Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

In after Baud. Damn.

Let there be snark.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

We won’t go back.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

T R E 4 5 O N

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 733: The Ukrainians Continue to Fall Back

War for Ukraine Day 733: The Ukrainians Continue to Fall Back

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Have I mentioned that there are only four more shopping days until the federal government begins to shut down to the dysfunction and extremism of the House GOP majority caucus?

The Ukrainians are continuing to fall back to secondary positions as a result of the ammunition and material famine thay are in because the US has stopped resupplying them.

And the US has stopped resupplying them because the Republican majority that took over the House in January 2023 does not want to resupply them.

In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, despite his statements of support for Ukraine to the contrary, is prepared to sacrifice them on the bonfire of his political ambitions:

From The New York Times:

Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell haven’t said a word to each other since December 2020.

But people close to both men are working behind the scenes to make bygones of the enmity between them and to pave the way for a critical endorsement of the former president by the one Republican congressional leader who has yet to offer one, according to three people familiar with both teams’ perspectives who were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly.

Assuming it happens, Mr. McConnell’s endorsement of Mr. Trump would have enormous symbolic value to the former president, giving him the embrace of the last holdout of Republican power whose rejection of him represents the final patch of unconquered territory in Mr. Trump’s march to the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

The support of Mr. McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky and the chamber’s minority leader, would also carry huge value in signaling to an entire class of donors and Trump-resistant Republican elites that it’s acceptable to get behind the party’s expected nominee — no matter their misgivings. This is no small thing, given that Mr. Trump has been forced to spend more than $50 million already on legal bills, and the groups supporting him are expected to be vastly outspent by President Biden’s operation.

The secretive conversations between the Trump and McConnell camps have been happening between key advisers to both men who have known and worked with each other for more than 20 years: Chris LaCivita, a top campaign adviser to Mr. Trump, and Josh Holmes, a confidant and longtime political strategist for Mr. McConnell.

Since around the time of the Iowa caucuses last month, Mr. LaCivita and Mr. Holmes started making more of a concerted effort to trade information — particularly about Mr. Trump’s Senate endorsements — and to create an opening for a more productive working relationship.

Both Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell were made aware of this back channel between the two camps. By late January, Mr. Trump had told people close to him that he expected Mr. McConnell would endorse him.

You may ask yourself why, at this point, McConnell would do this. The answer is simple: Sonya Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas. Associate Justice Sotomayor is not in the best of health and Associate Justice Thomas is the oldest justice currently on the court. McConnell would like to be able to place at least one if not two more young, Federalist Society reactionaries on the Supreme Court. If the price to replace both the oldest Justice, who is a Republican appointee and one of the three remaining Democratic ones, with two young Federalist Society reactionaries that will lock the court even further into its current composition for another forty years, then that’s a price he’s happy to pay.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

Cooperation and determination are the two answers to the question of ending the war and bringing peace closer – address by the President of Ukraine

26 February 2024 – 19:32

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief report on this day.

First, we continue our new tradition of paying special tribute to the Heroes of Ukraine. I had the honor to hand over apartment certificates to 30 more families of Ukrainian Heroes – warriors of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, our National Guard, and the National Police: officers, sergeants, and soldiers. I am grateful to every family of our warriors, all our Heroes, for giving Ukraine such protection, for such courage and strength. It is an honor to represent the country that is defended by such people.

The second thing today is several important events with our partners. The Prime Minister of Bulgaria, a country that is a good neighbor of ours, was on a visit to Kyiv. And today, actually, we talked about how to make our good neighborliness even more effective and stronger. The important aspects are the increase in defense cooperation, joint production, and co-production in the defense sector. Also, political interaction. There is even more economic work ahead for our countries: expanding trade, expanding our infrastructure and logistics capabilities. I thank Bulgaria for its maximum pragmatism. Today, I also took part in a special summit in Paris, a summit of leaders convened by Mr. President of France. The main topic was everything that strengthens us in Europe, our resilience and capabilities. Of course, our arsenals, our ability to produce weapons, the supply of weapons to Ukraine, and the continuity of support. Everything we do together to defend against Russian aggression adds real security to our nations for decades to come. Because each of Russia’s losses and each of Russia’s defeats teaches Russia and any other enemy of Europe and the free world at large that aggression does not and cannot yield results. Cooperation and determination are the two answers that everyone should give to the question of ending the war and bringing peace closer.

Today is a special day in Ukraine. We all recall the events of 2014, when the occupation of Crimea was taking place on the same days and the fate of international security and international relations was being determined. It all started in Crimea – this Russian revanchism, this Russian war. And it is there, in Crimea, that the Russian evil must suffer a key defeat. We have already achieved significant results in the Black Sea. We are working to achieve the necessary results in the sky and on the ground in Crimea. And I am grateful to all partners who are helping with this.

One more thing. Today, we launched our economic platform “Made in Ukraine.” This is an important tool to promote economic growth in Ukraine. Everyone should clearly understand that we must give our country and our people as many opportunities as possible to meet their needs and ensure their defense. It is our economy, it is the taxes paid in Ukraine that enable us to provide for the army… The state must and will do everything to provide as many opportunities as possible for the Ukrainian economy. And to give our economy as much diversity as possible – options for export and trade, for joint modern production with partners, and for our own Ukrainian goods and services. We are supporting Ukrainian products as much as possible so that Ukraine can meet its interests as much as possible – on the battlefield and beyond.

Everything is done for the strength of Ukraine, to support our Heroes and our entire society. We must win. We must do everything to win. This is a matter of survival for Ukraine and Ukrainians. No one will grant our country success. It can only be our joint work – as active and energetic as possible, every day and without pauses.

Thank you to everyone who works for Ukraine in this way! Thank you to everyone who fights for Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

Hungary approved Sweden’s ascension into NATO today.

Huge congratulations to 🇸🇪Sweden.

This was a historically correct and wise decision. But of course, just being part of NATO is unfortunately not enough in our time.

Putin’s Russia is undermining the very idea of the Western security alliance, and NATO stops it as long as it believes Article 5 is a thing and that nations will really use it if/when the time comes.

The military and defense production is a top priority now.

The belle epoque of a seemingly universal peace in Europe is unfortunately over.

Here’s the cost of GOP intransigance:

Ukraine is, however, going on the front foot and taking the fight into Russia:

The Financial Times has details:

Towards the end of 2023, Ukraine began facing shortfalls in artillery supplies from the US and Europe. Rationing of shells is having an impact on the battlefield, making it harder for Ukrainian forces to fend off Russian infantry assaults or strike battery positions. This month, Ukraine withdrew its troops from the frontline town of Avdiivka after a four-month battle.

With the land war looking grim, Ukraine pivoted last year to using technology to carry out daring attacks within occupied territory and in Russia.

Ukraine’s biggest military achievements were drone and missile strikes against military facilities in Russian-occupied Crimea. Ukrainian forces are estimated to have sunk one-fifth of Russia’s Black Sea fleet stationed in the area.

There has also been a vast uptick in attacks deeper into Russian territory, with home-built Ukrainian missiles and drones striking military facilities, munitions factories and energy infrastructure in Russia.

Ukraine aims to step up these strikes on Russian soil in 2024, with the aim of at least disrupting if not crippling the Kremlin’s war effort and bringing the conflict home to ordinary Russians.

Lots of animations/visualizations at the link.

France:

Unfortunately there’s no guarantee that Putin won’t be able to subvert France by getting his local French surrogate elected:

From The Economist:

It is an annual ritual in France for political leaders to make a new year’s address. Time was that Marine Le Pen, the leader of the hard-right National Rally (rn, formerly the National Front), did so from the back room of a boxy building in Nanterre, on the drab outskirts of Paris. In those days the party she took over in 2011 from her father, Jean-Marie, was more about low-budget protest and fringe provocation than taking power.

This January the job fell to Jordan Bardella, her slick 28-year-old protégé and now president of the rn, whom she watched from the front row. In a dark suit and tie, he spoke from a grand salon on the swanky Avenue Hoche in Paris, a step away from the Champs-Elysées. The symbolism was potent. The shift from the capital’s periphery to the heart of elite Paris encapsulates a political strategy: the rn is preparing for power.

Ms Le Pen is no stranger to national elections. Since taking the helm at what was then an extreme-right outfit, co-founded in 1972 by a former member of the Waffen ss and nostalgic for French-run Algeria, she has shaped it into a nationalist-populist party. Having stood at three presidential elections, she has made it to the final run-off in two. Each time, she has lost to the current incumbent, Emmanuel Macron. But her final score has jumped: from 34% in 2017 to 41% in 2022. In 2027 Mr Macron will be barred from running for a third consecutive term. Early polls now suggest—however prematurely—that this time she could scrape a victory.

Already some doors are opening. Mr Bardella was invited in November to debate with students on the campus of hec, a top business school in the Paris region. Aides are trying, though with difficulty, to set up meetings for him and his boss with cac 40 business leaders. Late last year Ms Le Pen lunched publicly with a former boss of edf, the state-owned electricity utility, at an upscale Paris restaurant.

For a party that portrays itself as the champion of the people against the out-of-touch ruling class in Paris, such efforts are necessarily tricky. In 2022 Ms Le Pen railed against the “globalist” Mr Macron, who “enslaves mankind to the logic of economics and accounting”. Yet the rn argues that to win the highest office it also needs to combine its strong support base among the less-educated with a chunk of the most-educated and better-off. In 2022 only 26% of those with a university degree voted for Ms Le Pen in the second round.

Today’s watchword is reassurance. On policy, Ms Le Pen has dropped calls for “Frexit”, leaving the eu or the euro, which worried voters, while retaining her core nationalist demands, including an end to the right to citizenship for those born to foreign parents on French soil. On style, today’s rn has been purged of its most thuggish elements and antisemitic rhetoric. Ms Le Pen’s 87 fellow deputies sit, besuited, in parliament; two periodically preside over proceedings. Having changed the party’s name, evicted her own father and shed its family-values conservatism, Ms Le Pen has installed a new generation of loyalists. The single biggest age group among rn deputies is now the 30- to 39-year-olds. For the first time in 40 years a poll in December showed that more of the French (45%) do not consider the party to be a “danger for democracy” than judge that it is (41%).

How far the rn really has shed its past instincts, however, let alone gained the skills to govern, is a different question. Ms Le Pen is certainly not yet a guest at the clubs and debates frequented by the Paris elite. Toxic hangers-on still move in her orbit. She is an admirer of Hungary’s strongman, Viktor Orban, and her party sits in the European Parliament with Germany’s far-right afd. A Kremlin-linked Russian bank financed some of her previous election campaigns. Even today the rn argues against Ukraine joining either nato or the eu.

The difficulty for centrist politicians, though, is that the rn’s normalisation has gone far enough to defang some of their traditional tactics against it. Taking the moral high ground, or scaremongering, no longer washes with much of the electorate. Younger voters, who barely recall her father’s stint, see Mr Bardella as just another politician; a pinned clip on his TikTok account has a massive 8.5m views. In Italy the relative moderation in office of Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, whose party has roots in post-war neo-fascism, also weakens the case for panic. “Fear in public opinion is overestimated,” says Dominique Reynié, director of Fondapol, a think-tank. “People think that Le Pen is someone like them.”

Ahead of European Parliament elections in June, and to reboot his government, Mr Macron has installed a counterpoint to Mr Bardella as prime minister: the 34-year-old Gabriel Attal. Six years apart, each uncommonly poised in debates, the pair have faced each other in television studios before. Already, Mr Attal is proving far more popular than his boss, with a 53% approval rating, 17 points higher than Mr Macron’s. But his arrival has not yet made any dent in the crushing ten-point lead that the rn enjoys over Mr Macron’s Renaissance grouping in polls for the Euro-election.

Most awkwardly, Mr Macron’s attempt to follow the electorate to the right on immigration has ended up helping the rn. In a tactical ambush the rn unexpectedly backed his recent immigration bill, embarrassing the government and allowing Ms Le Pen to claim an “ideological victory”.

Finding a way to resist nationalist-populism challenges centrists across Europe. Rational argument is a flimsy tool against its simplistic certitudes. Back in 2017, during a presidential debate, Mr Macron famously exposed Ms Le Pen as unfit to govern, when she confused two big French firms and failed to explain her unfathomable currency policy. The more her party does its homework, the harder this argument will be to make. “Our adversaries underestimate the rn,” says the party’s Mr Tanguy. “They don’t realise that we are ready.”

Tatarigami and his Frontelligence Insight team have published a new assessment of how Russia is sourcing the components for its military production despite the sanctions regime. First tweet from the thread, the rest from the Thread Reader App:

2/ Frontelligence Insight concluded that the Russian company “Special Technology Center,” which produces drones for the Russian military, indirectly buys equipment from Keysight Technologies, an American corporation, and MPI Corporation, a Taiwanese company. This is how we know: 
3/ The “Special Technology Center,” abbreviated as STC, is a Russian company specializing in the production of technological equipment, notably the Orlan-10 UAV and Leer-3 drone-based electronic warfare system for the Russian army 
4/ This company has been sanctioned by many countries and can be located both in the sanction list of Ukraine and the US:Image
5/ Despite sanctions, STC acquires equipment from both American and Taiwanese sources through intermediary companies that obscure the original buyer. Thanks to the documents, we now know their names.Image
6/ The key person in the deliveries was the procurement manager of the Special Technology Center – Andrei Florinskiy. According to documents, he received 3 commercial proposals for the supply of parts from KeySight. The proposals came from Dipaul, Radioline, and RitmImage
7/ It seems that one of these entities, named “Radioline,” has previously made agreements with the Special Technology Center for the procurement of Keysight equipment, as indicated in these separate documents:Image
8/ One of the documents has drawn our attention to the lead engineer of Radioline, Mikhail Mulminov, who has previously received contracts with this Special Technology Center. The conducted research has uncovered some concerning details.Image
9/ On the website of Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University, Mikhail Mulminov is recognized as a regional representative of Keysight Technologies, the American company from which the sanctioned company is seeking to procure equipment.Image
10/ In this photograph, Mikhail Mulminov is standing alongside equipment with the Keysight Technologies logo during a lecture at another university, providing additional evidence of his association with Keysight Technologies.Image
11/ His face visually aligns with his profile picture on the popular Russian social network “VK.”
It is unclear whether he is still employed with Keysight Technologies and what his current connection to the company is. Nevertheless, it creates numerous concerns.Image
12/ It remains unclear whether Russian company “Radioline” directly purchased equipment for the sanctioned STC from Keysight Technologies or utilized another third party in between. 
13/ The emails also suggest that Radioline is not the sole company tasked with acquiring Western technology for the Special Technology Center. It has also entered into an agreement with Protech, with CEO Denis Nikolaevich Koval, to acquire Western equipment, including Keysight.Image
14/ Russians also try to broaden their search beyond Western avenues, which is why, unsurprisingly, the sanctioned STC company made an agreement with Akmetron, a distribution company that imports Taiwanese dual-use technology from MPI Corporation into Russia.Image
15/ Headquartered in Taiwan, MPI Corporation specializes in producing semiconductors and various technological items. According to intercepted documents, a procurement contract for an MPI TS150 Probe Station was granted, totaling $154,700.Image
16/ Earlier this year, @InformNapalm, a volunteer community, also scrutinized some of these documents, publishing a compelling and detailed investigation on the Russian Special Technological Center LLC’s procurement of equipment from European and Chinese companies 
17/ Addressing this problem requires a multi-step approach, including sectoral sanctions, robust monitoring, and enforcement. Halting the supply of dual-use goods to Russia is a more cost-efficient strategy than the prolongation of the war. 
18/ If you want to read the complete article, feel free to visit our website, as provided in my bio.

If you would like to see more of these investigations, consider supporting us through BuyMeaCoffee, as our expenses rely solely on your public support.

19/ Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to like and share the initial message in the thread for maximum visibility! 

While the Russians are resourcing material for their war economy despite the sanctions, the Ukrainians are trying to crowd source their acquisition process:

 

Attention! ‼️

VAU is struggeling!
We feel helpless in the attempts on reaching out to new donors.

As of now, nearly all of our efforts to arm the Ukrainian army is funded by a few regular donors.

As you might have noticed, we have had to post older videos for a longer period of time when reaching out.
This is simply due to the fact that we are unable to fund new projects at the same pace we did earlier.

We desperately need your help in spreading the word about our work. And we desperately need our followers to consider donating to our cause.

The situation on several parts of the frontline is desperate.

As long as the western governments fails to support Ukraine adequately, we – the people of the free world must do whatever we can to make sure that the Ukrainian lines hold.

Plesse consider retweeting / quoting / liking, and please consider donating at

http://Paypal.me/veteranaidukranaidukraine
http://Vaukraine.com

Hello, everyone. As the war rages on and the aid from the US to Ukraine is blocked in the congress, the value of every piece of equipment becomes higher and higher.

I’ve started a new fundraiser to help protect equipment Krab howtizers.

Donation 🔗 https://paypal.com/pools/c/927dvSZtDd

We will purchase an excavator that will be used to build protective shelters, to save the equipment and lives of the service members of the 26th brigade of the 🇺🇦 Armed forces. We need to dig in as deep as possible.

Our previous project to protect Krabs was succesful, I can say that we saved at least 2 Krab SPGs that cost 10s of millions of dollars at a cost of only $30000.

Here you can observe the proof, russians used multiple lancet drones to try and take out this Krab, but thanks to our combined efforts, the hull wasn’t penetrated and the jet stream of the cumulative charge was weakened and dispersed before hitting the Krab armor saving the vehicle.

I know that people are exhausted, and lose interest in Ukraine. Unfortunately the “fatigue” touches everyone, but we can’t abandon those who are fighting for their freedom and liberty.

Please donate, Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦

There are dozens more of these.

Here’s an entire thread, I’m just posting the first tweet.

🔔Fundraiser announcement – Holding the line

Today, in collaboration with the @69thSB, we are announcing the start of a critically important fundraiser to support the 3rd Assault Brigade, 129th Territorial Defense Brigade and the 117th Separate Mechanized Brigade, all involved in the fiercest fighting across two frontline locations.

What are we raising money for?
▫️ A minimum of 100 FPV drones
▫️ 4 NAFO cars + EW protection

This requires an amount of €125.000.

You can donate here 👉https://help99.co/patches/noel-reports-x-nafo-69th-sniffing-brigade-present-holding-the-line

Help us by Liking, Reposting and/or Commenting on this post for maximum visiblity. If you don’t donate, this is a small effort with big impact. It also helps to Tag as many people as possible to make them aware of this fundraiser.

Unit information
The 3rd Assault Brigade is in rapid need of replacement of pick-ups, as the battle for Avdiivka took its toll. In addition, we raise money to provide their drone units with FPV drones. They are accompanied by the 129th Territorial Defense Brigade in this direction who requested a pick-up to aid the mobility of their UAV unit.

The 117th Mechanized Brigade is involved in the defense of the Robotyne direction. There, the Russians are attacking with a lot of armored vehicles and tanks. FPV drones are needed to compensate for the lack of artillery shells. Help them to maintain holding Ukrainian land that was de-occupied in the counter-offensive operations in 2023.

Between Congressional GOP bad faith and intransigence and the seeming lack of an actual effective strategy from the Biden administration to resource Ukraine beyond pleading with and trying to shame the shameless into doing something, Ukraine’s winter has gotten colder, longer, and deadlier.

Radensk, Russian occupied Kherson Oblast:

Sevastopol, Russian occupied Crimea:

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

A new video from Patron’s official TikTok!

@patron__dsns

Два роки боротьби 🇺🇦❤️‍🩹 #славаукраїні #славагероям #fakesituation⚠️ #fakeall⚠️

♬ original sound – british.royalty

Here’s the machine translation of the caption:

Two years of struggle 🇺🇦❤️‍🩹 #славаукраїні#славагероям#fakesituation⚠️#fakeall⚠️

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    hrprogressive

    And why is it that the GOP doesn’t want to resupply Ukraine?

    Oh yeah. That’s right.

    Not sure what anyone’s thoughts are Thom Hartmann, but this article seemed pretty damn frightening today, and, again, I keep coming back to the idea that so many people don’t even want to call the Republicans what they are and what they plan to do in plain language that…you know, we’re quite frankly about sleepwalk into the Trump Reich, and I don’t really know what, if anything, can be done about it.

    yes, we can vote, but as Adam has consistently pointed out, we cannot completely out-organize and out-vote systemic gerrymandering, so…you know.

    What’s the Plan B for stopping Plan F?

    I haven’t heard one yet.

  2. 2.

    Adam L Silverman

    I have purposefully not covered The NY Times reporting on the CIA and HUR collaboration and the Meduza reporting on Navalny. I want to see what shakes out as a result of the reporting before I get to them in an update.

  3. 3.

    West of the Rockies

    I doubt that McConnell’s endorsement means anything in terms of actual votes.   Who in the Republican bizarro world would say, “I wasn’t gonna vote Trump, but now that Mitch has endorsed him, sign me up!”

  6. 6.

    jackmac

    The NY Times story on the CIA and HUR collaboration was fascinating and revealing (at least some of the details that were permitted to be reported). I’m looking forward to Adam’s perspective.

  13. 13.

    Bill Arnold

    @jackmac:

    The NY Times story on the CIA and HUR collaboration was fascinating.

    Indeed.
    It involved a very large number of Ukrainian sources. That would have bought them a lot of editorial control.
    Sampled twitter a bit; as expected, the Tankie Fascists (Fascist Tankies? (Also, Russian operatives)) have been glowing about the “validation” of their anti-USA narratives. (Wait till they hear about Russian Spy Bases in the USA!)
    Aside: “fascinating” (etymology story involves apotropaic phallus-shaped amulets)

  15. 15.

    Gin & Tonic

    @jackmac: I’ll just say I have a cousin, now retired, who, um, “worked for the government” and was telling me about this last year.

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    KyivIndependent.com:

    Germany has handed over 14,000 155 mm shells, ten Vector reconnaissance drones with spare parts, and other aid in their latest delivery of military aid to Ukraine, the German government said on Feb. 26.

    The tranche also included four Wisent 1 demining tanks, three mobile, remote controlled, and protected mine clearing systems, material for explosive ordnance disposal as well as 250 more tool kits with blasting material.

    Ukraine also received 22 anti-drone sensors and jammers, four border protection vehicles, and 12 satellite communication terminals.

    President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Berlin on Feb. 16 to sign a long-term security agreement with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

    Scholz then revealed that Berlin was reading a new large-scale defense assistance package of 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) that includes artillery ammunition, air defense systems, and more.

    […]

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Bill Arnold

    @hrprogressive:

    Consider that Johnson is still refusing to swear in Tom Suozzi (who recently won George Santos’ old seat), something Johnson apparently did to maintain enough Republican-majority votes to impeach Alejandro Mayorakas.

    Both the Mayorakas impeachment vote and the NY3 special election vote were on Feb 13 (2024). If anything, Johnson is playing to game the (House) votes immediately after their (the GOP’s) 2 week maliciously-timed vacation.
    Also, Democrat Tom Suozzi won NY3 by about double the polling margin of error, which is encouraging. NYState Dems are shaping up (and paying attention) after their humiliation in 2022.

  18. 18.

    hrprogressive

    @Bill Arnold: ​
     

    I think his point is such that there are plausible paths to the GOP just saying “Fuck it, this is ours now” and no apparent path to stopping them if they really want to do it.

    I was worried they were gonna do this in 2022, and I think we got lucky that they didn’t.

    The current Speaker of the House thinks he’s on some anointed mission from God, and their God-Emporer-King Trump wants to make this country his and his alone, so, yeah.

    I think not nearly enough general public types are even aware of any of this, and the Democratic Party writ large isn’t, IMO, doing nearly enough to make that truth known.

    So yeah, I have deep concerns.

  19. 19.

    Sally

    People discussing optimism the other night. I opened my diary and the “thought” for the week was ” Optimism is a force multiplier”.

  20. 20.

    Bill Arnold

    @hrprogressive:

    I think we got lucky that they didn’t.

    I think they got lucky that they didn’t.

    IMO, the main realistic concern about 2020 is that Biden won by just 40-50K votes in a few battleground states. But he did beat an incumbent president.

  21. 21.

    gene108

    @Another Scott:

    Germany has handed over 14,000 155 mm shells,

    Not nearly enough.

    Putin’s bought the loyalty of right-wing political parties around the world. Seems to be paying dividends in France and the USA. I don’t know about Germany.

    The West, as a whole, seems to have little collective interest in Ukraine to overcome objections from Putin’s puppets in office.

  23. 23.

    Betty

    Two positive stories this morning: Russia banning gasoline exports due to damage to refineries and Ukraine took out another SU-34.

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    @gene108:

    Not nearly enough.

    Of course. It’s a positive increment.

    I’m reminded that there are always constraints. E.g. M4 Sherman tank:

    Before September 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had announced a production program calling for 120,000 tanks for the Allied war effort. Although the American industrial complex was not affected by enemy aerial bombing or submarine warfare as was Japan, Germany and, to a lesser degree, Great Britain, an enormous amount of steel for tank production was diverted to the construction of warships and other naval vessels.[26] Steel used in naval construction amounted to the equivalent of approximately 67,000 tanks; and consequently, only about 53,500 tanks were produced during 1942 and 1943.[27]

    Ramping up production takes time, and there are always competing factors. Enough incremental progress is what’s important.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

Comments are closed.