Monday, June 27, 2022

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

The Russian military will soon exhaust its combat capabilities and be forced to bring its offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region to a grinding halt, according to Western intelligence predictions and military experts.

“There will come a time when the tiny advances Russia is making become unsustainable in light of the costs and they will need a significant pause to regenerate capability,” said a senior Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.  [snip]

But the “creeping” advances are dependent almost entirely on the expenditure of vast quantities of ammunition, notably artillery shells, which are being fired at a rate almost no military in the world would be able to sustain for long, said the senior Western official.

Russia, meanwhile, is continuing to suffer heavy losses of equipment and men, calling into question how much longer it can remain on the attack, the official said.  [snip]

Russian commentators are also noting the challenges, emphasizing a chronic shortage of manpower. “Russia does not have enough physical strength in the zone of the special military operation in Ukraine … taking into account the almost one thousand kilometer (or more) line of confrontation,” wrote Russian military blogger Yuri Kotyenok on his Telegram account. He estimated that Russia would need 500,000 troops to attain its goals, which would only be possible with a large-scale mobilization, a potentially risky and unpopular move that President Vladimir Putin has so far refrained from undertaking.

The bad:

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, it repudiated the very idea that America’s highest court exists to protect people’s fundamental liberties from legislative majorities that would infringe on them. [snip]

The right to an abortion was based on the principle of a living Constitution that evolves to expand liberty and equality. That same master principle of modern constitutional law provided the grounding for Brown v. Board of Education, ending segregation. It was the basis for Obergefell v. Hodges, finding a right to same-sex marriage. It is the same principle that undergirds dozens of other decisions establishing rights we today consider fundamental, from sexual freedom to stop and seizure, that were not considered similarly basic in 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified or in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was.

In place of the living Constitution that protects liberty and equality from the tyranny of the majority, the court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization announced a Constitution that only protects rights that already existed in the distant past. The majority considered it irrelevant that the people who ratified the original constitutional provisions did not include women, whose rights are at issue in Dobbs and whose equality is derogated by the decision. According to the majority, the dead hand of the past rules our constitutional future.

The ugly:

On Friday, amidst the chaos of the news of the Supreme Court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, QAnon's 'Q' left the first new series of messages since 2020.

The first message — "Shall we play a game once more?" — was left using 'Q's credentials on what Daily Beast refers to as an "anarchic internet community" called 8kun, and was later followed up with "Are you ready to serve your country again?" and then a third reading "Remember your oath."

When a member of the board replied to one of the messages saying "Throw us a bone Q, we've all been waiting for what seemed like an eternity. What's going on?" Q replied "It had to be done this way."  [snip]

The basis of QAnon's belief system is that the Democratic world is run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles and that an event called "The Storm," will one day take place where their enemies will be executed via orders from a military tribunal. According to The Guardian, support of QAnon has increased since Trump left the White House.

The grifters/ Russian cutouts are back, ready to vacuum out the pockets of gullible submorons and create as much chaos and violence as possible.   "Throw us a bone, Q" one said.  Well, there's enough solid bone in that mark's head that they shouldn't need any supplements.