Russian mercenary boss escalates row with top army brass with image of dead bodies
Andrew Osborn – February 22, 2023
The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin is seen inside a cockpit of a military Su-24 bomber plane over an unidentified location
LONDON (Reuters) – Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin took a bitter public feud with the top army brass to a new level on Wednesday, publishing a grisly image of dozens of his fighters he said had been killed after being deprived of ammunition.
Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company which is fighting on Moscow’s behalf in Ukraine, has this week repeatedly accused the Russian defence ministry of deliberately starving his fighters of munitions in what he has called a treasonous attempt to destroy Wagner.
The defence ministry, in a statement late on Tuesday, said such allegations were “completely untrue” and complained – without mentioning Prigozhin by name – about attempts to create splits that worked “solely to the benefit of the enemy”.
Undeterred, Prigozhin doubled down on his allegations on Wednesday, taking the unusual step of releasing a picture of dozens of his dead fighters laying prostrate on the icy ground in eastern Ukraine, where Wagner is battling to try to take the small Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
“This is one of the places where the bodies of those who have died are gathered,” Prigozhin told a prominent Russian military blogger in an interview.
“These are guys who died yesterday because of so-called shell hunger. Mothers, wives and children will get their bodies. There should be five times less (dead). Who is guilty that they died? The guilty ones are those who should have resolved the question of us getting enough ammo.”
In another move likely to infuriate the top army brass, he released a copy of what he said was Wagner’s official request to the defence ministry for ammunition with detailed tallies of shells used, requested and received – though he said he had blanked out sensitive data such as the names of the shells.
“They’re still not giving us ammo. No steps to give us ammo have been taken,” said Prigozhin, saying that Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff, were withholding their signatures from shell approval forms.
Neither man has publicly responded to Prigozhin’s criticism in the past.
Prigozhin, a wealthy catering tycoon and ex-convict, has assumed a more public role since the war started. But he has faced push back from the authorities in recent weeks amid some signs of a move by the Kremlin and defence ministry to curb his growing influence.
On Wednesday, he said he had launched a social media campaign to try to secure the shells and that Wagner had been reduced to begging military warehouses for ammunition, which he said was sometimes successful.
Despite the purported shortage, he said his fighters would keep trying to overrun Ukraine’s Bakhmut.
“Twice as many of us are going to die that’s all, until there are none of us left,” he said.
“And when Wagner are all dead then (Defence Minister) Shoigu and (General) Gerasimov will probably have to pick up a gun.”
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Peter Graff)
‘Putin’s Chef’ Leaks Grisly Corpse Photo in Public Betrayal of Kremlin
Allison Quinn – February 22, 2023
SPUTNIK
If there were ever a time for the Kremlin to worry about an uprising by its most out-of-control private army, now would appear to be it.
Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has gone from accusing the Russian military of treason to flooding the internet with gruesome photos of the country’s war dead.
“Who is to blame for them dying? Those who should have resolved the issue of supplying us with sufficient quantities of ammunition are to blame,” Prigozhin said Wednesday in comments to a pro-war Telegram channel, singling out Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. A day earlier, he accused both of trying to “destroy” the Wagner Group by deliberately choking off their ammunition supply.
To drive his point home on Wednesday, he released a photo showing rows upon rows of bloodied and maimed corpses that he said were Wagner fighters killed trying to keep the Kremlin’s grip on Ukraine.
“No steps have been taken to issue ammunition. I am posting a photo below, this is one of the gathering points for the dead. These are guys who died yesterday due to ammunition hunger. There should have been five times less of them,” Prigozhin said.
“Wagner, like a beggar crowd funding, is asking unit commanders to help in some way. We will not leave Bakhmut. We’ll just die twice as much as we already have, until everyone’s gone. And when the Wagernites run out, then most likely Shoigu and Gerasimov will have to take up machine guns,” he said.
While Prigozhin has never been shy about blasting Russia’s top military brass, his outrage is rapidly spreading throughout the ranks of the pro-war military bloggers the Kremlin has relied on to bolster public support for the war.
And it’s threatening to overshadow the “everything is going according to plan and we’re all united” message Putin wants to send ahead of the one-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion, when the Kremlin has only slight territorial gains and a whole generation of young dead men to show for the military conquest.
Even as Putin took to the stage at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium for his pro-war rally Wednesday, Wagner supporters (or bots) flooded the chat of an online livestream of the event with angry messages demanding the military “give ammunition to Wagner!”
Prigozhin–who was known for his role commanding armies of Russian trolls long before he admitted to being the puppetmaster of the mercenary group–was suspected of unleashing the messages. Several pro-Kremlin Telegram channels have also begun conducting polls on who followers would want to see win in the “terrible confrontation”–Shoigu and Gerasimov, or Prigozhin.
Ninety six percent of the more than 15,000 people who responded to one poll on Tuesday voted for Prigozhin.
But anger at the Russian military command has already spread far beyond Prigozhin, and even Wagner.
Igor Bezler, one of the Kremlin’s most well-known proxy commanders from Russia’s first wave of aggression against Ukraine in 2014, called for Shoigu and Gerasimov to be assassinated in an intercepted call with an FSB officer recently, according to Ukrainian intelligence.
“First Shoigu needs to be shot, and then Gerasimov, fuck. And then half of your fucking FSB to be hanged and their asses put on stakes, and then we’ll start to fight,” a man identified as Bezler said in audio of the purported call.
“As long as all these fuckwits are in power … it’s all complete nonsense,” he said, railing against “dumb” Putin and others in power before yelling, “Our leaders are fucking morons!”
Bezler wasn’t the only one to float the idea of putting a “bullet in the head” of the country’s top military brass.
The Wagner-connected Telegram channel Grey Zone on Wednesday shared a missive, apparently referring to unnamed military officials, saying that if they lacked the “honor” to kill themselves for their mistakes, the least they could do is take off their uniforms to stop bringing “shame.”
The average life expectancy of a front-line soldier in eastern Ukraine is around 4 hours, an American fighting in ‘the meat grinder’ says
Chris Panella and Jake Epstein – February 22, 2023
A Ukrainian soldier fires toward Russian positions outside Bakhmut, Ukraine, on November 8.Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images
The average life expectancy of a front-line soldier in eastern Ukraine is four hours, a Marine said.
He said fighting was especially deadly in the war-torn city of Bakhmut, dubbed “the meat grinder.”
Ukraine has resisted Russian advances on the city ahead of the war’s anniversary.
The average life expectancy of a front-line soldier in eastern Ukraine is just four hours, a retired US Marine fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region told ABC News.
“It’s been pretty bad on the ground, a lot of casualties. The life expectancy is around four hours on the front line,” Troy Offenbecker, the American fighter, said.
Eastern Ukraine’s war-torn city of Bakhmut has been the site of some of the bloodiest fighting since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor began almost one year ago. The battle for the city, which had a prewar population of about 73,000 people, is the longest-running of the war.
Fighting in Bakhmut is so bad, Offenbecker said, that it’s been dubbed “the meat grinder.” In early January, a senior US military official described combat in and around this town, which appears to have limited strategic significance to both Russia and Ukraine, as “really severe and savage.”
“You’re talking about thousands upon thousands of artillery rounds that have been delivered between both sides,” the official said at the time. “In many cases, you know, you’re looking at, you know, several thousand artillery rounds in a day that are being exchanged.”
Bakhmut has been a major target for Russian offensive forces, which include both its regular military and the notorious Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked mercenary organization. Russia has been under “increasing political pressure” to claim some victories ahead of the anniversary of the invasion, according to a Monday intelligence update from Britain’s Defense Ministry.
“It is likely that Russia will claim that Bakhmut has been captured to align with the anniversary, regardless of the reality on the ground,” the update said.
Bakhmut, which is in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region, has been besieged by Russian forces throughout much of the war. Late last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it had been reduced to “burned ruins.”
Despite a months-long attempt by Russian forces to encircle the city, Ukrainian troops have provided a stiff defense that has prevented the Russians from capturing it. Meanwhile, Western intelligence estimates that Russia may have suffered as many as 200,000 casualties while fighting in Ukraine, including up to 60,000 troops killed.
“They have, in some categories, lost more than half of their military equipment in this war, and more than a million of the brightest and best Russians have left the country,” Victoria Nuland, the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, said earlier this week. “So what is this war bringing the average Russian? Nothing.”
Donald Trump, who rolled back rail safety regulations and slashed environmental protections, donates Trump-branded water to East Palestine residents
Erin Snodgrass – February 22, 2023
Former President Donald Trump heads out of the East Palestine Fire Department next to his son, Donald Trump, Jr., as he visits the area in the aftermath of the Norfolk Southern train derailment Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. In the background is a pallet of personalized Trump water he donated.AP Photo/Matt Freed
Donald Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday, following a disastrous train derailment.
The 2024 Republican candidate donated pallets of Trump-branded water to residents.
Trump’s visit raised questions about his administration’s rollback of rail safety regulations.
The former president’s visit to the northeastern village preempted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s arrival by one day, and Trump relished every opportunity to castigate his Democratic successors, saying Buttigieg “should have already been here,” and commanding President Joe Biden to “get over here,” according to local reports.
While assuring East Palestine residents that they had “not been forgotten,” Trump managed to tout his own presence in the besieged community and brush off questions about his administration’s noted history of rolling back regulations on both rail safety and hazardous chemicals.
Trump started his day by briefly visiting with local leaders, according to WKBN-27, before conducting a small press conference at a fire station, where, donning his signature “Make America Great Again” hat, he handed out a flurry of red baseball caps to attendees.
During his speech, Trump pledged to donate thousands of bottles of cleaning supplies, as well as pallets of Trump-branded water bottles to members of the community, many of whom have expressed continued concern over the safety of the town’s water supply following the derailment.
“You wanna get those Trump bottles, I think, more than anybody else,” Trump said, while flanked by state and local leaders, including Republican Sen. JD Vance.
The former president dismissed questions about his administration’s rollback of Obama-era rail safety regulations saying he “had nothing to do with it.”
The Department of Transportation under Trump justified the rollback with a 2018 analysis arguing the cost of requiring such brakes would be “significantly higher” than the expected benefits of the update.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Following his Wednesday news conference, Trump visited a local Ohio McDonald’s where he handed out more MAGA hats and bought meals for firefighters.
San Francisco holds its breath to find out how much it will cost to protect its waterfront from sea level rise
David Knowles, Senior Editor – February 22, 2023
San Francisco’s waterfront. (Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO — On a brisk February morning, a portable orange traffic sign set up near the intersection of Mission Street and Embarcadero shuddered in the wind, blinking a warning to passing drivers: “Caution: King tides.”
Waves from San Francisco Bay now regularly breach the pier and spill into the streets at this spot during tidal surges and helped convince city officials that sea level rise caused by climate change is no longer a problem that can be ignored.
“It was into my second year that I realized that my whole job and the organization was going to do this work,” Port of San Francisco executive director Elaine Forbes, who was appointed to her position in 2016 by then-Mayor Ed Lee, said beneath the Ferry Building’s broken clock tower, its hands fixed to either high noon or midnight as it undergoes repairs. “You’re on the line of defense.”
A semi-independent entity, the port oversees 7.5 miles of the city’s coastal facilities along the bay, leasing out a wide array of properties, including landmarks like Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, the Ferry Building, a cruise ship terminal and Oracle Park, where the Giants play baseball. Its revenues are crucial to the city’s bottom line, and in 2018 Forbes mobilized her office to help ensure the passage of Prop A, a voter initiative that raised $425 million in taxpayer funds to begin addressing repairs and seismic upgrades to a 3-mile section of the city’s crumbling, more-than-100-year-old sea wall in anticipation of sea level rise.
“We said at the time, this is really a down payment for the problem,” Forbes recounted.
Since then, projections for how bad that problem will get have only become more dire. In 2020, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the nonpartisan fiscal and policy adviser to the California Legislature, issued a report stating that under a scenario of continued high greenhouse gas emissions, San Francisco could see as much as 7 feet of sea level rise by 2100.
A graphic from a 2020 report by California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office.
In response to that grim new estimate, Forbes and the port’s commissioners announced last fall that they were partnering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a comprehensive yearlong study examining how best to protect the vulnerable waterfront. Doing nothing, everyone seemed to agree, was not an option.
“The increased frequency of flooding that you’ll see as the bay comes up and you have more frequent tidal flooding, the numbers are in the billions in terms of the damages that will accumulate from that,” Brian Harper, a director of planning with the Army Corps, told Yahoo News.
But just as significant increases in sea level will result in monumental damages, adequately protecting communities from the additional rise will also become much more expensive. Complicating San Francisco’s efforts, the pandemic has badly diminished revenues from tourism and financial district foot traffic, forcing port officials to go hat-in-hand to city, state and federal entities in search of money to use to harden the coastline against rising waters.
“We’re not even at a scale to pretend to be able to pay for this project,” Forbes said. “We have a $114 million balance sheet, maybe a little higher. If we’re lucky, we have a $25 million capital budget that we squeeze out of our net revenues.”
While noting that any estimate on how much a fix will cost depends on what the Army Corps recommends in its report, Forbes speculates that the range could end up between $10 billion and $30 billion. Other experts, however, believe that guess could be too low.
Pier 14 in the Embarcadero district of San Francisco. (Getty Images)
“Projects like this have never, ever been built for the initial cost estimate,” said Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and the founder of Oakland’s Pacific Institute, which in 1990 conducted California’s first-ever report on how sea level rise would impact the Bay Area. “It’s not just sea level rise. It’s the big storm in addition to sea level rise that’s the issue. Seven feet of sea level rise is devastating, and then on top of that you have the extreme storm and then the king tides on top of 7 feet. That’s when the real damages are felt, and they’re felt long before they reach 7 feet.”
While many Americans still doubt the existence of climate change or whether climate change represents a threat serious enough to spend billions to address, coastal communities across the country have already begun heeding the wake-up call issued by scientists. San Francisco is just one of several U.S. cities to seek help from the Army Corps of Engineers in recent years. Others include Charleston, S.C., Miami and Boston. As the reality of the situation and the costs associated with it continue to sink in, more and more cash-strapped communities will no doubt seek federal assistance.
“Our standard cost sharing for flooding coastal projects is 65% federal, 35% local,” Harper said.
But federal money for projects designed and proposed by the Army Corps is by no means guaranteed.
A king tide washes up along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Jan. 3, 2022. (Brontë Wittpenn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
“Each step of the way, we need an authorization from Congress and we need appropriation of funding to move to the next step,” Harper said. “Our steps are: Study it, design it, construct it and then operate it. So in each of those stages we would be going back to the Congress with an updated status of where we are and request for appropriation to move to the next stage.”
With the GOP back in the majority in the House of Representatives, it’s unclear how future requests for climate adaptability from the Corps will be received. Not a single Republican, after all, voted in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act, and many lawmakers who abhor large federal outlays have already begun looking for ways to kill its climate provisions. Yet much of the funding for hardening ports and waterfronts was allocated in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and Harper notes that the Corps continues to get approval for large projects.
“The administration incorporated authorization for all federal infrastructure agencies to specifically address climate resilience across the country, but [also] in urban settings like San Francisco and other large cities,” Harper said. “Some of this is still evolving and developing as federal agencies and their local and state counterparts figure out how to make those partnerships come together. The climate resilience aspect is continually evolving.”
Seeing the future
Kevin Costner in the 1995 movie “Waterworld.” (Ben Glass/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock)
Of all the consequences of climate change, sea level rise has so far remained something of an abstraction for many in the general public. While the oceans have indeed risen by an average of 8 to 9 inches since the 1880s, that difference can seem laughable when compared with Hollywood’s dystopian portrayal of what the future will look like. “Waterworld,” set in the year 2500, envisioned a world in which the polar ice caps and glaciers have completely melted away and sea levels have risen by 24,000 feet.
Since the 1995 debut of that film, the U.S. Geological Survey has released its own estimate of what an ice-free world would mean, concluding that “global sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (approximately 230 feet), flooding every coastal city on the planet.”
Given the swift transition to renewable sources of energy over the past few years, that outcome may also turn out to be too pessimistic. But until we dramatically slow the burning of fossil fuels, the planet will almost certainly continue to warm, causing the seas to keep rising. Though today’s 8 to 9 inches of sea level rise may not seem headline-worthy, almost half of the amount (3.8 inches) has occurred since 1990, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The pace of that rise, scientists predict, is poised to increase dramatically in the coming decades.
To better understand what multiple feet of additional sea level rise will mean for the nation’s coastlines, NOAA created its Sea Level Rise Viewer tool. When one toggles up to 7 feet of rise in San Francisco, Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, Oracle Park and the $1.4 billion Chase Center, where the Golden State Warriors play basketball, are all shaded light blue, meaning they will be submerged in water. Forbes’s office on Pier 1, the Ferry Building next door and a good chunk of the financial district would also be permanently flooded, with access to multiple underground BART and Muni stations needing to be sealed off.
A screengrab from NOAA’s Sea Level Rise Viewer tool showing the San Francisco area with 10 feet of sea level rise.
But how seriously should people take the Legislative Analyst’s Office upper-end prediction?
“It’s based on very sophisticated model assumptions,” Gleick said. “There’s a range of estimates. We don’t know how fast the big ice masses on Greenland and Antarctica are going to destabilize, but 1 to 2 meters by 2100 is not out of the bounds of reality and what we can expect.”
The same year San Francisco voters passed Prop A with 82.7% of the vote in order to “protect $100 billion of assets and economic activity,” a poll from the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that 84% of area residents said they believed global temperatures were rising and would continue to do so, the highest number of any community in the U.S.
“It does help when they’re able to see the change. With flooding during a king tide they say, ‘Hey, this is different,’” Harper acknowledged. “But that doesn’t really capture the severity of what they’re going to see over a longer time frame.”
Like NOAA, the Army Corps has turned to visual aids to help residents understand what they will be up against, posting its own sea level rise viewer that overlays flooding depictions onto photos of urban areas.
“Here’s your downtown area. Here are buildings you should recognize because they’re in your community, and here’s what that future tidal event is going to look like,” Harper said.
If “Waterworld” was too fantastical, another sci-fi film, “Blade Runner 2049,” offered viewers a glimpse of something less abstract in scenes that featured a massive sea wall that shields Los Angeles from the encroaching ocean. That kind of utility-over-aesthetics approach has, despite the obvious drawbacks, been suggested in San Francisco to replace and dwarf the existing sea wall.
“We don’t just want to build a vertical wall. We could do that and just solve it, but that’s not good for anybody,” saidKevin Conger, president and founding partner of CMG Landscape Architecture, a San Francisco firm the port has hired to begin drawing up ideas for what a fortified sea wall would look like. “In order to adapt and hold the water back we need to elevate portions of the waterfront, but that causes another problem, which is inland flooding, because all the stormwater that’s running down by gravity is no longer going to be able to run out to the coast because you’ve elevated that edge.”
An aerial view of the Port of San Francisco shrouded in fog. (Getty Images)
Conger, Forbes and Harper all agree that whatever the final plan that emerges following the release of the Army Corps report, it should prioritize community access to the waterfront while preparing it for what’s ahead. To address the varying needs and limitations of the waterfront, the designs will include a mixture of solutions, including reinforcing and raising the existing sea wall; creating new parks that will help channel floodwaters; adding pumping stations; upgrading stormwater systems; elevating roadways, light rail tracks and even some buildings, and floodproofing the lower floors of many others; and, quite possibly, retreating from some areas altogether.
“Fundamentally, it’s looking at maintaining the line of defense, managing water, adapting with water or allowing water,” Forbes said. “There’s various alternatives that will work best in different locations along the waterfront.”
Despite the immense scale of the project, Conger stresses the long view.
“We get so sort of locked into a fear of change. But we’re always tinkering with our cities and changing things. For us to work on these projects, it’s not like we build them and walk away and we’re done, especially as landscape architects,” he said. “Our designs change constantly.”
In November, the Army Corps will present its draft to the public, inviting comments from a range of stakeholders before incorporating that feedback. Assuming congressional authorization follows suit, Harper said, the budgeting for design could come as soon as 2026.
“Depending on what the project is, design can be two to five years. Construction, again, can be two to five years. It will depend on what the specific project recommendation is coming out of the report, and it’s all subject to congressional action and administration support,” Harper said.
Calculating the final costs could itself be a years-long project. In surveys conducted by the port, for instance, San Francisco residents have prioritized elevating the 1898 Ferry Building to keep it above the rising waters. But lifting a three-story building that contains more than 200,000 square feet of office and commercial space and a 15-story clock tower won’t be cheap. Nor will be addressing possible groundwater contamination at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, now an 866-acre federal Superfund site. Last June, a civil grand jury released a report that stated, “As the sea level rises, shallow groundwater near the shore rises with it, and can cause flooding, damage infrastructure, and mobilize any contaminants in the soil.” While the cleanup of buried radioactive soils is being overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency and state officials, the city is “poorly prepared,” the report said, for how sea level rise could cause the problem to spread into nearby lower-income neighborhoods.
San Francisco’s Ferry Building. (Getty Images)
All the coastal challenges facing San Francisco could become much more difficult depending on the precarious fate of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. In 2021, a study was published that concluded that the Florida-size glacier was at risk of collapse in the following five years. Already, Thwaites accounts for roughly 4% of global sea level rise annually, and its collapse would, in the short term, translate into 2 more feet of rise. Because Thwaites helps hold other glaciers in place, however, its destruction would result in a cascading catastrophe resulting in an additional 10 feet of sea level rise.
Of course, the contiguous 7.5-mile stretch operated by the Port of San Francisco is just one small part of the Bay Area coastline that will be impacted by sea level rise.
“You’re going to have to build sea walls around the Oakland airport, the San Francisco airport, and sea walls around San Jose,” Gleick said. “When we did our study there were 29 wastewater treatment plants that were vulnerable to a meter of sea level rise.”
Though Gleick notes that San Francisco has plenty of options when it comes to combating rising seas, many poorer and less well-situated places aren’t as lucky.
“I guess the whole point is, this is just a little hint of the huge costs that are going to be associated with climate change in general and sea level rise in particular if we don’t slow these [temperature] changes,” he added.
‘It’s hard, but they’re holding on’: On the ground in Ukraine, the war depends on U.S. weapons
Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY – February 22, 2023
On a Ukrainian position on the outskirts of Bakhmut:
The Ukrainian military commander pointed to a small, cellar-door-like opening tucked into the snow-covered hillside and said, “If I say to you ‘run,’ you run into the forest and hide in there.”
“In there” was a shelter in the event of a Russian attack, a normal occurrence here.
The lieutenant colonel is a bearded, barrel-chested and battle-hardened 39-year-old artillery commander. His first name is Oleksandr but “Fury” is his call sign or nickname for sensitive military communications. Like all military personnel spoken to for this story, he did not want last name or the units he commands to be identified.
Fury paused, then added, “You’ll have less than a minute.”
Friday, Feb. 24, marks a grim milestone: one year since Russia invaded Ukraine.
During this time, the U.S. pledged about $113 billion in assistance to Kyiv, more than half in the form of military aid, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Infantry arms and equipment, air defense systems, missiles, helicopters, drones, armored vehicles, radar and communications antennas, satellite imagery, trucks, trailers, coastal patrol boats, the list goes on. The first batch of U.S. Abrams tanks destined for Ukraine are expected to arrive as early as this year. American-made F-16 fighter jets have been on Ukraine’s wish list since the start of Russia’s unprovoked invasion. As of now, the U.S. has not agreed to give them to them.
Amid domestic struggles ranging from spiraling living costs to rising refugee arrivals, polls show Americans are growing less enamored with providing arms to Ukraine.
Yet Ukrainian military officials say U.S. weapons are making all the difference. To show how, a senior Ukrainian military intelligence officer and several special forces soldiers guided USA TODAY in mid-February to a secret location on a ridge a few miles outside the frontline town of Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s mineral-rich eastern Donbas region.
“This weapon changed the trajectory of the war for us,” said Fury as he stood on frozen ground near what he regards as one of the Ukrainian military’s most prized possessions: an American-made M777 howitzer, a powerful, towable and easily hidden long-range artillery weapon his unit had named “Sofiyka.” Made of steel and titanium, its hydraulic hoses and pumps enable its artillery turret to slide in and out with relative ease.
Sofiyka was backed against a thicket of trees, its cannon aimed toward Bakhmut.
A few hours earlier, another howitzer operated by Fury’s unit named “Krishna,” located on an adjacent ridge, had been fired on by a Russian shell.
It had not sustained any damages. “It’s a day spent in vain here if you haven’t been fired at,” said Fury, chuckling to himself. As he spoke, there was a deep thud as Krishna sent an explosive payload sailing toward Russian targets in Bakhmut.
A side view of an American-made M777 howitzer artillery weapon, minutes before it fired on Russian positions in Bakhmut, a Ukrainian city in the Donbas region. Photo date: Feb. 11, 2023.
How long can Ukraine and Russia keep fighting?
Russian military manpower and equipment reserves are significantly depleted and it’s unclear if Moscow has enough power to launch a major, sustained new offensive, either timed to the anniversary or in the coming months, according to military analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
An offensive that would, for example, enable Russia to capture and hold new territory, as Ukraine did when it reclaimed dozens of its settlements in Kherson and Kharkiv, in the south and northeast, this past fall, forcing a hasty Russian retreat.
“Ukraine has repelled numerous Russian advances, protected its territorial integrity, effectively used newly acquired weapons’ systems provided by NATO and maintained, maybe even improved, national morale,” said Jeffrey Levine, a former U.S. ambassador to Estonia, a former Soviet republic that shares a border with Russia.
But Ukraine’s military is still preparing for one.
In fact, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that a predicted Russian spring offensive has likely already begun. He has ruled out any peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that would sacrifice Ukrainian territory, saying recently that it would “make us weaker as a state” and Russia “would keep coming back.”
Since the war’s start, Ukrainian civilians have endured innumerable forms of tragedy. Millions have fled abroad or been internally displaced. Russian missile strikes have damaged or destroyed Ukraine’s railways, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools.
In every corner of the country, Ukrainian engineers are engaged in a Sisyphean battle to repair missile-hit energy infrastructure. The United Nations has verified a total of 7,155 civilian deaths during the invasion. More than 50,000 war crimes allegations have been reported to Ukraine’s chief prosecutor’s office, from brutal rapes to inexplicable murders.
But it is in Bakhmut and other places along the 600-mile frontline that Ukraine’s military has endured some of the war’s fiercest and most intense battles. And American weapons have been integral to the fight, according to “Biker,” the call sign of a senior Ukrainian special forces commander whose unit has been using American-made Switchblade 300 drones to attack Russian troops here.
“If you ask me what we need, we need more Switchblades,” he said.
Biker’s call sign is a reference to his fondness for motorcycles.
He has been in the military for most of his life. But immediately before the war, he worked as a close protection bodyguard for wealthy Ukrainian businessmen.
He did not want his first name, age or even rank identified because he commands a unit that he said the “Russians are hunting for.”
One evening northwest of Fury’s position, in an industrial plant that Ukraine’s military is using as a base for elite units to sleep in, Biker explained how the Switchblade 300, which can be carried in a backpack, works.
It launches from a tube. Its small wings and an electric propeller then unfold. It flies to a target monitored via a tablet and special software. Then it dive-bombs kamikaze-like to its prey and detonates an explosive warhead.
A laptop shows a video clip of a Russian soldier targeted by an American-made Switchblade 300 drone, in eastern Ukraine. The video clip is not dated. Photo was taken Feb. 11, 2023.
“It’s one of the most stable and precise weapons we have,” Biker said of the Switchblade, which has been dubbed a “suicide” drone.
Ukraine has been using them since the summer.
“But we don’t have enough of them,” he added, swiveling his head in the direction of a cylindrical container that housed one of the killer drones.
“So we reserve them for ‘special occasions.’”
In May, the U.S. Department of Defense committed to sending 700 Switchblade 300 drones to Ukraine. Biker said for his current mission he had been allotted five.
That morning his unit was doing reconnaissance about a mile away from the point of contact between Ukrainian and Russian troops in Bakmut.
In fact, one of his team’s regular tasks was to provide target coordinates to the American M777 howitzers firing on the town from the ridge.
At the base, Biker played some video clips of his unit’s work using the Switchblade 300 to take out Russian targets. In one, the grainy color footage showed the drone plummeting from sky height before crashing into the chest of Russian soldier in a trench. The Russian soldier appeared to be operating a mortar, a light-weight artillery weapon. The screen saver on Biker’s laptop was emblazoned with the official seal and emblem of the U.S. Department of the Army.
‘It’s like fighting from World War I’
Ukrainian soldiers describe the death and destruction in Bakhmut as “hell,” a place where Russia’s military is using convicts as cannon fodder for incremental gains.
If there’s a sustainable strategy by Moscow, military analysts have been unable to detect it. Britain’s Ministry of Defence has described a Russian capture of Bakhmut as having “limited operational value” and primarily a “political objective.”
However, Bakhmut is an important symbol of Ukrainian resistance, and holding onto it for Ukraine could prevent a Russian advance to the larger eastern cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, British intelligence assessments have concluded.
The city lies in ruins.
Blasts ring out day and night. What trees remain are shredded. Craters from exploded artillery dot the roads. There is no power or water. Bakhmut’s prewar population of 70,000 has shrunk to a few thousand – mostly elderly civilians who refuse to leave, though some families with children have stayed behind.
A local resident walks along a street in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023.
In early February, a Russian missile slammed into a van in Bakhmut carrying humanitarian volunteers, unleashing a massive fireball, and killing Peter Reed, an experienced paramedic and former U.S. Marine.
The Russian attack in Bakhmut has been relentless.
“Some guys in our military are having mental health problems because the Russians have been coming at us every half hour and we just mow them down again and again with machine guns. It’s like fighting from World War I,” said the senior Ukrainian military intelligence officer who accompanied USA TODAY to the hillside position outside Bakhmut occupied by units under Fury’s command.
The officer asked not to be named for security reasons.
In recent days, Zelenskyy has insisted that the “Russian Goliath” will fall this year, comments echoed by Ukraine’s top military intelligence in an exclusive interview.
“Russia has wasted huge amounts of human resources, armaments and materials this past year,” Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, of Ukraine’s defense intelligence, said in Kyiv. “Its economy and production are not able to cover these losses. It’s changed its military chain of command. If its military fails in its aims this spring, it will be out of military tools.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine is lobbying U.S. and European allies for more heavy weapons. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has warned the war is increasingly becoming a “battle of logistics” and has said the military alliance should step up its supply of ammunitions to help Ukraine.
In a surprise visit to Kyiv on Feb. 20, U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated a pledge to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” Standing alongside Zelenskyy, Biden said “Putin thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now.” Biden said he would send more military aid to Ukraine, including more American howitzers. Yet other prominent voices in the West, such as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, have cautioned that the world risks “sleepwalking” into a wider war with Russia.
‘The Russians hate it. They can’t hear it coming.’
Still, getting an accurate picture of what is happening on the frontlines is difficult. Information is often incomplete. Or classified. Things can change quickly.
Or seem not to at all.
In mid-February, Russian forces appeared to control the main roads to the north, east and south of Bakhmut. The approach to Fury’s ridge position was from the west, down a slender lane that snaked through muddy fields, sparse woodland, down-at-heel villages.
In one village, a young girl, perhaps 10 or 11, in a bright pink jacket and with a big smile beaming across her face, rode her bike down one side of a road she shared with several military vehicles. Her dark hair billowed behind her. Nothing on the girl’s face suggested concern about her proximity to the broken city a short distance away.
A U.S Humvee tactical vehicle produced for the U.S. Army is seen near the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, in the Donbas region, on Feb. 11, 2023.
Farther away from Bakhmut, to the west and south, Ukraine’s rear lines were a hive of activity: supply trucks, fuel tankers, old Soviet-style tanks, personnel carriers, armored vehicles of various kinds donated from Australia or the Czech Republic.
Stopped by the side of one road, a sand-colored American Humvee, indicating prior use in Iraq or Afghanistan, was being towed for repair. Many of these vehicles bore the hallmarks of battle. They were shot-up or caked in thick, dried dust and mud.
Scores of exhausted-looking, but good humored, soldiers in full combat gear loitered at gas stations to pick up cigarettes and snacks and make phone calls.
Earlier that day, members of a Ukrainian special forces unit named “Signum” demonstrated how they use an MK-19, a lightweight American-made automatic grenade launcher first developed for use during the Cold War. It can hit targets over a mile away and burn through lightly armored vehicles. It is far quieter than its Russian counterpart.
Special forces soldiers from Ukraine’s “Signum” unit demonstrate the use of an American-made MK-19 grenade launcher in Ukraine’s Donbas region on Feb. 11, 2023.
“The Russians hate it. They can’t hear it coming,” said one of its operators.
His call sign was “Guard.”
“We just love it.”
‘Ears! Cannon!’
Back on the ridge above Bakhmut, Fury is in charge of six of the 142 M777 howitzers that the U.S. Department of Defense has committed to sending to Ukraine.
A number of other countries including the U.K., Denmark, France and Germany have also transferred their own versions of this artillery weapon to Kyiv.
Soviet-era howitzers used by both sides are also firing thousands of shells each day at Ukrainian and Russian positions along the frontline.
After his security briefing in which he instructed a reporter to quickly scramble to the shelter if he deemed it necessary, Fury stood to one side and watched several soldiers as they built a second shelter, aimed at guarding Sofiyka against Russia’s own kamikaze drones, called “Lancet.”
The shelter appeared to be made of wood and a simple camouflage net.
Fury said that as much as he wanted to oblige a visitor by shooting some artillery toward the enemy, that was unlikely to happen unless he received new coordinates for a target.
He asked a subordinate to make coffee.
Several soldiers kept their eyes trained toward the sky.
They were watching for Russian drones.
If they appeared, they would probably look like bright white spots.
Difficult to see in a winter-palette setting of light blue sky and snow.
In the near-distance, a loud metallic thud erupted.
“Krishna,” Fury said, with confidence.
GPS-guided shells used by an American-made M777 howitzer are seen on the ground near the artillery weapon near a frontline position held by Ukraine’s military on Feb. 11, 2023.
It is not uncommon for the M777 to fire 200 shells in one day.
Fury’s unit was the second one in Ukraine to receive the American howitzers, in May, and his six howitzers have collectively fired about 60,000 projectiles, he said.
Its shells are GPS-directed and they have a maximum firing range of about 26 miles.
By midday, Sofiyka had unleashed about 60.
Discarded behind the weapon were several wooden pallet boxes, for shells or other components, stamped with serial numbers and a location: Wausau, Wisconsin.
The next day, Fury planned to send one of his close aides on a 20-hour roundtrip drive to Kyiv to meet volunteers who might have some much-needed spare parts for maintenance. As much as Ukraine needs more foreign weapons, it also needs back-up parts to keep the ones it has in its arsenal going.
Often this means a little creative improvisation.
All of a sudden there was a burst of radio activity coming from the hillside shelter.
The coordinates of a new target in Bakhmut had been called in.
“Ears! (cover them). Cannon! (stand back)” a member of Sofiyka’s gun crew shouted.
The weapon’s hulking frame momentarily convulsed.
This time the metallic sound was deep and sharp, and followed by smoke.
Over the next few minutes more shells were fired.
Each time: “Ears! Cannon!”
Ukrainian soldiers fire artillery at Russian positions near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022.
Down in the shelter, Fury’s deputy, Viktor, call sign “Forsage” – a reference, he said, to a military fighter jet’s maximum speed, achieved through jet-engine thrust; an afterburner. He was hunched over a laptop watching in real-time where the shells had landed.
“Impact,” said Forsage.
He pointed to what looked like Russian soldiers scrambling for cover as a plume of rubble and smoke projected upwards from a dense cluster of houses.
“We hit a building where there is direct-fire contact between their guys and our guys,” he said. “There’s so many more of them than us we’re trying to suppress their infantry fire.”
Forsage gave another order through the radio to Sofiyka’s gun crew: “One more.”
The interior of the shelter was somewhat incongruous to the scene outside.
Woody scents of bark and earth wafted from the beams that spanned the ceiling. Persian-style rugs and blankets covered a few bunks. In the far corner, a wood burning stove had a small sign affixed to it that said it was donated from someone in Sweden named “Lisa J.” The stove emanated a smoky enveloping heat.
It was an inviting space.
But it didn’t seem like it would offer much protection if hit directly.
“Better than nothing,” a solider chimed in.
Another burst of radio activity.
Ukrainian air defenses had shot down a Russian drone that was hovering along the position between Krishna and Sofiyka. It was not clear if it was an armed one.
But the M777s may have been spotted.
A retaliation could be on the way.
“It’s best if you stay put in the shelter for the next 5-10 minutes,” Forsage said.
Then Fury gave a new command.
“No, it’s better if you getting moving away from here right now.”
Opinion: How long will Russians tolerate Putin’s costly war?
Alexander J. Motyl – February 21, 2023
A celebration last August in St. Petersburg ahead of the Day of the Russian National Flag. (Dmitri Lovetsky / Associated Press)
How much punishment will the Russians take?
Close to a thousand Russian soldiers are dying every day in Ukraine. Victory is nowhere in sight, and tens of thousands — or possibly even hundreds of thousands — more will die before the war ends.
The economy is sputtering, living standards are progressively declining, young professionals have either left in droves or are planning to do so, and every passing day reduces Russia’s prospects of modernization and development.
Russian responsibility for the brutal Putin regime and its genocidal war against Ukraine grows with every arrest of a dissident or draft resister at home and with every Ukrainian death abroad. At some point, collective indifference to suffering and mass murder will begin to register on Russian civilians as collective guilt.
Russia has become a rogue state. Most countries that have historically harbored Russians have closed their doors, and Russian language and culture — traditionally sources of great pride for Russians — have been demoted to instruments of imperial oppression, as Putin has weaponized both.
And yet, almost a year after the invasion of Ukraine, Russians continue to support strongman Putin and the war.
Setting aside the immorality of such a stance, let’s consider only what it says about the Russian people’s will to pursue their own survival. Russia is headed for Armageddon, and yet most Russians, instead of sounding the alarm and doing everything possible to save their country and themselves from destruction, are either busy attending Putin’s rallies or are hiding their heads in the sand.
If Russia does in fact collapse, as many experts in Russia and the West expect it to do, Russians will have themselves to blame. Except for recurrent protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg, they have watched since 1999 as Putin constructed a fascist dictatorship — seizing territory in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, and launching a full-scale invasion of the latter in 2022.
Putin made them feel great again. Putin and his propaganda persuaded them that the West was a monster, that Ukrainians were Nazis, that Russians were helpless victims. Two decades of authoritarian rule by a charismatic leader inured them to non-resistance, to self-doubt, to self-delusions. Centuries of a political culture that fostered just these very attitudes didn’t help.
The Russian citizenry became, as many liberal oppositionists in Russia and Ukraine like to say, “zombified” — the living dead. That metaphor has been taken to a horrific extreme as wave after wave of inexperienced Russians who should not be on the front keep attacking even as Ukrainian troops mow them down.
Putin has also terrified Russians, making it clear that any act of public protest will immediately lead to incarceration or worse. In the past year, the secret police has devastated the small bits of civil society — the autonomous social, political and cultural institutions that promote collective action — that had barely survived two decades of Putin’s iron rule.
As one independent Russian journalist has written using a pseudonym, “in Russia there is no heroism left, whether you stay or leave or go to prison or remain free. Everyone is going into 2023 alone, no matter how many people are around.”
The picture is dispiriting, but not entirely hopeless. Thousands of Russians did take to the streets in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. Russians have firebombed scores of draft offices. The pseudonymous journalist wrote last month: “Many people continue to do important work. Helping the millions of Ukrainians who have ended up in Russia as a result of the invasion — something that I’m involved in. Or feeding the homeless. Supporting one another. Defending political prisoners and writing letters to them.”
The problem is that, as she says, these tens of thousands of people “have no representation.” And Putin, the career KGB officer, knows full well that preventing a vigorous Russian civil society from emerging is the key to his continued misrule in Russia.
If the only thing that promoted civil societies were democratic political cultures, Russia would be hopeless. But, as the post-Stalin “thaw” and Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika demonstrate, Russians can act collectively and autonomously when repression is reduced and the threat of immediate arrest recedes. And that’s partly because, even today, many Russians continue to harbor views that are critical of Putin and the regime.
Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote two weeks ago: “Notably popular in Russia right now are classic works of literature that contain subtle antiwar messages. The most read book at the beginning of last year was George Orwell’s ‘1984.’ Other books selling well include those about everyday life in 1930s Germany, in which people recognize themselves and their fears.”
Anti-regime collective action will happen in Putin’s Russia only if he goes and a power struggle reduces the regime’s ability to crack down — or if Russia gets a beating in the war. In both cases, the “forces of coercion” will have been weakened and popular protest would become possible. And in both cases, Russia’s defeat in the war would serve to hasten Putin’s exit and would weaken the army and secret police.
Ukraine’s victory would not only be good for Ukraine and the world. It would also be Russia’s salvation.
Alexander J. Motyl, a specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the U.S.S.R., is a professor of political science at Rutgers University.
The housing market correction has already caused homeowners to lose $2.3 trillion
Lance Lambert – February 22, 2023
For 124 consecutive months, spanning the bottom of the housing crash in February 2012 through the top of the Pandemic Housing Boom in June 2022, U.S. home prices posted positive month-over-month growth. That streak, of course, came to an abrupt end last year as the Fed’s inflation fight set off a correction in home prices.
On one hand, since their peak, national home prices have only fallen by a few percentage points through November, according to the seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. On the other hand, the ongoing housing correction is already starting to have a financial, and psychological, impact on homeowners.
On Wednesday, Redfin published a report finding that the total value of U.S. homes has fallen $2.3 trillion since the start of the home price correction.
“The total value of U.S. homes was $45.3 trillion at the end of 2022, down 4.9% ($2.3 trillion) from a record high of $47.7 trillion in June. That’s the largest June-to-December drop in percentage terms since 2008,” writes Redfin researchers.
Let’s be clear: While there’s certainly a home price correction rolling through many markets nationwide, most homeowners are still up big-time since the pandemic’s onset.
“The housing market has shed some of its value, but most homeowners will still reap big rewards from the Pandemic Housing Boom,” Redfin researchers said in the report. “The total value of U.S. homes remains roughly $13 trillion higher than it was in February 2020, the month before the coronavirus was declared a pandemic.”
Is this home price correction almost over? It depends on who you ask.
Among the 29 major real estate forecasters, six firms think national home prices will either rise or remain flat in 2023. Meanwhile, 23 major real estate forecasters think national home prices will fall further this year.
On Wednesday, minutes released from the recent FOMC meeting showed that Federal Reserve officials believe “valuations in both residential and commercial property markets remained high” and “that the potential for large declines in property prices remained greater than usual.”
Whenever a group like Redfin says “U.S. home prices,” it means a national aggregate. On a regional level, this home price correction (or lack thereof) continues to vary.
Among the country’s 400 largest housing markets tracked by Zillow, 276 have seen local home prices fall from their seasonally adjusted 2022 peak. Another 124 markets remain at their 2022 peak price.
The markets with the biggest declines, including places like Bend, Ore. (down 9.2%) and Phoenix (down 6.3%), are disproportionately located across the Pacific Coast and Southwest.
“On a regional basis, we project larger declines across the Pacific Coast and Southwest regions—which have seen the largest increases in inventory on average—and more modest declines across the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest—which have maintained greater affordability over the past couple years,” wrote Goldman Sachs in a recent report.
Dems consider break with tradition to get Biden more judges
Kevin Freking – February 22, 2023
FILE – Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, leads a hearing about the rise in threats toward elected leaders and election workers, at the Capitol in Washington, Aug. 3, 2022. Democrats recently celebrated the 100th judicial confirmation of Joe Biden’s presidency and are clamoring for more. To make it happen, some are flirting with ending a century-long Senate practice that a “blue slip” from a senator could make or break a nomination.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Even as Democrats celebrated the 100th judicial confirmation of Joe Biden’s presidency, they are clamoring for more — and some are flirting with ending a century-long Senate practice to help make it happen.
The rising friction over what in Washington parlance is known as the “blue slip” is creating tensions on the Senate panel that handles judicial nominations and prompting stern warnings from Republicans about a dangerous escalation in the partisanship that already dominates the judicial confirmation process.
The clash over Senate procedure could have major ramifications for Biden as he seeks to fill as many court vacancies as possible during the final two years of his term. Aghast at the speed with which Republicans approved judges during the Trump era, Democrats have made the confirmation to the courts a top priority, vowing to fill every seat possible. Their focus on the nominations is even greater now that Republicans control the House and can stall much of Biden’s broader legislative agenda.
Since at least 1917, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has sent a blue-colored form, or “blue slip,” to the senators representing the home state of a judicial nominee. A blue slip returned with a positive response signals the senator’s approval of moving forward with a nomination hearing. But if the blue slip is not returned or comes back with a negative response, that means the home state senator objects, which can doom the nomination.
Republicans during Donald Trump’s presidency determined the lack of a positive blue slip would not stop them from moving forward with considering appellate court nominees — and they did so 17 times. Democrats were livid, pointing out that Republicans blocked several of President Barack Obama’s appellate nominees by declining to return a positive blue slip.
Now, Democrats are being encouraged to follow suit and do away with the blue slip when it comes to the district judges whose courts serve as the starting point for federal civil and criminal cases.
”In many respects, it is an archaic holdover from a different era,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “I think we’re maybe reaching the point of deciding whether it will be continued.”
Advocates for doing away with the blue slip say fast action is critical if Democrats want to have the kind of success Trump had in year three of his presidency, when he secured more than 100 judicial confirmations out of 231. They believe Democrats can’t afford to wait months on Republican senators to give their go-ahead for a nominee.
Besides, they argue, if Democrats don’t do away with the blue slip now, Republicans will abolish it when they return to the majority.
“Democrats would be chumps to say, ‘Oh well, we’re not going to do this because it’s a tradition,'” said Russ Feingold, the former three-term Democratic senator from Wisconsin who now serves as president of the American Constitution Society. The group is a liberal counter to the conservative Federalist Society.
The New York Times editorial board also weighed in recently, saying it was “far past time” for the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to end the blue slip practice.
The chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has clearly heard some of the concerns voiced by progressives. He has made it a point recently to emphasize how Democrats submitted 130 positive blue slips for district court nominees during the Trump presidency, but so far, Republicans have only done so about a dozen times.
That’s essentially because Biden has been filling judicial vacancies of predominately Democratic-appointed judges in blue states. Soon, it will get harder. There are about 40 district court vacancies that will require a blue slip from at least one Republican senator. Many of those vacancies don’t have a nominee yet, and Durbin is clearly sending a signal to GOP senators to work expeditiously with the White House on submitting prospective nominees.
Durbin said he wants to continue with the blue slip tradition, but he’s adding a caveat: that they aren’t used for “discriminatory purposes” to block consideration of nominees based on race, gender or sexual orientation.
His comments have alarmed Republican senators. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the blue slip courtesy is “very much at stake and at risk here.” He also questioned how Durbin is going to discern the motivations of Republicans senators if they object to a nominee.
“The last thing left in this body that makes the Senate the Senate, in my view, and gives a senator a say about a consequential decision in their state that will last a lifetime is the blue slip process,” Graham said. “So I would just hope we could agree, if possible, that no matter how frustrated we get, we’re going to honor this system.”
So far, only one Biden nominee for a district court has had their nomination derailed because a senator withheld a blue slip, William Pocan, nominated to the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson withheld his blue slip, saying he had heard concerns from the Green Bay legal community that they needed a judge locally based and active in their community.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said complaints about the blue slip are “orchestrated and contrived.” He said that he and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, were asked by the White House to submit names for an appellate court vacancy within three weeks, which they did.
“And eight months later, the administration finally gets around to nominating somebody,” Cornyn said. “We’ve got two district court vacancies where we have not been contacted at all by the White House counsel. So, most of the delay is because the administration has been slow in filling these nominees, these vacancies.”
Cornyn likened the efforts to ending the blue slip to Democratic calls for ending the filibuster so that legislation would only need a simple majority to advance rather than 60 votes.
“They want to fully dismantle the Senate as an institution,” he said.
Proponents of the blue slip say its most important feature is to encourage collaboration and compromise. Durbin said he provided eight positive blue slips after negotiating on nominees with the Trump White House. “I had to give a little. They did, too,” he said.
But Feingold, who served 16 years on the Judiciary panel and 18 years in the Senate, said he believes presidents will continue to consult with senators on judicial openings even without the blue slip, because they need a lawmaker’s votes on other priorities.
“You need to consult them anyway because if you try to jam somebody really bad down their throat, they are going to remember it,” Feingold said.
Blumenthal said he will bring lessons learned from the Obama years to the debate, and he’s determined not to let Republicans block district judges through the blue slip process the way they did appellate court judges.
“The history is undeniable that Republicans succeeded in blocking many of the Obama nominees, and therefore held open judgeships, which they then filled with alacrity,” Blumenthal said. “We’re not going to let that happen again.”
As tractors became more sophisticated over the past two decades, the big manufacturers allowed farmers fewer options for repairs. Rather than hiring independent repair shops, farmers have increasingly had to wait for company-authorized dealers to arrive. Getting repairs could take days, often leading to lost time and high costs.
A new memorandum of understanding between the country’s largest farm equipment maker, John Deere Corp., and the American Farm Bureau Federation is now raising hopes that U.S. farmers will finally regain the right to repair more of their own equipment.
However, supporters of right-to-repair laws suspect a more sinister purpose: to slow the momentum of efforts to secure right-to-repair laws around the country.
Under the agreement, John Deere promises to give farmers and independent repair shops access to manuals, diagnostics and parts. But there’s a catch – the agreement isn’t legally binding, and, as part of the deal, the influential Farm Bureau promised not to support any federal or state right-to-repair legislation.
You can listen to more articles from The Conversation narrated by Noa.
The right-to-repair movement has become the leading edge of a pushback against growing corporate power. Intellectual property protections, whether patents on farm equipment, crops, computers or cellphones, have become more intense in recent decades and cover more territory, giving companies more control over what farmers and other consumers can do with the products they buy.
For farmers, few examples of those corporate constraints are more frustrating than repair restrictions and patent rights that prevent them from saving seeds from their own crops for future planting.
How a few companies became so powerful
The United States’ market economy requires competition to function properly, which is why U.S. antitrust policies were strictly enforced in the post-World War II era.
During the 1970s and 1980s, however, political leaders began following the advice of a group of economists at the University of Chicago and relaxed enforcement of federal antitrust policies. That led to a concentration of economic power in many sectors.
This concentration has become especially pronounced in agriculture, with a few companies consolidating market share in numerous areas, including seeds, pesticides and machinery, as well as commodity processing and meatpacking. One study in 2014 estimated that Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, was responsible for approximately 80% of the corn and 90% of the soybeans grown in the U.S. In farm machinery, John Deere and Kubota account for about a third of the market.
Market power often translates into political power, which means that those large companies can influence regulatory oversight, legal decisions, and legislation that furthers their economic interests – including securing more expansive and stricter intellectual property policies.
Whether the product is an automobile, smartphone or seed, companies can extract more profits if they can force consumers to purchase the company’s replacement parts or use the company’s exclusive dealership to repair the product.
One of the first cases that challenged the right to repair equipment was in 1939, when a company that was reselling refurbished spark plugs was sued by the Champion Spark Plug Co. for violating its patent rights. The Supreme Court agreed that Champion’s trademark had been violated, but it allowed resale of the refurbished spark plugs if “used” or “repaired” was stamped on the product.
Although courts have often sided with the end users in right-to-repair cases, large companies have vast legal and lobbying resources to argue for stricter patent protections. Consumer advocates contend that these protections prevent people from repairing and modifying the products they rightfully purchased.
The ostensible justification for patents, whether for equipment or seeds, is that they provide an incentive for companies to invest time and money in developing products because they know that they will have exclusive rights to sell their inventions once patented.
However, some scholars claim that recent legal and legislative changes to patents are instead limiting innovation and social benefits.
The problem with seed patents
The extension of utility patents to agricultural seeds illustrates how intellectual property policies have expanded and become more restrictive.
Patents have been around since the founding of the U.S., but agricultural crops were initially considered natural processes that couldn’t be patented. That changed in 1980 with the U.S. Supreme Court decision Diamond v. Chakrabarty. The case involved genetically engineered bacteria that could break down crude oil. The court’s ruling allowed inventors to secure patents on living organisms.
Half a decade later, the U.S. Patent Office extended patents to agricultural crops generated through transgenic breeding techniques, which inserts a gene from one species into the genome of another. One prominent example is the insertion of a gene into corn and cotton that enables the plant to produce its own pesticide. In 2001, the Supreme Court included conventionally bred crops in the category eligible for patenting.
Genetically modified seeds, and even conventionally bred crops, can be patented. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Historically, farmers would save seeds that their crops generated and replant them the following season. They could also sell those seeds to other farmers. They lost the right to sell their seeds in 1970, when Congress passed the Plant Variety Protection Act. Utility patents, which grant an inventor exclusive right to produce a new or improved product, are even more restrictive.
Under a utility patent, farmers can no longer save seed for replanting on their own farms. University scientists even face restrictions on the kind of research they can perform on patented crops.
Because of the clear changes in intellectual property protections on agricultural crops over the years, researchers are able to evaluate whether those changes correlate with crop innovations – the primary justification used for patents. The short answer is that they do not.
One study revealed that companies have used intellectual property to enhance their market power more than to enhance innovations. In fact, some vegetable crops with few patent protections had more varietal innovations than crops with more patent protections.
How much does this cost farmers?
It can be difficult to estimate how much patented crops cost farmers. For example, farmers might pay more for the seeds but save money on pesticides or labor, and they might have higher yields. If market prices for the crop are high one year, the farmer might come out ahead, but if prices are low, the farmer might lose money. Crop breeders, meanwhile, envision substantial profits.
Similarly, it is difficult to calculate the costs farmers face from not having a right to repair their machinery. A machine breakdown that takes weeks to repair during harvest time could be catastrophic.
The nonprofit U.S. Public Interest Research Group calculated that U.S. consumers could save US$40 billion per year if they could repair electronics and appliances – about $330 per family.
The memorandum of understanding between John Deere and the Farm Bureau may be a step in the right direction, but it is not a substitute for right-to-repair legislation or the enforcement of antitrust policies.
Leland Glenna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
