Josh Hawley is actively undermining the U.S., and one Democrat has had enough of it
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Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is gearing up to run for president in 2024. That means going full QAnon against the most qualified Supreme Court nominee in a generation, and it means going where Trump goes: in alliance with Putin. That includes undermining the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. State Department.
One Democrat had enough on Thursday, and is tearing up the internet with his takedown of the odious Hawley. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) came to the floor to request unanimous consent to confirm Christopher Lowman as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment at the Department of Defense, whom Hawley has been blocking since his nomination in November. Hawley objected, with a rant criticizing President Biden’s foreign policy and defense strategy.
Schatz blew.
“So, what Senator Hawley wants is to go through his litany of criticisms of the Biden administration, and the truth is that every senator has that right without blocking the logistics guy from the Department of Defense,” Schatz said.
“But he’s doing a very specific thing. He is damaging the Department of Defense. We have senior DoD leaders, we have the Armed Services Committee coming to us and saying, ‘I don’t know what to tell him, I don’t know how to satisfy him, but he is blocking the staffing of the senior leadership at the Department of Defense.’”
Two weeks ago, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) tried to bring the Lowman nomination to the floor and Hawley was there to block it then, too. Kaine explained the criticality of having the position filled. “[T]he Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment is the principal assistant and adviser to the Department on logistics and materiel readiness. The Assistant Secretary prescribes the policies and procedures for the conduct of logistics, maintenance, materiel readiness, strategic mobility, sustainment support in the DOD, supply, maintenance, and transportation—extremely important functions to have a military that works.” All the more important, he said, “during a war in Europe where the U.S. military is playing a very important role.”
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Hawley has been blocking Defense and State nominees since September, ostensibly over the decision by President Joe Biden to end the war in Afghanistan. He has been demanding that both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, all resign. He has a hold on “every single civilian nominee” in those departments until that happens. His argument in September was about Afghanistan, but he’s changed horses now, and says it’s about Ukraine and how Biden isn’t responding with enough aid or quickly enough.
That was his specious objection on Thursday. While he is personally undermining the Pentagon by refusing to allow it to be fully staffed. That’s what set Schatz off Thursday: “And this comes from a guy who raised his fist in solidarity with the insurrectionists,” Schatz exclaimed. “And this comes from a guy who, before the Russian invasion, suggested that maybe it would be wise for Zelenskyy to make a few concessions about Ukraine and their willingness to join NATO.”
“This comes from a guy who just about a month ago voted against Ukraine aid!” Schatz continued on the floor Thursday. “He’s saying it’s going too slow. He voted ‘no’! He voted ‘no’ on Ukraine aid, and now he has the gall to say it’s going too slow!”
“And coming from a person who exonerated Donald Trump for extorting Zelenskyy for withholding lethal aid?” Schatz continued. “They withheld lethal aid until, unless Zelenskyy would release false smears against Joe Biden’s son. And then he voted to exonerate President Trump for this. And so spare me the new solidarity with the Ukrainians and with the free world, because this man’s record is exactly the opposite.”
“And so spare me the new solidarity with the Ukrainians and with the free world because this man’s record is exactly the opposite,” he concluded
Schatz was still fuming in an interview with The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent Friday. “Democrats need to make more noise,” Schatz told Sargent. “We have to scream from the rooftops, because this is a battle for the free world now.”
“The central selling proposition for a lot of moderate voters was that they could put Biden in place and then stop worrying about politics,” Schatz told Sargent. But that can’t happen because “the MAGA movement continues to grow,” with the likes of Hawley fanning the flames.
“Voters who pay a normal amount of attention to our politics take their cues from elected officials as to how outrageous something is,” Schatz told Sargent. “If we don’t seem particularly perturbed,” he continued, then they’ll assume that a given standoff or situation is “no big deal.”
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Michigan militia jury acquits two in Whitmer kidnap plot, mistrial declared for two ringleaders
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Jurors on Friday freed two of the four defendants in the Michigan militia kidnapping-plot trial, but after a week of deliberations remained hung on the charges against the two men accused of being ringleaders in the conspiracy to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. A mistrial was declared in the case of the latter two—Adam Fox, 37, of Grand Rapids; Barry Croft, 44, of Bear, Delaware—and they will remain in custody.
However, the jury found both Daniel Harris, 23, of Lake Orion, and Brandon Caserta, 32, of Canton, Michigan, not guilty on all charges, and they were released. The verdicts were announced after jurors told the judge that morning they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on all counts, and he had sent them back to attempt one last time to reach finality.
“After using the suggestions of the court, we’re still unable to reach a unanimous decision on several counts,” a note from the jury handed to U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker three hours later said.
“On a case that has a lot of evidence … It is not unusual for a jury to come back and say, ‘Hey, we tried, but we just can’t get there at everything,'” Jonker had said earlier. “I know you’ve been at it a while … I’m not quite ready to say, ‘That’s the best we can do.'”
“Go back,” the judge said, “and make another effort.”
Jonker emphasized: “You have to vote your own conscience at the end of the day. … See if anything moves you on a locked decision.”
JoAnne Huls, Whitmer’s chief of staff, issued a statement voicing her dismay.
“Today, Michiganders and Americans—especially our children—are living through the normalization of political violence. The plot to kidnap and kill a governor may seem like an anomaly. But we must be honest about what it really is: the result of violent, divisive rhetoric that is all too common across our country. There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened.”
Jurors had listened to three weeks of testimony, the majority coming from the prosecution. One of the militiamen wanted to spread Whitmer out on a table, hogtied and displayed while they took pictures of themselves. Another worked on detonating an improvised explosive device in his yard while his 10-year-old daughter offered him a Doritos chip. The paramilitary training, the reconnaissance at Whitmer’s home, the weapons collections—it was all part of a plan to spark a nationwide “Boogaloo” civil war, the men believed. “We wanted to be the first to kick it off,” a key witness testified.
The testimonial evidence in the trial of the four men charged with plotting to kidnap and kill Whitmer in its first was both riveting and disturbing. All of the cooperating witnesses attested that none of the FBI’s multiple informants at work on the case induced anyone to commit the crimes, though that appears not to have held water with the jury.
Ty Garbin, a 26-year-old from Hartland Township and onetime member of the group (which called themselves the Wolverine Watchmen) was the prosecution’s primary witness this week. Garbin, who entered a guilty plea last year as part of a cooperation agreement, told the jury that no one else convinced him or anyone else in the group to join the kidnapping plot.
The defendants leaned heavily on claims that the government entrapped them into the plot to abduct Whitmer from her summer home and put her on “trial.”
A profile of the jury by the Detroit Free Press suggests that its composition was already problematic, featuring a number of people likely to sympathize with the “Patriots.”
- A man who owns an AR-15 rifle, which he described as a former military weapon that sits in his closet most of the time. He works third shift in a factory of some sort, and works out at a gym. He noted his rifle is now a semi-automatic.
- A man who works as a CT scan technologist who expressed concerns with missing work, but said he could handle the issues of the trial.
- A man who works at a molding and plastics plant, hunts and owns multiple guns, including an assault rifle because, he said, “I like the style of it.”
- A grandmother of four who said that the Whitmer kidnap case was discussed in their home, but said she could put her husband “on mute” if she had to. She said they don’t own any guns, “but I don’t have problems with guns at all.” She said she has political leanings, without elaborating, but can put them aside.
- A woman who works as an adult foster care director said she doesn’t think the governor “takes into account everything all the time.”
On Thursday, the jury asked to see purported bomb evidence involving pennies that had been attached to an explosive as shrapnel. Before entering the deliberation room on Friday, jurors were handed an evidence bag, filled with the pennies they inquired about.
The pennies had come up during the testimony of an FBI witness, who said they were found in a “blast zone” at Garbin’s property in Luther. The witness testified the pennies were found in a 2- to 3-foot radius, along with a mortar launcher, staples, rubber bands, and markings, which, he said, indicated a detonation took place.
The trial’s outcome likely will have broad ramifications for how federal authorities tackle the rising tide of right-wing domestic terrorism, as well as ongoing prosecution of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrectionists. It likely is also being celebrated by far-right extremists and would-be domestic terrorists.
Ukraine update: The Battle of Kyiv was bigger than originally reported, and what about Kherson?
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Prior to the Russian retreat from the Kyiv area, on March 23, I posted this image from NASA’s FIRMS satellite service, normally used to track forest fires but also great for tracking a war’s front lines.
At the time, it was well-known that there was heavy fighting immediately west and northwest of Kyiv—Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel at the front line. But I marveled at that entire line of fire all the way up to the Belarus border. There was zero information on fighting in that area, yet FIRMS imagery was very clear that something was going on, so I confidently stated that “Russia’s entire NW army is under severe assault.”
As Russia withdrew, the world saw Russia’s brutality exposed. But in addition to the war crimes, we also saw hundreds of destroyed Russian vehicles, all the way up that front. For a battle that had been fought mostly in that Bucha-Irpin front, that seemed odd. Now, it’s not so odd, seeing this Ukrainian artillery assault that took place before the Russian retreat:
The target has been geolocated to here:
If you compare it to the FIRMS map above, you’ll see that this attack was firmly along that band of fire, the first evidence we have that Ukraine was pushing hard against that entire Russian front from the west. Remember, depending on the artillery system, we’re talking ranges of 9 to 20 miles. So, well outside the range of any artillery Ukraine had in Kyiv and its environs. That artillery had to be much closer to the point of attack, and Ukraine wouldn’t be deploying artillery without proper defenses, as a typical artillery battery lacks defensive capabilities and would be easily overrun in a direct assault. That means that artillery was in support of an entire army pushing along Russia’s western flank. The FIRMS map really did tell us something that Ukraine’s general staff didn’t want to openly discuss.
No wonder Russia pulled their forces out. It had nothing to do with the stalemate near Kyiv. Those Russian forces were in real danger of being fully wiped out via a poorly protected western flank. Russia lost that entire axis on the battlefield.
So what does FIRMS tells us today? A lot, actually.
There’s a red dot at Kramatorsk, which is Russia’s latest war crime. The Donbas front is on fire, as it has been from Day One. Kharkiv is getting shelled, but not the city proper—north, east, and northeast of it. We know Ukraine has been pushing Russian forces back along that entire line, and even threatening Russian supply lines to Izyum to the east of Kharkiv. So it’s either Russian shelling the counter-attacking Ukrainians, Ukrainian strikes on Russian forces, or, most likely, both.
Then there’s Mariupol. Oh, Mariupol, which should have fallen on the first day of the war but continues to hold out. I’m going to save the story of Mariupol for the next update—it’s quite simply unbelievable.
Interestingly, Kherson looks quiet on FIRMS, but we know that’s not the case. It just means that the fighting, in small towns over barren, open, desert-like terrain isn’t leaving burning vehicles and structures behind for the FIRMS satellite to capture. Also, it’s raining, which presumably snuffs out any such fires. As of now, there are now reports of Ukrainian forces within 5 km west of Kherson.
Let me introduce you guys to the latest and greatest open-source intelligence project—UAWarData, which tracks the movement of individual Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs). You can even toggle the time slider to get a sense of their movement over time. Note that it’s open-source, based on enthusiasts poring over Ukrainian general staff reports and geolocated photos, so it’s more of an educated guess than precision data. Also, there’s really no way to tell how degraded a particular BTG might be from battlefield attrition.
All those caveats aside, what’s striking about the Russian presence around Kherson is that there only appear to be around six BTGs available, each with approximately 600 to 1,000 troops. Russia has no reinforcements to send, as all spare bodies are being thrown into the Donbas. Kherson was held by “elite” Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) troops, Spetsnaz special operations forces, and elements of the 20th Guards Motorized Rifle Division (GMRD) and a smattering of other units. At full strength, that would be around 6,000 soldiers. But these are the units that tried to go up to Mykolaiv and eventually got spanked at Voznesenks, officially turning the tide of this war. These units are nowhere near full strength. In fact, Ukraine general staff claims the 20th GMRD was degraded 40% and was recently withdrawn back to Russia.
Presumably, that means that all that’s left inside Kherson are a few thousand airborne and special forces types—light infantry with some artillery support, but little in the way of armor. They could try and hold the city, but with an angry and restless populace, they’d have few places to hide, and hostiles inside and outside the city to deal with. While Russian offensives outside of Kherson suggest they’re not giving the city up without a fight, the lack of heavy forces (read: armor) inside the city means they’re ready for a quick and nimble retreat if necessary, blowing that famous Kherson bridge to cover their retreat south.
Given the failure to move on Odesa, there is little strategic value to Kherson left. The source of Crimea’s water supply, the North Crimean Canal and a legitimate strategic concern, is further east, and on the south side of the Dnipro river—easy to defend by blowing all bridges.
In fact, if Russia blows all the bridges, Ukraine has no way to cross the Dnipro River south of Kherson without building entirely new massive bridges (which would be immediately destroyed by Russia). The river is too wide for all but the most complex military pontoon bridges, even if Ukraine had them, which they don’t. (You can see how wide it is here, during one of the early battles for the bridge.)
Unable to cross the Dnipro, Ukrainian forces around Kherson can’t get to Melitopol. Russian control of all that territory south and easy of the river is protected. So why waste men and material trying to defend Kherson?
Friday, Apr 8, 2022 · 7:50:53 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
This whole thread is the stuff of nightmares.
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Georgia voting rights lawsuit heads to trial as the state prepares for fiery midterms
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Georgia’s election policies will be put to the test Monday, as a trial three years in the making begins to address voting issues in the state in 2018 and 2020.
Voters and election officials from around Georgia will testify under oath about a plethora of blockades they faced when trying to vote in Georgia’s gubernatorial election in 2018 and the presidential election in 2020, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reports.
RELATED STORY: Stacey Abrams turns tables on Gov. Kemp, files suit to use law he signed for himself in her favor
The lawsuit will focus on voting laws including the “exact-match” rule, which essentially puts a voter’s registration into a “pending” status if the name doesn’t exactly match a citizen’s government-issued ID. According to AJC, prior to the 2018 election, “nearly 47,000 voter registrations were put in ‘pending status,’ about 70% of which were from Black residents.”
The suit was filed in 2018 by Stacey Abrams’ group Fair Fight Action after she lost her gubernatorial race to Republican Brian Kemp.
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Defendants in the suit are Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other election officials. The case will be overseen by U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2010.
In February, Jones threatened to delay the Georgia midterms to June or July in order to consider three lawsuits alleging gerrymandered maps that discriminate against Black voters and are in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). “I need to hear all the evidence before I make a decision,” Jones said.
“Almost all of Abrams’ claims have already been dismissed, and the remaining ones are nowhere close to what she alleged in her nonconcession speech,” Raffensperger told the AJC. “Her three-year ‘stolen election’ campaign has been nothing more than a political stunt to keep her in the national spotlight, and it’s a disservice to voters.”
But the reality remains that voters of color are being suppressed, and not just in Georgia.
Using the excuse that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, Republicans have made it their mission to put as many voting restrictions in place as they can.
The Brennan Center reports that as of mid-January, “legislators in at least 27 states have introduced, pre-filed, or carried over 250 bills with restrictive provisions,” compared to just 75 in 2021.
Just last month, with Republicans largely in favor, the Georgia House voted 98-78 to pass HB 1464, which gives the Georgia Bureau of Investigation freedom of “jurisdiction to investigate election fraud and election crimes,” “subpoena power to further such investigations,” as well as the power to “provide for penalty; to provide for related matters,” and “to repeal conflicting laws.”
Here are just a few examples of the many games and voting restrictions the GOP is trying to put into place:
Arizona Republicans proposed a law forcing all citizens in the state to vote in person. In Mississippi, GOP lawmakers attempted to remove all voters from the rolls within 30 days if they did not show proof of U.S. citizenship. In Texas, thanks to SB 1, hundreds of ballots were rejected in Tarrant County.
AJC reports that Sen. Raphael Warnock is scheduled to testify via video, and the trial could last about a month.
Liz Cheney was relentless this week—sparing no Republican complicit in Trump's crimes
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As the select committee investigating Jan. 6 secured criminal contempt referrals against two top Trump aides this week, the panel’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, meted out a drubbing to Republicans who were and continue to be complicit in Donald Trump’s 2020 election-stealing scheme.
Like poetry in motion, Cheney directly impugned her GOP colleagues, starting with Trump and his aides, former Assistant to the President Peter Navarro and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino.
“Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Scavino nor Mr. Navarro is some form of royalty,” Cheney said in her House floor speech preceding the final vote. “There is no such thing in America as the privileges of the crown. Every citizen has a duty to comply with a subpoena.” Cheney also made the point this week that the Jan. 6 panel would have much preferred to interview the two men rather than hold them in contempt of Congress.
Here’s a glimpse of Cheney’s work at a series of House hearings and votes this week.
Donald Trump
Cheney informed the public that Trump knew his actions were illegal and would likely lead to violence.
“We have learned that President Trump and his team were warned in advance and repeatedly that the efforts they undertook to overturn the 2020 election would violate the law and our Constitution,” she said. “They were warned that Jan. 6 could and likely would turn violent.”
The Jan. 6 committee also released a Jan. 3 text written to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows implicating Trump in a pre-certification planning call.
Dan Scavino
Cheney’s testimony at the Rules Committee meeting:
Mr. Scavino worked directly with President Trump to spread President Trump’s false message that the election was stolen and to recruit Americans to come to Washington with the false premise that January 6th would be an opportunity to “take back their country.”
This effort to deceive was widely effective and widely destructive. The Committee has many questions for Mr. Scavino about his political social media work for President Trump, including his interactions with an online forum called “The Donald” and with QAnon, a bizarre and dangerous cult.
Peter Navarro
More from the Rules Committee hearing:
Mr. Navarro will also be a key witness. He has written a book boasting about his role in planning and coordinating the activity of January 6th, and yet, as the Chairman noted, he does not have the courage to testify here.
We have many questions for Mr. Navarro—including about his communications with Roger Stone and Steve Bannon regarding the planning for January 6th. As a federal judge concluded last week: ‘Based on the evidence, the court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.’
Rudy Giuliani, former Trump attorney of meltdown infamy
Cheney also succinctly laid waste to sad-sack Rudy Giuliani.
“The election claims made by Donald Trump were so frivolous and so unfounded that the president’s lead lawyer did not just lose these cases, he lost his license to practice law,” Cheney said.
GOP Colleagues
Cheney and GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, chair of the Republican Study Committee, exchanged barbs on the House floor after Banks accused Democrats of gleefully abusing their power.
“Today’s vote is not about wrongdoing, and it isn’t about anybody’s character, no matter what they say,” Banks said. “Today’s vote is about the character of this House. It’s about abusing the seat of our democracy to attack American democracy.”
Banks said that for Democrats, it “might feel really good—and in the vindictive sort of way—to vote to put their political opponents behind bars.”
Cheney quickly countered, “It feels sad, and it feels tragic that so many in my own party are refusing to address the constitutional crisis and the challenge that we face.”
A sad and tragic lot, indeed.
Stay tuned—there are bound to be more bombshells along the way. Cheney said more than 800 witnesses have now provided information to the panel, including a dozen former White House staffers. Ivanka Trump was one of them.
Chris Murphy just showed every progressive how to call out transphobes like Marjorie Taylor Greene
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Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut gave a poignant, haunting address on the Senate floor on April 7, 2022. In about 15 minutes, Murphy walks his peers through the barriers and oppressions trans people, including trans youth, face every day, including how that can impact mental health. Murphy described, for example, the letter a parent received from their child, who died by suicide because they felt they could not live their life as a “lie” as a boy instead of the girl they know they “could become.” They said they lost faith in the world and could not see a “way out” of living in the “wrong body.”
This young person’s story is not in isolation, either. LGBTQ+ people, and especially trans people, live with higher rates of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. More than 40% of LGBTQ+ youth reported experiencing suicidal ideation in 2021, for example, with more than half of trans youth considering suicide, according to The Trevor Project.
This is a public health crisis in itself, but given all the anti-trans legislation Republicans have been pushing, the situation is only getting more worrisome. Conservatives are happy to tell already vulnerable youth they can’t play sports, access safe, age-appropriate health care, or use the bathroom like everyone else… And don’t seem to care at all what impact this could have on one’s mental health. It’s sick.
RELATED: Kentucky teacher resigns after writing supportive statement for LGBTQ students on board
You can catch a shorter version of Murphy’s speech here.
Murphy seamlessly transitioned into calling out Trump and his allies for bullying and isolating trans and non-binary youth and advancing more than 150 anti-trans bills in the last year. He also discussed Alabama’s heinous anti-queer bill that bans safe, age-appropriate gender-affirming health care for trans youth, including a felony ban on puberty blockers and hormonal therapy for people under the age of 19. Physicians prescribing such care could face up to 10 years in prison.
Murphy stressed that trans youth (and trans adults, for that matter) aren’t new. The only difference, as Murphy puts it, between today and 50 years ago is that now people have space to be open and out. (Or at least, relatively so.)
Murphy also pointed out that figuring out your gender is not a threat to anyone. It’s a process, and a fine one, and there is nothing wrong with questioning and exploring your gender identity.
“You might not know a transgender or non-binary kid,” Murphy continued. “But trust me! You do.” Murphy went on to say that these children are no different from anyone else, including their likes, interests, and behaviors. “They are just kids,” he repeated.
This is also a great point for everyone to keep in mind. If you’re thinking, “Well, I don’t know any trans men, or I can’t imagine what it’s like to share a bathroom with a trans woman,” you’re probably wrong. You’ve probably already known these people or had these experiences, but they weren’t out to you, and so you didn’t realize. And that’s okay! But a lack of your own awareness does not change reality as experienced by other people. Trans people are not boogeymen.
“These kids threaten no one,” he continued. “They hurt no one.”
Murphy’s address to colleagues and peers who are bullying trans youth is, put simply, to grow up and stop it. Which is a message I can certainly get behind.
Murphy also pointed out that saving women’s sports is not the reason conservatives are rallying against trans girls in sports. The real reason? Hate. He argued he could ask rooms full of people if their cis child has lost to a trans girl and feels confident no one would raise their hand, which is likely the case. (Though trans youth winning is also fair because everyone loses and everyone wins, sometimes!)
“Imagine how small and weak a person must be to have all that power… And use it to bully children,” he added in reference to people like Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others who spew their views and rhetoric.
You can watch Murphy’s full video below.
If you or a loved one are in need of mental health support, please don’t hesitate to contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, 24/7, and always free.
Trump's Mar-a-Lago document stash has drawn FBI attention
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How did classified material make its way to Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump when he skipped town ahead of President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021? That’s a question for the FBI, which the agency has started investigating, according to reports. (A spokesperson refused to confirm or deny such an investigation when asked by The Washington Post, but there are multiple reports it’s happening.)
Unfortunately, the FBI investigation is currently blocking a parallel investigation by the House Oversight Committee, which Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, expressed concern about in a recent letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. But the FBI investigation itself is an interesting addition to the long list of investigations into Trump’s various activities both in public office and in private business. Just Thursday, New York Attorney General Letitia James asked for Trump to be held in contempt of court in a separate investigation.
RELATED STORY: House committee wants to know why Justice Department is blocking its investigation of Trump records
The New York Times reports that such an investigation would likely not target any specific individual. The questions asked, to start, would be whether the material involved was properly classified, whether it was mishandled, whether there was any chance that anyone got improper access to it, and, well, how it got to Florida along with many other White House records that should have stayed with the government rather than arrived at a private resort and club.
Nonetheless, Trump has been on the defensive about those 15 boxes of records, saying in a recent statement, “The fake news is making it seem like me, as the president of the United States, was working in a filing room.” In other words, “Don’t blame me, it was my underlings.”
In addition to the FBI and House investigations of the mishandled records, Trump faces investigations by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the New York attorney general (as previously mentioned), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis. That’s in addition to several lawsuits, including with his niece Mary Trump, magazine writer E. Jean Carroll, and his longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
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New York AG Letitia James asks judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt of court
Ex-prosecutor: Trump is guilty of fraud beyond a reasonable doubt
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago document stash contained ‘top secret’ documents, information on COVID-19 pandemic
Ukraine update: It's not as simple as 'give Ukraine the most modern weapons'
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The war news lately has become one endless civilian massacre after another, so I take solace in focusing on the military side of the story. It’s not that I want to ignore or gloss over war crimes, it’s that it’s deeply triggering to me. Remember, I came to the United States as a war refugee. I’ve lived the life of a child noncombatant in the midst of armed conflict. And my personal experience was nowhere near as horrible as that of many people, either in El Salvador in the late 70s and 80s or in Ukraine today. It’s too much.
Civilians always bear the brunt of war. Always.
The reaction on social media always turns to “we need to give Ukraine everything they request, give them all the weapons!” The sentiment is understandable. We are mostly helpless, sitting on the sidelines of unspeakable horror. And it’s certainly understandable for Ukrainians to ask for it all. They are the ones doing the dying as the rest of the world is paralyzed by Russia’s nuclear weapons.
But each news of fresh massacres changes the equation slightly, erodes constraints. NATO armor and artillery were once off-limits to Ukraine. Today, Czech armor is already in Ukrainian hands, and more is on the way from several countries. Slovakia sent Soviet-era air defenses that logistically fit into Ukraine’s current stock. The U.K. has sent advanced air defense systems, and artillery is on tap. Several countries are sending armored personnel carriers. The U.S. is sending switchblade suicide drones, which truth be told, feels more escalatory than anything, given their ability to strike deep behind Russian lines and their overall nastiness. Those switchblades will soon be the most effective killers on that battlefield.
When the West began its first tentative shipment to Ukraine, Russia threatened retaliation. Before the war, it even made vague nuclear threats if anyone intervened. Today, Russia is rendered mostly mute. The war isn’t over, but it already has been defanged. When Finland first began discussing NATO membership, Putin spokesman’s thundered, “It is obvious that [if] Finland and Sweden join NATO, which is a military organization to begin with, there will be serious military and political consequences.” Yesterday, after news that Finland was moving forward with an application, the Kremlin’s response was sad and pathetic: “We’ll have to rebalance the situation. We’ll have to make our Western flank more sophisticated in terms of ensuring our security.”
As for Ukraine’s new goodies from the West? Russia is essentially mute. And the floodgates have opened. NATO’s Eastern Bloc nations are all moving from Soviet-era equipment to NATO standard gear. Why waste the money to keep old equipment in deep storage? And NATO’s Western flank, including the United States, has entire armies worth of old equipment (like American humvees) being replaced by newer gear. Expect more and more of it to make its way to Ukrainian hands.
Still, that doesn’t mean everything. Mark Hertling, former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe discusses some of those logistical challenges in this thread.
Looking it up, an M1 Abrams tank mechanic goes to school for six months to learn to maintain it. Then, he or she goes to their unit, where they spend several years learning the craft under the watchful eye and guidance of non-commissioned officers with 10 to 20 years of experience. (We previously talked about why noncommissioned officers are so incredibly important.)
The training on those systems is long, and that’s just the baseline! Think of what you learned in college or trade school, and what you learned at your subsequent jobs. Full training is ongoing and takes years to master. And that’s on a $3 million tank! As Hertling puts it, “The T72 is an old Chevy; the M1 is a Ferrari.” One is easy to maintain; the other is a nightmare without proper training and equipment. In fact, the M1 is so complex, that it needs several different kinds of maintenance personnel to keep one running. And as Hertling notes, if you do it wrong, the tank’s engine and transmission can blow.
Let’s look at the Patriot missile defense system, which sure would come in handy in Ukraine.
With launchers and radar (all of which would be a new Russian military priority to destroy) 60 missiles would cost $10 billion, or an initial startup cost of $33 million per missile. And once they’re launched, that’s it. A T-72 costs $500,000 to 1.5 million per copy. An M1 costs $2.5 to 9 million, all depending on how it’s kitted out. Ukraine, in total, has received a little over $2 billion in U.S. military aid.
Financially, Ukraine could outfit entire tank regiments for the cost of a Patriot system. But let’s say, “Give Ukraine anything it wants, regardless the cost!” The world doesn’t work that way, but sure, let’s make that assumption.
A Patriot operator undergoes 20 weeks of training. Once again, that’s just the baseline. Soldiers then go to their units and spend years, if not decades, perfecting their craft. But as always, pressing the button to fire is the relatively easy part. It’s maintaining the equipment that is the real challenge. A Patriot system repairer has a 53-week advanced training. That’s a full year! And I keep repeating this because it’s true—that’s the baseline. That’s just good enough to get placed in a line unit where NCOs with 10 to 20 years of experience continue the training.
It would be literally impossible for Ukraine to operate and maintain this level of complex hardware anytime within the next year, absent a “foreign legion” of experienced Patriot operators and maintainers to run the systems. I’ll assume that’s not a realistic option.
Now imagine the maintenance requirements for aircraft.
I’ve already written about systems in NATO stocks that could immediately be put to use by Ukraine. There is a lot, including over 1,000 T-72 tank variants, artillery systems, armored personnel carriers, and—just as important—fuel and ammo compatible with their existing army. Even planes! Though they are nowhere near the game-changer people think they are.
But Ukraine stopped Russia dead in its tracks and began to roll them back with simple, infantry-borne weapons like anti-tank and anti-air missiles. And all those hundreds of thousands of reserves in western Ukraine? They need helmets, body armor, and vehicles to transport them. I get that body armor is not sexy, but anything that allows more Ukrainians to engage in the field is worth its weight in gold, and is far more efficient use of resources than expensive high-end military gear.
This commercial system from UARM costs $1,260. Outfitting their entire reserves of 300,000, plus their 70,000 territorial defense force (TDF) members, would cost $466 million. Heck, there is a waiting list to join the territorial defense forces. Rounding up to $500 million would provide body armor for another 30,000. More, likely, with volume discounts. The more TDF Ukraine has, the more regular army units are available to go on the offensive.
This stuff isn’t as exciting and sexy as MiG-29s, I get it. But that’s the kind of gear the United States and allies have been sending to Ukraine, allowing it to have the battlefield impact it has had. (The U.S. alone has sent 45,000 sets of body armor and helmets.)
As for going on the offensive, armor, artillery, and Switchblade killer drones are the name of the game, and that’s exactly what’s starting to flood into Ukraine. Will Ukraine ask for more? Of course. Why not? They even asked Germany for submarines, which is laughably absurd. But Ukraine would be in a different place without the flood of Western armaments that have delivered exactly what Ukraine needed to turn the tide of the war.
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Friday, Apr 8, 2022 · 5:40:26 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Ukraine could well end this war with more armored vehicles than it had when it went in.
The rejoicing for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson continues
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Good history was made in Washington, D.C., on April 7, 2022. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson became Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson, ready to take a seat on the highest court in the land when the new term begins in October. In the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, there have been 115 Justices, and 108 of them have been white men. In 1967, one barrier was broken with Thurgood Marshall’s confirmation. It took another 14 years for a woman, Sandra Day O’Connor to reach the bench. It took another 41 years for a Black woman to get there. Forty. One.
Which is just part of why the joy of this day is irrepressible. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who showed up just when he needed to during the confirmation hearings, to inject some humanity, some reverence for the moment, and some joy, reflected after the vote.
“Today is a day of healing for a lot of people. Today is a day of triumph for a lot of folks. And it’s definitely a day of celebration to see this glass ceiling shattered in what is a Jackie Robinson moment for America,” Booker said.
The middle students at Imani middle school in Houston, Texas, speak to that. “When you read about in books the amount of suffering that people have gone through who look like I do, the milestone, this is another milestone,” one of them said.
“It’s very inspiring,” seventh-grader Marley Brailey said. “It just shows that I can do this if I put my mind to it, that can be me. It’s just so inspirational that’s the best word that I can use to describe it.”
In Dayton, Ohio, Taylor Tyler is in her last year of law school at the University of Dayton and she wholeheartedly agrees. “It just means that as a black woman [I] have a place in law,” she said, while watching the confirmation with her fellow students. “Seeing someone that looks like us sends the message that you can do anything, you can do what you want. Just because you’re in a field that’s more dominated by people that don’t look like you, or don’t sound like you and talk like you, doesn’t mean you don’t have a place.”
But it’s in Georgia, where this moment was made possible by the hard work that got the Reverend Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff elected, that the celebration is sweetest.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, CEO of the King Center, Dr. Bernice King, called the confirmation a “powerful moment in the history of this nation.” She added, “What a reminder that change can come. Let’s embrace it and keep working for true peace.”
Stacey Abrams, whose Fair Fight Action helped mobilize so many voters in Georgia in 2020, applauded Jackson’s “intellectual rigor, compassion, and fortitude.”
“Congratulations, America!” she tweeted.
Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson tweeted: “I’m sure that Dr. King, who was assassinated 54 years and three days ago, beams with pride as our nation lives out the true meaning of its creed—that all men and women are created equal. I congratulate Judge Jackson and her family.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wrote that Justice Jackson’s “confirmation is historic, and I am confident that she will be a diligent and thoughtful addition to our nation’s highest court. […] While we still have much work ahead of us to ensure this country lives up to its highest of ideals, today we take one more step toward a more perfect union.”
And Sen. Raphael Warnock tweeted after the vote, “Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
That Vice President Kamala Harris, who shattered her own glass ceiling—two of them!—presided over the vote made it that much sweeter. So is what she quietly did on the Senate floor. She motioned Sens. Warnock and Booker to her desk, and gave them each sheets of blank stationery from the Office of the Vice President, and an assignment: “Write a letter to a young Black woman in their lives to mark the historic day.”
Here’s how Sen. Warnock’s completed his assignment, a letter to his daughter, Chloé.
“Dear Chloé, today we confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote. “In our nation’s history, she is the first Supreme Court Justice who looks like you—with hair like ours. While we were voting on the floor of the Senate, a friend of mine—the Vice President of the United States—handed me this piece of paper and suggested I write a note to someone who comes to mind. By the way, she is the first Vice President who also looks like you!”
“So I wrote this note to say you can be anything, achieve anything you set your head and heart to do. Love you! Dad.”
Former Republican staffer sentenced to 12 years in prison for operating child pornography ring
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On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced Ruben Verastigui has been sentenced to 151 months in prison on a federal charge of receipt of child pornography.
A Washington, D.C., resident, 29-year-old Ruben Verastigui has spent his entire career in conservative circles, including as an aide to the Trump re-election campaign and stints as a digital strategist for the Senate Republican Conference and the Republican National Committee.
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The Department of Justice detailed the evidence against Ruben Verastigui, and this case is extremely disturbing.
[Warning: Graphic description of the DOJ’s case is listed below]
According to the government’s evidence, from April 2020 through Feb. 2021, Verastigui was active in an online group devoted to trading child pornography and discussing child sexual abuse. Verastigui shared child pornography videos with another member of the group and made numerous comments about sexually abusing children. Verastigui indicated his preference for babies, saying they were his “absolute favorite,” and solicited another group member for videos of babies being raped. The other group member promptly sent Verastigui a video of a baby being raped, to which Verastigui responded enthusiastically. The other group member then sent Verastigui numerous other videos of child pornography.
Verastigui is just one of numerous Republican staffers to face child pornography charges in recent years. Chase Tristan Epsy, a lawyer for Alabama Gov. Kay Ivy, was arrested in 2021 for soliciting a minor.
As usual, it seems the howls of Republicans are pure projection.
And last, but not least, Verastigui was a featured speaker at the 2013 anti-choice rally in Washington, D.C.