OT subject but worth a main-stream read- OT News Feeds...

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"After more than a month of heavy fighting, Russian forces now control the majority of the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk, according to an intelligence update by the U.K.’s defense ministry. Russia’s urban warfare tactics, which are reliant on heavy use of artillery, have generated extensive collateral damage throughout the city, it adds. 

Up to 1,200 civilians may be holed up in the shelters of the Azot chemical plant in the city of Severodonetsk, a Russia-backed separatist has said. Russia yesterday said it dismissed a Ukrainian request for a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians to Kyiv-controlled territory, citing the destruction of the last bridge across the Siverskyi Donets river which blocks the city's eastern exits. Reuters reports. 

Ukraine shows no signs of obeying a Russian ultimatum to surrender Severodonetsk. Russia had told Ukrainian forces holed up in a chemical plant in the shattered city to stop "senseless resistance and lay down arms" from Wednesday morning, pressing its advantage in the battle for control of eastern Ukraine. However, the mayor of Severodonetsk, Oleksandr Stryuk, said after the early morning deadline passed that whilst Russian forces were trying to storm the city from several directions, Ukrainian forces continued to defend it and were not completely cut off. Pavel Polityuk reports for Reuters.

Russian missiles have destroyed an ammunition warehouse for weapons donated by NATO alliance countries in Ukraine's western Lviv region, according to Russia’s defense ministry. Some of the ammunition was to be used for U.S.-produced M777 howitzers, a type of artillery weapon. Reuters reports. 

NATO defense ministers are set to meet in Brussels today as they contend with widening rifts over how much military assistance to give Ukraine. The two-day gathering comes as the battle for eastern Ukraine enters a critical stage, with Russia grinding out steady gains and controlling most of the resource-rich Donbas region. However, despite growing anxiety amongst some NATO members who want to avoid a stalemate, a top Pentagon official repeated the standard American position yesterday that the U.S. would not pressure Ukraine into negotiating a cease-fire. The New York Times reports. "

lousubcap

Another read regarding Putin and the war:
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-06-14/ukraine-russia-war-pentagon-rockets-6341972.html?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dfn-ebb  

lousubcap

Late with  today's (Thursday) update:  Life sometimes gets in the way-
Russia-Ukraine Update:

"Russia has concentrated its main strike forces in the north of the Luhansk region and is trying to attack simultaneously in nine directions, the head of Ukraine's military said yesterday. "The fierce struggle for the Luhansk region continues," Valeriy Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, said in an online message. The Russians were using aircraft, rocket-propelled grenades, and artillery, he added. Reuters reports. 

Thousands of civilians are trapped in the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk with essential supplies running out, the U.N has warned. "The lack of water and sanitation is a big worry. It's a huge concern for us because people cannot survive for long without water," spokesperson for the U.N.'s Humanitarian Affairs office Saviano Abreu said. The U.N. is hoping to provide aid to those trapped in the city, but continued fighting means its agencies cannot get access or assurances to safely reach the civilians still there, including women, children and the elderly. Emily McGarvey and Leo Sands report for BBC News. 

The battle for control of eastern Ukraine is increasingly devolving into combat between smaller groups of troops, according to an intelligence updateby the U.K. Ministry of Defense. Russian forces in the Donbas region are “highly likely operating in increasingly ad hoc and severely undermanned groupings” — perhaps with as few as 30 soldiers in some battalion groups, the update says. 

Western intelligence and military officials believe Russia's war in Ukraine is in a critical stage that could determine the long-term outcome of the conflict, according to multiple sources familiar with US and other Western intelligence. "I think that you're about to get to the point where one side or the other will be successful," said a senior NATO official. "Either the Russians will reach Slovyansk and Kramatorsk or the Ukrainians will stop them here. And if the Ukrainians are able to hold the line here, in the face of this number of forces, that will matter." This pivotal moment could also force more tough decisions for Western governments, which have up until now offered support to Ukraine at a steadily increasing cost to their own economies and national stockpiles of weapons. Katie Bo Lillis, Barbara Starr, Natasha Bertrand and Oren Liebermann reports for CNN. 

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended ongoing weapons and security aid to Ukraine by saying that “the numbers clearly favor the Russians” in the war’s current state. Milley, speaking to reporters from Brussels, said the United States was working to give “as much capability as fast as we can … to ensure that Ukraine can be successful on the battlefield. Bryan Pietsch reports for the Washington Post. "

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The Ukrainian navy has claimed that it struck a Russian boat carrying air defense systems to a strategic island in the Black Sea. In a statement on social media, the navy said that the boat was used to transport ammunition, weapons and personnel to Snake Island, which is vital for protecting sea lanes out of the key port of Odesa. It did not say how much damage was inflicted by the strike. APreports. 

Russia has “strategically lost” the war in Ukraine, the head of Britain’s armed forces has said, calling Moscow a “more diminished power” that had inadvertently strengthened its enemies even as it was forced to abandon its primary invasion goals. Adm. Tony Radakin said Russia had sacrificed 25 per cent of its ground power to gain only a “tiny amount of territory” and could no longer achieve its objective of control over most Ukrainian cities. Hari Raj reports for the Washington Post. 

Despite the majority of Russians telling pollsters they support the ‘special military operation,’  in Ukraine elements of the population are beginning to show scepticism about the war, according to a U.K. Ministry of Defense intelligence update. The “Freedom for Russia Legion,” recruited from Russians, has almost certainly deployed in combat alongside the Ukrainian military. Scepticism is likely to be particularly strong amongst Russia’s business elite and oligarch community, with migration applications suggesting that 15,000 Russian millionaires are likely already attempting to leave the country. "

EggaddictArnold

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/06/16/usa-today-audit-reporter/7647731001/

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russian forces control most residential neighborhoods in the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk, according to its mayor, Oleksandr Stryuk.Street fighting in the city is almost constant, and Russian troops have forced residents out of their neighborhoods while bringing in heavy weaponry, Stryuk said. Bryan Pietsch reports for the Washington Post. 

Russia is likely to seize Severdonetsk in the coming weeks, according to an assessment by the Institute for the Study of War. However, this comes at a cost: The number of troops lost and equipment expended in that battle will probably hinder Moscow’s ability to mount offensives elsewhere, the assessment says. Other Russian operations in the east have made little headway in recent weeks, it adds. 

Both Ukrainian and Russian troops are suffering from low morale as intense combat in the Donbas continues, the U.K. Ministry of Defense has said in its latest intelligence update. Russian morale is likely to be especially troubled, with cases of whole Russian units refusing orders and armed stand-offs between officers and their troops continuing to occur. Drivers of low Russian morale include perceived poor leadership, limited opportunity for rotation of units out of combat, very heavy casualties, combat stress, continued poor logistics and problems with pay. 

The West must prepare to continue supporting Ukraine in a war lasting for years, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has warned. In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, Stoltenberg said that while the costs of war were high, the price of letting Moscow achieve its military goals was even greater. He also said that sending more weapons would make a victory for Ukraine more likely. Leo Sands reports for BBC News."

And this para regarding China and Russian oil:

"China's crude oil imports from Russia soared 55% from a year earlier to a record level in May, as refiners cashed in on discounted supplies amid sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Imports of Russian oil, including supplies pumped via the East Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline and seaborne shipments from Russia's European and Far Eastern ports, totalled nearly 8.42 million tonnes, according to data from the Chinese General Administration of Customs. Russia has now displaced Saudi Arabia as China’s top supplier. Chen Aizhu reports for Reuters."

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update"

"Russia is likely to end up with more territory in eastern Ukraine, senior officials in the Biden administration have said. However, neither side will gain full control of the region as a depleted Russian military face an opponent armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons. While Russia has seized territory in the easternmost region of Luhansk, its progress has been plodding. Meanwhile, the arrival of American long-range artillery systems, and Ukrainians trained on how to use them, should help Ukraine in the battles to come, said Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Julian E. Barnes provide analysis for the New York Times. 

Ukrainian troops are resisting a heavy Russian offensive in and around the city of Severodonetsk in the Luhansk region, despite continued shelling from several directions, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian resistance in Severodonetsk is mainly from the large Azot chemical plant on the western edge of the city, where several hundred civilians are also sheltering. "Fierce fighting continues in the Severodonetsk industrial zone. The Russians hit the building of the First Entrance of Azot, fired on the territory of the brick factory, and opened fire near three bridges," said Serhii Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration. Tim Lister and Olga Voitovych report for CNN. "

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia's Rostov region, bordering Ukraine, has suspended its operations after what may have been a drone strike. Regional governor Vasily Golubev said on social media that a fire had broken out in the refinery’s vacuum unit and that fragments of two drones had been found on the territory of the refinery. Golubev added that the fire had been put out and no one was injured. An investigation was underway. Reuters reports. 

Russia has held up to three battalion tactical groups and airborne units in border areas as potential reinforcements, according to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff. It also said there had been intense shelling of settlements near Kharkiv, in the northeast. 15 people were reported killed yesterday by artillery strikes in the area. Tim Lister, Olga Voitovych and Julia Kesaieva report for CNN. 

Russia has threatened Lithuania with serious consequences if the Baltic country prevents it from exporting EU-sanctioned goods to the exclave of Kaliningrad. Nikolai Patrushev, Russia’s security council secretary, said during a trip to Kaliningrad yesterday that Russia would “react to such hostile actions” after Lithuania began enforcing the sanction. Patrushev warned that “appropriate measures” would be “taken in the near future”, adding that “their consequences will have serious negative influence on the population of Lithuania”, according to the Interfax news agency. Max Seddon and Richard Milne report for the Financial Times. 

German self-propelled howitzers have arrived in Ukraine in the first delivery of heavy weapons promised by Berlin. "We have replenishment!... The German Panzerhaubitze 2000 with trained Ukrainian crews joined the Ukrainian artillery family," Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said yesterday on social media. Reuters reports. "

lousubcap

More Russia-Ukraine info-
"Russian military strikes reportedly hit Ukrainian grain terminals in the port city of Mykolaiv on Wednesday, just hours after alleged drones strikes hit a Russian oil refinery in the Rostov oblast, about five miles east of Ukraine, according to a video that surfaced online. Reuters has a bit more about the refinery, here.

About the grain terminals: They are owned by Canadian agribusiness Viterra and U.S. grain trader Bunge Ltd., and at least one person was injured in the attacks, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Bigger picture: "Russia's invasion has left about 18 million metric tons of grain strandedin Ukraine, heightening fears of a global food crisis after months in which the war has already driven up the cost of food world-wide," the Journal writes. "

lousubcap

The media bubble-worth a read-

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3532405-the-media-bubble-is-real-study-shows-massive-disconnect-between-journalists-public/

lousubcap

Several worthwhile brief articles to send along today and here's one more from Fareed Zakaria:

"Putin’s Prospectus

Despite some giddy Western speculation about Russian President Vladimir Putin eventually facing a coup, as a result of his war on Ukraine and/or the Western sanctions aimed at Russia’s economy, Vladislav Zubok argues at Foreign Affairs that this remains unlikely.   The West tends to misunderstand the fall of the USSR, Zubok argues—it wasn’t “the siren song of democracy” or a draining war in Afghanistan, but Gorbachev’s liberalizing reforms and their economic fallout, as Zubok tells it—but Putin knows that history well. Russia’s economic managers have done well to stave off the bite of sanctions, and Putin remains popular among broad segments of Russian society, so repression is by no means the only thing keeping him afloat, Zubok writes."

lousubcap

Just to add to your reading enjoyment and worldly concerns as this is serious (perhaps I should get a real job!):

From today's "The Atlantic"

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2022 ∙ SUPPORTING SPONSOR: IBM

Tom Nichols CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I am appalled, as so many Americans are, that Donald Trump and his team assaulted our elections, but today I’m thinking about how the assault on election officials across the nation is an even deeper wound that will take years to heal.

The Fight Ahead Gabriel Sterling appears before Congress on June 21, 2022. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty) View in browser I hadn’t planned on writing about the January 6 investigation today. But that was before I watched the testimony of Rusty Bowers, Brad Raffensperger, Gabriel Sterling, Shaye Moss, and Ruby Freeman. Their stories of being targeted with threats, harassment, and vile accusations are a reminder of how much Trump and his team of malignant election fabulists have taken from the civic life of the United States. I’ve spent most of my career studying authoritarian governments, and I’ve spent a lot of time in some repressive places, from Greece under a military junta as a boy to the Soviet Union as an adult. I always felt, on returning to the United States, that I had returned to a fortress of democratic stability and civic cooperation. I no longer feel that way. American elections have never been perfect. Any member of a visible minority knows this; anyone who’s seen a political machine in action knows it too. (I worked in politics in Massachusetts. Gerrymandering is literally named for one of our governors.) But American elections are fair and free, even if it is fashionable among cynics at home and observers abroad to dismiss such sentiments. Our elections work because they are run by ordinary citizens at the state and local level who either were elected or volunteered to help administer the vote as a matter of civic duty. This is a wondrous thing: community volunteers overseeing the vote and counting the results. I love voting in person for just this reason; having seen people in other nations too terrified even to talk about politics, it always filled me with quiet joy to have my fellow townspeople hand me a ballot and protect my privacy while I voted. Trump and his people, however, have made it clear that democracy is a meaningless word. They want what they want and they will hurt anyone who gets in their way. Their goal is to make public service a hazardous undertaking, to create an environment in which people working on elections—their fellow American citizens—fear for their lives if they don’t cough up the results they want. These unhinged bullies are telling other Americans that it is not safe to defy them at the ballot box, whether you’re a top elected official or a rank-and-file volunteer—or even if you’re the vice president of the United States, as Mike Pence learned while hiding from the mob on January 6. This is obscene. Americans, I think, have always understood that running for a high-profile or national office like the presidency entails some danger from unstable people; that’s why we think so highly of the men and women of the Secret Service who will put themselves in harm’s way even for candidates. But it is a long-standing tradition in American politics that serving as an election worker or a school-committee member or a local alderman is not a life-threatening proposition. Trump and people like him want to destroy that sense of safety, and their efforts are having an effect: I was talking with a close friend recently who admitted to me that she might vote by mail for the next few elections because it could be risky to visit actual polling places. This is the future that Trump and his supporters want, in which only the loyalists show up either to work the polls or to cast a vote, while the rest of us put a stamp on an envelope, avoid public engagement, and retreat to the safety of our homes. The fight for democracy in America might soon look yet again like the fight for racial and political equality in the 1950s and 1960s, when racist state and local governments denied the franchise to Black Americans. Those battles were won not only in legislatures and courts but in public by people showing up together and demanding to exercise their rights as citizens. In the coming elections, Trump and a claque of liars and opportunists will continue their efforts to hollow out American democracy. Will the voters stop them?

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russian forces targeted at least two large North American-owned grain terminals in the Ukrainian port of Mykolaiv yesterday. The attacks form part of what Kyiv and Western governments say is a campaign to degrade Ukraine’s ability to export food. Russia has previously rejected accusations that Moscow is hindering Ukrainian wheat exports. However, E.U. officials have said that reports of Russia striking grain terminals casts doubt on that and have accused the Kremlin of weaponizing food supplies. Alistair MacDonald, Bojan Pancevski and Drew Hinshaw report for the Wall Street Journal. 

The U.K.’s defense intelligence service believes that Russia's momentum in Ukraine will slow in the next few months as its army exhausts its resources.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a group of European newspapers that whilst Russia was pushing forward in the eastern Donbas region, this was at a heavy cost in soldiers and weapons. "Our defense intelligence service believes, however, that in the next few months, Russia could come to a point at which there is no longer any forward momentum because it has exhausted its resources," Johnson said. Reuters reports. "

lousubcap

Since Tom Nichols is on a roll:
"

Tom Nichols CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I used to think of myself as a gun-control conservative—I supported both the right to own firearms and the interest of the state to limit that right—but America’s gun culture isn’t about rights. It’s about performative insecurity

Big Iron Protesters outside the Texas State Capitol building in 2021 (Sergio Flores / Getty) View in browser Back in 1959, the country singer Marty Robbins wrote a ballad about a murderous outlaw who met his well-deserved end at the hands of a handsome young Arizona Ranger who was carrying the “Big Iron on his hip.” (The song was supposedly inspired by a weapon Robbins saw in a shop, but there is some question about whether the Big Iron was a real gun.) It’s a great song. But it wasn’t supposed to be a guide to life in modern America. I don’t have the energy or expertise to debate whether the Supreme Court should have taken on the case of a New York State law that limited the ability to carry weapons around in public. Honestly, I just assume that many declines in the quality of American life for the foreseeable future will be announced with “In a 6–3 decision …” Elections have consequences, and with the current composition of the Court, this decision was inevitable. The problem is not the Court’s decision. The problem is an adolescent, drama-laden gun culture, a romance with weapons that became extreme only in the past quarter century. It didn’t used to be this way. I grew up around guns; my father had been a police officer, and we had two of them. My older half-brother, who lived a few streets away, was a police officer. Our next-door neighbor was a police officer. My hometown was a military town, and almost all of the men I knew were veterans who owned weapons and knew how to handle them. (There were some female veterans too. My mother, for one.) What I remember about guns is that I remember almost nothing about guns. People owned them; they didn’t talk about them. They didn’t cover their cars in bumper stickers about them, they didn’t fly flags about them, they didn’t pose for dumb pictures with them. (I’ll plead one personal exemption: When I was a little boy, relatives in Greece once posed me in a Greek Evzone-soldier costume with my uncle’s hunting shotgun. I could barely lift it.) Today, there is a neediness in the gun culture that speaks to deep insecurities among a certain kind of American citizen. The gun owners I knew—cops, veterans, hunters, sportsmen—owned guns as part of their life, sometimes as tools, sometimes for recreation. Gun ownership was not the central and defining feature of their life. Don’t take my word for it that things have changed. Here’s Ryan Busse, a former gun-company executive who has now taken on his former industry, talking about the day someone showed up to a hunting party with an AR-15: The unwritten rules of decency were enforced by firearm-industry leaders … I witnessed how this worked many times, including one occasion when a young writer brought his own AR-15 to a hunting event I was hosting in 2004. The senior figures there responded immediately. “That’s not the kind of thing we want to be promoting,” they said. The newcomer was shamed into locking the gun up for the rest of the event. This kind of affirmation of cultural norms can be a lot more powerful than any law, and I suspect that the gun-culture extremists know it. They head off expressions of this kind of social disapproval by being aggressive and performative, daring anyone to criticize them for feeling the need to be armed while getting milk and eggs at the supermarket. I have always trusted my fellow citizens with weapons. Now the most vocal advocates for unfettered gun ownership are men sitting in their cars in sunglasses and baseball caps, recording themselves as they dump unhinged rants into their phones about their rights and conspiracies and socialism. The Supreme Court has now affirmed that all these guys can be the handsome ranger with the Big Iron on their hip. You can be angry with the Court for furthering and enabling this weirdness, but it’s not the Court’s fault. It is, as usual, our fault, as voters and citizens, for tolerating a culture that is endangering our fellow Americans instead of insisting that all of us exercise our constitutional rights like responsible adults." Enlightening read-

JohnInCarolina

I don’t know, @lousubcap - I think the court deserves some of the blame on this one.  

dmchicago

What I remember about guns is that I remember almost nothing about guns. People owned them; they didn’t talk about them. They didn’t cover their cars in bumper stickers about them, they didn’t fly flags about them, they didn’t pose for dumb pictures with them. (I’ll plead one personal exemption: When I was a little boy, relatives in Greece once posed me in a Greek Evzone-soldier costume with my uncle’s hunting shotgun. I could barely lift it.)

I found this interesting. 

Ybabpmuts

"The Supreme Court has now affirmed that all these guys can be the handsome ranger with the Big Iron on their hip"

There are no handsome rangers. Rangers live on big plains with nothing to see but plains as far as the eye can see,  the whole day is plain this and plain that. It's probably plain boring and you know even rangers are what they eat, and out there... you know even the food is plain. So all rangers are all plain, all the time, none are handsome, some have handsome boots but we look the other way, shower separately, and plain ignore them.

People that strap big iron on their hip, probably wish their legs were magnetic, so they can do without all the leather straps and the buckles and whatnot.  I know I would. Heck, I'd carry little iron if only half of my legs were magnetic. I'm that dedicated.

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Ukraine has ordered its troops to withdraw from their remaining foothold in the city of Severodonetsk to avoid encirclement. This ends a battle that has lasted nearly two months and gives Russia a small but symbolically important victory in Eastern Ukraine. “It makes no sense to remain on positions that have been demolished over the months,” Serhiy Haidai, the head of the region's military administration, said in a TV appearance earlier today. “The defenders have already received orders to pull back to new positions, new fortified areas, and to conduct full military activities and to inflict damage on the enemy from there,” he added, saying that staying put could have resulted in heavy losses. Yaroslav Trofimov reports for The Wall Street Journal. 

Moscow's foreign ministry has blamed the U.S. for a Lithuanian ban on sanctioned goods crossing from the Russian mainland to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. "The so-called 'collective West', with the explicit instruction of the White House, imposed a ban on rail transit of a wide range of goods through the Kaliningrad region," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement published today. It said the move was part of a pattern of "increasingly hostile actions from the American side" towards Russia. Reuters reports. "

lousubcap

More Friday updates involving Russia-

"Get to better know how India and China are benefiting from super-cheap Russian oil via an export review from the New York Times, published Friday. One illuminating takeaway: "Before the Ukraine war, Russia accounted for about 1 percent of India's oil needs. Russia is now poised to overtake Iraq as India's primary source of oil this month." That includes a rise of 33,000 barrels purchased each day last year to 1.15 million daily. 

The new energy trends: "The Russian oil gradually flowing into Asia is replacing Saudi and other Middle Eastern oil, which is now finding its way to Europe," the Times reports. And that "shift is creating heightened competition among members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, with Iraq slashing prices to Europe." "

lousubcap

Offering a worthwhile read - Tom Nichols rolls again.

" Tom Nichols-

I remember the days when my fellow conservatives hated activist judges and fulminated against attempts to gain in the courts what could not be won at the ballot box; today, a new kind of “conservative” is cheering a radical unraveling of women’s rights.

Grim Determination Abortion-rights and anti-abortion-rights activists in front of the U.S. Supreme Court (Anna Moneymaker / Getty) View in browser We all saw it coming—even me. I was long convinced that no Supreme Court would be stupid or vicious enough to end the right to legal abortion, but after Amy Coney Barrett was fastballed onto the Court, I knew I had been wrong. And in the weeks after Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked, anyone could see—well, anyone except the hapless Susan Collins—not only that the Court’s conservatives were going to overturn Roe v. Wade, but that they didn’t care what kind of jumbled reasoning it would take to get there. This is the revenge of the Court’s right wing, who in their confirmation hearings had to dodge and dissemble with furrowed brows and deep concern (have I mentioned Susan Collins?) about things like stare decisis and their personal religious beliefs. They hated these questions because they knew that as soon as they got the chance, they would ignore stare decisisand impose their personal religious beliefs. The Court’s five hard-line conservatives, with a hand-wringing John Roberts trotting behind them, did what their critics warned they would do: They trashed 50 years of settled law. Even that wasn’t enough for Clarence Thomas, a man who has seemed grimly determined to get even with America since his brutal confirmation hearings more than 30 years ago. Thomas now wants the Court to revisit the decisions that rely on its substantive due-process precedents, including rulings on issues such as contraception and gay marriage. Republicans used to hate activist judges; I was once a Republican and I remember the high-minded speeches from a party that despised using courts to circumvent the legislature. Today, those same Republicans have no hope of persuading a majority of their fellow Americans to accept their views, and so they are more than happy to abuse the rules of the Senate and prop up the now-obvious lies of Supreme Court nominees to get what they want. I have already written about my belief that abortion must stay legal (and how I learned, late in life, that an illegal abortion nearly killed my mother). Other writers are weighing in today in The Atlantic, and you can find all recent articles on the abortion divide here, including a powerful warning from Mary Ziegler that if the Court can overturn Roe, it can overturn anything, and Xochitl Gonzalez noting that the same Republicans who are always quick to wrap themselves in the flag and bloviate about the American dream have no compunction about taking hopes of a better life from women. Abortion now goes to the states. The federal and state elections that Democrats too often ignored because of their obsession with the White House will now decide the future health of millions of women. Will the voters finally act?"

HighHeat

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/obese-russian-general-67-called-27326346

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russia launched the largest missile barrage on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in weeks yesterday. Several missiles flew toward Kyiv early on Sunday, and Ukrainian air defenses shot down at least one on the outskirts of the capital, Ukrainian government officials said. One missile hit an eight-story residential building, where city officials said residents were pulled from the rubble. One person died and four were injured, including a 7-year-old girl and her 35-year-old mother. Speaking at the Group of Seven summit yesterday, President Biden called the attack “more of their barbarism.” Alan Cullison and Yuliya Chernova report for the Wall Street Journal. 

The Russian military will soon exhaust its combat capabilities and be forced to bring its offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region to a grinding halt, according to Western intelligence and military experts. The assessments come despite continued Russian advances against outgunned Ukrainian forces, including the capture on Friday of the city of Severodonetsk, the biggest urban center taken by Russia in the east since launching the latest Donbas offensive nearly three months ago. Liz Sly reports for the Washington Post. 

Russian forces are trying to blockade Lysychansk in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region while subjecting the city to constant artillery fire, the regional governor has said. Among the latest targets were a bus station, two churches and local administrative buildings, Serhiy Haidai said on Telegram. At least five high-rise buildings were destroyed, he added, including one in which 10 apartments burned down at once. He called on all residents to evacuate as soon as possible and said leaving the city was becoming more and more difficult. Several evacuation trains were scheduled for this afternoon. Rachel Pannett and Annabelle Timsit report for the Washington Post. 

Russia has defaulted on its foreign sovereign bonds for the first time since the Bolshevik revolution. The default shows how dramatically the sanctions were impacting Russia's economy, a U.S. official told reporters in a briefing on the sidelines of the G7 summit. "This morning's news around the finding of Russia's default, for the first time in more than a century, situates just how strong the actions are that the U.S, along with allies and partners have taken, as well as how dramatic the impact has been on Russia's economy," the U.S. official said. Karin Strohecker, Andrea Shalal and Emily Chan report for Reuters. "

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/stavridisj/status/1541372014492954627?s=20&t=M8HgGnmdRHYhSynyN4ZMow

dmchicago

JohnInCarolina said:

http://twitter.com/stavridisj/status/1541372014492954627?s=20&t=M8HgGnmdRHYhSynyN4ZMow

A veteran of the Soviet Union's ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and a member of Russia's special forces, General Pavel has let himself go considerably since retirement five years ago. 

He is understood to eat five meals a day and polish it all off with a litre of vodka. Since coming back to the service, he has had to have his uniform specially made and he needs to wear two sets of body armour to ensure his torso is protected.

dmchicago

I give him a week. 

HeavyG

dmchicago said:

I give him a week. 

Probably a better death by artillery than poisoned by Putin.

Legume

Either that camo’s not working too well, or it is and he’s even bigger.

HeavyG

 

Tracking where Russia is taking Ukraine's stolen grain

Gulfcoastguy

They accused the US of invading Iraq in order to steal oil. Russia invaded Crimea after Ukraine built off shore gas rigs in 2014.  Now Russia claims that it has had a record grain crop when it is actually stealing Ukrainian grain for resale. “Stolen goods are never sold at a loss”.

Gulfcoastguy

dmchicago said:

JohnInCarolina said:

http://twitter.com/stavridisj/status/1541372014492954627?s=20&t=M8HgGnmdRHYhSynyN4ZMow

A veteran of the Soviet Union's ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and a member of Russia's special forces, General Pavel has let himself go considerably since retirement five years ago. 

He is understood to eat five meals a day and polish it all off with a litre of vodka. Since coming back to the service, he has had to have his uniform specially made and he needs to wear two sets of body armour to ensure his torso is protected.

Can he even fit through an armored vehicle door?