it is as I first suspected: that the intercept was indeed off the Russian Crimean coast. Since Crimea was militarily annexed by Russian in 2014 it has understandably been a rather significant military intelligence subject from a host of NATO-aligned countries. That there has been an uptick in the reconnaissance snooping on Crimea is not an unusual turn of events. Whenever a belligerent country militarily invades and takes over part of another country, that in turn does tend to invite significant military reconnaissance. Duh.
That said, as I followed this story I found some amusing asides. For example, on various search engines there are some other (Russian) viewpoints with of course their unbiased (!) reporting of this same incident. Not to knock Google Translate, but some of these translation variations are hilarious. Methinks much may be lost in the googlenator…
First check out the latest from a rather reliable news source like CNN here, and then compare and contrast that from just two ridiculous translations of military-journalistic-jingo Russian:
And I was especially amused by this one, as I have absolutely no idea what a “botalnut” is – even in the original Russian where they have it in quotation marks. From Freepress Russia:
“Boltanut” well, ok, if they say so. As far as I know, there is no such word in Russian, and my best guess is that it is a contraction of something meaning “bolt stress” or something similar. That they have it in quotations in the original Russian tells me that the writers haven’t got a clue about the meaning, or for that matter, much of anything dealing with aircraft. But that’s just me.
Newsmax TV’s JD Hayworth talked to Judicial Watch Investigative reporter Irene Garcia about their bombshell report from earlier this week claiming that terrorists have set up a training camp on the Southern border. High level Mexican sources are confirming JW’s reports from last August, that ISIS is operating at least one camp just a few miles from El Paso, TX.
Their sources include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican federal police inspector.
Garcia, a former LA Times reporter, said authorities on both side of the border have confirmed that the activity is occurring, but the Obama administration continues to claim the reports are unfounded for a number of reasons.
“…he wants better relations with Mexico, he’s allowing this influx of illegal immigrants coming in, he’s now facilitating with a program that Judicial Watch just broke, last week, where he’s flying the minors in, now because it’s too treacherous to cross the desert. If there’s terrorists right nearby – that would of course ruin that plan. A lot of it is denial – a lot of it is negligence – it’s downright insane and certainly deplorable that this is happening so close to our border, and yet the administration continues to officially say, that the border is secure – that this is unfounded.”
Garcia explained that ISIS is trying to enter the country through two ports of entry – El Paso and an area on the New Mexico border.
She referenced a Judicial Watch report from last August that revealed a leaked DHS warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border that had been issued within the agency and was not meant to go public.
Garcia ended by noting that a US government report a few years ago acknowledged that Islamic, Middle Eastern terrorists have teamed up with drug cartels on the border.
“But these reports get very little media attention and most of the public never hears about it,” she said.
UPDATE:
Judicial Watch is now reporting that the DOJ called a “special meeting” in Juarez to deal with their report.
A high-level intelligence source, who must remain anonymous for safety reasons, confirmed that the meeting was convened specifically to address a press strategy to deny Judicial Watch’s accurate reporting and identify who is providing information to JW. FBI supervisory personnel met with Mexican Army officers and Mexican Federal Police officials, according to JW’s intelligence source. The FBI liaison officers regularly assigned to Mexico were not present at the meeting and conspicuously absent were representatives from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It’s not clear why DHS did not participate.
Publicly, U.S. and Mexico have denied that Islamic terrorists are operating in the southern border region, but the rapid deployment of FBI brass in the aftermath of JW’s report seems to indicate otherwise. A Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector were among the sources that confirmed to JW that ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas. The base is around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.
National School Choice Week Whistle Stop Tour kicked off Friday, in LA where 750 people came out to support school choice. Saturday, the tour stopped in Albuquerque, and now it’s heading for Topeka and Kansas City where they’ll be celebrating the successes of public charter schools, online and digital learning, homeschooling and public school choice in the Show Me State.
Here’s video of a NSCW Whistle Stop Tour “Wave Along” in Trinidad, CO, last night:
As the National School Choice Week Special makes its way through the midwest, join us as we discuss the historical impact of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision and its lasting impact on educational equality.
In addition to School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella, speakers will also include Lisa Snell, Reason Foundation Director of Education and Child Welfare, and Lisa Graham Keegan, a nationally recognized education reform pioneer who served as Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction. The event will also feature remarks from parents and students positively benefiting from school choice programs.
Join us in the beautiful Great Hall at Union Station for a huge bash to celebrate National School Choice Week 2013. We’ll be celebrating the successes of public charter schools, online and digital learning, homeschooling and public school choice in the Show Me State. The party is free to attend, and includes appetizers and sodas. There will be a cash bar. Please RSVP to attend. Dress is casual.
We’re excited to welcome several special guests, including the following:
Emcee: James Shuls, Show Me Institute
Andrew Campanella, National School Choice Week
Virginia Walden-Ford- School Choice Activist
Lisa Keegan – Former AZ Superintendent
Joe Trippi – Fox News Analyst and Democratic Strategist
Vonnelle P. Middleton, Superintendent/C.E.O. Hope Academy Charter School
Douglas Thaman, Executive Director, Missouri Charter Public School Association
Emani Brown- Hogan Prep student
Dennis Cooper- Hogan Prep student
Student performance: Della Lamb Elementary Choir
Heidi Lynch and student Alex Lynch (Lawrence Virtual School)
The goal of this tour is to “demonstrate overwhelming support, and demand, for school choice…while shining a positive spotlight on the hundreds of organizations, thousands of schools, and millions of Americans working every day to increase access to great schools in our country.”
If you live in the area of any of these stops – please come out to show your support!
National School Choice Week 2013 kicked off Friday night at a packed house in Phoenix, Arizona. The annual event, which this year runs from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, highlights a diverse selection of educational options for all kids. It made sense to launch this year’s effort in Arizona, a pioneer in school choice initiatives.
With more than 7,000 attendees and thousands more watching online, this was the biggest kickoff ever for National School Choice Week. The occasion is just the first of more than 3,500 independently planned special events that will be held across all 50 states.
Much of the crowd was made up of Arizona students who have benefited from the state’s dynamic school choice environment. With the first education reform laws passed in 1994, the Grand Canyon State has lead the nation in empowering parents to choose what’s best for their children’s academic success.
The students enjoyed a 45-minute set by the Jonas Brothers, but also heard from several speakers, including education reform pioneer Lisa Graham Keegan, co-founder of EduPrize Schools JoAnna Curtis, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, and several award-winning students.
Sadly it’s come to this. Conservatives have gotten used to rallying behind business that have fallen out of favor with the Regime and its allies. Now it’s become necessary to rally behind the Second Amendment – the right to bear arms – a constitutional right that until recently was considered to be rock-solid. Are we ready for this fight?
The national “Gun Appreciation Day,” which is being launched by a coalition of conservative and gun rights groups, will take place the day before California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is expected to introduce legislation for an assault weapon ban, and two days before President Barack Obama is inaugurated for his second term.
“We felt that there needed to be a swift, strong statement, Chick-fil-A style, to show that we’re not only here but we’re vocal,” Gun Appreciation Day chairman and president of Republican new media consulting firm Political Media, Inc., Larry Ward tells Whispers.
A New York newspaper serving the lower Hudson Valley caused quite a stir last month, when it published an interactive map of gun owners in the area.
Not to be outdone, the liberal website known as Gawker has decided to post a list of all gun owners in New York City, while promptly labeling everyone on the list as an “asshole”.
The list was assembled from various online sources along with a Freedom of Information Act which yields, according to the article, 1.2 million names along with 300,000 addresses.
Chicago’s murder numbers have hit that magic 500. Baltimore’s murder toll has passed 200. In Philly, it’s up to 324, the highest since 2007. In Detroit, it’s approaching 400, another record. In New Orleans, it’s almost at 200. New York City is down to 414 from 508. In Los Angeles, it’s over 500. In St. Louis it’s 113 and 130 in Oakland. It’s 121 in Memphis and 76 in Birmingham.
Washington, D.C., home of the boys and girls who can solve it all, is nearing its own big 100.
Those 12 cities alone account for nearly 3,200 dead and nearly a quarter of all murders in the United States. And we haven’t even visited sunny Atlanta or chilly Cleveland.
These cities are the heartland of America’s real gun culture. It isn’t the bitter gun-and-bible clingers in McCain and Romney territory who are racking up a more horrifying annual kill rate than Al Qaeda; it’s Obama’s own voting base.
The media agenda against guns is nothing new. But recent mass shootings have encouraged supposedly neutral journalists to push for gun regulation instead of reporting the facts surrounding the tragedies.
One thing the media seldom mention is that both the Newtown and Aurora shootings occurred in gun free zones. In the Clackamas Town Center Shooting in Oregon, however, a gunman was stopped when someone with a concealed carry permit intervened. There were only two casualties in this shooting which received little media attention. If this incident was mentioned, the concealed carry part of the story was almost completely ignored.
Some journalists have gone after after the NRA, calling for them to labeled “terrorist organizations” or lamented that they “yield too much power.” Others simply attacked any pro-gun advocate they had on their program. Still, a few went straight for the Constitution, with calls to “repeal the Second Amendment” or revise it. Many tried to imagine a world without guns … forgetting that even without guns, violence would still exist.
The anti-illegal guns group founded by New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is going on air tomorrow with a spot that invokes the Sandy Hook massacre and features the mother of the young girl slain in the Tuscon, Ariz., rampage two years ago urging Washington to “stand up to the gun lobby.”
Here is U.S. Marine Joshua Boston on “Fox & Friends” where he continues to articulately lay out the case for why Barack Obama and Diane Feinstein’s anti-2nd Amendment designs are wrong. Boston, in this interview, takes on the idea that “Gun-Free Zones” make people safer. As he so rightly points out, gun-free zones “advertise the hunting grounds for the predators in our society. It forces people to be disarmed.” He said current policies on most campuses around the country amounts to telling students, in the event there is an intruder, “Hide and hope for the best.”
Please send your Papa John’s pictures and videos to rebootingDOTusaATgmailDOTcom
Papa Johns has been targeted by the left for a boycott, for simply articulating that ObamaCare would hurt profits and force cutbacks in employee hours. Stand up to this nonsensical and illogical action and support Papa Johns this Friday!
The CEO of Papa John’s, John H. Schnatter, has said that he will have to cut employee hours because of Obamacare. Schattner has received intense media scrutiny in addition to being demonized as an evil rich guy by the Left. Obamacare is a fiscal nightmare and because of it, many small businesses aren’t hiring now. Some are even closing their doors. Obamacare is now, as John Boehner said, “the law of the land.”In solidarity with John H. Schnatter, we propose that November, 16th, 2012 be National Papa John’s Appreciation Day. The Left thinks we are discouraged; they think they have won. Let’s send a clear message this Friday, like we did on Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day, that we are here to stay and that we won’t stop fighting. There are over 2,600 Papa John’s stores in the United States. Let’s flood all of them like we flooded Chick-Fil-A.
How the event works:1. “Like” Papa John’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/papajohns
2. Change your Facebook avatar to the Papa Johns logo on Friday.
3. Go into your local Papa John’s this Friday, November 16th, and order a pizza. This will only be effective if you go into the store itself. Take a picture of your visit and your pizza, share it on your Facebook wall and/or tweet it with the hashtag #IStandWithPapaJohns
4. If you live further than a half hour from Papa Johns. Participate on twitter with the hashtag #IStandWithPapaJohns
Also: We would like to suggest that anyone participating in this event also purchase an additional pie to share with someone that is struggling right now. Perhaps a neighbor who lost a job, a food shelter, church group, afterschool program for kids in need…. There are many options, but please consider buying a pie to share!
Let’s send a clear message this Friday. Thank you, everyone.
I’ll post a pic of our delicious pizza as soon as it arrives. The wait at local Papa John’s is currently an hour – they’re exceedingly busy, said the girl who took my order.
And spread the word – not a single Romney voter should let anything the Obama media says today dissuade them from voting. Two words, people – BROKEN GLASS.
WatchDogWirewill be livestreaming election news starting at noon Eastern and Jim Geraghty will updating election news at Campaign Spot throughout the day..
Because the corrupt media is so breathtakingly corrupt in its push to reelect a failed president, Big Journalism needs a running live blog. Please help us in our quest to capture the breadth and scope of this corruption by forwarding your tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter me @NolteNC.
Win, lose, or draw, we’re gonna be up late tonight, and the best thing to do is to avoid unnecessary stress. My advice to you is to start drinking heavily. Readers are welcome to provide their own reports, or link to useful information, in the comments.
A pretty disturbing report coming out of U.S. Senate candidate, Wendy Long’s campaign. Apparently, a poll worker reviewed Long’s ballot and told her it would be rejected because she didn’t “fill in every space”.
When Long countered that you can indeed leave some sections of the ballot blank, the poll worker again indicated her ballot would be rejected.
Long correctly informed the worker that forcing a voter to vote in every race, would essentially result in that person being forced to vote for candidates they do not want.
The poll worker even went so far as to suggest Long should mark the Democratic line all the way down.
A group of Republican senators said Monday that thousands of voter ballots are unlikely to reach military service members until after Nov. 6.
One day ahead of the election, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to express their concern over delays in ballots reaching military voters overseas.
A rallying cry from Michael Walsh, NRO: Crush Them:
It’s not enough for the GOP to win tomorrow. It needs to win big, a win so convincing that even the Left won’t be able to explain it away. The definition of victory in war is not a 50.1 percent majority that allows the other side to keep fighting — it’s the battleship Missouri, on whose deck the losing side signs articles of capitulation. The modern Left — the unholy spawn of ’30s gangland and ’60s academic Marxism — must be forced to its knees in surrender.
There’s a honored place in our political system for a leftist party, one that pushes for improvement in areas that need improving, but not one devoted to revolutionary “fundamental change.” A vote for Romney tomorrow is a vote against the socialist elements that seized control of the JFK/Scoop Jackson Democratic party in 1972, and has worked against America’s best interests ever since. A vote for Romney tomorrow is a vote for a restoration of the old Jacksonian — Andrew, that is — Democratic party, a true populist party shorn of its Communist accretions that is every bit as all-American as the other guys. Unless and until this happens, though, the modern donkeys will continue their war on the Constitution, convinced they are on the side of the angels, and taking solace in the late Ted Kennedy’s words, “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”
It’s up to the electorate tomorrow to show them that the dream is really a nightmare, from which it’s time to awake, that the cause of America always endures, and the work of restoring our founding principles begins anew today.
It takes a lot of anecdotes to accumulate into critical mass and become “data,” and in any event we’ll know the election results soon enough. But an interesting account comes from a correspondent in Wisconsin who proved an invaluable source of information during the Scott Walker recall drama: “Liberal areas of the state are seeing very light turn out, much lighter than for the Walker recall. Conservative areas are seeing very heavy turnout, far heavier than for the Walker recall. I think we are seeing a continuation of the “recall” against Gov. Walker, only it is in the form of voting for Romney, only this time, the Dems aren’t showing up.”
For the head of Libya’s national election commission, the method by which Americans vote is startling in that it depends so much on trust and the good faith of election officials and voters alike.
“It’s an incredible system,” said Nuri K. Elabbar, who traveled to the United States along with election officials from more than 60 countries to observe today’s presidential elections as part of a program run by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). Your humble Cable guy visited polling places with some of the international officials this morning. Most of them agreed that in their countries, such an open voting system simply would not work.
A legally credentialed poll watcher was threatened with a gun at a polling precinct in Detroit — an incident that state Republican leaders are calling an act of “outlandish” intimidation.
The poll watcher, a lawyer, was confronted by a voter who demanded that he show his credentials. The poll watcher complied with the request –but the voter objected and allegedly brandished a gun and badge and ordered him to leave the precinct.
The GOP observer was reportedly chased away by the unidentified gun-wielding individual.
It just wouldn’t be a proper Election Day without all sorts of funny business going on at the polls. The Black Panthers are back in Philadelphia, outside the same polling place where they flagrantly intimidated voters in 2008, to the mild amusement of Eric Holder’s Justice Department. It looks like this time they’re not packing truncheons, and as long as they obey the rules and maintain the proper distance from voters, they have the same right to be there as anyone else. They just seem to be the only ones that get away with wearing paramilitary uniforms while they’re “monitoring” elections.
A group called the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC sent the Nevada Secretary of State a letter citing reports accusing “the Culinary Union 226 of knowingly registering illegal immigrants and then pressuring them to vote,” according to a Fox News report. One illegal immigrant is quoted as saying a union representative ominously warned he would be “in so much trouble” if he didn’t vote. Somewhat improbably, the head of ALIPAC claimed Senator Harry Reid’s re-election victory in 2010 was due to illegal immigrant votes; and, quite unrealistically, he wants the Clark County voter rolls purged completely of illegal aliens in a single day.
Sorry, but that ship has sailed. That’s why vote fraud defenders are so fiercely determined to block photo ID laws. Very little can be done once Election Day rolls around, and it’s extremely unlikely that any subsequent test of ballot integrity would lead to overturning an election, particularly a presidential election. The odds of fraudulent voters facing any sort of real consequences are slim, and even verbally reminding them of the potential penalties has been declared an act of racist voter suppression. Election Day is the finish line for the voter-fraud crowd.
Wisconsin radio host Vicki McKenna tweeted Tuesday that government vehicles are being used to transport Democratic voters to the polls in Milwaukee, Wisc.
Both local and federal taxpayer resources were used to carryout the mobilization efforts of Barack Obama to get Democratic voters to the polls, said McKenna.
“MILWAUKEE CITY DPW van doing GOTV [get out the vote] at polls today,” McKenna– a conservative media fixture in Milwaukee and Madison– tweeted earlier today.
“DOWNTOWN milwaukee pollwatcher reports CITY PUBLIC WORKS vehicles dropping off voters at the polls,” McKenna tweeted afterwards.
McKenna also tweeted that federal government resources are being used to get Democrats to Wisconsin polls.
According to the KCMO reporter at the last news break during the Sean Hannity Show, Obama was sounding “magnanimous” toward Romney and was kind enough to “congratulate ” him on his “hard fought race.”
U.S. President Barack Obama congratulated Republican rival Mitt Romney on Tuesday (November 06) for running a hard-fought race for the White House and expressed confidence he would win re-election during a stop at a local campaign office to thank volunteers.
Reports are coming in that Lenoir County North Carolina has not allowed GOP Poll Watchers into the polls all day because, they claim, something was wrong with a draft of the paperwork submitted with the poll watchers names.
You should completely ignore any results coming from exit polls. Here is why:
First of all, the traditional arrangement between the media outlets to gather exit polling data was significantly altered this year. They are not gathering data from a significant number of states, states which almost all lean right [insert your favorite conspiracy theory here].
Besides the limited data coming from this year’s exit polls, the information gathered from individual states is also not trustworthy. The 2004 exit polls predicted a John Kerry win, and many of the networks reported that, only to have to revoke their announcements later that night.
Nice Deb 