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Ukraine update: What we learned from the first day of Russia's big Donbas offensive
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Season two of Putin’s war in Ukraine is now underway, and while it’s early, we’re starting to get an idea of Russia’s designs. Say goodbye to a push toward Dnipro (the notion was idiotic), and so long pipe-dream pincer—a 200-kilometre attempted encirclement of Ukrainian defensive positions on the eastern Donbas front—that was stupid too. What we’re getting instead is the same shit from the last eight years: direct attacks on the entire Donbas front lines. It looks like this:
Not only is the entire front under pressure, but the Izyum salient is pushing toward Slovyansk (pre-war population 111,000), and Kramtorsk (population 157,000). The pincer maneuver would’ve aimed to cut off Ukraine resupplies to this entire region, starving a third of Ukraine’s army into submission. Perhaps after Mariupol, which still hasn’t fallen, Russia decided that would take too long—parades must be marched on May 9 after all. So Russian troops are gunning for the region’s two major population and cultural centers, cutting them off from supplies, and maybe attempting a Mariupol-style operation to take them.
For once, a Russian move doesn’t appear utterly idiotic. This is what they should’ve done at the start of the war when they were at full strength. Russia can’t maintain long supply lines. This minimizes that deficiency while also making them less vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery hitting them hard from the west. And broad pressure across a wide line means they can keep doing their small-scale advances without having to figure out how to mass forces for a major singular push. In other words, it’s making lemonade out of lemons.
The amount of territory exchanging hands was minimal, but of course it’s early.
So Russia is making the best of the hand it’s been dealt, but let’s talk about that hand, because … it’s still not great.
Russia began the war with 120-130 battalion tactical groups (BTG), which have a paper strength of 800-1,000 troops, 1,200 tanks, and around 5,000 infantry fighting vehicles. We’ve discussed at length how most BTGs showed up understrength, and how few soldiers in a BTG are actually combat troops (230, to be exact). The problem has only gotten worse as the war has attritted unit strength (dead, wounded, and destroyed equipment), and soldiers desert and outright refuse to redeploy after fighting in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions. Russia has lost at least 519 tanks and 838 armored fighting vehicles. Those are just publicly available, visually confirmed losses, which means the real number is even higher. So unbelievably, Russia has lost around half the tanks they likely started with, and those were their best, most modern tanks. The stuff coming in from reserve piles is 1960s crap.
The Pentagon thinks another 22 BTGs are currently being rebuilt/retrofitted outside of Ukraine, and another 12 around Mariupol (though the open source intelligence community has only been able to identify around six).
You look at those numbers, and wow, that sounds like a lot! Yet 22 are still hypothetical units, not engaged. Ukraine claims many of these units are refusing orders to deploy, and they’ve released intercepted calls supporting that assessment. Whether it’s six or 12 around Mariupol, they’re still stuck there trying to deal with only 1-2,000 remaining Ukrainian defenders, in a massive city-sized factory literally designed to withstand a nuclear attack (no joke).
So for now, as the big offensive gets underway, we’re talking 76 BTGs. At full strength, that would be 760 tanks, 3,000 infantry fighting vehicles, and 17,480 soldiers. Of course, we’ve seen Russia put all manner of unqualified, untrained soldiers in vehicles, so let’s assume double that were thrown into the wood chipper: that’s still only about 35,000 troops trying to take and hold an area that is hundreds of square miles, with deeply entrenched and protected defensive positions. (If I were Russia, I’d station a garrison outside the factory and move everything else to the north. Not worth the lives, equipment, and effort to root out Ukrainians when they’re cornered in this pocket.)
Of course, we know know that Russia isn’t fielding full-strength BTGs. They never did—the entire concept of the BTG was designed by grifters to make it easier to pilfer material and money—a regiment kept one BTG ready for missions like Syria and stole from the other two for villas, dachas, and vodka. The Russian army was ill equipped to send 120-130 of its total 170 at the start of the war. It’s even worse now. Take this video, for example:
It’s not a gigantic column. It’s a BTG. Except that instead of 40 IFVs, I counted 30 or so. No tanks when it’s supposed to have 10. And as you can see, there are lots of supply trucks, so no matter how many soldiers they force into combat roles from the supply teams, they can’t get them all on the front lines. They need to ferry fuel, ammo, and supplies. They need their mechanics and other maintenance people alive to fix broken gear. Too bad we can’t count soldiers, but already, this BTG is below combat strength (it has lost over a third of its vehicles even before it reaches the front). Not that Russia cares, since it’s just throwing them into frontal assaults without thought of tactics.
With enough artillery, air support, and frontal assaults, Russia might finally punch through some of the prepared lines. Seems kind of inevitable, actually. Then what? They fight their way to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and once again find what they’ve found in every city of any significant size: Russia doesn’t know how to do urban warfare, and a small, outgunned defensive garrison can tie up Russian forces nearly indefinitely.
The two cities will be reduced to rubble, that we can assume. But that doesn’t end resistance. In fact, it gives defenders more places to hide and ambush the enemy. And these two towns are not Mariupol, isolated, deep in the country’s southeast corner, far from friendly lines. There’s an entire Ukrainian army breathing down their necks just on the western edge of the Donbas region. By most estimates, one-third of the Ukrainian army is in Donbas, which means that most of the rest is right outside the door, preparing to engage.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is on the offensive around Kharkiv, threatening Russia’s supply lines. It looks like this:
Two major rail lines from Russia converge at Kupiansk, as well as another from the Russian-occupied east. Take that out, and that entire Izyum salient is in trouble. Of course Russia is attempting to connect that salient with Russian-held territory in the east, but even if they connect, losing direct access from Russia will dramatically reduce Russia’s abilities to resupply that entire area, and bottleneck their supply lines into fewer roads—both slowing down the pace of supply (traffic jams), and making those convoys easier ambush targets.
My guess is that Kupiansk is too valuable to lose, and Russia will have to move troops north to protect those supply lines. That’s called “fixing the enemy in place.” Every BTG babysitting their supply lines north of the Izyum salient is one less BTG on the offensive down south, just like every BTG trying to dislodge Ukraine from the Azovstal steel plant is one less BTG pushing north.
Please note that I write these late at night before going to bed, Pacific time. Lots can change by the time the morning crew publishes this live. We are definitely in “fog of war” territory here, so I’m using the best available information at the time I write this. On Tuesday, I’ll be digging for details on the specific attacks: Is Russia attacking with larger force, or are they still limited to one or two BTGs per attack? Also, word is that Ukrainian artillery reinforcements are making it to the east in time to engage. Will we see some of the results? If true, that’ll make things particularly unpleasant for Russians on the Izyum salient. I’ll be paying close attention to Kharkiv and whether Ukraine pushes that attack, and whether Russia rushes defensive troops to protect their lines.
As for Kherson down south, Russia is laying down a wall of artillery, preventing Ukrainian forces—lacking sufficient armor and artillery of their own—from traversing that wide-open exposed terrain. I suspect Ukraine will prioritize the eastern Donbas front over Kherson’s liberation for the time being. Still, Ukraine continues to reportedly roll back Russian forces from the Kryvyi Rih approach. The little white circles (look like dots) I circled below are all settlements liberated in the last few days.
One last thought: Russia must really be freaked out about arriving Western arms shipments and Putin’s May 9 deadline, because this attack is coming at a really shitty time: spring rainy season. While the forecast is showing less rain than it did yesterday, it’s still wet season, preventing the ground from drying out.
Russia’s heavy equipment will need to either stay on roads, where they are easy to ambush and target with artillery, or they risk a losing confrontation with General Mud. Not that any of the good guys are complaining, however. Ukraine could use all the help it can get.
Morning Digest: Wisconsin Supreme Court adopts new map shrinking Black representation in Milwaukee
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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
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Leading Off
● WI Redistricting: The Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 4-3 on Friday to adopt new legislative maps proposed by the state’s Republican-run legislature, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned the state court’s earlier decision to enact maps drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
The Wisconsin court had selected Evers’ plans because they best complied with its earlier directive that any new maps represent the “least change” possible compared with the existing districts. That decision effectively locked in the GOP’s already considerable gerrymanders, despite the fact that the court went with maps submitted by the state’s Democratic governor.
But in an opinion castigated as “bizarre” and “shocking” by legal experts, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Evers maps last month because the Wisconsin court had failed to conduct a full-blown analysis as to whether the Voting Rights Act required the drawing of a seventh majority-Black Assembly district in the Milwaukee area. That ruling prompted Wisconsin Justice Brian Hagedorn, a conservative who originally joined with the court’s three liberals to pick Evers’ proposals, to switch sides and pick GOP lawmakers’ maps—the same maps that Evers had vetoed, prompting the impasse that led to the courts taking over the redistricting process in the first place.
Hagedorn explained his change of heart in a brief concurrence, saying that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling would have required an intensive factual analysis under the VRA for which there was insufficient time remaining this year. As a result, he wrote, the only “race-neutral” plan available to the court was the one submitted by Republican legislators, which reduces the number of Black seats from six to five.
In a detailed dissent joined by her two fellow liberals, Justice Jill Karofsky excoriated the majority, pointing out that the removal of a Black-majority seat in Milwaukee was “an equally suspect, if not more egregious, sign of race-based line drawing.” She insisted instead that the court should further develop the evidentiary record, despite Hagedorn’s protests, and pointed out that a bare majority of the court was, in effect, overriding Evers’ veto on its own—an act that otherwise requires a supermajority of the legislature.
This may not be the end, however. Both Hagedorn and, in particular, Karofsky indicated that the Republican map the court wound up picking could itself be vulnerable to further litigation on similar grounds—namely, that it fails to comply with the Voting Rights Act’s mandate to ensure sufficient representation for Black voters. But given the overt partisanship on display in both high courts—the one in Washington and the one in Wisconsin—such claims might nevertheless fail to gain traction.
Redistricting
● KS Redistricting: Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has signed the new maps for the state House and Senate passed late last month by Kansas’ Republican-held legislature, though they must first undergo a mandatory review by the state Supreme Court. The exact deadline for the court to act is not yet set: The legislation enacting the new districts must first be published in the state’s official newspaper, the Kansas Register, at which point Attorney General Derek Schmidt has 15 days to ask the Supreme Court to review the maps. Once he does, the justices have 10 days to issue a ruling.
Senate
● CA-Sen: Businessman Dan O’Dowd is running for Senate in California, but he’s apparently not looking to unseat incumbent Alex Padilla. Instead, Politico reports, he wants to put the hurt on Elon Musk … who, you may have noticed, is not on this year’s ballot, in the Golden State or any other.
O’Dowd, who filed to run as a Democrat, has reportedly booked $650,000 worth of TV time to air ads attacking Musk, whose software for “self-driving” Tesla vehicles O’Dowd has blasted as dangerously unsafe. It also so happens O’Dowd runs a company called Green Hills Software, which he says has made him a billionaire, that competes in this space. (The spots aren’t available yet, but Politico’s Christopher Cadelago says they’re being made by high-profile Democratic ad-maker Mark Putnam.)
As Cadelago notes, O’Dowd is entitled to much cheaper ad rates as a Senate hopeful than he would be as a private individual, under an FCC rule that guarantees candidates what’s known as the “lowest unit rate.” The ins and outs of that rule are complex, but it can yield huge savings, which is why super PACs, for instance, can pay twice as much or more than campaigns.
But if O’Dowd really is a billionaire, this penny-pinching seems like a rather minor consideration. However, as Cadelago suggests, there may be another advantage at play: The Federal Trade Commission’s “truth-in-advertising” rules don’t apply to political ads, which might allow O’Dowd to level charges against Musk that might otherwise run afoul of the FTC. In addition, as we point out whenever third-party advertisements get yanked for inaccuracies, stations are obligated to air candidate ads no matter their content. As long as O’Dowd is willing to stomach a Musk lawsuit, then, he can blanket the airwaves with whatever accusations he likes.
Of course, some unnamed Democrats are fretting that O’Dowd could in fact secure the second slot in June’ top-two primary and join Padilla on the general election ballot in an all-Democratic matchup—something that happened in California in both 2016 and 2018. O’Dowd has tried something like this before, though, and was quite unsuccessful: In 1994, back when California still used traditional primaries, he tried to prevent Sen. Dianne Feinstein from winning renomination but finished third with just 12% of the vote.
● NV-Sen: Republican firm OH Predictive Insights has conducted a poll on behalf of the nonpartisan Nevada Independent that finds Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto holding modest leads against both of her prospective Republican opponents. Cortez Masto bests former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who has the support of Donald Trump and national Republicans, by 42-34, and she edges out Army veteran Sam Brown by 43-35. OH Predictive Insights’ previous poll from late January had Cortez Masto defeating Laxalt by a similar 44-35; their prior release didn’t include Brown.
These latest results are notably better for the incumbent than a recent Suffolk University poll that showed her trailing Laxalt by 43-40 and beating Brown by only 40-39, but OH Predictive Insights indicated that one key reason for the difference was that their survey sampled all registered voters. By contrast, Suffolk had polled those whom they viewed as likely voters, implying that they thought turnout would favor Republicans this fall.
● OH-Sen: Late on Friday afternoon, Donald Trump endorsed venture capitalist J.D. Vance with just weeks to go until the May 3 Republican primary, frustrating many Republicans in Ohio who had scrambled to dissuade him after it was first reported that Trump could throw his backing to Vance and raising eyebrows among many observers questioning the logic of Trump’s pick.
Before reinventing himself as the most sycophantic of Trump supporters and as someone who delights in trolling liberals on Twitter by making outrageous statements in order to generate a backlash that he can ride to greater media attention and visibility among conservatives, Vance was unambiguous about his disgust for Trump in the 2016 election cycle. He once labeled himself a “never Trump guy,” and in a number of since-deleted tweets, Vance among other things called Trump “reprehensible” and stated he was voting for conservative independent Evan McMullin that year.
Vance’s total about-face on Trump may have won him the race to the bottom for Trump’s endorsement between himself and primary rivals such as former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who similarly stokes liberal backlash on Twitter, but it remains to be seen whether it will successfully win him the nomination. Indeed, most polls have found Vance lagging behind in third or fourth place in a crowded field where Mandel and businessman Mike Gibbons have frequently led. However, those same polls have also found a significant share of voters still undecided, and Vance may be counting on Trump’s endorsement to persuade those GOP voters still up for grabs.
To that effect, Vance has already put half a million behind a TV ad that showcases Trump’s endorsement and vows that Vance will “continue Trump’s fight” on immigration, abortion, and opposing Joe Biden.
● PA-Sen: Former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick’s latest Republican primary ad features shots of the candidate riding in a long convoy of motorcycles while he promises via a voiceover to take on the left and “keep America great.”
● Senate: The Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, which is the main super PAC on the Republican side in Senate races, has reserved a whopping $141 million in TV ads from Sept. 6 through Election Day across seven states:
- Alaska: $7.4 million
- Arizona: $14 million
- Georgia: $37 million
- Nevada: $15 million
- North Carolina: $27 million
- Pennsylvania: $24 million (begins Sept. 13)
- Wisconsin: $15 million
Republicans currently hold Alaska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while Democrats are defending Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. Reporting earlier this month indicated that Senate Majority PAC, which is SLF’s counterpart on the Democratic side, had reserved $108 million across six of these same states with the exception of Alaska.
Notably absent from either party’s reservations was Democratic-held New Hampshire, which is the only remaining state up this fall where Joe Biden won by just single digits.
Governors
● MN-Gov: First quarter fundraising reports are available for all candidates in Minnesota’s election for governor, and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz led the pack with $1 million raised and $4.1 million cash-on-hand. Walz’s numbers were far ahead of his potential GOP rivals below, though the governor doesn’t have any notable primary challengers:
- Former state Sen. Scott Jensen: $256,000 raised, $774,000 cash-on-hand
- Former state Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka: $99,000 raised, $406,000 cash-on-hand
- Healthcare executive Kendall Qualls: $467,000 raised, $168,000 cash-on-hand
- Former Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek: $149,000 raised, $40,000 cash-on-hand
- State Sen. Michelle Benson: $53,000 raised, $38,000 cash-on-hand
- Dermatologist Neil Shah: $75,000 raised, $22,000 cash-on-hand
● NE-Gov: In the wake of last Thursday’s story from the Nebraska Examiner where several women accused businessman Charles Herbster of sexual assault, state Sen. Brett Lindstrom has unveiled a poll of the May 10 Republican primary from 3D Strategic Research to argue that Herbster’s advantage in the polls was eroding even before the publication of last week’s bombshell news. The survey, which was conducted from April 10-12, finds Lindstrom tied 27-27 with University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen while Herbster, who has Trump’s endorsement, is close behind in third at 23% and state Sen. Theresa Thibodeau is far back at 6%.
Lindstrom had previously released another poll from the same firm taken in early March that had Herbster ahead of Pillen by 30-23 and Lindstrom back in third with 20%, and the few other publicly available polls to date had also found Herbster in the lead, all of which were also conducted before the accusations against Herbster became public.
● WI-Gov: Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, who was elected to four terms between 1987 and 2001, says he has decided not to run for his old job again. The 80-year-old was last on the ballot in 2012 when he was the GOP’s unsuccessful nominee against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
House
● OH-11: Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, which is backing Rep. Shontel Brown ahead of her rematch with former state Sen. Nina Turner in the May 3 Democratic primary, is running a new ad that praises Brown for standing with Joe Biden and voting for his infrastructure spending law last year.
Cartoon: Accurate political labels
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Abbreviated pundit roundup: Trump judge bans masks for travel, InfoWars bankruptcy, and more
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Not surprisingly, a Trump-appointed Florida judge has banned masks for travel. We begin today’s roundup with an analysis of the decision from Lawrence Gostin at The Daily Beast:
On Monday, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Florida threw out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s mask mandate for air travel and other forms of mass transportation. Deaths from COVID-19—and the mask mandates intended to prevent them—may be on the wane nationwide, but whatever you think about such policies, this is the latest and most egregious example of a judge acting as a partisan warrior in the COVID-19 culture wars.
Mizelle was appointed to the federal bench by President Trump in 2020. She was 33, and had been practicing law for only 8 years. She had nevertried a case as a lead attorney. The Senate confirmed her even though the American Bar Association gave her a rating of “not qualified.” This nominee should have been rejected by the Senate not because of her judicial philosophy and not because of her age, but because she simply didn’t have the credentials and experience to be a federal judge with lifetime tenure.
Now she is substituting her opinion for that of scientific professionals at the CDC, and dictating health policy in America. The outcome could be disastrous, only serving to further embolden the right-wing activists who dispute the reality of this horrifically lethal pandemic.
So if I am denied entry to a swimming pool because I have open, festering sores all over my torso, then I really am being “detained” on the sidewalk? If they won’t let me into the movie theater because of my visible case of the Black Death, I really have been “quarantined” in the parking lot? I am neither a lawyer, nor do I play one on this blog, but this does not impress me as legal reasoning. But, Lordy, does it make sense as politics.
You see, Judge Mizelle is one of those folks that the Federalist Society sent up the pneumatic tube that led from its labs to the White House. She clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and was rated as “not qualified” by the American Bar Association. She was 33 when she was nominated and confirmed as the 2020 lame-duck session was winding down. She was eight years out of law school and had never tried a case of any kind. Her husband was chosen to be acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security through his connection to that noted devotee of the Constitution, Stephen Miller. She had no experience, but she had the golden resume.
The RNC has pulled out of presidential debates. Here’s David Frum’s take:
Debate organizers may now try to appease the RNC, but the effort may well only make an already tense situation worse. If you believe that Chris Wallace is biased against Republicans, whom would you regard as an acceptable alternative? Joe Rogan? Tucker Carlson? Alex Jones? Russian state TV’s Vladimir Solovyov? Maybe the only way to satisfy [Trump] fans is to just let Trump interview himself for 90 minutes, to be followed by a panel applauding Trump and ridiculing his rival?
At New York magazine, Matt Stieb has the details on InfoWars going broke:
It’s reaping season for Alex Jones’s pan-conspiracist outfit down in Austin, Texas. After years of sowing misinformation and hate through the vaudevillian rants of its owner, Infowars filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday.
According to court filings, the website’s frequent shilling of overpriced dietary supplements was not enough to stave off financial trouble. Infowars claims it has as many as 48 creditors and up to $10 million in estimated liabilities — with estimated assets of $50,000 or less.
Kat Bouza breaks down the Taylor Lorenz/Libs of Tik Tok story making the rounds:
When a well-known reporter on the internet culture beat writes about a viral right-wing social media account, what’s the proper response? Well, if you’re a conservative on the internet, the best course of action is to get really upset and let everyone on Twitter know just how you’re feeling.
That’s the method a special segment of Twitter deployed Monday upon learning of Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz’s plans to publish a story about the wildly popular (and much maligned) Libs of TikTok — an openly bigoted and homophobic social media account that reposts so-called “liberal” content culled from various platforms repackaged to produce maximum engagement via rage clicks.
On a final note in case you missed it, here is Jane Mayer’s analysis of the campaign against Biden’s nominees:
Rather than attack a single candidate or nominee, the [American Accountability Foundation]. aims to thwart the entire Biden slate. The obstructionism, like the Republican blockade of Biden’s legislative agenda in Congress, is the end in itself. The group hosts a Web site, bidennoms.com, that displays the photographs of Administration nominees it has targeted, as though they were hunting trophies. And the A.A.F. hasn’t just undermined nominees for Cabinet and Court seats—the kinds of prominent people whose records are usually well known and well defended. It’s also gone after relatively obscure, sub-Cabinet-level political appointees, whose public profiles can be easily distorted and who have little entrenched support. The A.A.F., which is run by conservative white men, has particularly focussed on blocking women and people of color. As of last month, more than a third of the twenty-nine candidates it had publicly attacked were people of color, and nearly sixty per cent were women.
Ukraine update: Zelenskyy says new Russian assaults in Donbas are now underway
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today publicly announced that Russia’s long-expected Donbas offensive has now begun, with Russia boosting offensive operations throughout eastern Ukraine. What precisely that means is not yet clear; while Russian missile and artillery strikes have escalated in the past few days, the details on Russian ground assaults aren’t yet known. The newest ISW report remains skeptical that Russia will be any more successful in these attacks than in its failed Kyiv operations, though heavy casualties on both sides are all but assured.
One report suggests Russia may be attempting to surround and take Slovyansk, southeast of Izyum; this is at odds with previous intelligence suggesting—implausibly—that the Russian offensive would be aimed at taking far-off Dnipro, bypassing Ukraine’s most entrenched eastern defenses entirely. A Slovyansk attack would be a more incremental approach, but Ukrainian defenses there are robust.
Ukraine is not only defending, however. It’s also continuing to press Russian supply lines, a tactic that proved devastatingly effective in degrading Russian forces around Kyiv to the point that Russia was forced to retreat. Now those operations are targeting Russian lines leading to Izyum, a city recently captured by Russia that has been the staging ground for these newest attempted Russian drives southward.
There remain few scenarios in which Russian kleptocrat Vladimir Putin can carve out a win, no matter how the war unfolds from here. The sanctions currently dooming Russian attempts to replace the equipment being lost are likely to remain in effect for many years to come. While Putin has now arrested numerous of his own officials in an attempt to find scapegoats for Russia’s displays of military incompetence, the many opportunities for Russia to deescalate and declare partial victory are now behind us. Throwing Russian troops haphazardly toward the frontlines in an attempt to exhaust Ukraine territorial defense forces regardless of Russian costs appears to be one of the few plans Putin’s handpicked and thieving military leaders believe they might have the skills to accomplish.
Some of today’s news:
Black immigrants welcome Cameroonian TPS, continue urging relief for Ethiopia and Mauritania
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In a victory for Black immigrants and Black-led organizations that have been leading this years-long fight, the Biden administration announced on Friday that it will designate Cameroon for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), citing “extreme violence perpetrated by government forces and armed separatists.”
The decision stands to shield from deportation tens of thousands of Cameroonian immigrants who are already in the U.S., advocates said.
“TPS will provide an urgently needed measure of stability and security for an estimated 40,000 people from the deadly conflicts in Cameroon,” said the Temporary Protected Status Deferred Enforced Departure Administrative Advocacy Coalition (TPS-DED AAC). The coalition urged the Biden administration to “follow this announcement with swift implementation of TPS and immediate cessation of deportations to Cameroon to ensure protection.”
RELATED STORY: Menendez urges TPS for Cameroon and Ethiopia: ‘The United States must continue to lead’
But it is a bittersweet victory. Numerous advocates noted that while they celebrated the “life-saving protection TPS will provide for thousands of Cameroonians,” they also mourned the “harm that came to those who were deported back to dangerous conditions.” Human Rights Watch said in a February report that Cameroonian asylum-seekers deported from 2019 to January 2021 faced abuses following their return, including arbitrary arrest, extortion, and rape.
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“It is not lost on us that the journey to get to what should’ve been an obvious decision took years instead of days,” the UndocuBlack Network said. For comparison, Ukraine’s designation for Temporary Protected Status came within 10 days of Russia’s unprovoked invasion.
“A key step towards remedying the harms caused by the delay in designation is a strategic and equitable implementation plan,” UndocuBlack continued. “We urge the administration to immediately publish a Federal Register Notice (FRN) to provide eligible Cameroonians the opportunity to apply for TPS as soon as possible. An FRN publication would also officially open the registration period needed to facilitate the release of Cameroonians who are currently detained by ICE and CBP.”
The organization, which steadily fought for relief alongside Cameroon Advocacy Network and Haitian Bridge Alliance, also urged the administration to waive registration fees (officials waived certain application fees for Afghan refugees last fall) and a “culturally competent community outreach plan” to reach as many eligible people as possible.
UndocuBlack also urged relief for other Black immigrants facing imminent risk. “The current conditions in Cameroon made it a textbook case for TPS designation. Other majority-Black countries, with very similar conditions, must also receive TPS designation immediately. We hope Mauritania with the widespread practice of enslaving its Black population and Ethiopia with the armed conflict and humanitarian crisis in its Tigray region will also receive TPS designation soon.”
Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez last month urged relief for Cameroon and Ethiopia in a statement supporting the Biden administration’s designation of Afghanistan for Temporary Protected Status, writing it was “critical that TPS is not politicized to preference some countries over others. As I have said before, Black migrants are too often excluded when these important decisions are made.”
Following news of Cameroon’s designation last week, affected immigrants “who have lived in fear of imminent deportation said they feel like they can finally breathe,” Human Rights Watch said.
“I was almost deported myself [last year], but was taken off the plane,” one man told Human Rights Watch. “Thinking of the fact that there were many Cameroonians deported who faced hard times in jails in Cameroon … God has spared me. With this [TPS] news, it’s like a new day.” Both Human Rights Watch and affected individuals also urged the Biden administration to return recently deported Cameroonians. “It has been a nightmare, but now I feel safe,” another man told Human Rights Watch. “However, I will only be satisfied when the US government does something about my brothers that were deported, and those of us who have been unjustly treated by the immigration court system.”
“The United States recognizes the ongoing armed conflict in Cameroon, and we will provide temporary protection to those in need,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “Cameroonian nationals currently residing in the U.S. who cannot safely return due to the extreme violence perpetrated by government forces and armed separatists, and a rise in attacks led by Boko Haram, will be able to remain and work in the United States until conditions in their home country improve.”
RELATED STORIES: Following disturbing human rights report, advocates again urge deportation relief for Cameroonians
Complaint says ICE subjected African asylum-seekers to degrading, full-body restraint
Cameroonians fleeing conflict are in dire need of Temporary Protected Status
Trump's 'parade of supplicants' advised to woo the ocher ape with big fonts and color photos
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I’m trying to think of anything more undignified than sucking up to colossal loser Donald Trump after everything that’s happened in the past few years—telling him he won elections he lost, groveling for his endorsement, buying overpriced tchotchkes at his cult compound/golf resort, and pretending you’re not staring directly into the sallow, rheumy eyes of primordial evil.
I wouldn’t hire Trump to manage a Chuck E. Cheese, unless I actually wanted to open a strip club with an animatronic jug band and didn’t know who to bribe or murder to make that happen. And yet, according to a profoundly pathetic Sunday New York Times story, Republicans as a whole still can’t get enough of his unique blend of feral charisma and sultry lunch meat sweats.
The story is long, sad, and eye-gougingly horrific, but we pretty much already knew the broad strokes of everything that’s in there. Republicans are cashing in their souls for endorsements, and Trump is devouring those souls like so many saucy McNuggets. Pretty standard fare for the sell-out-democracy party.
That said, one portion of the story did grab my eye, because there’s such a huge disconnect between what these GOP hopefuls—almost all of whom went to college—are likely thinking in the parts of their brains they’ve decided to keep alive and what they’re actually doing these days to curry Trump’s favor.
Mr. Trump enjoys flattery and is not above rewarding sycophants. But insiders say bringing compelling visual material matters, too. Big fonts are crucial. With photos and graphics. In color.
“He’s not a real big digital guy, so we had printouts,” said Joe Kent, who has since won Mr. Trump’s backing for his effort to unseat Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, one of the 10 Republican impeachment votes.
…
Good God, is being in Congress really worth this degradation? Is being in the GOP worth it? If I had to choose between behaving this way to stay politically relevant or chaining a pair of slumbering antelopes to my vintage Sam and Frodo nipple rings, it would probably come down to a coin flip.
The Times charitably refers to the GOPsters visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago as a “parade of supplicants”—possibly because “caravan of ass-kissers” was deemed too déclassé for the paper of record. But Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio sums up these ingratiation celebrations pretty well.
“What was The Apprentice but a sad scramble of people behaving like crabs in a bucket to be lifted out by him?” said D’Antonio. “How are these people anything other than contestants vying for his approval?”
That’s a good analogy, but like most analogies, it’s a bit imprecise. Crabs in a bucket have far more dignity. If the GOP ever reaches crabs-in-a-bucket levels of seriousness again, maybe we can talk. But for now, they’re still beholden to the worst sentient being on this or any planet. And, well, the vast majority of them seem just fine with it.
It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
Asian father lies in a coma after being carjacked, robbed, and brutally beaten
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Across the country, attacks against Asian Americans are increasing due to misconceptions associated with COVID-19. In the most recent incident reported, a father was left in a coma after being brutally attacked in Chinatown in Chicago, Illinois, last week. Identified as Jin Yut Lew, the 61-year-old man was visiting his relatives when he reportedly never returned home after.
His children then made a Facebook page to spread the word about their missing father. It wasn’t until days later that street cleaners allegedly found Lew lying on the ground on April 7 and took him to the hospital.
“As I go to get the sign, I was startled … I go, ‘Are you OK, buddy?’ And he rolled over, and I saw blood on his face,” Tommy Duddleston, who was removing street sweeping signs when he found Lew, told the Chicago Sun-Times. Duddleston is a ward superintendent who works for the Department of Streets and Sanitation.
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Lew’s family believes he was carjacked, robbed, and brutally beaten.
As a result of the incident, Lew was diagnosed with severe brain trauma.
“He already had multiple brain surgeries. They had to do a craniotomy to decompress the brain because of brain bleeding,” Dr. Kim Yee, the spokesperson for the family, said according to ABC News. As of Sunday he remains in a coma and may have permanent brain damage.
“We just need to pray hard that Mr. Lew will wake up and speak to us and tell us what happened,” Yee said in another statement. “It’s about time we step up to do something immediately. Get this offender off the street immediately.”
Yee also noted that Lew was unidentified and left to die for more than a day until someone who saw his photo on social media recognized him and connected him to the family. His family was reunited with him two days after he went missing.
While it is not clear if the attack was racially motivated, the attack follows a string of attacks on AAPI community members in Chinatown specifically. According to data compiled by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, anti-Asian hate crimes have increased by 339% in 2021.
“Everyone’s fearful, and it doesn’t seem like it’s getting better,” Lew’s son said. “We need to wake up to that, and the city needs to get that under control. I grew up here. I know what it was like 30 years ago. The city is almost unrecognizable now.”
While xenophobia against the AAPI community is not a new phenomenon, the rate at which these crimes are increasing is more alarming with every data report released. Hate crime data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino found that hate crimes against Asian Americans surged in 2020 in at least 15 cities, Daily Kos reported. As the cities were further reviewed, a new report indicated that crimes against Asian Americans rose by 169% when comparing the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021.
As of Monday, no one was taken into custody in connection with the incident.
An online fundraiser to pay for Lew’s medical bills passed its $50,000 goal Thursday.
Oath Keeper leader wants charges dropped, joins push for new trial venue
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The seditious conspiracy docket in Washington, D.C., has been busy of late as members of the extremist Oath Keepers group have spent recent days scrambling to mount their defense.
There has been a request for an entirely different trial venue in one instance, and in several other instances, many of the defendants have requested that many of the toughest charges they face be dismissed altogether.
After a tense status conference two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ordered several of the Oath Keepers to file their respective motions by mid-April if they wanted to have certain charges dismissed or if they wished to align themselves with others. The next hearing is currently slated for May 6.
RELATED STORY: More Proud Boys fold like cheap suit, Oath Keepers raked by judge on way to trial
Oath Keeper Thomas Caldwell pushed on April 12 to see four of the most severe charges dropped against him from the overarching U.S. v. Rhodes indictment. That included seditious conspiracy. Other co-defendants Kelly Meggs, Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, Jessica Watkins, and David Moerschel have since asked to join him.
Thomas Caldwell Motion to Dismiss Counts 1-4 of Indictment by Daily Kos on Scribd
Late Monday afternoon, an attorney for Rhodes, Phillip Linder, filed a motion asking that Rhodes also be allowed to join Caldwell’s motion.
Elmer Rhodes Joins Motion to Dismiss by Daily Kos on Scribd
Beyond dismissal of the seditious conspiracy count, Rhodes, Caldwell, Meggs, Minuta, Hackett, Watkins, and Moerschel also want the obstruction conspiracy charge to be dropped and their respective counts for aiding and abetting that obstruction dropped as well. They say the charge of conspiring to stop an officer from discharging their duties should be wiped away, too.
That defense is, at the very least, creative.
In effect, they argue that the Department of Justice failed to properly state the offense in the seditious conspiracy charge. The government, they say, needs proof that the purpose of the conspiracy on Jan. 6 was to forcibly stop Congress from doing their duty, i.e., “executing the election laws.”
They also argue—curiously—that members of Congress are “constitutionally prohibited” from “executing any law.” Further, the certification process of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6 did not constitute an “execution of any law,” Caldwell’s motion states.
Other charges, like conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding and aiding and abetting that obstruction, should be tossed on a technicality. The use of the word “otherwise,” for example, in the legal definition for the crime of tampering, was pored over at length by Caldwell’s defense attorneys.
In a similar notable filing from Joseph Hackett’s defense attorney Angela Halim, the Department of Justice’s indictment was attacked outright because it accused Oath Keepers, quite simply, of too many “distinct conspiracies.”
Halim said federal prosecutors are unfairly lumping multiple distinct issues into one seditious conspiracy charge.
The multiple alleged conspiracies Halim said were being forced into one count included: 1) The Oath Keepers’ planning from November to December 2020 to stop the transfer of power by force; and 2) the group’s alleged planning to physically stop the certification on Jan. 6.
A third element of the indictment, she said, was also faulty because it suggested an impossibility.
Prosecutors, she argued, wrongly claim that Hackett, Rhodes, and others plotted “stop the transfer of power” after Jan. 6. Really, she said, the “transfer of power” had already begun in earnest in November once the election was complete.
Oath Keeper Joseph Hackett Motion to Dismiss Counts 1 to 4 Indictment Memorandum by Daily Kos on Scribd
Halim asked the judge to drop a tampering charge against Hackett, too.
Prosecutors say Hackett deleted evidence from his phone sometime on or after Jan. 6.
Hackett says those allegations were overly broad and that it would have been impossible for him to know he was under investigation or facing a possible trial when he deleted files from his phone. Plus, he contends, the government must prove that what he deleted would have been relevant to the case against him anyway.
Hackett wants the court to sever the tampering charge from the others he faces. If the judge won’t do that, then he wants to be tried on the tampering charge separate from the conspiracy counts but only after the conspiracy case has been decided. Doing otherwise, his attorney argued, would unfairly prejudice him.
As for defendant Kelly Meggs, his attorney Jonathon Moseley was disbarred in early April after the Virginia State Bar found he violated multiple rules. One of those violations included obstructing an investigation into his conduct.
Mehta formally ordered Moseley to stop filing on Meggs’ behalf as a result, but the attorney kept it up nearly a week afterward, saying he was “caretaker counsel” for Meggs.
In one of his last filings, Moseley argued the toughest charges against Meggs should be dropped because it was simply impossible for Oath Keepers to oppose a transfer of power.
“Not only could such a goal not be accomplished, but beyond that, it is an irrational concept lacking in any basis, in fact, law or common sense,” Moseley wrote.
“This is not a case in which conspirators might attempt to do something they are unable to successfully achieve. It is an irrational concept like dividing by zero. There can be no such thing in law or fact,” he added.
He continued, partially noting the 20th Amendment stipulation on the transfer of power:
“There is nothing in heaven or Earth that can stop the transfer of presidential power, nothing in the universe that can add 1 minute to a president’s term of office. Not even God making the sun appear to stand still would keep a President in office 1 second longer because even if the Earth stopped rotating, it would still be 12:01 PM one minute after noon.”
Meggs also tried and failed to subpoena U.S. Capitol Police for emails, messages, and other recordings related to law enforcement’s discovery of pipe bombs being planted on Jan. 6. That suspect was never found.
If the counts are not dropped against Caldwell—and it is exceedingly unlikely that they would be—he has asked that his trial take place at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (USDC EDVA).
If the trial went on at the Alexandria, Virginia, division of the Eastern District, the jury could be tough.
The district’s Alexandria, Virginia, division is situated in the heart of northern Virginia, a region that is densely populated by government employees and contractors. The region is also made up of thousands of people who work in the defense and intelligence industries, and for the U.S. military.
Other USDC EDVA divisions are located in Richmond, Newport, and Norfolk, Virginia.
So far, the Department of Justice has secured unanimous guilty verdicts on all counts in each of the three jury trials it has brought in its investigation of Jan. 6. They have also all been held in Washington, D.C.
Caldwell’s change of venue request was joined by Connie Meggs, wife of Kelly Meggs. Connie’s charges were split off from her husband’s weeks ago.
Connie Meggs and Caldwell commissioned a survey for prospective jurors on April 15.
According to Meggs’s attorney Juli Haller, 91% of those polled in D.C. admitted to making at least one prejudicial statement about Jan. 6 compared to just 63% of those surveyed in Virginia.
The numbers were even better in Florida, Haller noted, where just 49% of those surveyed made negative statements. The defendants also surveyed prospective jury pools in North Carolina.
No decision on the venue request was yet entered by Mehta late Monday afternoon.
Motion to Transfer Venue Ca… by Daily Kos
Meanwhile, on Monday, Oath Keeper Edward Vallejo’s failure to file a motion for review of his detention order has cost him a bond hearing that was slated for this Thursday.
Prosecutors say Vallejo took orders from Oath Keeper ringleader Elmer Rhodes in the runup to the Jan. 6 attack and that he was responsible for helping to secure hotel rooms where firearms, ammunition, and other weapons to support the assault were stowed.
Vallejo was ordered to remain in jail before his trial after a judge agreed with prosecutors that he posed too great of a danger to the community if released.
Trial dates could change but for now, Oath Keeper defendants Jessica Watkins, Joseph Hackett, Kenneth Harrelson, David Moerschel, and Thomas Caldwell are scheduled for trial in July.
Elmer Rhodes, Roberto Minuta, Brian Ulrich, Edward Vallejo, and Kelly Meggs are presently docketed for trial in September.
QAnon’s takeover of GOP nearly complete with 72 candidates ready to make ‘pedophilia’ claims
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The long-running gradual consumption of the Republican Party by the authoritarian QAnon conspiracy cult is nearing the terminal takeover phase: A recent survey by Grid found 72 Republican candidates with varying levels of QAnon affiliation. The most salient fact, however, is not only is the cult presence growing, but not a single Republican in any capacity can be found who either denounces the trend or works in any other way than in concert with it.
That reality is terrifying not just because QAnon has a long record of inspiring unhinged, violent behavior with its fantastically vile beliefs and rhetoric. Most of all, QAnon at its core is deeply eliminationist, with an agenda calling for the mass imprisonment and execution of mainstream Democrats for ostensibly running a global child-trafficking/pedophilia cult—which seamlessly fits the people being targeted by Fox News and mainstream Republicans as “groomers” for opposing the right-wing attacks on the LGTBQ community.
Grid’s survey was based on a review of “public records and reporting, social media posts, and campaign materials and events,” which its team of reporters used to identify and confirm QAnon-aligned candidates for public office in 2022. They found at least 78 of them in 26 states, all but six of them Republicans, mostly running against other Republicans in their state primaries.
“They’re running for governorships, secretaries of state, seats in the Senate and House, and in state legislatures,” the study says. “They have raised over $20 million this cycle — and over $30 million since 2018.” Its simple summary: “QAnon appears to be a growing political movement with increasing clout and significant mainstream appeal.”
The highest concentration of these candidates is in Arizona, which has 13 of them; Florida is a close second with 12, while California has 10 and Texas has six. Over a dozen of them are incumbents, including Congressmembers Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Another 14 serve at the state level, mostly legislatures.
One of the incumbents, Arizona House member Mark Finchem, participated in the 2021 Capitol insurrection—as did several other QAnon candidates—and has been subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee.
Most of these candidates, indeed, have never held public office and have dubious (at best) records of achievement:
- Shiva Ayyadurai, who has four degrees from MIT and is running for the Massachusetts governorship, runs a website claiming that he is the inventor of email.
- Ryan Dark White, who’s running for a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland and goes by the name Dr. Jonathan Ambrose McGreevey, has also pleaded guilty to illegal weapons charges and to fraudulently obtaining more than 80,000 doses of opioids.
- Carla Spaulding, a candidate seeking to be the GOP nominee to run against Democratic House whip Debra Wasserman Schultz for her Florida seat, pays herself a hefty $60,000 salary out of her campaign contributions while running up a six-figure campaign debt. Nonetheless, she has far outraised her Republican competitors for the nomination; she’s No. 3 on Grip’s QAnon fundraising list.
As Grid notes, “Q himself may be on the ballot this year.” In Arizona, Ron Watkins—the longtime 8kun site administrator who is believed to have authored at least some of the “Q drops” that fueled the cult between 2017 and 2020—is running in for the U.S. House in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, though his candidacy is considered a long shot at best. Watkins vowed to raise $1 million for his bid, but so far appears only to have raised about $50,000.
In a rational world, QAnon would have shriveled up and blown away after all of its cherished predictions and beliefs about “the Storm” led by Donald Trump and his allies that would sweep up these evil pedophiles and put them in prison to await execution were completely demolished by the cold reality of Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election. But instead, it kept spreading and growing, its fanaticism helping fuel the Jan. 6 insurrection, and providing a driving force for the ongoing anti-democratic insurgency that has followed. In states like Oregon, it now fundamentally controls the Republican political apparatus.
QAnon reared its ugly head in the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson. As Alex Shepard observed at The New Republic, much of the questioning from Republicans revolved around the core QAnon beliefs:
The Q-inspired pedophile smear is consuming Republican politics. “The phrase ‘child porn’ (or ‘pornography’ or ‘pornographer’)” was mentioned 165 times during Brown’s confirmation hearings, The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank tallied. “I’m not suggesting she likes what’s happening in child pornography,” Senator Lindsey Graham said Monday. But “she ha[d] a chance to impose a sentence that would deter [child pornography], and she chose not to.” Senator Josh Hawley, meanwhile, referenced QAnon in his own remarks. “Judge Jackson’s view is that we should treat everyone more leniently because more and more people are committing worse and worse child sex offenses,” he said, while also stating that “we’ve been told things like child pornography is actually all a conspiracy, it’s not real.” The lunatics who follow QAnon may just be onto something, in other words: The truth is out there.
Shepard also notes that there are concrete reasons for Republicans to permit themselves to be subsumed by an authoritarian cult: It polls well. “Nearly half of Republicans (49 percent) and 52 percent of Trump voters believe that Democrats run child sex-trafficking rings, per YouGov polling conducted during Jackson’s confirmation hearings,” he reports. “Even though only 18 percent of Republicans had a positive view of QAnon (compared to 16 percent of all respondents), 30 percent of all respondents believed that ‘top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings,’ suggesting the wide reach of the conspiracy theory.”
What all this tells us is that Democrats this fall will be facing a multipronged attack by Republicans, all based on hysterical fantasy: Democrats are soft on crime, they want to push critical race theory and “transgender ideology” on your kids, and they’re pro-pedophile. All three are designed to appeal to the lizard-brained lowest common denominators: the people inclined to violent eliminationism. Candidates should come prepared.