P.M. Carpenter

Britain urges Ukraine to hit Russia hard - now!

Contrary to the incomprehensible advice of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley — that Ukraine use winter's potential slowdown in fighting as a "window" for negotiations with Russia — Britain's Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace is smartly encouraging President Zelensky's armed forces to strike - to "keep up the pressure, keep up the momentum," and thus capitalize on their recent counteroffensive successes.

Said Wallace in an interview with the Daily Beast:

"Given the advantage the Ukrainians have in equipment training and quality of their personnel against the demoralized, poorly trained, poorly equipped Russians, it would be in Ukraine’s interest to maintain momentum through the winter. They have 300,000 pieces of arctic warfare kit from the international community."

His advice is as commonsensically smart as it is welcome. Ukrainian troops virtually danced through Russian "defenses" in the northeast — the Kharkiv region — and more recently they captured Kherson, President Putin's prize of an occupied city which he briefly, officially fancied as a part of Russia. For Ukrainian forces to let up now against the "demoralized, poorly trained, poorly equipped Russians" would be a damnable instance of military malpractice.

Wallace commented further on the deplorable state of the Russian army in Ukraine:      

"A Russian unit was recently deployed with no food and no socks, and not many guns. That is catastrophic for a person going in the field... The Russians have scale, but are not very good. Well, most of the good ones are dead. They are a meat grinder—they shove them in the meat grinder—and use massive quantities of artillery. Only a nation that does not care for its own people could send 100,000 of its own people to be either dead, injured, or deserted."

This is the army to which General Milley wished to provide a "window"? And negotiate with its commander in chief, Vladimir Putin? What is there to negotiate? Either Russia voluntarily removes itself from all of Ukraine's territory, including Crimea and the Donbas' entirety, or Ukraine must force it back to its borders. If Ukraine and Europe desire a permanent peace, this is the only acceptable term.  

In part because negotiating with Putin is like making an unsigned deal with the devil. He would use any peace settlement as mere biding time; a "window" to rebuild his military as best he could — and back to Ukraine he would go. In his mind Russia is still a formidable military power; he'll never capitulate to "little" Ukraine in any lasting way. As well, any land-for-peace settlement would only reward Putin's aggression.  

Fortunately, Zelensky "has declared that he will not negotiate with Russia while Putin remains in power," as the Daily Beast reminds us. He has also declared that any settlement must meet the conditions outlined above. Zelensky realizes that as long as Putin is president, "settlement" = "military resolution."     

We must also thank Britain's Ben Wallace for acknowledging what, again, is incomprehensively missing in Gen. Milley's thinking. 

Mike Pence and the short arm of the law

Here's an above-the-fold update on the imperial presidency — and that of all the president's men — via executive privilege:  

"The Justice Department is seeking to question former Vice President Mike Pence as a witness in connection with its criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election....

"Mr. Pence ... is open to considering the request."

If you had been present at the creation of the greatest crime in American history, imagine the guffaws echoing from the marbled halls of the Department of Justice after you told its prosecutors that you might be "open" to meeting their request to appear as a witness.   

Ah, but you weren't vice president of the United States at the time, thus eligible to claim executive privilege — or for the former president to do it for you. Mike Pense was vice president, hence no guffaws. 

On the other hand, in the United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court ruled that in cases of criminal conduct your executive privilege claim would be no more valid than that of an "average" citizen. So cough it up.  

Such has been the law for nearly a half-century. And yet an ex-president and those within his closest circle persist in claiming executive privilege even in this case of the most outrageously obvious criminal conduct. Constitutionally, said the Court, the privilege is nonexistent. Nonetheless, official deference is paid. Indeed executive privilege has become much like the Senate filibuster: One need only utter the words, and "the system" backs down.  

It should be a matter of public astonishment that Vice President Pence, who quarreled with Trump about the president's insistence that he violate the Constitution, has never been officially interviewed about the events surrounding Jan. 6. "Despite Mr. Pence being a witness to a range of Mr. Trump’s actions in office," writes The NY Times, "an interview of the former vice president would be the first time that he has been questioned in a federal investigation of Mr. Trump."

Neither was Pence ever questioned during the Mueller investigation, even though he was also at the creation of Trump's obstruction of justice efforts. Pence "was in the room for many of the key events examined by Mr. Mueller in the obstruction investigation, but Mr. Pence’s lawyer at the time managed to get him out of having to testify." The lawyer simply informed Mueller "that Mr. Pence believed Mr. Trump had not obstructed justice." And that was that, for "privilege" would ensue.

No one disputes the legitimacy of executive privilege per se. It has primordial roots in America's constitutional system of government. George Washington was the first to invoke it; the House wanted documents pertaining to the Jay Treaty with London, but Washington refused, saying treaties are within the purview of the Senate only — to which he did provide the documents. 

President Eisenhower is known for having established the modern and more expansive form of executive privilege, during the Army-McCarthy hearings. In a DOJ memo he forbade the "provision of any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people." Before concluding his White House tenure Eisenhower went on to invoke the claim nearly four dozen more times. The idea was that "candid" exchanges among White House personnel were no one's business but theirs.  

This, President Nixon tried to take to criminal heights, but the Supreme Court shut him down. That, it would seem to most any reasonable mind, should have been the end of it — "it" being the invocation of executive privilege in presidential cases of criminal conduct. But, the law being the law — reams of byzantine language designed to evade straightforwardness — Trump has managed to gum up the works through virtually endless assertions of privilege. And WH Trumpers have done the same.

Executive privilege has become a go-to defense for obstruction of justice. After years of litigation, the privilege is often denied, but at times it seems DOJ has become too wearied for yet another, almost infinite court battle.

So Mike Pence can imperiously state that he "is open to considering" a Department of Justice request that he act as an eye witness to the greatest crime ever committed in American history.

And that's the way it is — Walter Cronkite, CBS News

To date, 217,000+ casualties, but Russia's loss of munitions may cost it this terrorist war

The story's lede states bluntly what may be Vladimir Putin's greatest enemy — material attrition. "Russia has been burning through equipment, ammunition and weaponry at rates that have raised questions about how effectively and for how long it can continue to prosecute its war against Ukraine," writes The Wall Street Journal.

Both sides are expending massive quantities of weaponry, of course. But while Ukraine can rely on a flow of fresh munitions from the West — especially from the Biden administration — Russia is left to its own failing devices. Because of technology-denying sanctions and a severely constricting economy, the Russians have been unable to adequately resupply their killing machines.   

"They are running low on everything," says Eliot Cohen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Moreover, a fair amount of the armaments that Russia had stashed away in storage "has deteriorated because of corruption, mismanagement and poor maintenance, he said." 

Putin's depletion of, particularly, missiles threatens his ability to sustain the war. His army is too incompetent to fight much of a soldier-to-soldier ground war in Ukraine, so he has opted for either slaughtering civilians or freezing them into merely hoped-for submission. Stalin's famed Red Army of the Second World War, which accounted for three-fourths of German army casualties, has, under Vladimir Putin, devolved into nothing more than a terrorist organization.  

Russia's known or estimated expenditure of missiles tells the story. "The rate at which these missiles are used has dropped significantly from an average of two dozen daily launches in the first months of the war," reports the Journal. A spokesman for the Ukrainian air force "said last week that just 15 Kalibr cruise missiles were launched in the entire month of October."

One sign of Russian desperation is that it's using missiles in ways for which they were never designed. Antiship missiles, for instance, are being deployed against land targets — remember, Putin has millions of Ukrainian citizens to murder, however he can. These missiles are meant to compensate for Russia's draining supply of low-precision ammunition; for months its forces had been firing thousands of artillery shells each day, yet the rate of fire, say analysts, has now plunged.

Unknown to Western analysts is "the significance" of Iranian weapons being shipped to Russia; their quantity and future guarantees remain a mystery. What is known is that the Kremlin, which was once among the world's leading arms dealers, is having to plead for outside armaments. This is just "another indication that the Russian military-industrial base is struggling to resupply the country’s forces," observes the Journal.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, now estimates that Russia has suffered more than 100,000 soldiers killed or wounded, and probably about the same number of Ukrainian troops, he added. And yet civilian casualties are one-sided. As of Monday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated that 16,784 Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded, including 1,170 children.

Then, as always, comes the even more heartbreaking disclaimer: "However, OHCHR specifi[es] that the real numbers could be higher." Much higher. 

And so Russia will lose this war while having lost a lesser number of lives while expending a greater amount of missiles to murder a vast and ever-increasing number of Ukrainian civilians. 

The America Civil War is known by military historians as the first Total War. The Russia-Ukraine War will be known to more than just military historians as the first true Terrorist War.   

And for what?

To much of the world, the U.S.A. is Tombstone, Ariz., circa 1880

Again ...

"A gunman fatally shot six people and wounded at least four others inside a Walmart in Chesapeake, Va., on Tuesday night, the authorities said, shattering the bustle of a holiday week."

And again ...

"It was the second high-profile mass shooting in the United States in three days, after five people were killed at a gay club in Colorado Springs over the weekend."

A few years ago my wife and I hosted two Japanese students who were visiting the United States for about 10 days. Neither spoke much English, but that never stopped one of the teenagers from touring our little city on his own. He would happily board a metro bus and go wherever it took him. He particularly enjoyed riding to stores such as Walmart. 

The other student wouldn't leave the house. It seems his parents made him come for "the experience." But he merely sat for days on end in a pitiable state of anxiety, which, with his poor English, he couldn't explain, nor was he inclined to.

His co-traveler finally informed us that his friend was terrified of the United States; he was sure that if he ventured outside, he'd be caught in some random shooting's crossfire. Such was America's image he had acquired from watching U.S. news on Japanese television.

I'm not so sure he was wrong.

Twitter: The far-right sewer you've been waiting for. Rejoice!

This piece of satire from The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz highlights what Musk is either unable to understand, or fails to appreciate: With Twitter's absolute democratization, we get the absolute lowest of common denominators.

With Musk's emancipation of reckless crackpots such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump (whether he indulges his thumbs or not), Twitter becomes less of a "free speech" forum than an unsupervised madhouse — an even more vulgar version of "The Gong Show," scarcely a business model to emulate.

He's flushing his investment,, he's pooping in his own mess kit, he appears to be giving the finger to folks who won't hang on Ms. Greene's every demented word — because he can. This is his way of showing, I gather, that billionaires can squander massive amounts of capital without heartache.  

Yet by and large, we are not impressed. Sure, the Dinesh D'Souzas are. I don't follow him but Twitter's algorithms push his middle-school opinions to the top of my feeds. Dinesh has been on an "own the libs" kick with unprecedented fury; 20 times a day he tells us the left is squealing because they no longer "own" Twitter. Such is Dinesh's fisheye view of the world, both funny and sad. Hence the right is but showing that crackpots can squander their days like some billionaires can blow through capital. How this harms the left escapes me.      

But what of Musk's "free speech" crusade? Has it any merit? His tweets suggest that he is convinced of his newfound anti-Savonarola stature — the lords of censorship no longer rule is his quotidian theme. He is endlessly proud of himself as he pecks at the erstwhile mites under his angelic wings. He is, at long last, giving us FREE SPEECH.

Well, it is "free" and it is "speech," but it's not "free speech." The freedom of speech is a positive right in philosophical terms and thus is attached to a certain nobility. Only fools, dunces and evildoers abuse it. They may if they wish; their negative right is guaranteed by the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law...."). Warnings of Jewish space lasers, then, tend to attenuate what the founders had in mind when they Constitutionally protected ideas expressed through the spoken word.         

What the right has to offer is just freely dishonorable speech as well as dazzling stupidity in limited characters. Our word "free," however, comes from Old English freo — principally meaning "exempt from"; secondarily, "noble; joyful." Do reasonable minds find any nobility in the right's Twitter fare?

Granted, my idea of authentic "free speech" is perhaps too sentimental. It's a right coupled by responsibility, although in Greene-, Trump- and MuskWorld it's a privilege wedded to recklessness. More than that, free speech on the right, to the right, means a poke in the eye — yours. At the same time it is harmless, and rather humorous. Crackpots such as Mr. D'Souza seem to believe they're really sticking it to the libs.

The right, in general, is a conglomeration of America's lowest possible denominators. By democratizing its reductios ad absurdum even further, Musk has only absolutely bottomed out what's proverbially known as The Great Unwashed — that is, it is freer than ever to make a fool of itself. Some on the left think this abominable. I find it rewarding.           

Ron DeSantis' "positively dystopian" future is on life support

In a case brought against the Florida state university system's board of governors, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker wrote a 17 November opinion that should be court-ordered reading for all the Republican pols and millions of duped voters who endlessly prattle about President Bidens's socialist hellhole while hailing Freedom! under the likes of a Goveror/President Ron DeSantis.

In his ruling Judge Walker confronted the state's — which is to say, DeSantis' — "Stop W.O.K.E." Act (the "Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees"), a particularly egregious piece of unconstitutional bullying that defines the modern right's Luntzian-Orwellian torture of the English language and its comcomitant delight in censoring ideas.

While wearing his best Sunday Goebbels uniform, Gov. DeSantis announced late last year that the legislation "will give businesses, employees, children and families tools to fight back against woke indoctrination." Like pseudoconservative bills designed to fight Sharia law where it doesn't exist, the "Stop W.O.K.E. Act will be the strongest legislation of its kind in the nation," brayed the governor, "and will take on" the phantom threat of "Critical Race Theory." 

The legisation, which took effect in July, accomplished this by neofasctically banning educators' academic freedom — which, as one might have guessed, a group of Florida university professors rather strongly objected to. Judge Walker objected just as strongly. Hence DeSantis' accomplishment was, for now, a brief one. Wrote Walker:   

"The powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the State has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of 'freedom.' To confront certain viewpoints that offend the powers that be, the State of Florida passed the so-called 'Stop W.O.K.E.' Act in 2022—redubbed (in line with the State’s doublespeak) the 'Individual Freedom Act.' The law officially bans professors from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered expression of the opposite viewpoints. Defendants argue that, under this Act, professors enjoy 'academic freedom' so long as they express only those viewpoints of which the State approves. This is positively dystopian....

"One thing is crystal clear—both robust intellectual inquiry and democracy
require light to thrive. Our professors are critical to a healthy democracy, and the
State of Florida’s decision to choose which viewpoints are worthy of illumination
and which must remain in the shadows has implications for us all. If our 'priests of democracy' are not allowed to shed light on challenging ideas, then democracy will die in darkness. But the First Amendment does not permit the State of Florida to muzzle its university professors, impose its own orthodoxy of viewpoints, and cast us all into the dark."

Representative democracy, however, does allow demagogues to muzzle professors, impose orthodoxy, and cast us all into darkness. Unless, that is, a wise federal judge steps in.

Yet this fight is not over. After a thundering flash of unrepresentive democracy, a popularly unelected president was permitted to seat three ideological cave dwellers on the U.S. Supreme Court, which likely will rule on the Florida case in the potentially dystopian future. So there's life in it yet; although 5-4 against?

When DeSantis boasted that "the "Stop W.O.K.E. Act will be the strongest legislation of its kind in the nation," he threw in the geographical reference for a pointed, self-interested reason. He intends to remake the nation in Florida's image — a shining beacon of unibrow authoritarianism, with Reichsmarschall DeSantis at the refashioning light switch.  

First he must hoodwink just enough American voters into believing that a more muscular Trumpism (though perish the name) is the proper and, indeed, only way to protect "traditional America vlaues" — code for White cultural hegemony. This can be done — 2016, Q.E.D. — with an assist from the democratically unrepresentative Electoral College.

Its doing was happily complicated earlier this month by voters' rejection of most would-be governors and secretaries of state hellbent on election denialism. And yet, the College's bias toward vast wastelands of guns, gravy, country music and pickup trucks is just hefty enough to bastardize American democracy.

Every four years we are told by ubiquitous voices that this is the most important election of our lifetime. Though perhaps electorally energizing, this common rallying cry is a curious redundancy, since every presidential election is the most important of our lifetime, given that the nation's chief executive holds the wicked potential to go managerially barbaric on us.         

Congress has become the proverbial weak sister and the body politic seems to relish joining lugubrious pols who declare the dubiousness of other American instititions. POTUS, then, becomes the iconographic avatar of "the people's" soul — or at least half of them. As a political deity, he can do no wrong.

This democratic pathogen is expecially pronounced on the right. But their God is dead, long live God — Trump has transubstantiated into DeSantis. Damn, that was quick.

Do I believe in the governor's ineffable ascendence to the White House? Not for a minute. DeSantis may be Trump with a brain, but he can't conceal his equally ugly, authoritarian essence. The American electorate just renounced the nation's arc toward injustice, and by 2024 — especially after two years of a Republiican Monkey House — the electorate's blistering renunication will seem like a gentle warm-up.   

Alex Jones is still laughing at his victims

S.O.B.s like Alex Jones and Donald Trump rarely seem to suffer when they lose civil cases for millions of dollars. When those massive judgments against Jones came down, I noted this, asking if anyone actually believed he would be on the financial hook. 

I'm deeply sorry to say that that observation was likely correct. The Washington Post:

"Parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School had sued [Jones] and his media company for defamation after he repeatedly claimed the 2012 massacre in Connecticut was a hoax. Fans of the Infowars host had harassed and threatened grieving families. By the summer of 2020, two of the lawsuits weren’t going his way.

"As the potential for damages mounted, Jones began moving millions of dollars out of his company, Free Speech Systems, and into companies controlled by himself, friends or relatives.... The transfers potentially put those funds out of reach of the Sandy Hook plaintiffs."

There has to be a better way to nail bastards like Jones. That he's even still drawing breath is an abomination. 

Russia's staggering losses in Ukraine - which point to only one conclusion

These figures, originally posted on Facebook by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, were published today by The Kyiv Independent. The numbers are staggering. 

Some skepticism is called for as to the exact accuracy of these statistics, given the source and their propagandistic value. But not much skepticism. A month ago, for instance, Western intelligence also estimated Russian casualties as likely exceeding 80,000. 

Contemporaneously, Jeremy Fleming, the head of GCHQ — Britain’s intelligence, cyber and security agency — said in a speech to London's Royal United Services Institute think tank that "Russia’s forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners to reinforce, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation."

Also in mid-October, the British ministry of defence assessed Russia's military leadership on Ukraine's battlefields as "increasingly dysfunctional," with a "worsening shortage of capable Russian junior officers." 

And one month before that, Oryx, an organization that tracks losses in military equipment throughout the world, reported that Russia had already lost 1,029 tanks —637 destroyed, 51 abandoned, 42 damaged, and 299 captured by Ukraine. It's far from inconceivable that in Ukraine's hugely successful counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, Russia would have lost roughly another 2,000 tanks.      

In sum, for the past couple months, Western as well as Ukrainian intelligence have reported enormous losses in Russian manpower and equipment. Making matter worse for President Putin, he has been unable to replace men in the field with well-trained or experienced troops, and Western sanctions have severely inhibited his ability to replenish Russia's military hardware. Even drones he has had to beg from Iran, which Iran, after repeated denials, finally admitted to sending.  

In addition, Russia "is struggling with a shortage of high-precision, long-range missiles," announced Western officials last month. Thus even Putin's unconscienable air war on Ukrainian citizens is in jeopardy.  

As Russia's demoralized troops deplete their supply of trucks, tanks, artillery and the like, Ukraine's energized troops are stocking up with Western supplies. And so it will go throughout the winter. Is there much doubt, then, as to how spring will proceed militarily?  

Biden's running 2024 mate. Anybody but Harris?

Most political sites would have posed it as a question. But Slate is direct; its headline leaves no question as to the answer: "If Biden Runs Again, He Should Pick a New VP."

Slate staff writer Christina Cauterucci gets right to the pervasive point. "Harris’s presidential campaign will be remembered as one of the worst of that election cycle." I would narrow the assessment to, simply, "one of the worst." Nothing personal, Ms. Harris. 

The totality of my memory about her 2020 campaign involves wondering why she was running. Cauterucci notes that "Internally, [her campaign] was a disastrously mismanaged mess." I recall reading about the staff upheavals and "messaging" disputes. I also recall ignoring it. In my political days I rarely encountered a Democratic campaign that wasn't a mess.

Rather, it was the stuff of her presence that worried, what the author calls the "external" but was, instead, Ms. Harris writ large. Her campaign, notes Cauterucci, "offered a series of mixed messages, short-lived slogans, and attempts to backpedal along the ideological spectrum."

In short, Harris floundered. She herself was unclear about why she was running. She seemed to grab whatever message was perhaps politically attractive at the moment. On the sincerity scale, she bottomed out — and it showed. I won't go so far as to charge her with demagoguery, but she edged close to it.

Her selection as Biden's 2020 running mate was nonetheless fated. He needed a woman, and a woman of color was a bonus. She was young and physically attractive. She was smart. So, at the time, Harris was essentially uncontroversial.

Yet, as Cauterucci writes, "A second Biden term would mean even higher stakes for a vice-presidential pick—not only because Biden is older than he was the first time around, but because the VP serving when he leaves could be the de facto frontrunner in the 2024 Democratic primary."

I place less importance on the second factor. Harris could be the de facto frontrunner, but her "de factoidness" would be short-lived. The more crucial complication would be her candidacy as a party-damaging nuisance. No serious political analyst would bet on Harris as the eventual nominee. Thus her striving for the position, even for a short, ill-fated time, would create unnecessary noise and distractions.

Why would her candidacy be over nearly before it started? Because, as Cautercucci further notes, Harris is "a proven dud." She had opportunities to correct her confused, muddled, infuriatingly baffling course throughout the 2020 campaign season, yet she was unable to do so. Her confusion and the observer's bafflement only became worse, not better. 

"Even some of Harris’s biggest fans, the members of the so-called #KHive, have been dispirited by her failure to make a splash," writes Cauterucci. "'The disappointment is real,' one such person told the Daily Beast earlier this year."

It's real, and it's lasting. Harris appears incapable of shaking off the surrounding gloom. Whether she's intrinsically incapable of unyoking it, I can't say. But the oppressive weight of the perception is too great. Once plastered with "loser" talk — fairly or not — it's damn hard to dispel it.

Concludes Cauterucci: "She is not the rising political star she was initially made out to be. And an aging, past-his-prime statesman—especially one as disliked as Biden—needs the momentum of a rising star."

The extent of the need is debatable. Some election analysts are reasonably firm in assessing a VP choice as a wash; the name in the #2 slot makes virtually no difference to voters, they say. Others stress that the Veep Effect is — maybe, or precariously — about 1 percentage point of the presidential nominee's total vote.

But as slim as the running mate's importance might be, obviously in a close race it could be decisive.

In the movie Casino, there's a scene in which an old mob boss meets with his associates, who are deciding whom to whack. Finally the old boss says something to the effect of, "Whack 'em all. Why take chances, is da way I look at it." Biden can't whack them all, but why take chances with Kamala Harris?       

McCarthy vows to silence anti-Trump voices

Appalling.

Kevin McCarthy says on Fox News that as Speaker he plans to prevent Ilhan Omar, Adam Schiff, and Eric Swalwell from serving on committees pic.twitter.com/gekzYBRXSj

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 20, 2022

Note that of the three Democrats slated for McCarthyite committee extermination, Fox News' Maria Bartiromo chose to picture only one: a woman of color, a Muslim, and a hijab. 

Misogyny, racism, and religious bigotry, all in one. 

Did Ukraine commit a war crime? It appears not.

The NY Times reports that the United Nations is calling for an investigation into "whether Ukrainian forces committed war crimes or acted in self-defense as they tried to capture a group of Russian soldiers who were then killed." 

Yet a confirmed video appears to exonerate the Ukrainians. In it, a Russian soldier clearly opens fire on the Ukrainians. This frame is taken from the video.

In wartime, only one military response is conceivable in such circumstances: the return of fire. The fire may be indiscriminate, but that's one of the tragic, inescapable facts of war. 

The incident occurred in the Luhansk province in a village by the name of Makiivka, just retaken by the Ukrainians.

The Times account is helpful in clearing Ukraine's forces:

One soldier, with his rifle drawn, tentatively approaches the structure where the Russian soldiers are sheltering. The soldier with the machine gun provides cover. Several gunshots are heard — though it’s not clear from where — and the soldier slowly backs away from an outhouse, drawing out the Russian soldiers at gunpoint.

The video cuts off, and when it restarts, six Russian soldiers are lying facedown on the ground beside one another. At least two of them are alive and can be seen moving in the video; the others are motionless. The video shows four other soldiers slowly exiting the outhouse, one after the other, some with their arms raised. They join the other soldiers on the ground....

Two of the Ukrainians standing by appear to be relaxed and are pointing their rifles toward the ground. The capture of these soldiers is initially orderly and without incident — but suddenly everything changes.

As an 11th Russian soldier emerges from the outhouse, he opens fire, aiming at one of the Ukrainian soldiers. The Ukrainians are taken by surprise.

The Russians are screaming "war crime," which is an abomination in itself.

An international investigation will be held, and it will be fair, as was the investigation into a rocket landing in Poland. It would have been a propaganda victory for the West to declare the rocket one of Russia's. But the West is not Russia.    

Trump is back on Twitter and (because) Elon Musk is a liar

Earlier this month, the unfortunately ungelded bull in a new toy shop pledged that no banned accounts would be restored on Twitter until a fresh set of procedures and a "content moderation council" had been established. Months before, however, the bullshitting mogul had also said that Trump's Twitter ban was a "morally bad decision" and "foolish in the extreme.”

In brief, there was never any doubt that Elon Musk would reinstate Donald Trump. Hence his online "poll" was a farce. Had it not gone according to Musk's own morally bad decision — demonstrably predetermined — he would have invented a reason to defy the poll and reinstate the election-denying, espionage-committing miscreant.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022

Adding "Vox Dei" (the voice of God) to "Vox Populi" (the voice of people — and bots) was but another insult to users' sense of decency. Either that or politically active evangelicals are correct: God really is a far-right fanatic who hates gays and loves sexual abusers.  

The Associated Press reported that "Musk conceded that the results were hardly scientific. 'Bot & troll armies might be running out of steam soon,' he tweeted Saturday morning." Here, Musk was admitting not only that online polls are an unscientific joke; he was also handling Trump's tweeted, real-time justifications for treason as a joke. Funny stuff, right? 

This was one of Trump's final tweets — posted two days (Jan. 6 2021) before Twitter banned his venomous presence.

States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2021

No states "wanted to correct their votes"; only Trump's treasonous co-conspirators wished to do so. There was of course no fraud, yet the claim would become the ex-president's most powerful weapon in his war to raze American democracy. Despite Trump's exhortation, Mike Pence had no constitutional authority to send Electoral Votes "back to the States." And Pence's only "courage" was simply to do his job, which almost got him killed — with Trump's vindictive blessing.   

Trump's January 6 tweets are now back online, plus 59,000 others. His "88 million followers" disappeared, but the AP reported that by 10 p.m. last night, the number had regrown to about 100,000. As of 2:30 a.m., Trump's followers stood at 25 million. Now, at 3:58 a.m., that number has doubled.

Trump is yet to tweet again. At 5 p.m. yesterday he posted this on Truth Social: "Vote now with positivity, but don't worry, we aren't going anywhere. Truth Social is special!" And in a speech last night he said "I hear we’re getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it. It may make it, it may not make it." Which was to say, under Musk's harebrained management, Twitter might fold.

It's his toy. For $44 billion, he can do whatever he wishes to do with Twitter. I have no particular problem with Trump's reinstatement since the ex-president's toxic waste is no more foul than most of the other garbage I see on the site. Moreover — Let Poison Ring! I prefer that Trump's brand of antiAmericanism be visible to all, for I agree with Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis' assessment that sunlight is the best disinfectant. 

What grates is that Elon Musk lied, though that was no surprise. He would reinstate Trump no matter what; his silly "poll" was a ruse, mere cover for what he would do anyway. And therein lies the future of Twitter's "management": duplicity.   

I just hope Trump will someday be tweeting from prison.

This is big. Ukraine has likely struck a naval port - in Russia proper.

The Paris-based Naval News is reporting that a Ukrainian maritime drone has struck the Russian port city of Novorossiysk.

This video of the presumed attack has emerged:

🔥 A video of 🇺🇦 USV attacking a target at Novorossiysk. pic.twitter.com/VMnQx8rMTB

— Smart Ukrainian Cat 🍉 (@SmartUACat) November 18, 2022

Naval News has been unable to confirm incoming reports of the drone assault, but Russian news outlets have been busy taking down those reports.

Initially: "Local Russian sources have reported that a Ukrainian 'naval drone' has struck the Sheskharis oil terminal in Novorossiysk at night." Some reports say that drone hit on 18 Nov., while others are saying the strike occurred on the night of 16-17 Nov. Adds Naval News: "This is strategically important." 

The naval base in Novorossiysk, Russia, is "close to the oil terminal which was reportedly hit.... This is the home of many warships directly involved in the war with Ukraine. These include the Kilo Class submarines which were largely moved there from Sevastopol [Crimea] in September. The submarines can launch Kalibr cruise missiles and remain a daily threat to Ukraine." 

Ukraine's earlier attack on Crimea was a stunning blow to one of Vladimir Putin's prized territories; yet another humiliation for the Russian strongman, who's looking weaker every day.

Russia also stationed large landing ships at the Novorossiysk port. "which were sailed to the Black Sea in the build-up for the invasion," writes the Naval News. "Radar satellite from around early this morning shows that many of the warships were in port."

The Ukrainian maritime drones are said to be "half jet ski and half canoe," capable of carrying a small warhead. As noted, "In October they were able to penetrate deep inside [the] Sevastopol harbor."

Russia is unsafe virtually everywhere. And now, if these reports are accurate, Putin will need to make another excuse for his wartime failures. 

Winter or not, Ukraine refuses to let up.

The horribly flawed logic of Merrick Garland

As Merrick Garland's special counsel sifts through the mounds of evidence amassed by federal prosecutors and the Jan. 6 committee as well as what's already in the public record, even Trump's own man at Justice — former attorney general Bill Barr — is saying there's a "basis" for indicting him. As in, now.

"I personally think that they probably have the basis for legitimately indicting [Trump]" -- Bill Barr pic.twitter.com/mzQC661t26

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 19, 2022

Garland's purported reasoning in appointing a special counsel was to remove suspicions of the Justice Department's political motives in investigating and possibly indicting Trump. Yet on its face, such reasoning is absurd.

"In appointing a special counsel to investigate former President Donald J. Trump, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland was, in theory at least, trying to insulate the matter from politics as much as possible," writes The NY Times.

"That notion, of course, did not even last the day. Within hours, the newly named special counsel, Jack Smith, came under fire from the Trump team as just another partisan inquisitor."

The outgoing fire was already extant at Team Trump. For weeks the former president had been yapping about the "weaponization" and "politicization" of the department. Once Garland moved to avoid "suspicions", Trump, naturally, wasted no time on Truth Social — and in speeches such as this — rehashing it all.

And he'll keep on rehashing the weaponization and politicization charges, ad infinitum.

So what, exactly, did Garland's reasoning accomplish? Except, that is, handing Trump an excuse to claim that Garland appointed only when Trump announced. 

Let's face it. Merrick Garland simply wimped out. He didn't want the heat that would come from indicting Trump straightaway, and on his own. Instead he dumped the job of indictment on a special counsel — who won't complete the job for a long, long time to come. Garland will still need to sign off on the counsel's recommendation, but the counsel will have been a crutch.    

The Winter War: What to expect in Ukraine

The first snow fell in Ukraine this week, inaugurating a winter war of perhaps radically different tactics. Most military analysts, such as Russian studies specialist Michael Kofman, are predicting a significant decline in the fighting. "I think that most likely you are going to see major offensives slow down," said Kofman.

In an emailed update, The NY Times expressed the military consensus on what lies ahead: "A slow grind on the battlefield appears likely in the next few months."

But the consensus may be wrong.  

Ukraine has succeeded on the battlefield largely by doing the unexpected, such as ignoring U.S. advice and pressing ahead on an offensive in the Kherson region while facing reportedly determined, dug-in Russian troops. In the northeast, around Kharkiv, Ukraine caught the Russians by surprise. The Kremlin was stunned, as it was after the Battle of Kyiv. 

Now, in partial confirmation of the questionable-consensus thesis, the Times reports that "Ukraine has pressed its counteroffensive in the eastern province of Luhansk even as winter approaches." Or has approached. 

Because of their Year One battlefield successes — Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson — the morale of Ukrainian troops is high. This is not to be squandered by merely digging in and resupplying for the next several months. Soldiers have also acquired high confidence in their military leadership's counteroffensive strategies, boosting a willingness to foght.

Moreover, reports the Times, Ukraine is free to transport some of its troops and artillery from the victorious southern offensive to the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces of the Donbas, where most of the fighting is now taking place. These reinforcements of manpower and equipment can only further leverage Ukrainian morale. 

Undoubtedly, however, Ukraine's offensive maneuvers will be less than lightning strikes, as they were, for instance, in the northeast. Added Kofman: "Ukraine’s further offensives are going to be more challenging. They will take more time. They will take more ammunition. They’ll be more costly, potentially."

Russia, meanwhile, is struggling to take Bakhmut in the Donetsk province — a strategically insignificant city once with a population of about 70,000, now virtually abandoned and known mostly for its rubble from constant shelling. Russia's "armed forces" are comprised by the Wagner Group, less a military entity than a private gang of cutthroats, rapists and thieves — a group naturally cherished by Vladimir Putin. 

Bakhmut, though militarily inconsiderable, is nonetheless intangibly important to Vlad: "[It] has become a symbol of the Kremlin’s objective, announced in April, of securing the whole Donbas region." Again, the city "offers little strategic value," yet hundreds of Russian boys and Ukrainian men will lose their lives in the pursuit or rejection of Putin's purely "symbolic" obsession. 

Analysts believe Russia will use the winter months to rebuild its battered, widely defeated forces — a strategy imposed by necessity, not choice. It hopes to then launch spring offensives. Nearly needless to add is that not one Russian strategy has gone according to plan in this war. And the Ukrainians intend to make sure of that again. 

Said Kofman on his "War on the Rocks" podcast, as paraphrased by the Times: "Ukraine’s strategy will be to disrupt Russia’s plan and 'not give them a break' so that its forces will retain the initiative" — meaning Ukraine will be on the offensive in the spring.

By then, this insane war will be in Year Two. If Russia lasts that long.