His legacy is now clear: His court is corrupt

At least two weeks have passed since I’ve done a Ukraine update. In that time I’ve collected a few things to share. At the end of March Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote about a big factor affecting how well Russia is waging this war. Why does Russia push troops forward and learn about the enemy by how those troops die? Sumner discussed a reason put forth in Popular Mechanics. Russia doesn’t have enough intelligence satellites and the ones they have are getting old and not designed for what they need. They aren’t getting a real-time high-quality view of the battlefield. As a result it gets high-quality imagery of the battlefield once every two weeks. That’s why Russia sends missiles to hit power substations rather than troops or military convoys. It’s why Russia couldn’t assert air superiority. And why they just haven’t been effective in this war. Ukraine is getting much better imagery and getting it twice a day. That’s still not quick enough for tactical planning. Even so twice a day beats twice a month. On April 2 Kos of Kos wrote that he’s been waiting for Russian troops to suffer such poor morale they would stop fighting. He expected there would be mass surrenders or troops leaving the battle for home. They would tire of being “meat” in this war. Yet the Russian army still makes 60-90 attacks a day with fierce fighting. Do the soldiers think Ukraine really is an essential part of Russia? Does their passivity override their will to survive? Has their government trained them to think of themselves as insignificant, willing to do whatever their government decrees? This is a question the West has a hard time puzzling out. On April 3 Kos listed many of the things Putin has made worse for his war. First – Finland has officially joined NATO and Sweden will probably join soon. Kos included a map in which the Baltic Sea has been named Lake NATO. Any ship leaving the port of St. Petersburg has to go past a lot of NATO territory before reaching open sea. More items on the list: + Nobody is questioning the need for NATO and its members are taking security seriously. + Germany and Japan, WWII’s losers who spent 90 years limiting the size of their militaries, are rearming and rethinking their place in the world. + Poland is becoming a global military power through doubling the size of its military. + Russia’s response to NATO, the Collective Security Treaty Organization made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, and Tajikistan, has essentially died and Kazakhstan is now hostile to Russia. + China has (so far) not come to the aid of Russia, has not given it munitions. Russia has nothing to offer China. On April 5 Sumner discussed ammo. Ukraine gets their ammo from the West. Can the West keep up with the demand? Are Ukrainian soldiers making decisions based on how much ammo they have? As for Russia, their own factories are their only source of ammo. And though their capacity has doubled it looks like the shells they make in a month can be used in four days. They are now working through their stockpiles. This isn’t sustainable. In yesterday’s update Sumner reported that a video of Russian atrocities is circulating. You don’t need to watch. Some say we need to be witnesses to Russia’s horrors. Yes, people have witnessed it. You don’t need to. Sumner also discussed Russia’s willingness to put up with such high casualty rates.

According to [Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksi] Reznikov Russia doesn’t care if they lose 1 million soldiers. Or 2 million. Or three. There are 20 million men of potential military age in Russia. Russia is willing to give up a significant fraction of them if it means capturing all, or even half of Ukraine. After all, should Russia actually capture the areas of Ukraine it has already officially claimed to own, that’s another 20 million people and some impressive resources. Spend 1 million men to subjugate 20 million? For Russia, that’s attractive math.

Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed the state of the federal judiciary. This follows the efforts of the Texas judge who said the Food and Drug Administration acted improperly to approve one of the two abortion drugs, so he banned it. The 5th Circuit Court said the ban can’t happen because the statute of limitations has run out, but it then threw out all the pandemic rules that made access easier. Here’s a summary of Dartagnan’s argument: Republicans have stacked – corrupted – the courts with religious fanatics (that Texas judge) and far right conservatives. They and their base know what judges to choose to get the ruling they want. But these are now lifetime appointments. Politicians may sense when the tide of public opinion has turned against them and change their policies (though in the case of abortion that hasn’t happened yet). Lifetime judges have no such incentive. Voters are very much aware who put those judges there. And younger voters in particular are very much annoyed that it happened. Laura Clawson of Kos that in the aftermath of the latest Clarence Thomas scandal the Democrats of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts insisting he do something about the ethics of the court he leads. Clawson sees two problems with this effort. This isn’t the first such letter Roberts has received. Another was sent 11 years ago. Roberts didn’t act then to impose ethics standards and won’t now. Roberts is concerned about his legacy. That legacy is now clear: His court is corrupt. That letter from the Democrats is an empty gesture. Another letter by 22 Democrats of both the House and Senate may be more sternly worded and provide greater context, but it is also an empty gesture. They are part of a separate branch of government with the capability of imposing a code of conduct on the justices. And they didn’t. Yeah, such reforms won’t get past the GOP controlled House. But no attempt was made when Democrats were in control – that was a lot more recent than 11 years ago – and Democrats aren’t even discussing possible laws. Well, there is the one guy talking about cutting the court’s budget, but that voice sounds mighty lonely.