"And as the scale of what happened comes into sharper focus, the disaster appears to be breaking through the Kremlin’s tightly controlled information bubble."
"Russian battlefield failure is resonating w/ a stable of pro-Russian war bloggers...
“The commentary by these widely read milbloggers may fuel burgeoning doubts in Russia about Russia’s prospects in this war & the competence of Russia’s military leaders” nytimes.com/2022/05/15/wor…
"Russian command reportedly sent about 550 troops... to cross the Donets River at Bilohorivka...
Satellite images reveal that Ukrainian artillery destroyed several Russian pontoon bridges and laid waste to a tight concentration of Russian troops and equipment around the river."
"As the news of the [Russian] losses at the river crossing in Bilohorivka started to spread, some Russian bloggers did not appear to hold back in their criticism of what they said was incompetent leadership."
“The last straw that overwhelmed my patience was the events around Bilohorivka, where due to stupidity — I emphasize, because of the stupidity of the Russian command — at least one battalion tactical group was burned, possibly two.”
"Another popular [pro-Russian] blogger, who goes by Starshe Eddy on Telegram, wrote that the fact that commanders left so much of their force exposed amounted to “not idiocy, but direct sabotage.”"
And a third pro-Russian military blogger, Vladlen Tatarski, posted:
“Until we get the last name of the military genius who laid down a B.T.G. by the river and he answers for it publicly, we won’t have had any military reforms”
"A majority of Republican nominees on the ballot this November for the House, Senate and key statewide offices — 299 in all — have denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election"
"most of the election deniers nominated are likely to win: Of the nearly 300 on the ballot, 173 are running for safely Republican seats. Another 52 will appear on the ballot in tightly contested races."
Here are the election deniers running in Texas 2022:
Greg Abbott for Governor
Dan Patrick for Lt Gov
and the twice-indicted Ken Paxton for Attorney General.
"Donald Trump on Friday issued what can only be described as a threat against Mitch McConnell, declaring that the Senate minority leader’s support for bipartisan bills amounts to a “DEATH WISH.”"
News orgs fail to ask GOP pols about this threat by Trump.
First, they cannot leave these exchanges for the end of an interview, when the guest can filibuster until the commercial break. Do it upfront, and don’t allow them to move on"
"In the absence of higher authority backing them up, personnel in the staff secretary’s office could not be expected to remove documents from the president’s possession...
“They would have gotten their heads cut off by the president if they tried to take things from him.”
"Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev spent more than a month fighting in Ukraine after his poorly equipped unit was ordered to march from its base in Crimea for what commanders called a routine exercise."
Over the next 5 weeks, deeply troubled by the devastation caused by ... Putin’s bloody invasion, he wrote down his recollections in hopes that telling his country the truth about the war could help stop it."
"His damning 141-page journal... describes an army in disarray: commanders clueless & terrified, equipment old & rusty, troops pillaging occupied areas in search of food because of a lack of provisions, morale plummeting as the campaign stalled."
"On Election Day 2016, nearly 63 million Americans voted for Trump, giving him more than 300 electoral votes and the White House.
The takeaway?
They, too, knew where he stood and voted for him anyway."
The idea that legislatures stand unbound by any limit from their own founding documents is a fringe debating point invented for Republican political advantage."