Russians Bomb Own City. More Please!

Late last night, a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber accidentally dropped what appeared to be a 1,100 pound bomb near apartment buildings in Belgorod, Russia, a city near the Ukrainian border with a population of 340,000. No reports yet of whether vodka was involved. The Associated Press reports:

"The explosion late Thursday was far more powerful than anything Belgorod residents had experienced before. Witnesses reported a low hissing sound followed by a blast that made nearby apartment buildings tremble and shattered their windows.

It left a 20-meter (66-foot) -wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined boulevard flanked by apartments, damaged several cars and threw one vehicle onto a store roof. Two people were injured, and a third person was later hospitalized with hypertension, authorities said."

The immediate reaction by residents and aggressive Russian military bloggers was that it was a drone attack by Ukraine. That was cleared up later when the Russian Defense Ministry had to admit that one of its aircraft dropped the bomb accidentally on its way to bomb a hardened Ukrainian target:

"Military experts charged that the weapon appeared to have been set to explode with a small delay after impact that would allow it to hit underground facilities."

After displaying this level of military competence, we're hoping that the Russian air force starts flying over the Kremlin with full bomb loads.

(photo: A damaged apartment building in Belgorod. Telegram / Vyacheslav Gladkov / AP)

 

Tweet Of The Day

Here's the difference between a government run by a Democrat (Kentucky) and one run by a Republican (Tennessee).  Note the policy moves and the difference between coronavirus cases in Kentucky (48 as of March 20) and Tennessee (228 as of March 20).  (Click to enlarge) 

Look at the difference between how the Kentucky Governor and Tennessee Governor handled the Coronavirus

And look at the results of those policies pic.twitter.com/U3T4WMuF5a

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) March 21, 2020

(See also "Quotes of the Day," below.)

The Bushes And The Republican "Reign of Error"

In today's column, Paul Krugman discusses John Ellis "J.E.B." Bush's recent mind-numbing floundering on the question of "would I invade Iraq like brother Dumbya did" (see post below) in the context of Republican "fraternity of failure":

[Their] refusal to learn from experience, combined with a version of political correctness in which you’re only acceptable if you have been wrong about crucial issues, is pervasive in the modern Republican

Take my usual focus, economic policy. If you look at the list of economists who appear to have significant influence on Republican leaders, including the likely presidential candidates, you find that nearly all of them agreed, back during the “Bush boom,” that there was no housing bubble and the American economic future was bright; that nearly all of them predicted that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight the economic crisis that developed when that nonexistent bubble popped would lead to severe inflation; and that nearly all of them predicted that Obamacare, which went fully into effect in 2014, would be a huge job-killer.

Given how badly these predictions turned out — we had the biggest housing bust in history, inflation paranoia has been wrong for six years and counting, and 2014 delivered the best job growth since 1999 — you might think that there would be some room in the G.O.P. for economists who didn’t get everything wrong. But there isn’t. Having been completely wrong about the economy, like having been completely wrong about Iraq, seems to be a required credential.

For all the efforts of the "mainstream media" to portray this Party of Crackpots as somehow normal, reasonable and capable of governing, the disastrous Republican track record ("reign of error") plus their clown car of presidential candidates bodes well for Hillary Clinton in the early stages of the 2016 race.

BONUS:   "J.E.B." thinks his Apple watch will supplant Obamacare someday.  First, he needs to get fitted for a hearing aid for his tin ear.

What Up, My Man?!

Actually, RNC Chairclown Tin Man Steele's blog should have been named "What Down?" since that perfectly describes the status of the RNC web site that was recently ...um... launched (if by "launched" you mean "crashed and burned"). "What Up?" has now been renamed, after only 24 hours, "Change the Game." ("Change the Name?" No?)

As Germantown bureau chief Brian tells us, there is already reaction to Tin Man's epic fail in Internet tubes wizardry. We particularly like the comment by "Dave Nowak."