(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Before we get started I just want to thank everyone, again, for the kind words and to once again say that you’re all welcome. Additionally, a few of you suggested in comments last night that I should set up something so those of you who wish to could send me money as a sign of appreciation for these posts. If you really feel the need to kick some money in, please just contribute to the site’s fundraising page Balloon Juice for Ukraine. That, and your kind words, will be thanks enough!
General Zaluzhnyi released a message today:
The time has come to take back what belongs to us. pic.twitter.com/sH1Yrggg8U
— Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (@CinC_AFU) May 27, 2023
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
We will continue our sanctions steps, and new, even more extensive sanctions packages are on the way – address of President of Ukraine
27 May 2023 – 21:15
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!
Today is another sanction day. Sanctions against legal entities and individuals – most of them are Russian – who work for terror.
In total, 220 companies and 51 individuals. These are defense industry enterprises and related Russian companies. Enterprises serving the war. And the persons through whom these companies are managed.
Not all of them operate on the territory of the terrorist state, some – in other countries. But everyone will get global pressure. Step by step, we collect complete data on everyone who works for aggression – directly or indirectly. Each such person will be blocked, and our Ukrainian sanctions are either already synchronized or will be synchronized with the sanctions of the free world.
When Russia started this aggression, they looked at the world as if they were looking at themselves in a mirror. They thought that supposedly everyone in the world was as cynical and despised people in the same way as the masters of Russia do. But the world is different – the world helps us protect life. And anyone who goes against the world will become marginal. Russia will gain nothing and lose everything. Together with those who somehow try to help it in terror.
We will continue our sanctions steps, and new sanctions packages are on the way – even more extensive.
At the end of the week, I want to thank Japan for the new sanctions package against Russia. I’m also thankful for the new security assistance from Japan. It is what really saves lives.
I’m grateful to Finland for the new defense package for Ukraine. This decision was also made this week.
I’m thankful to Germany for transferring another batch of various types of defense equipment to our country to strengthen our defense against Russian terror, including defense of the sky.
I want to thank Canada for its willingness to strengthen its leadership in supporting Ukraine.
Thank you, Iceland, for helping our defense and our people.
We will also make next week strong from the point of view of our cooperation with partners. We don’t lose a single week.
And, as always, I’m thankful to our soldiers, each and every one who played a distinguished role during the week.
Bakhmut direction… 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade – thank you, warriors, for your active actions! It is exactly what is needed. Glorious 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade Kholodny Yar – thank you for your resistance and courage! Well done!
Lyman direction… 81st Separate Airmobile Brigade – thank you, guys, for your efficiency in destroying the enemy!
Tavria task force… 35th and 36th separate marine infantry brigades, 55th Separate Artillery Brigade, 59th Separate Motorized Brigade, and paratroopers of our 79th Air Assault Brigade – I thank you all! As always – strong, as always – effective!
Glory to all who defend our state! Glory to all who help!
Glory to Ukraine!
Kyiv:
Kyiv is preparing to celebrate it’s Day. I love this dancing girl. It's like all of Ukraine now. pic.twitter.com/kLNsyOaocd
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) May 27, 2023
Kharkiv:
A graduation ceremony outside a Kharkiv school damaged by russian terrorists. pic.twitter.com/ivqdc1ptZ7
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) May 27, 2023
Marinka:
Scouring old pictures, I found this sunset photo we took during a trip to Marinka in 2016
Marinka was "war torn" at that time with half the civilians having fled the town
But now, zero civilians remain in Marinka and the Russians have wiped it off the face of the earth pic.twitter.com/X0kQPm6zIq
— Christian Borys (@ItsBorys) May 27, 2023
Let them fight:
Girkin accuses Prigozhin of preparing for a coup in Russia. He says the insults towards the Russian army by Putin's cook are unacceptable, and signal a rift in the elites which Prigozhin will take advantage of with his private army that is being withdrawn from Bakhmut. Girkin… pic.twitter.com/kKh6C2K6Fc
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) May 27, 2023
Somewhere in Russia near the border with Ukraine:
Russian Telegram channels are sharing reports of unconfirmed clashes in border towns of the Bryansk People's Republic. Meanwhile, let's watch a video of more vehicles at an undisclosed location, in close proximity to the border. Who said I was joking or trolling? pic.twitter.com/Hx9tfzRYBk
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) May 27, 2023
Gen (ret) Breedlove, who was the Commanding General of US European Command and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) in 2014 (my boss’s boss), has some thoughts on Ukrainian pilots and F-16s:
“It’s not about delivery just now,” said retired Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. “Ukraine is going to need an air force to defend itself because Russia will be back.”
“The integration of avionics, weapons systems, and weapons are decades ahead of what they’re flying now,” Breedlove said. “There will be an increased capability, increased radar range, increased weapons range, etc. But this is not the be-all to end-all.”
Ukrainian officials have expressed hope they will be flying the planes by the fall, but some U.S. officials said they cannot guarantee the aircraft will be in Ukraine’s hands before the end of the year.
A U.S. Air National Guard analysis assessing Ukrainian pilots’ skills, reported by Yahoo News, said they could be trained to operate the plane in as little as four months. It could take months more, however, to turn those pilots into airmen who can hold their own in combat and make full use of the F-16’s attributes, experts said.
If Ukrainians are not thoroughly trained in Western tactics, “you’re not going to realize any of the benefits of having a real four-plus generation aircraft,” said Breedlove, a former F-16 pilot. “If you take an F-16 and fly it and use it like a MiG-29, you’re just going have a hotrod MiG-29, and that’s it.”
Still, the time needed is likely far short of the 18 months the Pentagon previously cited as the fastest possible timeline.
“We always overestimate how long it’s going to take to bring a new weapons system into the Ukrainian military,” Breedlove said. “They can clearly outperform our expectations.”
And Maj Gen (ret) Stutzreim has some thoughts on Ukrainian air defense from the same article:
Instead of aircraft, U.S. officials have focused on providing Ukraine with air defenses, which has resulted in largely mutually-denied airspace over the country. But some F-16 proponents argue that since Ukraine’s counteroffensive is so critical, the U.S. should have been quicker to supply Kyiv with Western aircraft.
Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzriem, a former F-16 pilot and director of research at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said military planners should not throw up their hands but should use drones, electronic warfare, countermeasures, and real-time targeting to enable Ukraine’s air force to find pockets in which it can operate and strike. Stutzriem said it’s not about only the aircraft, but the integration of many capabilities to gain air superiority. Then, the fighter can strike Russian forces and their logistics.
“It can go fast with great flexibility to strike the adversary in depth, not merely where the land forces engage along a front,” Stutzriem said. “That’s why airpower was invented, to rise above the trenches and slog of land warfare.”
More at the link.
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
Last night in comments, A Good Woman asked:
OK, I confess I am actually a technology idiot.
I would love to order up some packages for the orphans, but my payment options appear to be 3rd party vendors to use for payment, and I would like to stick to my trusty VISA. Suggestions, recommendations, what do I do?
I asked Gin & Tonic if he might be able to help navigating this issue for us. Here is his reply:
Selecting “Monobank” as a payment option clicks through to several ways of paying Monobank, among which Visa/Mastercard is included. This would seem to satisfy the commenter’s request.
Here’s the link to the Patron box gift set for those interested in purchasing one or more for Ukrainian war orphans and/or Ukrainian children in hospital in Ukraine.
And here’s the 2 tweet thread in question:
🙁made a typo: PatronBox will be given to orphans or children in hospitals (depending on how many boxes can be collected)
— Patron (@PatronDsns) May 25, 2023
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok!
@patron__dsns Вас викликає Пес Патрон, щоб особисто побажати гарного дня!
Here is the machine translation of the caption:
The Patron Dog is calling you to personally wish you a good day!
Open thread!
Jimmm
Thanks, Adam… I’ve kicked in again to the Balloon Juice for Ukraine fund.
Slava Ukraini!
Jim Appleton
So it’s been hours since a major development in the debt ceiling farce, and no new thread, or even comments?
Shit, is there a meteor happening, or are y’all stuffed?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim Appleton: This is a new thread.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim Appleton: Part of the reason that there’s no new development is that the entire GOP House caucus went home on Thursday morning. There’s only a handful left in DC with McCarthy. This is an indicator that no matter what he agrees to with the President, McCarthy doesn’t have the votes to pass anything.
Alison Rose
Hot damn. I’m ready to throw down after that video from Zaluzhnyi. I mean, I couldn’t win a fight against an anesthetized toddler, but even still. RAWR!
Those side-by-sides of a town before and after are always so gutting and enraging. I hope every good nation on Earth steps up to help them rebuild once russia is defeated.
BTW knowing there were some mixed opinions on Lindsey Graham visiting Kyiv, I thought some here would appreciate this comment on a FB post about it from In Ukraine: “I’m glad he’s there, you can keep him if you’d like.”
Thank you as always, Adam.
Jim Appleton
@Adam L Silverman:
Thank you. That’s the first thing anyone’s said here, and it makes sense, but remaining to be seen. My understanding is he’s two votes shy.
Peace.
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: We only need 5 as long as he’s willing to bring it to the floor. I’m pretty sure he can get more than that.
Whether his speakership survives the bill being brought forward is another question.
Eolirin
@Jim Appleton: We’ve been talking about it plenty on the post directly below this one.
patrick II
A few months ago there was a video of a completely covered dancing Ukrainian soldier. She was from her movement and size, clearly a young woman. I saw this young girl dancing and remembered the soldier and though that is what she should be doing — dancing with joy in a summer dress rather than hiding her identity on the frontlines.
Jim Appleton
@Eolirin: Thanks, I missed that somehow.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim Appleton: @Eolirin: To clarify: he doesn’t have the GOP votes. How many votes Jeffries will supply is an open question. If it’s five to ten, that’s just the Democratic members of the Problem Solver caucus dipshits. If McCarthy gets wholesale defections, and there is a high probability he will, then he doesn’t actually have a deal. And most likely at that point he’s not Speaker because if this has to pass with a majority of House Dems and a handful of House GOP, McCarthy is done. He likely won’t survive to the vote because Gaetz will motion to vacate the chair before that happens.
This is why you don’t go back on the position to not negotiate. Negotiating with McCarthy is useless. He has no power or authority. He’s not actually in charge. And its why you don’t give away your leverage publicly ahead of the negotiations you’re participating in despite saying you wouldn’t negotiate. Nothing McCarthy agrees to is worth anything.
Mike in DC
That statement by Zaluzhnyi suggests that the counteroffensive is imminent. Makes sense, most if not all of the troops training in other countries have returned, most of the foreign equipment has been delivered or will be shortly, and the Russian offensive has more or less culminated.
Ideally, they have the wherewithal to put on a 3-4 week effort, make substantial gains, then launch a second one in September/October before the Russians can fully recover.
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: If what’s being presented does in fact pass, it defuses a ton of the budget negotiation process too; other than the unnecessary cruelness of making the work requirements for TANF and SNAP even worse, we get a lot out of the proposed agreement, and it’s an almost best case for the budget fight given that we don’t control the house.
And if it doesn’t pass we’re at exactly the same place we would be without the negotiations. I don’t see the harm in them. All of the downside risk is for McCarthy given what was agreed to; now that something has been agreed to, if Republicans blow it up, it’ll be on him for failing to get his caucus in line, and on them for risking default despite there being an agreement in place.
His speakership is just as unlikely to survive this failing as it succeeding.
The Pale Scot
Zaluzhnyi’s speech, all that was left out was the blood sacrifice to Perun
I’m hearing some Klezmer in that jam the girl is dancing to
patrick II
@Adam L Silverman:
I mostly agree with you. The Republicans in the House will not pass this bill. I am not sure about the not negotiating part though. The deal Biden got wasn’t bad, nowhere near what the Republicans wanted, and the political (and real-world consequences) of not negotiating at all might not have not been seen in the best light by voters in 2024 if it all goes bad. Which is what the MAGA Republicans want. Not to mention I don’t trust those partisans on the Supreme Court to be able to do a plain reading of the Constitution if it comes to using the 14th Amendment.
MisterForkbeard
@patrick II: I’m more with Eolirin on this one. Biden stuck with not negotiating until it became clear that the press would blame him and not accurately report on McCarthy terrorism.
Meanwhile, this deal isn’t that bad and if it fails then Republicans take the blame… and Biden can still invoke the 14th if the thing falls through.
Eolirin
@patrick II: We don’t need them to. We just need it to get to the floor, and at least 5 of them to do the right thing. In exchange, Democrats can provide him enough votes to fend off a challenge to his speakership. We just need there to be at least 5 republicans willing to go along and this gets done. I suspect there’s a lot more than 5.
dimmsdale
Just wondering if any of the informed commentators here would care to speculate on the odds (and/or the means) of keeping the Rooskis’ military broken, reduced, and hopefully impotent once peace in Ukraine is achieved? I realize this is a VERY speculative question, and maybe it’s way too soon to put any intellectual energy into considering it, but isn’t it clear to the entire world that they can never ever again be allowed to raise a military with any offensive capability at all?
Eolirin
@MisterForkbeard: Not negotiating was untenable once McCarthy actually got a bill passed, even if that bill was a trash fire.
But really, not negotiating was always Biden’s opening position in the negotiations; he was always going to move off it if it looked like there was something to be gained by doing so.
RaflW
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t know. If the Biden Admin makes this agreement and McCarthy can’t deliver, the blowback is much more clearly on the GOP. It’s much harder to ‘both sides’ global markets in a panic because McCarthy either can’t deliver or gets deposed.
Andrya
@dimmsdale: I don’t claim to be one of the “informed” commenters, but … I agree that what you suggest is desperately important, but I don’t think that it’s possible. The best outcome that I hope for has two parts: Ukraine joins NATO and there is a political change in russia so that putin doesn’t start wars by himself. (It’s never good to be under a dictatorship, but I believe it is far better to be under a dictatorship ruled by a committee as opposed to a dictatorship of a single person. A committee is much less likely to get high on their own supply and lose touch with reality.)
Adam L Silverman
@Eolirin: Biden negotiating with McCarthy validates him, despite him being a powerless figure head, and it validates the threat to blow up the US and global economy.
Subversion is being out administered. Agreeing to negotiate with McCarthy is allowing McCarthy to out administer you.
The response to a revolutionary ideology and movement based on it isn’t to go along with it in the hope you can mitigate and manage the vast majority of the damage it is doing. 30% of the US states are now in the complete control this revolutionary ideology and the movement based on it. As is the Supreme Court. Whether lasting four or eight years, the Biden administration is an interregnum between that movement getting its first real taste of power, not being fully ready to wield it effectively, almost pulling off a coup despite that, and what will happen the next time it gets a chance. Until or unless
To quote the master: “Simple but adequate appeals will have to be found sooner or later.” And: “It is about time that new approaches and – above all – ideas be tried; since, obviously, the other ones have been unequal to the task.” Finally: “When a country is being subverted it is not being outfought; it is being out administered. Subversion is literally administration with a minus sign in front.”
pieceofpeace
Thanks, Adam, and for all you give us, you’re priceless.
Aussie Sheila
@dimmsdale:
Second the question, also I would like to know if it is possible for some of the NATO nations who would be willing , to provide security guarantees to Ukraine, even if Ukraine ascension to NATO is not possible in the short term?
Assuming Ukrainian victory (expulsion of Russia from all Ukraine’s sovereign territory), there has to be a way to ensure they are better protected against a future attempt by a Russian regime to invade/attack, irrespective of their NATO status.
Adam L Silverman
@patrick II: If all goes bad, there won’t be elections in 2024. This is why you announced that the Constitution’s provisions are clear and trump a 100 year old statute. And you hammer it over and over and over until everyone gets it. And then you go on as business as usual and pay the US’s obligations. It is not the administration’s job to validate Gaetz’s and Boeberts’ and Gosars’ and the rest of the House Freedom Caucus’s insanity. But that’s what they’ve done.
Adam L Silverman
@Eolirin: He did not get a bill passed. Until a bill passes both chambers of Congress it is not passed. It is just pending legislation.
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to bed before I hurt someone’s feelings.
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: Nah, you’re good. But get some rest dude.
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: McCarthy is boxed in by this agreement; if a bill gets passed, we benefit and he loses the support of the crazy caucus, if it fails, the Republicans own the entire situation. Beyond this being a gift on the budget fight, it’s a gift in terms of the public relations fight.
Because either way Biden isn’t worse off in any way that matters; if this succeeds, we are much better positioned, if it fails, we revert to status quo of solutions we’d need to apply if there were no negotiations but get to come across as the more reasonable party.
And I’m not sure what you’re advocating for in terms of alternative responses, because short of motivating voter turnout so that there isn’t republican control of the legislature there are no other options that resolve this specific situation with the government and rule of law intact. As much as I’d like to see the DoJ go after Republican corruption much more forcefully, and that seems like the only thing we can do inside the rule of law that will make a difference at this point, it wouldn’t help at this to resolve this crisis, not enough time for it. The bureaucracy still needs to operate or everything starts to break.
What we’re left with when voting fails as a remedy is going to be ugly, but voting hasn’t yet become an impossible way to avoid that outcome, so we need to use it and anything that furthers our chances in that direction needs to be done; this arguably does that. Blowing McCarthy off once he passed a bill likely would have done the opposite.
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: Semantics; he got enough members of his caucus to vote on the same bill to advance it.
patrick II
@Adam L Silverman:
Fair point. Honest to God, I wish I could entirely agree with you. The 14th Amendment is very clear and I would have personally preferred Biden to use it. But this Supreme Court cannot be trusted to make a clear reading if they decide it is in their political interest not to. The potential damage is so great, do we really want to leave it the hands of a few unelected, unanswerable, untrustworthy, venal people?
After thinking about Eolin’s point, it seems Joe has the votes (and knows it) and McCarthy doesn’t, so the negotiation turned out better than I was expecting. As much as I hate to admit it, McCarthy is probably giving up his speakership to get this deal done. Good for him. (arrgh, that hurt).
After thinking about
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin: The bitter cynic in me says: “we must do something; this is something, so let’s do this”.
Biden’s willingness to negotiate on this legitimizes GrOPer hostage-taking, just as much as Gutless Garland’s unwillingness to send in the fucking SWAT teams to arrest TFG and all who ride in him, and send them all to GITMO, legitimize TFG’s coup attempt. So the next time, he can legitimate argue that it’s part of the spectrum of legitimate political activity.
Biden should have (maybe he still will) minted TEN damn Platinum coins, each $1T, and told Qevin and Marge Three Toes and Qbert to pound fucking sand.
But hey, he can continue to hope and pray that the bad guys will just give up from exhaustion, or “the people will rise up” or some such nonsense. Or, y’know, we’ll eventually outpopulate them. Whatever.
Eolirin
@Chetan Murthy: He didn’t give a damn thing away, except for the work requirement tweaks, which no one but the people affected by will care about (though they fucking suck). He secured the spending levels for the budget at much higher levels than we have any reasonable right to expect given who is in charge of the House.
The leverage here actually seems to have been on Biden’s side; that is, this deal feels like the outcome you’d expect from Democrats being in a position of strength not Republicans. McCarthy got rolled, hard.
We can say that just blindly charging forward forcefully is going to lead to a good outcome, but the truth is that doing those things is unlikely to result in the kinds of outcomes we need either; Garland bypassing the process just leads to Trump being exonerated by the Courts, minting coins and pushing for the 14th Amendment is going to cause all sorts of economic turmoil and tosses things to the Courts too, where we have less power. In negotiating here, Biden managed to get an agreement that settles the next fight as well as this one, and that fight wouldn’t be amenable to those sorts solutions that ignore the opposition’s legitimacy despite them having legal legitimacy and control over systems that need to keep functioning to prevent significant and tangible harm to large numbers of people.
No matter what the method to resolve the debt ceiling was we’d still be facing down budget negotiations, but from a much weaker position. If this fails, and Biden uses the 14th, and the courts uphold it, we will be in a tactically weaker position than if this succeeds, plus a whole bunch of economic panic. If Biden had just barreled through and said clean bill or 14th, and the Republicans blinked first, we’d still be in a weaker position on the budget negotiations; they’d have more leverage to blow those up given that the costs of a government shutdown are lower. They’ll be constrained by this deal if it goes through.
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin:
A nation unwilling to defend itself. Pathetic. Do you really think Jose Padilla got the kind of kid-glove treatment TFG is getting? A nation that was serious about defending itself would have thrown him in solitary on a black site prison hulk in international waters until he went mad. Or just shot him. The fucker tried to overthrow our government.
But hey, I should “slow my roll”. Whatever.
Eolirin
@Chetan Murthy: What you’re suggesting requires a massive suspension of rule of law and would trigger an immediate constitutional crisis. If we go there, there is no country left to try to defend.
Kent
Josh Marshall has some insightful thoughts up on this.
He reminds us that we were going to face all of this in a couple of months with the ordinary budget negotiations anyway. I think if Biden had gone “nuclear” with the 14th Amendment option we would have paid for it in the fall with the 2024 and beyond fiscal year budget negotiations and would have faced a whole long series of government shut downs and so forth as the GOPers threw an epic hissy fit.
In a way, the GOP actually fucked themselves by picking something so nuclear as the debt ceiling which meant they HAD to reach some sort of agreement his weekend. No chance to endlessly kick the can down the road with continuing resolutions. So they wound up with an agreement that looks pretty indistinguishable to what we might have expected in the fall anyway with the regular budget process. Because if you think divided government means the Dems get to keep funding their budget priorities unchanged into the future you are seriously naïve.
YY_Sima Qian
How the debt ceiling negotiation plays out is not just about who “won or lost” this round. The GOP will keep taking this hostage over & over to extract concessions large & small from the Dems. Ever time there is even a remote risk of default; the US takes a hit on its global standing & credibility as a leader. The ROW do not distinguish between Ds & Rs, it is just further evidence of US political dysfunction & potential unreliability.
Dems need to find a way to remove the debt ceiling as a hostage.
Kent
All that would have accomplished is an epic GOP hissy fit in 3 months when they start the normal 2024 budget process and they would have shut the government down then for which there is no constitutional escape hatch. In a way they fucked themselves by hitching their negotiations to something so nuclear as the debt ceiling because they HAD to reach an agreement whereas in the fall they really don’t.
And now the air is more or less going to go out of the balloon for hard-ass negotiations in the fall since they already have agreed to the contours of the budget for 2024 and beyond with this agreement.
trollhattan
Beginning to think Iran needs to start selling Shaheds at a deep discount.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1662685349045256193?cxt=HHwWgoC2sYDhhZMuAAAA
Andrya
I’m with Chetan Murthy (except I’m not for extrajudicial imprisonment or execution for anyone, even bad people). McCarthy did not get rolled (and I highly doubt that he sacrificed his speakership). My observations:
When Obama folded in the debt ceiling negotiations in 2011, the Republicans proceeded to run against the very cuts that they had demanded. (“Obama cut Social Security and Medicare!”) If the electorate was composed of fanatical political nerds (like us jackals!) that would not have mattered- but it isn’t. The Republicans want to implement a lot of stuff that the majority of voters oppose. Debt ceiling hostage taking is a damn near foolproof way of getting the ugly stuff they want (cutting the social safety net) without taking responsibility for it- in fact, convincing the electorate that the Democrats are the ones doing the cutting. Democracy is about empowering the electorate to decide policy- if the electorate thinks the Democrats are doing the stuff that in fact the Republicans are driving, democratic accountability goes out the window.
This problem will be exacerbated if the “deal” passes the House with largely Democratic votes, which I suspect will be the case. Republican congresscritters have nothing to gain and everything to lose if they vote for a deal that the far right will call a sellout. (And I strongly suspect that Speaker McCarthy has been promised Democratic votes to keep him as speaker.)
But there’s worse. Debt limit brinksmanship creates a one-way rachet to gradually but steadily reduce the safety net to nothing. (Work requirements are not about encouraging people to work: when Arkansas got permission to impose work requirements for Medicaid, they implemented a Kafkaesque monthly reporting system, online only, that was extremely difficult to navigate. The denial of medical care was the point.) If this process is not interrupted, we are headed back to the “Gilded Age” where children literally died of starvation.
gwangung
@Chetan Murthy: You really ought to recite the Lantern oath when you go on like this.
Because you don’t seemed to have gamed out what would happen, and what the probable moves are; Way too many of your tactics rely on players whose responses and Biden’s control over are unknown in general (and the White House almost certainly knows way more than we do, which may explain why they’re not going to use your moves as a first resort).
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Please let it be known when a link goes to a PDF file. Some devices automatically download it upon clicking without giving you a chance to decline.
Carlo Graziani
Some astronomy of possible relevance to the upcoming offensive:
Sunset at Luhansk is going to be between 8:15pm and 8: 30pm between now and the Solstice (June 21), whereas sunrise will occur around 4:20am. More or less 8 hours of full night, that is.
The Moon is currently in its waxing gibbous phase. It’s 60% illuminated, and sets at about 2am, a little over 2 hrs before sunrise. That’s not a lot of time for full dark ops, in which the UA might (perhaps) exploit advantages in NATO-supplied night vision/imaging gear. It gets worse, with lunar illumination growing and moonset getting even later, untill full Moon, June 4, after which Moonrise rather than Moonset becomes the constraint. To have 4 full hours of full dark one has to wait until June 9 (Moonrise at 12:30 am), at which point dark time begins to grow rapidly as Moonrise recedes into the late night. By June 15 Moonrise is at 2:20am, giving 6 hours of full dark, and by new Moon (June 18) the full span of night is dark, of course.
In my opinion these considerations are interesting, but not strongly predictive. Knowing essentially nothing of the UA’s offensive plans, one can only tell stories. One such story is diversionary attacks in early June to get the Russians engaged and committed away from the chosen location of a big thrust, which would occur on or after the 15th to exploit surprise from night-time ops.
No doubt other equally-plausible stories can be fit, including “the astronomy is irrelevant here because other considerations are more important.” Which is a wishy-washy conclusion, but I’ve learned to be much more catious about placing bets about what the UA does…
way2blue
@Adam L Silverman:
I’d hoped Biden wouldn’t blink, but knew if he did that whatever concessions he made to get a ‘deal’—the House Republicans would simply move the goalposts. Because in for a penny, in for a pound, or some such aphorism… My hope now is that Biden gets backed into a corner such that the only move he has is to trigger the 14th amendment argument. Rather than allow the Republicans dismantle all the programs he’s implemented.