Caution is a good thing when it comes to news from Ukraine or Russia. Everybody has an agenda, and we here in the US read according to our values and desires.
But there's a substantial uptick in reporting of disarray within Russia.
- There are reports of Russian units suffering frostbite at 50 percent rates, complaining that they're being forced to target civilians, and even in one case attacking a colonel. (Not that complaining among soldiers should be a surprise.)
- Tens or hundreds of thousands of well-educated, well-employed Russians are fleeing the country, citing disgust over the war, fear of repression, or a mixture of the two. Maybe 250,000.
- One such Russian is Anatoly Chubai, a special envoy to international organizations. He has resigned his position and left the country.
- Remember, weeks before the invasion a group of Russian active and retired general level officers warned that an invasion of Ukraine would be disastrous with long-term consequences.
We, Russia’s officers, demand that the President of the Russian Federation reject the criminal policy of provoking a war in which Russia would find itself alone against the united forces of the West.
(For Gessen on the flight of Russian nationals, see this video.)
Putin the Menace
When the conversation concerns race, we should listen to those directly victimized by racism. When it comes to Russian aggression, we should listen to folks from the former Soviet Bloc. The Czech Republic's Prime Minister Petr Fiala
says that Russia will seek to retake its former territorial dominance: “If we don’t beat him [Putin], he will not stop in Ukraine. He will roll on and will recreate the USSR.”
Dog Whistles Everyone Can Hear
Republicans are trying to stick Ketanji Brown Jackson with the Critical Race Theory canard. Especially heinous is Ted Cruz, while Josh Hawley wins the prize for pressing her sentencing for child pornography offenders. His claims are all untrue or misleading, but that doesn't stop anything. (Link is to a piece by Ruth Marcus that lays it all out.)
That wonderful Christian (nationalist) Charlie Kirk commented: Ketanji Brown Jackson "is what your country looks like on critical race theory. Your children and your grandchildren are going to have to take orders from people like her. And what's amazing is that she kind of has an attitude too." (Per Media Matters.)
It's revealing: when they say you'll have to take orders, they mean they intend to give orders.
Bringing Russia to America
Paul Manafort was a key consultant to Ukraine's last pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Then he was campaign manager for Donald Trump. He lied repeatedly to the Mueller investigation after having (a) gotten support for Ukraine cut from the 2016 GOP platform, (b) coordinated a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian spies, (c) shared campaign polling data with Russian spies, and (d) Zeus knows what else. He went to jail, and Trump pardoned him.
On Sunday Manafort was removed from a flight headed to Dubai. His US passport has been revoked. But what, you wonder would Manafort be doing headed to Dubai? Nothing good, I promise.
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