Stand in Arlington when you make your pitch for war

My Sunday “movie” was the Oscar ceremony. It was sufficiently entertaining – Conan O’Brien did a decent job and there was some good banter by the presenters. But there were only two performances of the nominated songs and I haven’t watched and don’t intend to watch most of the films nominated for Best Picture, especially Sinners and One Battle After Another, both of which got several awards (I did see and enjoy Hamnet and pleased Jessie Buckley won Best Actress). I did enjoy seeing Koreans take the Best Song, though I pay little attention to K-Pop. In all, a decent evening. Jessica Kutz, in an article for The 19th posted on Daily Kos, discussed several ways women are pushing the movie industry to be more sustainable. Sheila Morovati is pushing the studios to modify scripts to promote sustainable behaviors, such as having characters carrying reusable water bottles, taking reusable bags into a store, having characters walk or carpool instead of drive alone, have characters eat a vegan meal, or just put a vegan restaurant in the background. Morovati has worked through Universal to do such things as use hybrid and electric vehicles to transport cast and crew (and show EVs on screen) and donate materials, such as wood and costume fabric, when shooting is done. Allison Begalman started the Hollywood Climate Summit to help the industry learn how to be part of the climate crisis solution. The inaugural program took place online and attracted 15,000 people. The summit is now a place where climate people and entertainment people can mix. One result is a Grey’s Anatomy episode that demonstrated how extreme heat could strain a hospital. Idea placement has worked before, such s Mothers Against Drunk Driving getting shows to feature designated drivers, which was credited with reducing traffic fatalities in the 1990s. Hillary Cohen was shocked at the food waste at some shows, so created an organization to take unused food to organizations that help people facing food insecurity. Last year they moved 140,000 of food. She has added picking up things like furniture and kitchen appliances bought for commercial shoots but not needed after two or three days. The war in Iran rages on. Hannah Allam, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, reported on the civilian casualties of the war, especially the bombing of the elementary school in Minab where the death toll has passed 165. And...

[Air Force combat veteran Wes J.] Bryant, a former special operations targeting specialist, said he couldn’t help but think of what-ifs as he monitored fallout from the Feb. 28 attack. Just over a year ago, he had been a senior adviser in an ambitious new Defense Department program aimed at reducing civilian harm during operations. Finally, Bryant said, the military was getting serious about reforms. He worked out of a newly opened Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, where his supervisor was a veteran strike-team targeter who had served as a United Nations war crimes investigator. Today, that momentum is gone. Bryant was forced out of government in cuts last spring. The civilian protection mission was dissolved as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made “lethality” a top priority. And the world has witnessed a tragedy in Minab that, if U.S. responsibility is confirmed, would be the most civilians killed by the military in a single attack in decades.

Threadreader has a thread by Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on four current crises: First, The nasty guy believed Iran would not close the Strait of Hormuz, stopping the flow of oil, though Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told him the closure was possible. Second, a conventional war might destroy all of Iran’s missiles, but this is a drone war and there is no way to destroy all of those. The drones are quite effective. Third, Iranian proxies are attacking Israel. This has prompted Israel to attack Lebanon. An attack on Syria could cause it to explode again. Four, the nasty guy has no endgame. Escalate and there will be thousands of dead Americans. Declare victory and go home and the Iranian hardliners simply rebuild. NPR host Mary Louise Kelly spoke to NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez. The nasty guy has been calling on other countries to help the US to open the Strait of Hormuz and get oil flowing again. They are declining to assist, giving a blend of reasons: It’s not their war. It is a dangerous mission. The nasty guy didn’t consult with them before he started the war. European leaders are concentrating on the war in Ukraine. And he has been insulting them regularly. Back in the 1980s the US did escort ships out through the Strait of Hormuz. But warfare is different now, mostly because of drones. Escort ships just become another target. Also, 20 US ships would need a long time to escort the more than 1,000 ships in the Gulf. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted ABC News:

Oil is a leading cause of modern-day war—with between one-quarter and one-half of interstate wars between 1973 and 2007 linked to oil, an analysis published in the journal International Security said.

I don’t know why the report stopped at 2007. A lot of wars since then have also been over oil. More of the quote:

The war with Iran, and the disruption to energy markets caused by the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, should trigger nations to a swifter exit from fossil fuel dependence, Simon ⁠Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told Reuters in an interview on Monday. "If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, ​breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time," Stiell said.

In last Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer discussing the North Vietnamese taking over Saigon, ending a war that had caused 58,000 American troop deaths.

The legendary then-NBC newsman David Brinkley wrote a commentary on what had just happened, and then went with a camera crew to the rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery where so many of the war dead were buried. “When some future politician, for some reason, feels the need to drag this country into a war, he might come out to Arlington and stand right over there somewhere to make his announcement and to tell what he has in mind,” Brinkley said. “If he can attract public support speaking from a place like this, then his reasons for starting a new war would have to be good ones.”

The nasty guy didn’t bother with public support. For my friend and debate partner is a little bit from Quanta magazine. Georg Cantor is famous for an 1874 paper discussing different sizes of infinity. It seems in the year before Cantor had corresponded with Richard Dedekind who had helped Cantor understand infinity. So did Cantor plagiarize Dedekind? In the comments is a cartoon by Drew Sheneman showing a military ops room where a soldier tells a superior, “We tried recruiting ICE agents to fight in Iran but all 20,000 came down with a wicked case of sudden onset bone spurs.” Another reason I heard is that Iran shoots back. A cartoon by Clay Bennett shows a man filling up his gas tank and glancing at the sign by the street that says, “Prices Don’t Ask.” In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted a tweet by First Squawk:

TRUMP SAYS ON IRANIAN SLEEPER CELLS: THERE COULD BE MORE THAN 1,700

Jon Aguiar responded:

We spent the last 9 months raiding Home Depot parking lots instead of arresting anyone from the massive network of Iranian terrorist cells?

Daniel Dale of CNN discussed a Republican release of an AI deepfake of Texas Democratic candidate for Senate James Talarico that is quite good.

The use of AI deepfakes in campaign advertising raises a host of ethical questions. It has also prompted some bipartisan calls for federal legislation or regulation on the practice, though those ideas have also faced pushback on First Amendment grounds.

An article on Reuters reported that Pope Leo has been calling for an end to the violence in Iran and also saying Christians who start wars should go to confession. Leo didn’t name anyone, but several in the nasty guy’s administration, including the vice nasty and Sec. of State Marco Rubio, are Catholic. In the comments is a cartoon by Toonerman:

Sen. Lindsey Graham: “I go back to South Carolina, I’m askin’ them to sen their sons and daughters to the Mideast.” Make Trump Proud! A woman: Or, Lindsey, why don’t you and the rest of the Washington War Pigs go and fight your own damn war.

The Wolfpack posted a meme showing a lion, elephant, giraffe, zebra, and two green skin aliens watching planes shoot missiles at buildings. One of the aliens says, “Humans are really stupid.” In the comments of Monday’s roundup exlrrp posted a tweet by BBC Breaking News:

US President Donald Trump urges UK and other nations to send ships to help secure key Strait of Hormuz oil trade route

Jamie Carroll of Canada responded:

The owner of the largest Navy in the history of the world would like sailors from other countries to die in a war he started without consulting anyone. Pass, thanks.

A story that’s been going around and getting a lot of lampooning is of the nasty guy giving many of the men of his administration a pair of his favorite Florsheim shoes – without asking for shoe size. Rubio has been seen wearing shoes too big for him because none of them men want to displease the nasty guy by not wearing his gift. In among the created images spoofing Rubio’s shoes and clothes is one posted by exlrrp. It is an AI generated meme of Rubio steering a pirate ship that looks like a shoe. The caption says, “Breaking News. Captain Marco Littlefoot volunteers to lead oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Convoys instructed to maintain heel-to-toe formation.” Emily Singer of Kos reported on Monday that the nasty guy is realizing the Iran war won’t be the quick venture he had assumed and is now lashing out. This post has details of his request to NATO for assistance and being rebuffed. There are also details of the nasty guy’s attempts to silence any media that doesn’t report on the war in glowing terms. Perhaps media companies learned from extensive reporting of Bush II lies for invading Iraq? Now many outlets are reporting the nasty guy’s miscalculations.

Only after causing chaos and sowing turmoil

The nasty guy has put Greenland back in the news. To distract us because he has no idea what to do with Venezuela after kidnapping its leader? A second distraction (Venezuela being the first) from his Department of Justice which is definitely not releasing the Epstein files, though required to do so by law? A week ago Wednesday an Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported that Denmark and Greenland officials met with the vice nasty and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Afterward a Danish official said there was still a “fundamental disagreement.” The nasty guy has given reasons for wanting to take over Greenland. National Security. Keep it out of the hands of Russia and China. Take control of its mineral wealth – the kind of minerals needed in cars, computers, and green energy. The Danish and Greenlandic officials say: We already have treaties for you to put as many military bases there as you want. What Russian and Chinese attempts to take the island? There’s a reason why those minerals aren’t being extracted – the place is cold and covered in ice! Besides, the natives of Greenland don’t want to be a part of the US. So those reasons must be a cover for something else. Does the nasty guy want it own it to feed his vast ego? Denmark and other NATO allies are increasing their military presence on Greenland. On Thursday of last week another AP article noted troops from Denmark and several European countries, including France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden, have started to arrive in Greenland. It is to tell the nasty guy that NATO can protect Greenland from Russia and China Under the nasty guy’s threats is a growing concern of what happens if the US, a member of NATO, invades Greenland, also a member of NATO through its association with Denmark? What happens to NATO and its vow that an attack on one is an attack on all? A week ago Saturday strawbale of the Kos community posted a delightful AI generated video showing those ready to defend Greenland from US invasion. Those stalwart fighters are polar bears and walruses. The song that goes with it is properly heroic. In the comments are two more videos. The first (and lower in the comments) was created back in April when the nasty guy first invoked tariffs, including on two southern islands populated by only penguins. The Democratic Penguins Republic was created to show they’re ready to protect their islands. That’s why the second video (higher in the comments) features the Democratic Penguins Republic in the fight for Greenland along with the polar bears and walruses, though that’s on the opposite end of the world. LEastsound tweeted a cartoon by John Deering. It shows a Greenland child facing the nasty guy surrounded by his Secret Service. The child says, “We’re already great, thanks.” On Wednesday Kos of Kos wrote about the state of the situation. The nasty guy gave a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Kos described it as “wildly incoherent.” In response the US stock markets dropped in the range of 1.5% to 2.5% (I don’t have numbers in front of me). Between that and Europeans holding firm, the nasty guy announced he and the Secretary General of NATO had a “framework” for a deal and that the tariffs he had imposed on every NATO country that supported Denmark had been called off. When I originally heard the news about having a “framework” I imagined Danish and Greenlandic leaders saying, “We do?” Guys, don’t feel bad about not knowing that a nasty guy’s “framework” is equivalent to his “concept of a plan” that will be delivered “in two weeks” that never seems to actually appear. It seems that NATO holding firm and the stock market reaction (it has since gained back most of its losses) prompted the nasty guy to fold. Or, as the phrase that became popular when he pulled back on the tariffs he had imposed, he did a TACO, Trump Always Chickens Out. Wrote Kos:

In other words, Trump has once again backed down from threats on which he couldn’t follow through—but only after causing chaos, sowing turmoil, and further damaging relationships with our closest allies. He then tried to declare victory for a “deal” that does not exist and—even if it did—would amount to little more than what’s already in place. ... How many more of these self-inflicted wounds can this country take?

So what will be the next Epstein distraction? Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary:

"That's right. After all the bullying, the threats, all the anguish we caused, all the alliances we damaged, all the demands, we reached an agreement that is in all probability nearly identical to the agreement we already made back in 1951. And that is the art of the deal, folks. No one solves a problem that he manufactured completely on his own better than Donald J. Trump." —Jimmy Kimmel

In the comments of Wednesday’s pundit roundup for Kos is a tweet from Christopher Hale:

For the first time in U.S. history, the archbishop responsible for Catholic pastoral care of U.S. service members said military officers may be morally obligated to disobey a sitting president’s orders. Archbishop Timothy Broglio said a Trump-ordered invasion of Greenland would violate Catholic teaching and that Catholic troops could refuse to comply.

In the body of the roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman of The Cross Section on Substack discussing the brutal tactics of ICE and the “Don’t Tread On Me” flags:

To the naïve observer, those statements and warnings might have indicated an aversion to excessive state power and state violence. But that was never what the conservatives felt. To the contrary; one could always detect a yearning for violence, not a dread that the day would come when they would have to start gunning down their enemies, but the fervent hope that the day would come sooner rather than later... In other words, many conservatives believe that if a liberal even tries to evade an ICE agent in their car, that’s sufficient justification for the agent to kill them, but using your car to kill someone is perfectly fine if the person under the wheels is a liberal. Many prominent Republican lawmakers support laws that allow people to kill protesters with their cars if those protesters get in their way, since shutting down traffic is a tactic that has more often been employed by leftists. Four Republican states have passed laws removing civil liability for those acts of vehicular death-dealing. And of course, conservatives regularly turn killers like Kyle Rittenhouse (who killed two people and wounded a third) into heroes, provided the people they kill are liberals. So when they saw the video of Renee Good’s murder, they weren’t horrified, they were exultant. It’s just the kind of thing they’ve been thirsting for: some woke lib lesbian who was “very, very disrespectful” (as Trump put it) to a man with a gun, and got just what she deserved. And they want more.

In today’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

But the reality is also that, despite his over-the-top rhetoric, Mr. Trump can’t get away with whatever he likes. He is constrained by democratic institutions in the U.S., the necessity of maintaining alliances abroad, and public opinion as measured by polls and investors. The Greenland saga is a telling example. On Saturday Mr. Trump issued his demand to own the icy island and he vowed to impose tariffs on Europe to compel a sale. Opposition built over the holiday weekend, and financial markets cast a decidedly negative vote on the tariffs and threats on Tuesday. Members of Congress spoke against the use of military force in Greenland, with even GOP leaders expressing doubts. One Senator told us that, if Mr. Trump had gone ahead, Congress would have voted to cut off funds for an invasion, and with veto-proof majorities. European leaders also made clear that taking Greenland by force, military or otherwise, would break the NATO alliance. And what do you know? On Wednesday in Davos, Mr. Trump issued his familiar criticisms of Europe’s weakness, many of which are accurate. But he disavowed the use of force. And by the end of the day he had canceled the tariffs and claimed victory over what he called a “framework” deal over Greenland that he said will make everyone happy.

Nandita Bose tweeted:

Trump to Canada's @MarkJCarney at Davos: “Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also, but they're not. I watched your Prime Minister yesterday. He wasn't so grateful. They should be grateful to us... Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that Mark the next time you make your statements.”

Benjy Sarlin added:

Glad Greenland is behind us so we can get back to threatening Canada.

In the comments is a tweet by Mrs. Betty Bowers with a link to a New York Times article titled, “Volunteers in Minnesota Deliver Groceries So Immigrants Can Hide at Home.” Bowers wrote:

These type of people are America's only shot at ever being great. In other words, they are the opposite of empathy-free Donald Trump and his terrorizing Gestapo goons who are destroying our country.

Comments to that tweet contain warnings that ICE is known to deliver food to get people to open their door. Only open for delivery people you know. I’ll get to the Board of Peace on another day. In this roundup Brian Allen tweeted:

Trump just “ratified” his Board of Peace like he’s founding a new world order. But the Constitution is clear: treaties need 2/3 Senate approval. So unless the Senate voted, this isn’t an international organization. It’s a photo-op with a flag.

Political reporters treat Republicans as 9-year-old children

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed what is going in to choosing the next leader of Republicans in the Senate since Moscow Mitch is stepping down from leadership at the end of the year. Biden keeps talking about bipartisanship...

But as Republicans scramble to pick a replacement for outgoing Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, there are three big demands on the table: get rid of the seniority system for committee assignments, impose a term limit on leadership positions, and never, ever compromise. The death of bipartisanship is a base requirement.

Stopping the seniority system for committee assignments means members would be chosen more for their purity of beliefs. Mitch was wrong about many things, most wrong about the nasty guy impeachment votes and stealing two Supreme Court seats. But he was right about a few things, like the Ukraine aid bill. But for his successor...

Compromise makes government possible. A refusal to compromise makes it impossible. But the choice is only obvious for those who want government to work.

Sumner also wrote the nasty guy’s VP pick is likely North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. He’s rich, though not in the billionaire range. Even so, he is an ambassador to the only group the nasty guy really cares about – billionaires. Burgum has another great quality he doesn’t care whether he gets the job.

But Burgum has given a clear signal that he’s willing to lie for Trump, be his bagman, and never step near the spotlight. That’s a combination that no other hopeful seems to match.

In a third post Sumner said that while billionaires love the nasty guy, corporate CEOs don’t. Out of the Fortune 100 CEOs, zero have sent money to the nasty guy, even though a majority are Republicans. The reason is simple. The nasty guy terrifies them. Even though Biden calls them out for their greed Biden has guided the best economy in decades. Biden has shown clear goals and consistent regulation. In contrast, the nasty guy’s economic plans are shown to be a disaster. In his first term the nasty guy attacked individual companies and their executives and he has talked of retribution. They like their corporate diversity programs and cringed when the nasty guy called the Charlottesville protesters “very fine people.” They’re afraid of Project 2025, ready to fill the government with incompetent idealogues who have no idea how business works.

CEOs may be dragging in far more money than they deserve. They may be failing to protect their companies by failing to stand up for employees. But, says [head of Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale Jeffrey] Sonnenfeld, CEOs are “not protectionist, isolationist or xenophobic, and they believe in investing where there is the rule of law, not the law of rulers.”

Fernando Oliver posted a cartoon of Lisa Simpson (forgive me if I have the name wrong, I didn’t watch the show) appearing to lead a seminar where on the screen are the words, “‘Billionaires won’t create jobs if we tax them,’ is a myth made up by billionaires so we won’t tax them.” In a fourth post Sumner talked about nasty guy surrogates laying the groundwork for tomorrow’s debate between the nasty guy and Biden. The example shown here is a surrogate declaring the CNN moderators are biased and the nasty guy would be in a hostile environment. So if the nasty guy doesn’t show or he clearly loses the excuses are already there. And if Biden commits a flub that dominates the news the surrogates can say the nasty guy wonderful because he won despite the environment. Yeah, the situation is that if Biden flubs it will be all over the news – even if he gets a date wrong or mispronounces a name. Yet, the nasty guy can flub a whole lot worse in lots more ways and the news will ignore it. I will ignore the debate, being satisfied with summaries I can read on Friday. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Glastris of the Washington Monthly who wrote that Biden is the oldest leader in NATO – he was born before it was founded – and as he has aged his clout and respect has increased.

It was Biden who warned European leaders in early 2022 that Vladimir Putin was going to send his military into Ukraine, a warning many of them initially refused to believe. When the invasion happened as predicted, it was Biden who rallied Western and other allied countries to Ukraine’s defense. It was also Biden who authorized a dramatic increase in U.S. natural gas exports to Europe as Russia cut off supplies. It was Biden who picked up the phone and called the heads of Finland and Sweden with a quiet suggestion that they join NATO. And it was Biden and his team who overcame the resistance of Turkey and Hungary to make NATO expansion a reality, thus turning Putin’s military quagmire into a geo-strategic disaster for Russia.

Dworkin added: “Experience matters on the world stage.” Dworkin quoted a couple tweets by John Stoehr and his Editorial Board:

Because the press corps' lens though which it sees politics is a family drama in which Trump is the child and Biden is the dad, and no one but a crazy person would question the mental fitness of a child. Dad, however ... If you're ever confused about how political reporters treat Republicans, stop seeing the Republicans as grown men and women and start seeing them as 9-year-old boys and girls. Things will make a ton more sense.

In the comments exlrrp included a meme from Turning Point USA that says, “If conservatives are being silence, then why don’t they ever shut the f--- up?” West Central Tribune posted a cartoon by Adam Zyglis that shows a classroom shooter and behind the stream of bullets are the Ten Commandments with “Thou Shalt Not Kill” legible. One kid cowering under a desk says to another, “At least our shooters will know they’re sinners.” A couple tabs that have been sitting there perhaps too long. In the comments of a pundit roundup from mid May kurious quoted an article from The Guardian about Justice Alito and the upside down flag. The Supreme Court should be a check on a radical Republican Party, but has become its ally.

The rule of law cannot be relied on to stem the tide of rising authoritarianism, because our legal institutions have been captured by the authoritarians… The justice is perfectly aware that he does not need to pretend to neutrality, or hide his partisan loyalties, or behave, with anything like a convincing effort, like his work on the court is motivated by the law and not his own reactionary political preferences. Alito knows that he does not need to maintain any pretext of integrity, intellectual commitment or seriousness in his work. The supreme court has accumulated enough power to itself – and the justices have done a sufficiently good job of insulating themselves from any accountability or consequence – that he doesn’t even think he needs to lie any more. He’s comfortable being a partisan operative right out in the open.

From about the same time Rep. Jamie Raskin tweeted:

Justice Alito turned the flag upside down. Donald Trump turned the Bible upside down. MAGA turned the Capitol upside down. The Roberts Court turned the Constitution upside down. Let’s set America right side up in November.

They absolutely will give him a microphone

My Sunday movie was Frybread Face and Me. It’s 1990. Benny is 11 and Navajo, living with his parents in San Diego. As the movie opens his parents announce he will spend the summer with his maternal grandmother at her home on the reservation in Arizona. Grandma speaks only Navajo, which Benny doesn’t know. Also living in Grandma’s house is Uncle Marvin who is quite upset with life, sometimes taking it out on Benny. Martin’s daughter Dawn, who others call Frybread Face, is Benny’s guide to life on the Rez. His mother’s other siblings, Lucy and Roger, come for visit. Lucy, a lesbian is a happy person and a help to Benny. Roger and his wife just bicker. Over the summer Benny begins to understand what it means to be Navajo and what Grandma is doing with her weaving. Though he still wonders, if life is so hard on the Rez, why don’t they move to somewhere where life is easier? It’s a quiet film and a good one. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed the statement the nasty guy made last Saturday. He had railed against other NATO members about not contributing at least 2% of their GDP for defense. If they didn’t pay up and were attacked he would not come to their aid and would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want.” Sumner noted that this statement is quite a jolt to NATO, but it really didn’t get much US media coverage until Monday morning. The nasty guy is referring to the common defense clause of the NATO treaty – an attack on one is to be considered an attack on all. That clause has been invoked once – by the US after the 9/11 attacks. It drew many NATO countries into the Afghanistan war. Some were stuck there for 20 years. Sumner noted an important point, one that should have been on front pages Sunday instead of Monday:

Article VI of the Constitution declares, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States ... and all Treaties made" are the "supreme Law of the Land." Trump is not just saying that he will break treaty obligations to U.S. allies and hand them over to Russia, he is flat-out saying that he will break the law. Because treaties are law. Failure to abide by the obligations of Article 5 would be the gravest possible betrayal of our allies and a direct failure to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It seems like someone should be making a big deal about this. But that doesn’t seem to feature in the coverage. ... Meanwhile, European leaders are consigning U.S. leadership to the dustbin and preparing for a world in which America is an afterthought.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted several people discussing the nasty guy’s NATO comments. There’s also a quote discussing European leaders’ reactions. And, of course, that is the topic of a few cartoons in the comments. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported reactions from NATO leaders. The nasty guy’s statement undermines security and puts soldiers at risk. The risk means European countries needs to invest in their own security – prompting them to do what the nasty guy accuses them of not doing. Others are confident the US will remain a strong ally, no matter who is president. This article and others I heard add a bit of explanation. Other NATO countries do not owe the money to the US, though the nasty guy’s wording makes that seem true. They do not owe the money to NATO. That 2% is a recommendation of what each country is to spend on its own defense, something the nasty guy is turning into a requirement. I’ve also heard with the Ukraine invasion in their backyard most, perhaps all, NATO countries now spend more on defense and most have probably passed the 2% recommendation. Last week I reported on the failure in the House to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Another AP article reported this week they voted again and this time Steve Scalise is back from his cancer treatment. And this time the vote was 214-213 to impeach. There is another reason why the vote was done early this week – On Tuesday there was a special election in New York to replace ejected House member Republican George Santos. And the winner is a Democrat, Tom Suozzi. So if the vote were delayed until the new guy was sworn in the tally would again be tied, this time at 214-214. The impeachment now goes to the Senate, where neither party has the desire to take on the trial. I’ve heard it will likely be referred to committee – where it will quietly die. The House doesn’t have the evidence to impeach Biden. So, as reported Joan McCarter of Kos, they’re latching on to special counsel Robert Hur’s report with the gratuitous comments that Biden is too old and has poor memory. And with that as supporting evidence they’re launching an investigation into Biden’s age and whether that means he’s unfit to lead.

They “might” ask Hur about Biden’s fitness? They “might” take this chance to exploit Biden’s age, his biggest political liability with voters, and run with it? They absolutely will give Hur a microphone and put him in front of cameras and the traditional media will absolutely eat it up.

While they’re at it they intend to investigate the Justice Department and AG Merrick Garland for why there isn’t any evidence to impeach Biden. Sumner reported:

Over the weekend, The New York Times filled every slot on its editorial page with a piece attacking Biden’s age and memory. That didn’t just include the Times’ conservative columnists calling for the president to step down, but the paper’s editorial board jumping in to tell you that Americans think Biden is too old. As for 77-year-old Donald Trump? Now there’s someone who “does not appear to be suffering the effects of time in such visible ways.” ... What’s especially convenient about this storyline for the Times is that they’ve already been doing it for decades.

Well, NYT hasn’t been constantly reporting Biden’s age for decades. Until recently it was Biden the gaffe guy.

The New York Times, along with other media outlets, has created an opinion ouroboros. The publication provides stories that emphasize how Biden is old, slipping, and gaffe-prone. Then they circulate the news that people, shockingly, believe them. Then they use those poll results as an excuse to do it all again. When it comes to Trump … don’t worry about it. He dyes his hair and wears makeup and talks for a long time. According to the Times, that means you shouldn’t be concerned about his age. In fact, they have a poll that shows you’re not concerned. And now, here’s an article about how you’re not worried about Trump’s age.

Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos. Biden says, ticking off his fingers, “Lowered prescription costs, infrastructure bill, Chips Act, Inflation Reduction Act, Gun Safety Legislation, booming economy...” And an elephant jumps in, “Ha! Forgot the 14 million jobs he created ‘cuz his memory’s shot!” When Florida bans books what happens to them? Dartagnan of the Kos community reported on one case, what happened in Duval County. The county has 128K students. It had 180 titles in their Essential Voices collection, which it sends out to schools. At least 34 titles were identified as not in compliance with new legislation. The county packed the books in a semi-trailer. They were part of a prepackaged set and could not be resold. Firestorm Books in Asheville, North Carolina calls itself a “little anarchist’s bookshop.” They agreed to take the 22,000 books, though that’s nearly three times their usual inventory. They set up a website and whoever filled out an online request form would get books free of charge. More than a third of the request have come from ... Duval County. Many of the books are going to families with community libraries in their yards. Dartagnan quoted Eesha Pendharkar of Education Week who noted that when a book is challenged interest goes up. Student use of libraries also goes up.

So if Republicans’ newfound penchant for book-banning is so counterproductive, why do they do it? The short answer: It’s way to score cheap, easy political points with ignorant or intolerant constituents. But as Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers has noted, the broader end goal of inflicting these onerous laws on school districts is to weaken and ultimately destroy the public education system. Book bans serve that purpose well, by both draining resources from schools and intimidating teachers. Republicans will almost certainly continue these efforts, as long as they can get political benefit out of it. But the books will continue to be read, whether conservatives like it or not.

Tom Huizenga of NPR did a 7 minute report on the 100th anniversary of the premier of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It was part of a concert on February 12, 1924 titled “An Experiment in Modern Music.” The experiment was pieces that combined classical and jazz music. The audience loved it. Critics didn’t. Classical music composers of the time – including Aaron Copland, Virgil Thompson, and Leonard Bernstein – didn’t think it was serious music. Adding jazz elements to classical music was “poisoning the well,” as Huizinga wrote. In the 1920s there wasn’t a distinct “American” sound in classical music. I add back in the 1890s, when Antonin Dvorak spent three years teaching in New York, he called for American composers to use their folk music, including black folk music, to create a distinct “American” sound, in the same way Dvorak was using Bohemian tunes to create Bohemian classical music (as were composers across Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and Spain). The only American to actually incorporate black music was Gershwin. (More than a decade later Copland would start incorporating cowboy songs to create an American sound in classical music – see his composition Rodeo, recently used in the Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner campaign.) Following the Rhapsody Gershwin wrote An American in Paris, the Concerto in F, the Cuban Overture and the opera Porgy and Bess. There’s also a Second Rhapsody. Go ahead and take time to enjoy them all. On Monday in the 9:00 hour the Detroit classical station played the Rhapsody in Blue with its distinctive opening clarinet wail. And the Canadian station I like played it in the noon hour. Of course, I’ve heard lots of stories about the Rhapsody, usually told by radio hosts introducing the piece. Some were repeated today. The concert was set up by Paul Whiteman, who included Gershwin in the advertising – but didn’t tell Gershwin. He found out about it from a newspaper article read by his brother Ira. And even with limited time he met the deadline. As for that opening sound, Gershwin had notated every note of a rising scale. In the first rehearsal the clarinet player turned it into the glissando we know, perhaps to annoy Gershwin? But the composer loved it and asked how to properly notate it so it would forever be part of the piece.

They’re used to leaders with closets jam-packed with skeletons

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos wrote five things Democrats should like from the results of the New Hampshire primary. 1. After coming in much better than expected (though still definitely second in a two person race) Nikki Haley is now swinging hard against the nasty guy. She calls him geriatric and a loser (about time someone made an issue of his age and mental state instead of Biden’s age). 2. The nasty guy seethed about Haley for not dropping out.

But this is who Trump is—a seething loser. And the more it's on full display and the more voters get reacquainted with it, the better.

3. Haley overwhelmingly won independents. 4. Since Biden wanted South Carolina to be the first primary he wasn’t on the ballot in New Hampshire. He still won as a write-in candidate with 55%. Say goodbye to challenger Dean Philllips. 5:

Haley planning to stay in the race is the icing on the cake for Democrats, especially as she appears to finally be hitting her messaging stride. Haley could drop out, but frankly, what else does she have to do?

Mark Sumner of Kos also reports consequences of the NH primary. The nasty guy’s win, for a guy who is portraying himself as an incumbent, was unimpressive. Because Haley didn’t drop out he went to his social media to declare that anyone who supported her will be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.” Then he released a video statement saying he would also purge rogue bureaucrats, security officials, justice officials, and anyone else that isn’t MAGA.

Give it time, and a good MAGA rating might soon also be required to get a government contract. Or to travel freely around the country. Or to stay out of the massive internment camps Trump is planning. Trump has dropped all pretenses. Anyone who wants a future in Trump’s America had better get in line, and they better get in line now. And that’s exactly what Senate Republicans are doing.

That shows up in the combined Ukraine aid / Southern border deal Republicans said was required. Senate Republicans appear to be close to a deal.

Then, on Wednesday, Trump told Republicans to kill the deal so that he could continue to talk about the border for his campaign. And just like that, what Republicans were calling a crisis and an invasion became something that could be put off. Because nothing, nothing, nothing matters more to them than pleasing Trump. “I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that [Trump] would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.”

Joan McCarter of Kos reported the border deal seemed to be veering towards a crash on Tuesday. She included tweets by Sen. Mike Lee complaining that senators aren’t allowed to have enough time to review it – they should have at least three weeks. That ignores Congress has been talking about immigration for two decades. And he needs another three weeks. To come up with poison pill amendments?

That’s the perennial story of immigration reform in Congress. There’s two decades’ worth of supposed bipartisan history on immigration that’s been killed by the Republicans. This is too salient a political issue for them. They don’t want to secure the border with new funding and new policy directives. They want to keep the so-called border crisis in the headlines, just like they’ve done since 2001.

I heard a prediction a few weeks back that Republicans tied Ukraine aid to the border situation because the nasty guy didn’t want it to pass and the link was a way to do that. The prediction went on to say border security was chosen for the link because that wasn’t going to pass either. Lexie Schapitl, Eric McDaniel, and Susan Davis of NPR covered much of the same story, though added the reasons why the nasty guy shut down the border deal – it wasn’t “perfect.” As in: How could it be perfect if a Democrat agreed to it? Back to New Hampshire. Matt Wuerker posted a cartoon of of a news woman pointing to two people holding “IA” and “NH” signs and saying “The people have spoken!” as 48 other people holding other state signs stand behind her. That was posted the day before this news from Sumner that the cartoon might be true: The Republican National Committed has drafted a resolution to scrap its own rules and declare the nasty guy to be the “presumptive nominee” without bothering with primaries in the other 48 states. One reason for doing this is their rules say they can’t support a candidate unless he is the nominee. But it seems (to me) easier to scrap that rule than all the others. Another reason is the nasty guy is ahead in the polls. So why did they bother with Iowa and New Hampshire? I wonder if this is a way to keep Haley from being in the news attacking the nasty guy. Yes, all of this is very much not democracy.

But hey, at least Republicans are being consistent. They hate democracy in the general election, so why pretend it matters in the primary? No word yet on when the coronation will be held.

Eleveld reported the nasty guy and his MAGA backers are getting annoyed at Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee. Comer has been digging for impeachable dirt on Biden for a year now and has nothing. The annoyance is because:

When pundits call him the twice-impeached, four-time indictee, Trump has to be able to point at Biden and say he's the one who's really corrupt. Just look at what Congress found on him.

The annoyance has been expressed through leaks. That means:

In many ways, the leaks seem specifically designed to put Comer on notice that he not only needs to produce, but he'll be singularly on the hook if he doesn't.

Sumner wrote that Democrats have gotten organized and are now making hearings of Comer’s committee more fun.

Democrats aren’t just tearing Republican arguments apart: They’re derailing hearings and getting their opponents genuinely flustered. ... If all that seemed like it took a lot of behind-the-scenes planning, it did. But it won’t be the last time. Because as The Daily Beast reports, Democrats have a plan to make these hearings just as silly as the claims Republicans are making about Biden.

The goal of the hearings are, of course, to dig up dirt on Biden to reduce his chances of reelection and to tell the nasty guy they’re working on revenge for his two impeachments. For this purpose Democrats now have a Truth Squad of Reps. Jamie Raskin, Greg Casar, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, Daniel Goldman, and Jared Moskowitz. I’ve reported on some of what they’ve done already, such as completely flustering Republicans when Hunter Biden showed up to testify. Sumner then mentioned the leaks on Comer’s competency I mentioned above:

These anonymous Republicans don’t seem to be seriously considering that maybe Comer is failing not because he’s incompetent (or at least, not only because he’s incompetent) but because Joe Biden did nothing wrong. But then, they are Republicans. They’re used to having leaders whose closets are jam-packed with skeletons.

Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos it shows almost a dozen prominent Republicans with Mike Johnson saying, “We sold our souls to Trump and are awaiting payment...” I haven’t written about Ukraine in at least three weeks. So I’ll start with an article Sumner wrote on January 5. The front hasn’t changed. Ukraine keeps pushing back Russian assaults.

What has changed is that there are increasing reports that Ukrainian forces are just bloody tired. That operations are running on superhuman efforts that can’t be sustained. That Ukrainian artillery units are being forced to retreat, or are incapable of halting a Russian advance because they are too low on shells. And that some Ukrainian units are unable to fill their ranks because Ukrainians are all too aware of conditions at the front.

Ukraine is considering raising the age limit of soldiers who want to stay. It is also considering lowering conscription from 27 to 25 – which seems quite high to Americans dragged off to war at 18. But Ukraine doesn’t want to win a war by losing a huge percentage of young men. Yeah, it is Russia who is taking kids out of school and drafting pensioners and not giving them sufficient training. Their soldiers are getting tired of the “meat assaults.” There are reports of shortage of artillery shells. Ukraine isn’t using shells at the same rate as Russia – which is now using shells decades old. But the West relies on combined arms operations which doesn’t depend as much on artillery, so the West doesn’t stockpile as much. North Korea is restocking Russia’s shells, maybe as many as a million – which should last a few weeks. Drones have changed the war and neither side has a formula to give themselves an advantage. The situation is still a stalemate. Also in early January in a pundit roundup on Kos exlrrp commented with a meme. It shows Putin saying:

Buy American. I bought one Trump and got the whole Republican Party for free.

On January 10 Kos of Kos wrote a Ukraine update that was more about the current axis of evil. That’s a phrase Bush Junior used to justify invading Iraq. The current axis is Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China. Kos wrote that if the US doesn’t lead the opposition, no one will.

These nations have realized that their global aspirations cannot be accomplished as long as a militarily and economically dominant West acts as a roadblock to their regional ambitions. Still, that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. Take a look at the world’s war-ridden hotspots and you’ll see that virtually every one of them has at least one of these nation’s fingerprints on it.

The invasion in Ukraine is by Russia supported by North Korea. Next to Israel Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are supported by Iran. Russia backed a coup in Niger. The spat between Venezuela and Guyana is supported by both Russia and China. North Korea changed its policy of reuniting with South Korea to one of conquest. And China is being belligerent to Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, prompting Australia to update its navy. This axis is watching Ukraine – and Republicans in the US Congress – very carefully.

If Putin succeeds in even annexing part of Ukraine, it will be a rousing victory and a call to arms for this new axis. But if the West rallies, builds up its military arsenal, maintains and even strengthens its sanctions, the axis will likely determine that any military adventurism is too fraught with risk, and the status quo, however tense, will remain. The alternative—a hot war in the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan strait, or Europe—would be catastrophic both in terms of lives lost and to the global economy. The bigger the cost to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the less likely a war between major powers becomes. The bigger Russia’s defeat, the greater the damage to Iran, North Korea, and maybe even China. (At the same time, China appears to be in a win-win scenario at Russia’s expense. If Russia wins, China has an emboldened ally that would almost assuredly aid in an invasion of Taiwan. And if Russia loses, China gains a new vassal state with the natural resources to feed its own machine.) Ultimately, the West needs to do everything in its power to help Ukraine win—and do so as quickly as possible. We need the Republican Party to stop being Iran and China’s biggest international ally. (Their support of Putin is well past absurdity.) Global peace depends on it.

On January 19 Kos wrote about German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who said Putin could attack NATO in 5 to 8 years. So is that really a threat? That ignores Putin is already attacking NATO through election meddling and cyberattacks. He has also pushed migrants towards NATO borders to destabilize European governments. But a conventional war against the West? Extremely unlikely. But that’s still a reason to help Ukraine. The ground war in Ukraine is at a stalemate. They can’t advance without horrific casualties. The war probably can’t be won on the battlefield. It is now time to press the economic war and push Russia to its economic and sociological brink.

The German defense minister is right that Russia is a threat, and Ukraine has gone a long way to neutering it. The best way to avoid the nightmare “World War III” scenario is to not just keep supporting Ukraine but also to give the country what it needs to eliminate Russia’s war-making potential. That won’t pay dividends just in Europe. It will be a signal to China, too, that any military designs on Taiwan would be similarly doomed to failure.

Sumner wrote that this past Wednesday marked 700 days since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia expected Ukraine to fall in days. Remember that 40-kilometer convoy where officers brought along dress uniforms?

The truth is, almost everyone expected Ukraine to lose—and lose quickly. Except the Ukrainians. The next time anyone saw those Russian dress uniforms, they were being pulled out of tanks destroyed along the highway after Ukraine drove away Russian forces. Putin couldn’t take Kyiv in three days. Or three weeks. Or three months. And he’s not going to take it in three years. Because he’s simply not going to win this war.

Policy positions v. a baseball bat

Testimony in the nasty guys business fraud case is wrapping up. He wanted to give his own closing arguments, an unusual move. The judge, Arthur Engoron, first thought to let him provided he didn’t turn it into a campaign speech, then on Wednesday said no he couldn’t. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported that early morning Thursday, the day of closing arguments, authorities went to Engoron’s home in response to a bomb threat. No actual bomb was found and the court proceedings continued as scheduled. A second AP article reported:

Barred from giving a formal closing argument, Donald Trump seized an opportunity to speak in court at the conclusion of his New York civil trial Thursday, unleashing a barrage of attacks during a six-minute diatribe before being cut off by the judge. “We have a situation where I am an innocent man,” the former president protested. “I’m being persecuted by someone running for office and I think you have to go outside the bounds.” After a few minutes, Judge Arthur Engoron — who had denied Trump permission earlier to give a closing statement at the trial — cut him off and recessed for lunch.

This article added a bit more about the bomb threat and also reviewed the case. Bill Bramhall of the New York Daily News tweeted a cartoon of a bomb squad in Engoron’s office and the squad leader saying, “All clear to write the verdict.” Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote about projection and the nasty guy’s escalating use of it.

Donald Trump dropped some blatant teasers last week revealing what the day-to-day experience of living under a second Trump regime would be like. They all share a common theme or motif, one routinely employed by fascists and despots in autocratic societies to bamboozle the public while keeping their critics (often the media) off balance. The method is called “projection,” and for Trump it is a well-documented, well-established rhetorical tool. ... Projection essentially means accusing your opponents of the crimes and misdeeds you are actually guilty of yourself in order to distract from your own behavior. Its effect is reminiscent of the classic old carnival attraction known as a “hall of mirrors.” A hall of mirrors, of course, is a room or series of rooms staged and set up to reflect back grotesquely distorted images of everyone who passes through. The purpose is to unsettle and confuse, to keep the observer off balance and questioning their reality through a repeated sequence of disturbing illusions.

The projection is now to the point where the nasty guy is calling Biden the insurrectionist. Dartagnan quoted Jason Stanely, professor of philosophy at Yale University:

Fascist tactics always involve projection. The fascists are always accusing their opponents of being the totalitarians. The fascists are always accusing their opponents of being the threat to the nation that they in fact are. The fascists are the most corrupt people, like the Nazi party was incredibly corrupt, incredibly lawless. But they accused their opponents of being corrupt.

Dartagnan quoted professors Chris Bell and Gary Senecal who wrote an article for Room analyzing the nasty guy’s rhetorical tactics. They said projection can make a situation difficult to understand. That creates confusion and obscures reality. It gives the appearance the opponents are doing the same things, creating a false equivalency. Back to Stanley, who said projection manipulates a susceptible population, to make them feel like victims, that they’ve lost something because of a particular enemy. Stanley wrote, “This is why fascism flourishes in moments of great anxiety, because you can connect that anxiety with fake loss.” Dartagnan quoted David Renton, writing for Jacobin, who said fascists use projection to co-opt the state institutions best equipped to perpetrate the violence that sustains fascism. In fascists states the violence is aimed at women (for violating the “natural order”) and anyone that blurs the line between male and female, such as LGBTQ people, especially transgender. In present day America that means co-opting the military and the intelligence services. The nasty guy will escalate the sense of threat and use the formidable tools to eliminate the threat. He and his enablers have announced they will do just that in a second term. Escalating the threat keeps the focus off the person doing the escalating. Bell and Senecal explain that projection bypasses logical debate, including developing a background knowledge of an issue and engaging in a reasoned case over position. Instead, it confirms preexisting biases. This is what is coming in a second term. It will be similar to the first but with a much more sophisticated propaganda and disinformation apparatus. If you don’t wish to live in such a country understand this well and vote accordingly. Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press shows a modern debate. The Democrat has a stack of policy positions. The Republican has a baseball bat. Mark Sumner of Kos has a few things to say to those who believe the nasty guy won’t impose a national abortion ban. First, instead of participating in the last Iowa debate (Haley and DeathSantis on stage) the nasty guy had a solo “town hall” on Fox News where the host lobbed easy questions so he could talk about himself. As part of that he bragged about he was the one to end Roe v. Wade. Second, he has been talking, not about enacting a national abortion ban, but warning fellow Republicans that talking about abortion before the election isn’t good for getting elected. But after the election he’ll be ready to sign a national ban through executive order. Third, he’s been repeating a hideous lie, one that Fox News hosts are letting slide, that Democrats want to kill babies, even after they are born. (See above about projection.) Dartagnan also discussed the nasty guy telling European officials he intends to pull us out of NATO. A fundamental position of that organization is if one member is attacked it will be seen as an attack on all and all will respond. That’s why during the Cold War the Soviets never attacked West Germany. It why in the current war Putin isn’t attacking Poland or the Baltic states. That deterrence won’t mean much if the US president says the other members are on their own. If Russia doesn’t fear a US response they are much more likely to attack. Ask Ukraine about it. The US betrayal of Europe would also make South Korea, Taiwan, and Israel wonder if they’re next. The US military would lose standing in the world. Trade agreements would be seen as suspect or worthless.

As those alliances disintegrated, the entire idea of democratic representation—the idea that people deserve a voice in their own government—would start to erode on a global scale. It wouldn’t happen quickly, as Applebaum notes, but, “By the time people here realize how much has changed, it will be too late.”

The nasty guy may have complained about US protection being a handout to Europe. But this is about “our own country’s future and its ability to survive in the world we are faced with.” And the nasty guy seems willing to throw that away. My goodness, I’m getting tired of writing about this guy and the havoc he intends to inflict. I want to ignore him until after election day, but I dare not. Last week I wrote about environmental tipping points. Pakalolo of the Kos community reported that science has determined another. This is the “snow loss cliff.” As long as the average winter temperature of an area stays below 17F (-8C) the snowpack at higher elevations is stable. What melting it does provides water to people who live downstream. But when the average temperature rises the snowpack decreases. Here’s the tipping point part: each degree of warming means faster decreases in the snowpack. This is not a linear relationship. By the time the temperature reaches 32F (0C) half the snowpack can be lost. Snow cover is not the same as snowpack. Snow cover refers to the geographic range of the show. Snowpack refers to the amount of water frozen in the snow.

Go ahead, wrap a feather boa around the missile

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reviewed the Republican case against Joe and Hunter Biden. More accurately, the sources for the claims of scandal against the president and his son. One informant, Gal Luft, is on the run after jumping bail. He faces charges of illegal arms dealing, lying to federal agents, and being an agent of China. Attorney David Weiss brought minor charges against Hunter a while back and Gary Shapley is now accusing Weiss of protecting the Bidens. But Shapley seems to be doing this because he blames Weiss for blocking Shapley’s promotion. There is a form called the FD 10-23 used by the FBI that is a record of unverified reporting from a confidential source. Since it is both unverified and confidential the FBI won’t release it. Republicans are trying to force the release. That battle was part of the grilling FBI director Christopher Wray got from Republicans in Congress – so it’s useful for that. Details of the source are coming out – in this case the source was the wife of Mykola Lisin of Ukraine. Lisin died in 2011 when he was speeding in his Lamborghini and crashed it. That’s three years before Hunter was involved in Buisma of Ukraine. As for the wife, she’s never actually named and it’s possible she never existed. There is a claim of 17 tapes that supposedly have evidence of ... something. But no one knows where those tapes actually are. There are Whatsapp messages from Hunter extorting a Chinese official. But they’re obviously fake and from a time when Joe was a private citizen so his position couldn’t be used for extortion. As I had reported before if Weiss had a stronger case against Hunter he would have brought appropriate charges. No one higher up was preventing that. So, in summary, they have ... nothing. Which means they’ll keep looking. Hunter of Kos discussed a rant from Rep. Matt Rosendale, who screeched:

We have drag shows taking place at Malmstrom Air Force Base. There are 150 ICBM missiles that are being controlled by that Air Force Base and by these individuals. I don't want someone who doesn’t know if they are a man or a woman with their hand on a missile button.

Which only shows Rosendale doesn’t understand drag, it’s long history, or that Bob Hope used to include drag when entertaining the troops. So what does Rosendale mean when he doesn’t want drag show enthusiasts to “control” nuclear missiles? Doe he not know launch protocols and that the president must issue the launch? Does he not know the guy launching the missile doesn’t aim it? Who or what does he think they’ll aim it at? Is he afraid a drag queen enthusiast will turn the missile gay, in which the fallout turns everyone fabulous?

I don't even care if you put the missiles themselves in drag. You want to wrap a feather boa around that thing, you go right the hell ahead. Slap some lipstick on that intercontinental Ru Paul, give it nice rosy missile cheeks, I don't care. It's still going to blow everything to s--- if anyone ever presses the doomsday button, and nobody in Moscow or Pyongyang is going to file a sternly worded protest because the missile headed towards them is more glam than the 100 or so missiles headed towards everybody else.

One person who should never be anywhere near Malmstrom or any military base is Rosendale. In a Ukraine update Sumner talked about what was behind Zelenskyy’s plea for Ukraine to join NATO as the NATO country leadership gathered in Vilnius. It comes down to the worry that Biden may lose the 2024 election. The entire Ukrainian military sees Biden as the guy who keeps saying no. But they’re not going to do better than him. Ukraine – the whole world – pays very close attention to American politics. They know Biden’s reelection is not a sure thing. And many of the Republicans have said they are quite willing to let Russia keep land to get “peace.” Considering what the nasty guy tried to do to NATO a Republican in the White House could very easily stall Ukraine’s application, giving Russia time to rearm and try again. The only thing Ukraine can do is try to win faster. Zelenskyy now has a goal of doing that by the next NATO summit, which is in Washington a year from now. That’s why Zelenskyy was trying to get a firm agreement about what it had to do to be ready to be admitted into NATO. Kos of Kos wrote that since this foolish war started almost 17 months ago every week has been bad for Putin. But this last week seems especially bad. Here are some reasons: * Turkish president Erdoğan flipped to approving Swedish membership in NATO. He returned to Ukraine some the commanders that defended Mariupol. He renewed the grain corridor deal, forcing Russia to go along. And Turkey is clearly pivoting back to the West. * Russia was a driving force in the BRICS alliance – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – is falling apart. India is turning towards the West. South Africa is hosting the August BRICS meeting and has told Russia to not send Putin, because if Putin attended they’d have to arrest him for war crimes. * It appears Ukraine got some of what it wanted on its way to join NATO – no need for a Membership Action Plan. Finish that little war and you’re in. * Several new weapons systems have been promised or are arriving soon. * Putin has locked up some of his generals (Ukraine won’t have to kill them). One of those generals, Ivan Popov criticized how poorly the military is being run. He’s gone and his successor won’t make that mistake. * Prigozhin, the guy who staged that mini coup, is still free and refuses to cede control of his mercenaries. Has Russia’s balance of power shifted? * The Russian Ruble has, over the last year, dropped nearly 37% against the dollar. That ain’t good for the Russian economy. * The Gulf of Finland has St. Petersburg at its eastern end with Finland and Estonia on either side. And those two countries have agreed to combine their coastal defense commands. All of that in a week.

It's not just Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy or ballet

I finished the book Bewilderment, a novel by Richard Powers. This is the third novel by Powers I’ve read and enjoyed all three very much. The narrator is Theo, an astrobiologist trying to model how we might detect life on exoplanets, those outside our solar system. The other main character is his nine year old son Robin. One doctor says Robin is on the autistic spectrum, another says Robin is ADHD, and his school wants him medicated because of violent outbursts. Theo thinks it wrong to medicate a child so young. Robin’s mother Alyssa died two years before the story opens, though there are flashbacks so we can see who she was. Though marketed as general literature, this is science fiction. That comes through in a treatment of biofeedback offered to Robin that is beyond what can be done now and has side effects that unnerve Theo. The treatment allows Robin, always fascinated with nature, to become essentially Greta Thunberg’s more artistic little brother. Robin can’t fathom why humans are so destructive to nature. At times when Theo needs to calm Robin they take a mental journey to an exoplanet to explore what life might be like there. The description of one of them prompted me to think it was symbolic of the relationship between Theo and Robin, but the symbolism of other planets escaped me. This is the second novel in a row – the other being The End of Eddy – in which dialogue isn’t enclosed in quotes, instead it is italicized. Eddy used it for all characters. This one does it for Robin’s and Alyssa’s words while Theo’s words are put in quotes. In this case it might be appropriate, leading one to wonder whether Robin actually spoke out loud or Theo is imagining what his son is saying. This use of language is not one I would want to see catch on, though it is better than a few novels (the ones I can think of are Australian) where there is no separation of spoken text. There’s just things like this: It’s a cloudy day, he said. Robin is quite the intriguing character, frequently bewildering his dad. The language Powers uses is gentle and evocative. I recommend this one. I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data updated Tuesday. We seem to be in a plateau, thankfully a low one. The peaks in the number of new cases per day for the last few weeks are 984, 844, 778, and 764. The number of deaths per day remains at a low level. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted Alan Elrod of Arc Digital discussing the word “groomer,” among others, by the anti-LGBTQ crowd:

What I want to note is the way this idea invites a view of being trans as an illness and, by emphasizing it as a social contagion that can rapidly overwhelm a young person, one that is highly communicable. As to the supposed spreaders of this illness? Well, Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik was unequivocal in her condemnation of LGBTQ advocates, calling them “groomers” and concluding “I think they’re evil.”

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that a bill to ban children and youth from drag shows has been introduced in the Nebraska legislature. It is backed by Sen. Dave Murman, who said, “I think the vast majority of Nebraskans would agree that sexualized dancing and enhanced genitals is not appropriate for children to view.” I agree with Einenkel – “enhanced genitals?” Where is this guy’s brain? Einenkel note this bill may prevent youth from seeing the show “Hairspray” and perhaps a few of Shakespeare’s plays (and in Shakespeare’s time that would be all of his plays because women were banned from acting and men played the female roles). Sen. Megan Hunt added an amendment to the bill, showing two people can play this game. The opening text, likely mimicking the original, says,

The Legislature finds that there is a well documented history of indoctrination and sexual abuse perpetrated by religious leaders and clergy people upon children. Abusers within churches and other religious institutions often use events like church or youth-group-sponsored camps and retreats to earn children's trust and gain unsupervised access to such children in order to commit such abuse.

So kids should be banned from church camps and also from rituals where ceremonial alcohol is present. For my non Christian friends – in the Sunday service, the Mass, in the Catholic Church and in some Protestant denominations the high point is the Eucharist or Communion, which includes a sip of wine. Other Protestant denominations have replaced the wine with grape juice. So, yeah, Hunt’s amendment would ban youth and children from Mass. Einenkel discussed a study released by the Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center about 173 mass attacks that occurred between 2016 and 2020. Some of what the study showed: No community is immune from being a target. Guns were the cause of injury and death in three-quarters of the attacks. Less than a quarter of those gun attacks involved a gun acquired illegally. One-quarter of the attackers held a belief (that was important to the attack? Einenkel isn’t clear) that is conspiratorial, topic specific, or hate-focused. More findings:

96% of the attackers studied were male, 3% were female, and 2% were transgender. 57% of attackers were white. 34% of attackers were Black. 11% of attackers were Hispanic. 4% of attackers were Asian. 1% of attackers were American Indian. 72% of attackers experienced some kind of financial stressor sometime prior to the attack. Just under 20% of attackers had an “unstable housing” situation at the time of the attack. Bystanders intervened in about 10% of the attacks. When that happened, the attacker was killed by the intervening bystander only 2% of the time. (Think the mythic “good guy with a gun.”) While there was a large age range, the average age of an attacker was 34 years old. 41% of attackers had a history of “engaging in at least one incident of domestic violence.” And nearly a fifth of attackers exhibited “misogynistic behaviors.”

In a pundit roundup by Chitown Kev of Kos commenter Hugh Jim Bissell wrote:

We need a new metric: a number that describes how many are killed by gunfire in a given election district as a function of how much money the gun industry gives to public office holders and seekers in that district. Such a metric would help us know how much value each representative gives the lives of their constituents. If you take the amount of NRA funding received by each elected representative and divide it by the number of dead kids in their respective jurisdictions during their time in office, you’ll get exactly how much they earned for each killing.

That second paragraph is in an image and has a different font. I don’t know if it is original to Bissell or he pulled it from somewhere else. Leah McElrath tweeted a thread about US police traveling to Israel for training. Sometimes the Israeli trainers come to them. The Anti-Defamation League and American taxpayers fund these trips. This kind of training happened before the deaths of George Floyd, Freddie Gray, and Tyre Nichols. Police are also getting surplus military equipment. This is important because:

Our tax dollars are being spent to send US police officials to Israel to be trained to respond to Americans as though we are all terrorists within our own country.

McElrath got significant pushback for her thread.

If you question the activities of Israel, its government, or its security forces, you will be attacked as “antisemitic” or as engaging in “blood libel.” First time I’ve been called a “Nazi” though. FTR, I question the actions of *every* state, government, and security force.

The trolling got so bad she had to lock down her Twitter account for awhile, permitting no one outside of trusted friends to see it. I was one of those who tried to see her tweets during that time and was denied. Sweden and Finland have applied to join NATO. Turkey, already a NATO member, has been holding up Sweden’s approval over what Turkey says are anti-Islamic incidents. Recently there was a new incident of someone burning a copy of the Quran, upsetting Turkey again. Anders Åslund, who has written a book about Russia, tweeted a quote from a TV news report.

"Swedish journalist Chang Frick, affiliated with Russian propagandist channel RT, paid for Danish far-right activist Rasmus Paludan to publicly burn the Quran near the Turkish embassy in Sweden." To block Sweden from NATO...

Also, Alexander Stubb, former Prime Minister of Finland and now a professor at the School for Transnational Governance and a member of an organization promoting conflict resolution, tweeted:

This should come as no surprise. Russia seems to be behind the burning of the Quran in Sweden. This is what hybrid warfare of a rogue state looks like. In today's world everything can be weaponised.

Andrew Michta, dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the Marshall Center, tweeted a thread:

A word of advice for all those "realists" among Western elites who oppose support for #Ukraine: Finally, once and for all bury the Yalta mindset. Understand the Russia is no more entitled to a sphere of influence than a gangster is entitled to keep the spoils of a robbery. Time to set aside our double standard whereby when it comes to #Russia, we don't enforce the rules, but instead hope for a good tsar (Gorbachev, Yeltsin) with whom we can (to quote Lady Thatcher) "do business." We should also set aside the nonsense about Russian high culture. Russian culture must be seen in its totality -- it's not just Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy or ballet; it's first and foremost the Gulag, prisons, firing squads, rape and torture. It's the culture of violence and theft as a mode of governance. It's an empire awash in blood.

In a Ukraine update Mark Sumner of Kos included a video that appears to be put out by the Wagner Group, the mercenary group beating against Bakhmut for the last six months or so but not yet taking it (though they might now be close). The video appears to be recruiting Americans to join Russia’s fight, claiming only Russia is fighting against evil. Sumner wrote:

The video may or may not be an actual production of the Wagner Group. To quote pro-Russian bloggers when they’re pretending that Ukraine hasn’t just liberated Kyiv, Kharkiv, or Kherson … time will tell. But whoever put together this “true patriot” video did an admirable job of touching Americans right in the Q-center. From the footage of Jan. 6 “patriots” to the final scenes that crib part of the atomic blast from Terminator 2, it’s a love letter to anyone who ever thought it would be great to scream “Wolverines!” only while working for the Russians. Will this video actually send some Americans looking for the nearest Wagner recruiting station? Unknown. But it’s tempting to wish them success in this venture. Sending Americans to Ukraine who believe in Wagner’s idea of “the patriot” might be the best thing for both nations.

Jon Hawkes tweeted an image of a Full Width Mine Plough – a big device with a tarantula vibe that can plow up mines from fields and wherever else they might be. If I’m decoding the abbreviations right Germany facilitated getting a large quantity of them from a manufacturer in England into Ukraine by the end of the year. How the thing keeps from getting blown up from each mine it encounters is not explained. I’ve collected several cartoons and tweets that all have to do with racism. There is a famous 1964 painting by Norman Rockwell of a black girl being escorted by federal officers to a school in New Orleans to force integration. Two recent cartoons play on that painting. Mike Luckovich tweeted an image of a white girl being escorted by men with “GOP” armbands. She says, “But I don’t wanna be protected from black history.” Andy Marlette tweeted an image of a black girl carrying a Black History book. But instead of being escorted, she is stopped by a man with a “DeSantis” button. Ruben Bolling of Kos showed the covers of several popular children’s books reworked to meet the standards of DeathSantis. The titles include “Harry the White Dog and His Black Friend Who’s Never Experienced Any Racism” and “The Free Market Tree” by Shel Silverstein. Luckovich again, with a child walking through a detector that starts beeping. The cop say, “Halt, is that a book in your backpack?” Incognito Finito tweeted with a photo to prove it:

I bought a bag of M&M's and they don't have M's anymore. They all have W's... for woke.

Professor Bigfoot tweeted in response to Stewardship asking, “Why is the white man so deathly afraid of the black man and our culture?”

A desperate fear of being “ruled over” by their lessers. This cartoon is from the 1870s near the end of Reconstruction, a time when Black men were being elected to Congress. The pathological need to dominate and control stems from fear.

The cartoon shows a white man with a smoking gun with a small black child at his feet, “Ef I hadn’t-er killed you, you would have growed up to rule me.” Someone fearful of being ruled over by their lessers is someone highly invested in the social hierarchy and glad there is someone below him. I think the fear comes from the need to dominate, not the other way around. Their fear is of losing their position in the hierarchy to someone they feel should be below them.

The Second Amendment has become a right to murder

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported on a pronouncement:

We have got to figure out some way to identify these troubled young men & it's very complicated because after every one of these shootings there are people who say ‘Oh you know I thought he was pretty strange. I wish I notified somebody about it,’

In the case of the Highland Park members of the shooter’s family called police on him twice. Which makes it quite infuriating that the guy who spoke those words was Moscow Mitch – the guy who, because of his position in the Senate, has done the most to keep gun restrictions from passing. Which means he hopes we’ll see a tiny drop of compassion in his words. He’s doing it to prevent passage of more restrictive gun laws. Hunter of Kos wrote a great essay on America’s gun culture. We all heard about the shooting in Highland Park. But that was only one of eleven mass shootings over the holiday weekend. Through the rest of the essay Hunter discussed a tweet by Sen. Ted Cruz who declared the Second Amendment is about the right to defend your right and your family. Which has become a right to murder. Hunter wrote:

A "good guy" with a gun decides that people he personally knows need murdering, so he does it. ... This, after all, is the very premise of American gun ownership. If some other American does something you simply cannot abide, then militia movements, the National Rifle Association, and Republican would-be presidential candidates all agree that you must be given access to a gun so that you can respond. It is called “self-defense.” ... The Ted Cruz argument is that all Americans have the right to determine whether they need to shoot six, 10, or 60 such people in order to "defend" themselves against a perceived threat, and the right to stock weapons capable of doing it, and the only role of policing is to sort out whether or not the law justifies the killing after the bodies are stacked up and carted away. But Americans have the right to make the choice to kill, Ted Cruz and the other argue, and their right to decide for themselves who needs killing and when must be given absolute precedence over the rights of everyone else around them.

When that gun is aimed at you your choices come down to shoot back – or die. Their right to shoot you trumps your right to not die. Those that advocate the “Good Murder Theory” saw the shooting in Uvalde as an ideal scenario – the shooter has plenty of time to identify those that need murdering and kill them before police intervene. And the police hesitate because they’re afraid of the gunman. The point of gun ownership is to kill dozens before being taken out. Nope, other countries don’t do it this way. Their definition of self defense means actually being physically threatened at the moment. And a person doesn’t get access to guns. And if you do have one that’s proof you’re a threat and the police have the right to subdue you. The American version is seditious. It is a belief that the right to murder trumps government itself. That means the murderer is given total access to guns and society judges whether the it was a “good” murder after the victim is dead.

We are the only one that looks at the victims inside a bloody grade school classroom or alongside a 4th of July parade route and declares that it is good that the murderer was able to accomplish that much because it shows future "good" killers could do at least that much, in an imagined future in which the nation might depend on a sea of "good" killers to set things right. It is deranged. Prioritizing the rights of murderers to murder on impulse and with maximum efficiency in order to prepare for a future in which "good" murderers can dominate their enemies is absolutely deranged. The only people who would advocate for it are those that truly believe their personal or political enemies may someday need murdering, if push comes to shove. People like Ted Cruz.

In thinking about what Hunter wrote – about the claim such murders are self defense – I note the civilians who end up dead are not in the moment threatening the physical safety of the shooter. What they feel is being threatened is their position (or its lack) in the social hierarchy. That they value more than their own lives. As for killers to “set things right” I know quite well who they want to kill to make that happen. April Siese of Kos discussed an article from Rolling Stone. Peggy Nienaber is the vice president of the anti-abortion group Faith & Liberty and the executive director of Liberty Counsel’s DC Ministry. Liberty Counsel is cited as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The news is that Nienaber was caught on video saying she prays with some of the Supreme Court justices (though she’s disappointed it’s not all) and does it in the Supreme Court building. This is a big problem, even if they don’t discuss specific cases, for two reasons: First, it violates the separation of church and state because it clearly invites one particular religion into government action. Second, Liberty Counsel frequently brings cases before the Court. And the members of the Court who participate in these prayers are highly biased in their favor. Sawyer Hackett tweeted that video. Kos of Kos again discussed the tankies, those that believe only America is imperialist and no one else has free agency. They believe Sweden and Finland didn’t ask to join NATO to avoid Russian imperialism but because America tricked them into it. I’ll let you read the rest of what Kos has to say about them. I’m only posting this because near the top is a good thing – a map of Europe showing NATO in 1998 and in 2022 (before Sweden and Finland applied). The only European countries west of Ukraine not in NATO are Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Bosnia, and Serbia. For several years now NPR hosts and reporters have read the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July. This year they broke from that tradition to explore the phrase “All men are created equal.” Host Steve Inskeep led the discussion. We get caught up in the limits of the word “men” in that phrase, but historian Jill Lepore says for the 18th century this was quite radical. These men were from a highly ranked culture and to challenge and throw away that ranking is revolutionary. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed says Jefferson understood the contradiction of equality amongst white people but not between white and black. Jefferson’s plan was to give black people their own country and government “because he didn't think Blacks would forgive whites for what they had done, and whites would never give up their prejudices. So we would constantly be in a state of conflict.” And that state of conflict endures. By 1791 people not included in the original claim of equality threw Jefferson’s words back at him. Benjamin Banneker, a black naturalist and writer, did it that year. The women at the 1848 Seneca Falls, NY convention rewrote the phrase to add “and women” to it. By the time of Frederick Douglass the goal shifted from denouncing the phrase to saying include us in it. As part of seceding the South said that phrase is wrong, that the black man is not equal. The South lost and equality (at least racial equality) finally became a part of the Constitution as the 14th amendment. And as part of the Constitution over the decades other groups demanded inclusion – natives, women, blacks, people wanting to be free of huge corporate monopolies, and LGBTQ people. The debate over the meaning of equality continues. Does a woman have equal control over her body? Who is, and is not, allowed to vote? Some claim that certain people are more equal than others. We need to keep the debate going.

A positive school experience

Savannah Tryens-Fernandes of AL.com wrote about a new high school just south of Birmingham, Alabama that is about to graduate its first seniors. The Magic City Acceptance Academy opened last fall and is the first LGBTQ-affirming charter school in the South. It serves grades 6-12. As with other charter schools they accept more than LGBTQ kids. The process to receive a charter was quite long. – they had to go before the charter commission four times. When it was preparing to open the staff thought why would a student want to leave a high school with just one year to go to come here? When 11 seniors showed up the answer was obvious: they didn’t feel safe at their former school. As in really didn’t feel safe. So unsafe they didn’t dare go to a dance and kept scissors handy as protection. Some didn’t dare go to the cafeteria. So this was a last chance at a positive school experience.

In Alabama, LGBTQ youth are three times more likely to attempt suicide compared to their peers, and twice as likely to not go to school because they felt unsafe or experienced violence on campus, according to the state’s most recent youth risk behavior survey. Trevor Project researchers found that “LGBTQ youth in the South with at least one in-person LGBTQ-affirming space, such as a school, had more than 40% lower odds of reporting a suicide attempt in the past year,” said Myeshia Price, senior research scientist.

And at MCAA they have become a family for each other. In January 2022 they had to go virtual while the omicron variant raged. Once back together they needed to celebrate. So they did a drag show. That included dressing up Social Studies teacher Daniel Evans (who has a transgender child). A week later Tim James, candidate for governor of Alabama, issued a TV ad decrying tax dollars going to a “transgender” school. The ad also called the drag show “exploitation.” Which pretty much proves why the school is necessary. Of course the ad made the students feel a bit more anxious and unsafe. Time to upgrade the school’s security. And five days later the state legislature cut $2.9 million designated for charter schools. The money will instead go to the department of education without designation. 48 hours later the emergency room at the children’s hospital in Birmingham had a big uptick in suicide attempts. That prompted Evans to teach some basic skills, such as how to change a tire so a student doesn’t have to walk a couple miles to a gas station late at night. On senior prom day Lindy Blanchard, another GOP candidate for governor decried taxpayer money going to that “transgender school” when it could be better spent improving mental health and other programs across the state. Yeah, that’s clueless. Giving students a safe school environment is mental health. This sounds like a cool high school to attend. Back when I was in high school all these decades ago I was more than closeted, I was clueless. I made no attempt to figure out why I liked to watch the young men and ignored the young women – well other than the one I “dated” because I thought that’s what I’m supposed to do. I wasn’t particularly upset when she started going out with someone else. At that time a school like this would have terrified me. I had written about the small number of trans kids who do a social transition and then decide to retransition to their birth gender. Marissa Higgins of Daily Kos looked at another study of the number of trans youth who receive gender affirming surgery and then regret it. That number is 1%. Republicans love to talk about trans folks and regret. Are they going to talk about this study? Higgins also explains some of these surgeries. The most important part is:

None of these surgeries, treatments, or processes make someone more or less trans or more or less of their gender identity. You never need to know any of this information in order to respect a person’s identity, which includes using the correct pronouns, providing bathroom access, and so on.

Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that Russia took two months to grind out the two miles from Pervormaisk to Popasna. The town, reduced to rubble, is now theirs. But now that it’s theirs they don’t seem to know what to do with it. Should they attack north? Or is it west? Or maybe south? Yeah, they capture another village or two, but haven’t put up enough sustained effort in one direction to get anywhere else. Sumner also included a tweet from AP Oddities with a photo showing...

A small brewery in Finland has launched a NATO-themed beer to mark the Nordic country’s bid to join the Western military alliance.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary:

There's bad news for Russia. Finland and Sweden have both signed off on their bids to join NATO. Finland and Sweden are very serious about making this official—they've each left a toothbrush in NATO's bathroom already. —Stephen Colbert

Charles Jan of the Kos community reported nearly 1,000 Ukrainian soldier who had been in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol are now in Russian hands. Their fate is uncertain. The injured ones were taken to a hospital in the Russian controlled part of Donbas. Ukraine wants to do a prisoner exchange. Russia wants to interrogate them then put them on trial for war crimes. Some of these soldiers were part of the Azov Regiment, a far right group. Russia has declared them to be Nazis. This regiment had recaptured Mariupol in 2014 and had repelled repeated Russian attacks since then. Ukrainian officials say Azov had become part of the Ukraine National Guard and had abandoned its far right origins. Russian social media channels are calling for the Azov forces to be imprisoned or murdered instead of being used in negotiations. The Russian parliament was to consider a resolution banning using these soldiers in an exchange, but didn’t act on it. Kos of Kos referenced translated Russian language accounts of the war to explain that Russia may have a large number of Battalion Tactical Groups on paper. But on the ground that’s an entirely different thing. One BTG is to have 600-800 soldiers, 10 tanks, 40 infantry fighting vehicles and a long list of support vehicles. At the Izyum front estimates say Russia has 22 BTGs. In reality ... a company of 120-160 soldiers actually had 13. Since they are told they’re being sent to sure death, many find a reason not to go. For those who do fight they don’t have enough trucks (no fuel?) to carry them to the front, so it is a several hour march to get there. Which means they’re mighty tired before any fighting begins. Then they have to carry (or abandon) the dead for the long march back to camp. No wonder it takes them two months to capture two miles. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Dara Massicot of Foreign Affairs. After listing a large number of things the Russian Army is doing wrong, Massicot wrote:

These problems do not stop at technical equipment issues, poor training, or corruption. Rather, they are linked by a core underlying theme: the military’s lack of concern for the lives and well-being of its personnel. In Ukraine, the Russian military struggles to retrieve the bodies of its dead, obscures casualties, and is indifferent to its worried military families. It may spend billions of dollars on new equipment, but it does not properly treat soldiers’ injuries, and it generally does not appear to care tremendously whether troops are traumatized.