Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Zeroing in on the Jan 6 conspiracy

This post was originally published on this site

Hugo Lowell/Guardian:

Capitol attack investigators zero in on far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys

Panel appears to believe militias coordinated to physically stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory on 6 January last year

The panel’s working theory – which has not been previously reported though the justice department has indicted some militia group leaders – crystallized this week after obtaining evidence of the coordination in testimony and non-public video, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Counsel on the select committee’s “gold team” examining Donald Trump, the “red team” examining January 6 rally organizers, and the “purple team” examining the militia groups, are now expected to use the findings to inform the direction for the remainder of the investigation, the sources said.

For more of what these groups were up to, see Daily Kos reporting from Brandi Buchman.

Politico:

Ukraine’s ‘iron general’ is a hero, but he’s no star

Meet Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who’s quietly leading the fight against Russia’s invaders.

If a single person can be credited with Ukraine’s surprising military successes so far — protecting Kyiv, the capital, and holding most other major cities amid an onslaught — it is Zaluzhnyy, a round-faced 48-year-old general who was born into a military family, and appointed as his country’s top uniformed commander by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July 2021. Zaluzhnny and other Ukrainian commanders had been preparing for a full-on war with Russia since 2014.

Unlike, say, “Stormin’” Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. troops in the first Persian Gulf War, or David Petraeus, who presided over the Iraq war and was nicknamed “King David,” Zaluzhnyy has largely avoided the spectacle of a celebrity commander — deferring that role to Zelenskyy, a former actor and comedian who has captured the public’s imagination.

Phillips P. O’Brien/Atlantic:

Why Ukraine Is Winning

Ukraine’s success illuminates a strategy that has allowed a smaller state to—so far—outlast a larger and much more powerful one.

The Ukrainian way of war is a coherent, intelligent, and well-conceived strategy to fight the Russians, one well calibrated to take advantage of specific Russian weaknesses. It has allowed the Ukrainians to maintain mobility, helped force the Russians into static positions for long periods by fouling up their logistics, opened up the Russians to high losses from attrition, and, in the Battle of Kyiv, led to a victory that has completely recast the political endgame of the Russian invasion. The original maximalist Russian attempt to seize all of Ukraine has been drastically scaled back to a far more limited effort aimed at seizing territory in the east and south of the country.

The Ukrainian way of war has a few foundational elements that we have seen in operation around Kyiv and across the country. They are:

1. Contesting air supremacy over the area of battle;
2. Denying Russia control of cities, complicating the Russian military’s communications and logistics;
3. Allowing Russian forces to get strung out along roads in difficult-to-support columns; and
4. Attacking those columns from all sides.

Yair Rosenberg/Atlantic:

Is Israel’s Government on the Brink of Collapse?

Reports of the Israeli coalition’s demise and Netanyahu’s comeback are greatly exaggerated. For now.

On Wednesday morning, Israel was rocked by a revolt that appeared to reshuffle its political map. A single lawmaker from the governing coalition, Idit Silman, dramatically announced that she would be defecting to the opposition. Why does this move by someone most people have never heard of matter? It’s math. The Israeli parliament, or Knesset, has 120 seats. With Silman’s switch, it is now split 60–60 between coalition and opposition. The anti-Netanyahu government that took office in June 2021 no longer has a majority.

Is this the end of the new Israeli government? Will Netanyahu return to power? How exactly did this happen, and what comes next? Here are five insights that help untangle these questions and explain where Israel is heading.

Jonathan V Last/Bulwark:

Democrats Are Screwed No Matter What They Do

There is no world in which Democrats could have won in 2022 by being more moderate and working-class friendly.

The child tax credit was the ultimate kitchen-table issue. Then Republicans killed it. They own—lock, stock, and two smoking barrels—the act of taking this money away from working families.

And yet the same voters who benefitted from this program are basically ¯_(ツ)_/¯

So maybe this political moment isn’t actually about kitchen-table issues? Or about Democrats not being friendly to moderate, working-class voters? Maybe outcomes are being wildly overdetermined by environmental factors beyond the control of either party?

Maybe—and I’m just thinking out loud here—Republicans could run a bunch of crazy, violent extremists whose platforms are entirely backward-looking and still do very well in the midterms.

Maybe Democrats could do everything perfecto—could run the administration of Mitt Romney’s moderate, working-class dreams—and still lose both the House and Senate.

Greg Sargent/WaPo:

A Democrat erupts at Josh Hawley, and a ‘loudness’ gap is revealed

“Democrats need to make more noise,” Sen. Brian Schatz told me. “We have to scream from the rooftops, because this is a battle for the free world now.”

I contacted the Hawaii Democrat to talk about his extraordinary eruption at Sen. Josh Hawley on the Senate floor Thursday. Schatz ripped his Missouri Republican colleague over his hold on a senior staffing nominee to the Defense Department, even as the United States is calibrating its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But that was the superficial cause of the eruption. The deeper catalyst was how Hawley is doing this — that his arguments are saturated in almost bottomless levels of bad faith. That’s the real topic of Schatz’s tirade, and you should watch all of it…

This raises some questions: Why don’t Democrats create moments like this more often? Are there other ways of getting loud, as Schatz did here, that don’t degrade our politics and are substantively and politically productive?

Aaron Blake/WaPo:

LGBTQ issues are at center stage. What does the public think?

What polls say on Florida’s ’Don’t Say Gay’ law, transgender athletes and other issues

We have had a very limited — and often unclear and even contradictory — picture of where Americans stand on these issues, thanks to a paucity of public polling. That is beginning to change, though. Below are some takeaways from, and analysis of, the recent polling.