The last order was change into civilian clothing and run

In yesterday’s post I wrote that Russia ordered a withdrawal from the Kherson region on the northwest side of the Dnipro River. I also wrote that Russia had 30K-50K soldiers there and it would take weeks to move them all out. As for that last bit ... In a report from yesterday morning Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote that with the sunrise he was getting confirmation of a lot of Ukrainian villages being liberated. And some of that came with an acknowledgment that liberation had come two days before. Sumner posted a few videos of villagers greeting the liberators.

Meanwhile in Kherson city, Russian forces have stopped any attempt to evacuate civilians. Why? Because of a reported “lack of interest.” In other words, with liberation on their doorstep and the quislings already gone, no one in Kherson wants to leave. They want to be there to welcome the Ukrainian troops, as they welcome Kherson home.

In a report from yesterday evening (with updates into the night) Sumner wrote that confirmation of liberated villages was coming in so quickly it was hard for him to keep up. In a map showing occupied territory he shifted this whole region to “disputed.” He used that designation only because he didn’t have confirmation of most places. And overnight Ukrainian forces were still advancing under the light of a moon just past full. At this point there may still be 20K Russian troops. That means Ukraine may be about to receive one of the largest surrenders in history. Ukraine is also about to receive a huge gift in military equipment. War Monitor tweeted:

Russian paratrooper on his last order in Kherson region "The last order was change into civilian clothing and run in any direction you wanted"

In this morning’s post Sumner reported the city of Kherson has been liberated. There are lots of videos of residents greeting the liberators and dancing in the streets. Even a video of a fresh delivery to a supermarket chain.

But really, this morning isn’t about what happened to those Russian forces. It’s all about the victory of Ukrainian forces, and that victory is special in so many ways. As the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense made sure to point out this morning, their forces are not walking into a ruin. They’re not reaching a city center pulverized into rubble the way that Russia did when they captured Mariupol or so many other locations. Kherson is largely intact. Tens of thousands of citizens remain there, cheering on the approaching Ukrainian force. That’s because Ukraine fought the battle of Kherson in a smart way, choking off Russian supply routes, keeping up pressure to force Russian troops to expend their ammo and strain their equipment, bringing things to the point where Russia had no choice but to leave the city.

As has happened in other places Russia occupied there is evidence of war crimes. One of the places likely to have lots of horrors is Beryslav, where Russia had established a “filtration camp” – what had been called a concentration camp in the last big war. Sumner has one last map of the region. All of the land northwest of the Dnipro River is now shaded blue. Since Kherson was the one regional capital that Russia had captured and Putin had declared the Kherson region to be part of Russia forever, its liberation is is important and wonderful news. Of course, the war isn’t over. The southeast side of the river is still red. What I found worth mentioning in today’s pundit roundup, posted by Greg Dworkin of Kos, isn’t so much the pundits as the political cartoons posted by Denise Oliver Velez in the comments. A bunch of them off the top are about how tiny the predicted election Red Wave was. There is one of a hand coming out of a red sleeve trying to wave the nasty guy off the stage. Commenter Tangento wrote about the Republican Party having a lack of vision for the country as a whole. Tangento simplified their vision as “The Republican Compass” where the compass points are greed, hate, bigotry, xenophobia, corruption, hypocrisy, treason, and domestic terrorism all wrapped in projection. Tangento then included a list from The American Prospect titled “The ‘Center’ of American Politics is on the ‘Left.’” There are a dozen items in the list. Some of them are:

76% of all Americans favor higher taxes on the super-rich. 92% want lower prescription drug prices. 80% want paid maternity leave. 80% of Republicans want more affordable child care. 62% think climate change is man-made and needs addressing. 84% think money has too much influence in politics.

I followed the link at the bottom of the list to an article on The American Prospect website written by Robert Reich in 2019. He lists the whole dozen items with links to the appropriate poll. Then he concluded:

So why do the powerful call these policy ideas “fringe,” or “radical,” or “socialist?” Money. Many of these initiatives would cost them—requiring either higher taxes on the rich (many could be achieved by repealing the giant Trump tax cut for the wealthy and corporations), or regulations that might cut into their corporate profits. So you can bet that as these proposals become even more popular, the powerful are going to intensify their attacks. But just remember: the “center” is not halfway between what most Americans want and what big corporations, Wall Street, and the super-wealthy want. The “center” is what the vast majority of Americans want.

I’ve accumulated a bunch of browser tabs over the last two weeks about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Back on October 28 Leah McElrath tweeted about Musk’s promise to remove controls. That prompted a flood of people using the n-word.

I have never seen /pol on 4chan move as fast as it is now. People who do this kind of trolling are very activated. I’d expect the activity to settle down after a while, but they’re extremely excited to be able to use abusive language, bless their hearts.

Michael Harriot tweeted a sarcastic thread about changes in Twitter’s policy. A few of his entries:

We have streamlined the process to report violations of our safety policy. To notify our staff about any threat of violence, abuse, hateful conduct or offensive language, the user only has to answer one question: "Did you die, tho?" ... No insurrection-planning allowed* *Unless you REALLY want to. It's not like we're gonna check ... Because we believe in free speech, Musky Twitter will no longer censor racist tweets. However, tweets referring to racism, white supremacy, or placing the word "white" next to the word "people" will automatically be flagged as hate speech. No Tesla slander will be allowed

On October 31 Darrell Lucas of the Kos community discussed Musk’s desire to loosen moderation, to let the bird be free. However, since Musk bought Twitter using $25.5 billion in loans (and I heard must pay a billion a year in interest payments) that will constrain him. More accurately, he will be constrained by the need to keep advertiser dollars flowing. Even so, many advertisers have paused. McElrath tweeted that putting Twitter behind a paywall makes it seem like the new company leadership doesn’t understand the platform at all. Elise Salomon replied:

they do understand it, which is why they know how to destroy it it's a place where activists organize it's a place where we've been able to hold the powerful accountable it's a piece of our culture and how we stay connected and as long as it's functioning, it is in their way

On November 4 Laura Clawson of Kos wrote about Musk laying off about half of Twitter’s workforce, losing a great deal of institutional knowledge. He also did it in an illegal manner – mass layoffs need 60 days notice. So there are lawsuits. Musk also whined about activists pressuring advertisers to pull out. Clawson wrote:

Awww, someone made his bed and is unhappy lying in it. Multiple companies have confirmed that they are pausing their Twitter advertising while they wait to see where things go. But activist pressure takes time to build and this happened almost immediately, pointing to other causes. Like, say, the flood of racist slurs that swept over Twitter as soon as Musk took control of the company. Or the plan to replace a blue-check system that let users know they were reading tweets from verified public figures or journalists with one that lets users know they are reading tweets from people willing to pay Elon Musk a monthly fee. Or the mass layoffs that erode confidence that the site will be secure. ... If nothing else, at least we probably won’t have to hear so much hype about the brilliance of Elon Musk from now on.

On November 9 Hunter of Kos wrote:

Hours after Elon Musk's Twitter rolled out his new demanded feature allowing anyone to get "verified" status on the social network by paying $8 per month, the feature is already resulting in the fraudulent impersonation of companies and individuals. And that's exactly what everyone on the planet predicted would happen, so we can presume it was indeed Musk's intention. Garbage fire, meet chemical fire. It'll only take $8 now to make a mush of whatever you want to. And there aren't, to anyone's knowledge, any safeguards to keep it from happening.

Hunter then had examples of rude spoofs of Nintendo, LeBron James, and the nasty guy.

Musk still doesn't have a plan, and when Twitter does come up with a plan to protect users, Musk condemns it, then kills it. Chaos, and lawsuits, are coming. And Elon Musk is about to lose even more money than anyone thought he might.

On November 10 Hunter wrote:

The cynics who've speculated that Elon Musk may have spent $44 billion on Twitter only so that he could destroy the company he's long had contempt for aren't exactly hard-up for evidence, at this point. As implausible as it seems to suggest that Musk might be willing to burn tens of billions of dollars to spite those who've publicly criticized him, the thought that Musk really believes his chain of utterly incompetent management decisions would do anything other than wreck the company seems almost as unlikely. Advertisers are running. Other companies are warning Twitter-prominent employees to avoid advertising their accounts, but also to avoid deleting them so as to thwart new scammers. And Elon? He’s siding with the scams, and laughing about it. Yes, things are going to hell in a handbasket very quickly, and Musk may have found a way to lose even more than $44 billion on his new hobby. That's because Musk's new policies have opened the door to fraud, impersonation, and identity theft. Now top Twitter executives are (again) resigning rather than face the legal liabilities Musk is forcing onto himself and his company. ... What's the big risk, for Twitter? At present, it's that the company appears to have chosen a path that allows them to monetize fraud. With the launch of Musk's new $8-for-verification scheme, the company is allowing credible impersonations of Twitter users famous and not. It's already turned into chaos; there are many people willing to throw $8 into a burner Twitter account that impersonates international companies, sports figures, or anyone else they don't happen to like.

Advertisers won’t go back because brand safety is now gone and companies are figuring out how to protect themselves. A bit of election news... Aysha Qamar of Kos reported Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida has become the first member of the House from Gen Z. He is now 25 and the minimum age to run for Congress. He has been an activist since age 15, notably through March for Our Lives. His reason for becoming an activist at such a young age: “Because I didn’t want to get shot at school.” David Nir of Kos Elections reported that Lauren Boebert, a very noisy far right member of the House, is in a race that is still too close to call. Colorado votes entirely by mail. If there is a problem with a ballot, such as a signature not matching, the voter has a chance to “cure” it. So the Colorado Democratic Party is in a massive effort to find likely Democratic voters who need to correct their ballots. There is a problem – that district is 50,000 square miles of the mountainous western side of the state and they have only until November 16th to do it. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote that in 2022 abortion rights have been on the ballot in six states and have won in all six. That’s Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Michigan, California, and Vermont. So activists are going to the other red states that can put citizen proposals on the ballot to get abortion rights passed there too.