Russian soldiers died to influence the American election

On Wednesday, two days ago, Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community discussed a report by Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post. Judge Beryl Howell wrote that in Rudy Giuliani’s defamation suit the defendant can’t postpone paying the $148 million to plaintiffs Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. He had accused them of election tampering, which had made their lives hell. While the two women may have to go back to court to enforce the judgment they don’t have to wait the usual 30 days. The judge ordered this because Giuliani is likely to hide his assets and is unlikely to succeed on appeal and also because Giuliani kept defaming the two women even through the trial. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that on Thursday Giuliani filed for bankruptcy. The filing says he has nearly $153 million in debts and under $10 million in assets. Those debts include $148 million from the judgment mentioned above, other legal judgments, money he owes his lawyers, and close to a million in unpaid taxes. Bankruptcy doesn’t dissolve debts from a “willful and malicious injury” inflicted on someone. So he may be paying that $148 million for quite a while. Here’s another chapter in a story I’ve written about before, and another one where two parts of the story appear on consecutive days. On Thursday Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote that Robin Vos, the Republican leader of Wisconsin’s Assembly had called off this threat of impeaching Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz if she didn’t recuse herself from a case challenging the heavily gerrymandered electoral maps. Part of the reason for calling off the threat was the Democratic Party and public response to an obvious power grab. Another part is Vos talked to three former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justices and two of them reminded him that impeachment should only be used for actual crimes and corruption. And a third part is Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would get to name her replacement. And on Friday (today) another AP article reported that the Wis. Supremes ruled that the legislative maps were indeed highly gerrymandered and need to be redrawn by March 15 to be used for the 2024 election when all of the Assembly and half of the Senate are up for election. The maps are so gerrymandered that even though Biden had a narrow victory in 2020 Republicans have a supermajority in the Senate and are two seats shy of a supermajority in the Assembly. A big part of the justices’ argument is more than half of the Assembly districts and almost two-thirds of the Senate districts are not contiguous, and thus unconstitutional. Democrats argued the gerrymandering was so bad the entire Senate, not just half, should be up for election in 2024. This article does not say whether that request was granted. Continuing with gerrymandering and elections, Stephen Wolf of Kos Elections reported another Republican led state refused to comply with the Voting Rights Act. This one is North Dakota, where the minorities are Native and their reservations were split into two districts to prevent them from having a majority in any district. This follows similar suits in Alabama and Georgia. The reason for the stubbornness is because of a case working through the courts claiming private citizen groups cannot challenge VRA violations, only the US Department of Justice can do so. They know full well the DoJ doesn’t have time to prosecute all the cases – and under a Republican president the DoJ could refuse to enforce the law at all. A three judge panel of the 8th Circuit has ruled private parties can’t sue. It is now before the full 8th Circuit and will likely go to the Supremes.

For decades, the Supreme Court has ruled on VRA litigation involving private parties, including the recent Alabama case. However, given how often the Supreme Court's far-right majority has sought to undermine the VRA in other cases, little can be taken for granted—and that's exactly what North Dakota Republicans are counting on.

Another AP article reports that in various places in battleground states fake electors, those who falsely tried to file electoral college votes in favor of the nasty guy and were indicted for it, are now in control of city or county elections. Not that they have any experience in actually running elections. Nor are impartial. Mark Sumner of Kos looked at a declassified, yet heavily redacted report from the National Intelligence Council about foreign interference in the 2022 midterm election. Yes, there were actions taken by Russia, China, and Iran. But there was an astounding connection on page 7 that, if accurate, shows how far Russia went and how damaging it was to its own people. To explain it Sumner discussed the state of the war in October of 2022. Ukraine finally took Lyman. Over the next three days Russia appeared to retreat on every front. Long held Russian positions collapsed. By mid month there were reports the city of Kherson was being evacuated. Then there was an interlude and Russia held on. Though their positions were underequipped towards the end of the month Russia brought in more troops. In the first days of November Ukraine was on the move, yet Russia seemed unwilling to quit. Then on November 8 there was a quick and massive retreat. And on the 9th there was an official announcement of withdrawal from Kherson. Why? Why hang on, losing well over 12 thousand men and so much equipment in an effort that looked so hopeless, and suddenly withdraw? Because November 8 was the American election. Russia wanted to appear strong to boost the chances of Republicans. In another post Sumner explains more about the declassified and redacted report:

It is clear about the rationale for why both the Russian government and its proxies sought to help Republicans. “While Russian officials most likely recognized that U.S. support for Ukraine was largely bipartisan, Russian influence actors disproportionately targeted the Democratic Party,” the report concludes, “probably because Moscow blames the U.S. president for forging a unified Western alliance and for Kyiv’s continued pro-Western trajectory.

The Russian help was much more than holding onto positions in Ukraine. They had fake accounts on social media and enlisted commercial PR firms and “influencers.” If they’re named they’re in the redacted part, so we don’t know who got a Putin payday. They work their influence by exploiting issues that “already generate media attention and partisan friction in America.” Issues like racism and whether US aid to Ukraine was still a good idea. And Russian military officials “proposed delaying the Russian withdrawal from Kherson until after the midterms to avoid giving a named political party a perceived win before the election.” China’s efforts were more “to support or undermine specific candidates,” as in whether a candidate made statements for or against China. Iran’s efforts were more about generally reducing faith in democracy and elections as they emphasized social divisions. They said they were nonpartisan, but these efforts are easily seen as pro-Republican. Dartagnan discussed an essay by David Frum in The Atlantic that explains Republicans are rejecting more aid to Ukraine for one reason – to please the nasty guy. There is the question of why the nasty guy is enamored with Putin. Does he admire Putin’s wielding of cruel and ruthless power? Were some of his businesses propped up with Putin’s money? Has he been blackmailed and is now a Russian asset? We may not know the truth for decades, but it doesn’t matter now. His grip on the base is so tight Republicans feel compelled to align with his wishes. Which means if he wins Republicans will go along with his complete abandonment of Ukraine and pulling out of NATO too. Frum used to be a Bush II speechwriter --- he was deep in the conservative world. But he also noted:

If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.

Dartagnan then summarizes all the ways that statement is being proved right. Frum tackled the idea that refusing aid to Ukraine is only a bargaining chip to seal the US-Mexico border. Immigration is way too complicated and comprehensive immigration is the last thing Republicans want to discuss. So, yeah, a substantial portion of the Republican Party has been coopted by the nasty guy and thus Putin. That’s quite a reversal from just a few years ago. And, yeah, this is a profound betrayal of both Ukraine and Europe.