Jets worth $160 million taken out by drones worth $670

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos discussed the ways the Republican Party in Michigan is in disarray – including donors keeping their wallets closed. The discussion included similar situations in other states. There is also the anti-abortion crowd refusing to admit their position is unpopular. Eleveld concluded:

All across the nation, the Republican Party is reckoning with the deal it cut with the devil. In swing states like Michigan and Georgia, red states like Ohio, and nationally, the GOP is cracking up as different factions variously cling to or reject Trump. The damage done may not be fully realized until voters cast their ballots next year, but the Republican Party is entering 2024 in a position so precarious it almost defies historical comparison.

Hunter of Kos reported that Alabama is putting out the claim it has the right to prosecute people for “conspiring” to get an abortion in another state. This criminalizing interstate travel – as well as those assisting or advocating for travel. It could also open up other sorts of cases – What about travel to gamble when that is illegal in one’s home state? What about going to Las Vegas and not gambling?

If places like Alabama criminalize crossing state lines to receive abortion care, we’re entering Handmaid's Tale territory very, very quickly. And Republicans know that. They know it's untenable and unenforceable without instituting police-state powers, which is why immediately after the let-the-states-decide argument led to the fall of Roe, many of the same Republicans began declaring that states should not be allowed to decide after all and a nationwide abortion ban is now needed. Without a national ban, states like Alabama will have to institute draconian and brazenly unconstitutional (for now) travel restrictions on any state resident they believe might harbor a fetus. It's going to be horrific, and they won’t stop until nobody has any more rights than Alabama conservatives are willing to stomach.

Eleveld also reported that Republican Presidential candidate Tim Scott is a bachelor. And now Republicans are treading carefully because of the “sensitivity of the issue.” Might he be – gasp! – gay? Scott has replied that he has a girlfriend (her name is none of your business) and a person’s marital status has nothing to do with their ability to be president. If Scott begins to make headway this issue will definitely come up more often. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted an article from the New York Times about candidates trying to soften their anti-abortion stance by also promoting expanded access to contraception. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a Republican from a competitive district in Iowa expressed the pivot as, “The best way to prevent abortion is to prevent pregnancy.” The call for expanded access to contraception is good to hear. But it doesn’t replace the need for abortion care. Also, it wasn’t all that long ago that Clarence Thomas wished for a case to come before himself and the Supremes so they could ban access to contraception. In a Ukraine update Mark Sumner of Kos started with the story of the Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets that are made mostly of titanium and cost about $40 million each. Over the weekend four of those jets, plus a MiG-29 and other hardware were destroyed by a squadron of drones made from cardboard and rubber bands. The whole squadron cost $670. Welcome to the drone war. Back in November Sumner posted a Field Guide to Drones of Ukraine. He posted only part 1 and it’s out of date. Since then there have been continuous innovations. There are “kamikaze drones” that are themselves bombs. Those cardboard drones look like birds on radar and can easily be smuggled across a border and quickly assembled before the mission. It is easy to train a recruit on a drone, easier than all the other aspects of soldiering, and that recruit is safer – shoot down the drone and the soldier gets a bit smarter instead of dead. Also, that recruit could be a disabled person who couldn’t be out in the field.

It’s not clear that this democratization of discount destruction is a factor that anyone should welcome. But it’s certainly one that will be difficult to stop.

That last comment made me think of a terrorist group using drones against US soldiers. I’m sure the US military leadership is thinking long and hard about it. In another update Sumner told the story of the Soviet N1 rocket that was ready in 1967 and, after much delay, launched in 1972 where it was destroyed before it reached orbit. A big part of the problem was the designer of the rocket, Sergei Korolev, had died in 1966. That was a problem because the top-down hierarchy hoarded information and not enough people knew how the rocket worked or even whether the design was complete. Sumner then turned to Russian General Sergei Surovikin. He was the one who built the defenses in occupied southern Ukraine that the Ukrainian army is now working through. But a few months after beginning the work Surovikin was demoted. Then he has a role in the attempted coup back in June and hasn’t been seen since. The second Russian line of defense, much more robust than the first, is being called the Surovikin Line. Is what is there what the general envisioned or merely the skeleton he was able to cobble together while in command? Do the soldiers defending it understand how it is to be used for best effect? Will anyone adapt the defenses to whatever Ukraine does? Does anyone want to? If this is Surovikin’s Line and he has been disgraced does anyone want to be seen as his protégé? And if the line doesn’t hold it is the guy already disgraced that gets the blame. From Ukraine’s point of view, that’s all good. As in... Kos of Kos reported on Wednesday that Ukraine is is about to, or has, breached the Surovikin Line near the town of Verbove. The Line doesn’t seem to be as strong as all the defenses make it look. Once breached Ukraine doesn’t need to work through the entire line. It can (in a difficult maneuver) surround the line from behind and force the Russians to retreat or surrender. This post also reports of a drone attack on an airfield in Pskov, which is 800 kilometers from Ukraine and close to Estonia. Four $50 million aircraft were damaged. Also damaged, in a separate attack, was Russia’s most important semiconductor factory. These are a necessary component for Russian drones and cruise missiles. For those into military details RO37 of the Kos community discusses the possible breach of the Surovikin Line, what it means, and what Ukraine might do with the breach.