Ukrainian Armed Forces destroy Russian ammunition depots, Russian subversion and reconnaissance groups ramp up their activity

Ukrayinska Pravda

Luhansk Oblast: Ukrainian Armed Forces destroy Russian ammunition depots, Russian subversion and reconnaissance groups ramp up their activity

Iryna Balachuk – July 13, 2022

Serhii Haidai, head of the Luhansk Oblast Military Administration, has reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are destroying Russian ammunition depots and neutralising Russian subversion and reconnaissance groups almost on a daily basis.

Source: Serhii Haidai on Telegram

Quote: “The Russian army continues its relentless shelling [of Luhansk Oblast – ed.]. However, the Russians are probably saving their ammunition stockpile because new supplies have been interrupted by the attacks of our new long-range weapons.

[Russian – ed.] Military depots in Kadiivka and Luhansk have recently been blown up. Last night, there was turmoil in the Luhansk industrial district. So the occupiers have once again deployed subversion and reconnaissance groups in order to look for weak spots in our defence. The ramping up of the subversion and reconnaissance activity is due to their shortage of ammunition.”

 

Details: Haidai said that the Russians are applying pressure not only from Lysychansk and Popasna, but also from Izium.

He noted that though the Russians are still far from the Ukrainian-held towns and villages in Luhansk Oblast, their actions might threaten bigger cities in Donetsk Oblast and force the Ukrainian Armed Forces to construct new defence fortifications.

The head of the Luhansk Oblast Military Administration also said that Russian occupying forces continued to use artillery and aircraft to apply pressure on the administrative border area between Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. In particular, the Russians are attacking Verkhnokamianske and Bilohorvika, which sustained four rocket strikes and two airstrikes in the past 24 hours.

In addition, Russian occupying forces opened artillery fire on civilian residential buildings in these two villages 13 times over the course of the past 24 hours.

 

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Associated Press

Ukraine reports striking Russian ammunition depot in south

Maria Grazia Murra – July 12, 2022

FILE - Ukrainian soldiers run after a missile strike hit a residential area, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Injured residents sat dazed and covered in blood. A crater was now the centre of the courtyard. Last week, the governor of the Donetsk oblast Pavlo Kyrylenko urged the province's more than 350,000 remaining residents to flee to safer towns further West, saying that evacuating the region was necessary to save lives and allow the Ukrainian army to better defend towns against a Russian advance. Many refuse to leave the city. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
Ukrainian soldiers run after a missile strike hit a residential area, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Injured residents sat dazed and covered in blood. A crater was now the centre of the courtyard. Last week, the governor of the Donetsk oblast Pavlo Kyrylenko urged the province’s more than 350,000 remaining residents to flee to safer towns further West, saying that evacuating the region was necessary to save lives and allow the Ukrainian army to better defend towns against a Russian advance. Many refuse to leave the city. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
FILE - A policeman helps an injured woman after a missile strike hit a residential area, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Injured residents sat dazed and covered in blood. Last week, the governor of the Donetsk oblast Pavlo Kyrylenko urged the province's more than 350,000 remaining residents to flee to safer towns further West, saying that evacuating the region was necessary to save lives and allow the Ukrainian army to better defend towns against a Russian advance. Many refuse to leave the city. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
A policeman helps an injured woman after a missile strike hit a residential area, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Injured residents sat dazed and covered in blood. Last week, the governor of the Donetsk oblast Pavlo Kyrylenko urged the province’s more than 350,000 remaining residents to flee to safer towns further West, saying that evacuating the region was necessary to save lives and allow the Ukrainian army to better defend towns against a Russian advance. Many refuse to leave the city. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A field of sunflowers in Donbas, Donetsk oblast, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Russian and Ukrainian forces are fighting for control of the Donbas, a fertile and industrial region in east Ukraine where a conflict with Moscow proxies has raged since 2014. Russia has made significant gains in recent weeks, and is poised to fully occupy the Luhansk oblast – which, alongside Donetsk oblast, is one of two provinces that make up the region. Attacks on key cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk have dramatically increased, killing and injuring scores of civilians each week. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
A field of sunflowers in Donbas, Donetsk oblast, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Russian and Ukrainian forces are fighting for control of the Donbas, a fertile and industrial region in east Ukraine where a conflict with Moscow proxies has raged since 2014. Russia has made significant gains in recent weeks, and is poised to fully occupy the Luhansk oblast – which, alongside Donetsk oblast, is one of two provinces that make up the region. Attacks on key cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk have dramatically increased, killing and injuring scores of civilians each week. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian military on Tuesday reported destroying a Russian ammunition depot in southern Ukraine, resulting in a massive explosion captured on social media, while authorities said the death toll from a weekend Russian strike in the country’s east grew to 41.

An overnight rocket strike targeted the depot in Russian-held Nova Kakhovka, the Ukrainian military’s southern command said. Nova Kakhovka is located about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of the Black Sea port city of Kherson, which is also occupied by Russian forces.

The precision of the strike suggested Ukrainian forces used U.S-supplied multiple-launch High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, to hit the area. Ukraine indicated in recent days that it might launch a counteroffensive to reclaim territory in the country’s south as Russia bombards the eastern Donbas region.

Russia’s Tass news agency offered a different account of the blast in Nova Kakhovka, saying a mineral fertilizer storage facility exploded, and that a market, hospital and houses were damaged in the strike. Some of the ingredients in fertilizer can be used for ammunition.

A satellite photo taken Tuesday and analyzed by The Associated Press showed significant damage. A massive crater stood precisely where a large warehouse-like structure once stood in the city,

Ukraine now has eight of the HIMAR systems, a truck-mounted missile launcher with high accuracy, and Washington has promised to send another four.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian shelling over the past 24 hours killed at least 16 civilians and wounded 48 more, Ukraine’s presidential office said in its Tuesday morning update. Cities and towns in five southeast regions came under Russian fire, the office said.

Nine civilians were killed and two more wounded in Donetsk province, which makes up half of the Donbas. Russian rocket attacks targeted the cities of Sloviansk and Toretsk, where a kindergarten was hit, the presidential office said.

The British military said Tuesday that Russia was continuing to make “small, incremental gains” in Donetsk, where heavy fighting led the province’s governor last week to urge its 350,000 remaining residents to move to safer places in western Ukraine.

The death toll from a Russian rocket attack that struck a Donetsk apartment building Saturday rose to 41, the emergency services agency said Tuesday afternoon. It said four more bodies were found and nine people were rescued from the rubble of the building in Chasiv Yar.

Yet many in the Donbas, a fertile industrial region in eastern Ukraine made of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, refuse — or are unable — to flee, despite scores of civilians being killed and wounded each week.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and its surrounding region, Russian strikes hit residential buildings, killing four civilians and wounding nine, Ukrainian officials said.

“The Russians continue their tactics of intimidating the peaceful population of the Kharkiv region,” Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov wrote Tuesday on Telegram.

Ukrainian authorities also said that Russian fire struck the southern city of Mykolaiv on Tuesday morning, hitting residential buildings. Twelve people were wounded as the result of the Russian shelling, with some of the rockets hitting two medical facilities, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram.

Air raid sirens sounded Tuesday in the western city of Lviv — the first daytime sirens there in over a week — and in other areas of Ukraine as Russian forces continued to make advances.

In eastern Luhansk, “fighting continues near the villages” on the administrative border with neighboring Donetsk, Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

“The Russian army burns down everything in its way. The artillery barrage doesn’t stop and sometimes continues for four to six hours on end,” Haidai said.

The British Defense Ministry’s intelligence briefing said Russia had seized the Ukrainian town of Hryhorivka and continued to push toward the Donetsk province cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

“Russian forces are likely maintaining military pressure on Ukrainian forces whilst regrouping and reconstituting for further offensives in the near future,” the intelligence briefing said.

However, Russia may be relying more heavily on private military contractors, like the Wagner Group, to avoid a general mobilization, the British ministry said. Western officials have accused Wagner of using mercenaries to fight in Africa and elsewhere.

In other developments:

— The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin would visit Iran next week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin will travel to Tehran next Tuesday to attend a trilateral meeting with the leaders of Iran and Turkey, a format for Syria-related talks. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that Russia was seeking hundreds of surveillance drones from Iran, including weapons-capable ones, for use in Ukraine.

— Russian and Turkish military representatives plan to meet in Istanbul on Wednesday to discuss the transport of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said. Pyotr Ilyichyov, head of the ministry’s department for international organizations, told Russian news agency Interfax that “representatives of Ukraine, as well as U.N. (officials) in the role of observers” are also expected to take part in the talks. Ilyichyov reiterated that Moscow was ready “to assist in ensuring the navigation of foreign commercial ships for the export of Ukrainian grain.”

— Germany’s justice minister said investigating war crimes in Ukraine would likely take “many years” but he was confident they ultimately will be successful. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said there will “probably be hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of pieces of evidence that have to be sifted through, documented and evaluated.” The German federal prosecutor’s office said in early March that it had started looking into possible war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. Buschmann spoke Tuesday in Prague, where he and his European Union counterparts were meeting.

Jon Gambrell in Lviv, Ukraine, and Isabel DeBre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

Poll shows Tight Race for Control of Congress as Class Divide Widens

THe New York Times

Poll Shows Tight Race for Control of Congress as Class Divide Widens

Nate Cohn – July 13, 2022

The fight for control of Congress may come down to the big contrast in voters who cite the economy as their top issue and those who cite abortion and guns as their foremost concern. (Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times)
The fight for control of Congress may come down to the big contrast in voters who cite the economy as their top issue and those who cite abortion and guns as their foremost concern. (Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times)

With President Joe Biden’s approval rating mired in the 30s and with nearly 80% of voters saying the country is heading in the wrong direction, all the ingredients seem to be in place for a Republican sweep in the November midterm elections.

But Democrats and Republicans begin the campaign in a surprisingly close race for control of Congress, according to the first New York Times/Siena College survey of the cycle.

Overall among registered voters, 41% said they preferred Democrats to control Congress compared with 40% who preferred Republican control.

Among likely voters, Republicans led by 1 percentage point, 44% to 43%, reflecting the tendency for the party out of power to enjoy a turnout advantage in midterms.

The results suggest that the wave of mass shootings and the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade have at least temporarily insulated the Democrats from an otherwise hostile national political environment while energizing the party’s predominantly liberal activist base.

But the confluence of economic problems and resurgent cultural issues has helped turn the emerging class divide in the Democratic coalition into a chasm, as Republicans appear to be making new inroads among nonwhite and working-class voters — perhaps especially Hispanic voters — who remain more concerned about the economy and inflation than abortion rights and guns.

For the first time in a Times/Siena national survey, Democrats had a larger share of support among white college graduates than among nonwhite voters — a striking indication of the shifting balance of political energy in the Democratic coalition. As recently as the 2016 congressional elections, Democrats won more than 70% of nonwhite voters while losing among white college graduates.

With four months to go until the election, it is far too soon to say whether the campaign will remain focused on issues such as abortion and gun control for long enough for the Democrats to avoid a long-expected midterm rout. If it does, a close national vote would probably translate to a close race for control of Congress, as neither party enjoys a clear structural advantage in the race. Partisan gerrymandering has slightly tilted the map toward the Republicans in the House, but Democrats enjoy the advantages of incumbency and superior fundraising in key districts.

Recent unfavorable news for Democrats, in the form of Supreme Court rulings, and some tragic news nationally might ordinarily mean trouble for the party in power, but that is not what the results suggest.

The survey began 11 days after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, when cellphones were still buzzing with news alerts about the mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois.

In an open-ended question, those who volunteered that issues related to guns, abortion or the Supreme Court were the most important problem facing the country represented about 1 in 6 registered voters combined. Those voters preferred Democratic control of Congress, 68% to 8%.

Some of the hot-button cultural issues thought to work to the advantage of Republicans at the beginning of the cycle, such as critical race theory, have faded from the spotlight. Only 4% of voters combined said education, crime or immigration was the most important issue facing the country.

The Times/Siena survey is not the first to suggest that the national political environment has improved for Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. On average, Democrats have gained about 3 points on the generic congressional ballot compared with surveys taken beforehand.

In the wake of the court’s ruling, the poll finds greater public support for legal abortion than previous Times/Siena surveys. Sixty-five percent of registered voters said abortion should be mostly or always legal, up from 60% of registered voters in September 2020.

The proportion of voters who opposed the court’s decision — 61% — was similar to the share who said they supported Roe v. Wade two years ago.

Democrats are maintaining the loyalty of a crucial sliver of predominantly liberal and highly educated voters who disapprove of Biden’s performance but care more about debates over guns, democracy and the shrinking of abortion rights than the state of the economy.

Voters who said issues related to abortion, guns or threats to democracy were the biggest problem facing the country backed Democrats by a wide margin, 66% to 14%.

For some progressive voters, recent conservative policy victories make it hard to stay on the sidelines.

Lucy Ackerman, a 23-year-old graphic designer in Durham, North Carolina, said Biden had repeatedly failed to live up to election promises. She recently registered with the Democratic Socialists of America. Nonetheless, she has committed herself to getting as many Democrats elected this fall as possible.

She said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe made politics personal: She and her wife married after the decision leaked, out of fear that the court might roll back same-sex marriage rights next.

“The recent events have given me this push to do more,” she said. “I’ve gotten more involved in political efforts locally. I’ve helped sign friends up to vote.”

The liberal backlash against conservative advances in the court appears to have helped Democrats most among white college graduates, who are relatively liberal and often insulated by their affluence from economic woes. Just 17% of white college-educated Biden voters said an economic issue was the most important one facing the country, less than any other racial or educational group.

Overall, white college graduates preferred Democratic control of Congress, 57-36. Women propelled Democratic strength among the group, with white college-educated women backing Democrats, 64-30. Democrats barely led among white college-educated men, 46-45.

Although the survey does not show an unusually large gender gap, the poll seems to offer some evidence that the court’s abortion ruling may do more to help Democrats among women. Nine percent of women said abortion rights was the most important issue, compared with 1% of men.

The fight for congressional control is very different among the often less affluent, nonwhite and moderate voters who say the economy or inflation is the biggest problem facing the country. They preferred Republican control of Congress, 62% to 25%, even though more than half of the voters who said the economy was the biggest problem also said abortion should be mostly legal.

Just 74% of the voters who backed Biden in the 2020 election, but who said the economy or inflation was the most important problem, said they preferred Democratic control of Congress. In contrast, Democrats were the choice of 87% of Biden voters who saw abortion or guns as the most important issue.

The economy may be helping Republicans most among Hispanic voters, who preferred Democrats to control Congress, 41-38. Although the sample size is small, the finding is consistent with the longer-term deterioration in Democratic support among the group. Hispanics voted for Democrats by almost a 50-point margin in the 2018 midterms, according to data from Pew Research, but President Donald Trump made surprising gains with them in 2020.

No racial or ethnic group was likelier than Hispanic voters to cite the economy or inflation as the most important issue facing the country, with 42% citing an economic problem compared with 35% of non-Hispanic voters.

Republicans also appear poised to expand their already lopsided advantage among white voters without a college degree. They back Republicans by more than a 2 to 1 ratio, 54-23. Even so, nearly one-quarter remain undecided, compared with just 7% of white college graduates.

As less-engaged working-class voters tune in, Republicans may have opportunities for additional gains. Historically, the party out of power excels in midterm elections, in no small part by capitalizing on dissatisfaction with the president’s party.

Only 23% of undecided voters approved of Biden’s job performance.

Silvana Read, a certified nursing assistant who lives outside Tampa, Florida, is one of the Hispanic voters whom Republicans will try to sway to capitalize on widespread dissatisfaction with Biden.

An immigrant from Ecuador, she despised Trump’s comments about women and foreigners but voted for him because her husband convinced her it would help them financially. Now she and her husband, 56 and 60, blame Biden for their falling 401(k)s.

“My husband, he sees the news on the TV, he says, ‘I don’t think I can retire until 75,’” she said. “We can’t afford to finish paying the mortgage.”

Still, her allegiance to the Republican Party does not extend far beyond Trump. She offered no preference in the fight for control of Congress. She does not plan to vote in the midterms.

Russians claim massive strike by Ukrainian Armed Forces on air defence system near Luhansk

Ukrayinska Pravda

Russians claim massive strike by Ukrainian Armed Forces on air defence system near Luhansk

Olha Glushchenko — July 13, 2022

After explosions in Luhansk, the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic” has said that the Ukrainian army has struck an enemy air defence system.

Source: Kremlin-aligned Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Telegram channel for LuhanskInformCentre; Interfax.ru

Details: The Tochka-U missile was shot down over Luhansk, according to preliminary reports.

The missile was allegedly shot down near the village of Yuvileine, which is part of Luhansk.

At the same time, RIA Novosti reports that at least four anti-aircraft missiles had been launched at aerial targets west of Luhansk.

Updated: A spokesman for the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic” people’s militia, Andrii Marochko, said that the Ukrainian army had launched a massive strike on an air defence military unit (air defence system), which protects the sky over Luhansk.

Quote: “Ukraine’s armed forces have launched a massive strike on the air defence military unit that ensures the protection of the city of Luhansk.”

Updated at 03.00: Later, the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic” stated that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had fired nine missiles from American-made HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems at Luhansk.

Russia is using rape as a weapon of war in Ukraine. Here’s what can be done about it.

USA Today

Russia is using rape as a weapon of war in Ukraine. Here’s what can be done about it.

Carli Pierson, USA TODAY – July 13, 2022

Warning: This column contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence against women, men and children.

“This is how an 11 year old boy sees the world after having been raped by #Russia soldier in front of his mother.” That was the caption above a photograph of chaotic swirls of black marker on a white background painted by a Ukrainian child tweeted by that country’s lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko.

There are many more equally horrific reports, too many to detail here.

As Russian dictator Vladimir Putin continues the onslaught of Ukraine, and this week, as Bosnian Muslims remember the massacre at Srebrenica 27 years after it happened, the unlearned lessons from the horrors of Balkan war scream out at us: “What can we do better?”

The answer isn’t as elusive as it might seem. In fact, it has been proposed by international criminal law and human rights experts for years.

‘Sexual violence can be used strategically as a method of warfare’

Rape has been considered a war crime since the 1949 Geneva Conventions. But it has not been prosecuted like other war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It wasn’t until 1993 that the United Nations Security Council officially recognized mass rape as a weapon of war, and made it eligible for prosecution in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Bosnian refugees carry bags of relief aid near the besieged town of Srebrenica in 1993.
Bosnian refugees carry bags of relief aid near the besieged town of Srebrenica in 1993.

Catherine Dunmore specializes in international criminal law, human rights law and sexual and gender-based violence. She has served on legal teams that have investigated and prosecuted war crimes, including conflict-related sexual violence.

I reached out about her work investigating sexual violence as a war crime. She said, “The vast majority of victims of conflict-related sexual violence are women and girls, although it’s also perpetrated against men, boys and the LGBTIQ+ community in many settings.”

“Sexual violence” Dunmore said, “can be used strategically as a method of warfare, for instance as a deliberate tactic to undermine the opposition or strike fear in civilian populations.”

She also pointed out that sexual violence can be committed by any party to the conflict, including humanitarian actors.

What is Russia doing in Ukraine?

►Over the past five months of conflict, Russia has carried out repeated, deadly assaults on civilian targets, including a shopping mall and apartment buildings.

►Last week, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova told USA TODAY that the number of cases of war crimes is likely more than 10,000.

►As of June 3, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights’ monitoring team had received over 120 reports of alleged conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine.

►On July 5, High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet reported that her team had “verified 28 cases of conflict-related sexual violence, including cases of rape, gang rape, torture, forced public stripping, and threats of sexual violence. The majority of cases were committed in areas controlled by Russian armed forces, but there were also cases committed in government-controlled areas.”

An independent investigative organization

While investigators inside and outside Ukraine work to collect evidence of war crimes with the hope of eventually prosecuting those crimes, additional options have long been proposed.

A protest in front of the Russian Embassy in Bucharest, Romania, on May 16, 2022.
A protest in front of the Russian Embassy in Bucharest, Romania, on May 16, 2022.

In an interview on National Public Radio in May, British lawmaker Arminka Helic talked about her work to “create a permanent, independent and international body to investigate and prosecute rape and sexual violence as war crimes,” reported Leila Fadel.

Helic explained, “If we had a body that is funded, in existence, that has forensic trauma and medical experts already available to be deployed or to be approached by the investigators in Ukraine, we would have by now had an opportunity to collect this evidence, either from the internally displaced people or from the people who have crossed the border.”

My late mentor, the godfather of international criminal law, M. Cherif Bassiouni, had been proposing the same idea since the Balkan war.

The knowledge of a swift, efficient and powerful investigative body charged with the full U.N. authority might also serve as a deterrent to potential war criminals. For instance, fighters would be on notice that it would be much harder to get away with the evidence of their crimes, including the so-called silent ones like rape. Perhaps they would think twice before joining in on the criminal sadism.

We’ve known for decades what we need to do – it’s about time we call on world leaders to make it happen.

Carli Pierson, a New York licensed attorney, is an opinion writer with USA TODAY and a member of the USA TODAY Editorial Board. 

Could this SCOTUS case push America toward one-party rule?

The Week

Could this SCOTUS case push America toward one-party rule?

Grayson Quay, Weekend editor – July 12, 2022

The Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court. Illustrated | Getty Images

The Supreme Court has announced its intention to take up Moore v. Harper this fall, a case that critics claim is “perhaps the gravest threat to American democracy since the Jan. 6 attack.” Here’s everything you need to know: 

What’s at stake in ‘Moore v. Harper’?

North Carolina House Speaker Timothy Moore (R) is suing a voter named Rebecca Harper as part of a dispute over a federal electoral map drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. According to The Carolina Journal, the case will test a legal theory known as the “independent state legislature doctrine,” which asserts that “only the state legislature has the power to regulate federal elections, without interference from state courts.”

Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states that the “Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Proponents of the “independent state legislature doctrine” argue that this clause gives state legislatures the power to draw congressional districts, set rules for federal elections, and appoint presidential electors, and that state courts have no power to interfere — even if the legislature blatantly violates the state constitution.

Which, in this case, it totally did. The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in February that the proposed map, which would have guaranteed Republicans easy wins in 10 of the state’s 14 districts, was “unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt under the … North Carolina Constitution.”

The situation in North Carolina is not so clear-cut, however. Robert Barnes noted in The Washington Post that the state’s General Assembly passed a law two decades ago empowering state courts to review electoral maps and even create their own “interim districting plan[s].” Moore’s lawyers must therefore prove that the legislature violated the U.S. Constitution by abdicating its own authority over redistricting.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the case in March but agreed on June 30 to hear it. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh have all signaled their openness to Moore’s argument. The Washington Post‘s editorial board suggests that Chief Justice John Roberts — who three years ago left open the possibility that state courts could override partisan gerrymanders — is now “poised” to side with Moore as well. The board considers Justice Amy Coney Barrett “a possible swing vote.” All three of the court’s liberals are expected to reject the independent state legislature doctrine.

The case will be heard during the term beginning in October 2022, with a decision expected in the summer of 2023 — just in time to upend the 2024 elections.

What about the Electoral College?

In January, Ryan Cooper wrote for The Week that the state of Wisconsin “effectively exists under one-party rule.” Democrats can still win statewide elections — say, for governor or U.S. Senate — but state legislative districts are hopelessly gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. If the Supreme Court sides with Moore, GOP-controlled legislatures in states like Wisconsin would have full authority to rig not only their own states’ legislative elections, but elections to the U.S. House of Representatives as well.

And it might not stop there. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution empowers each state to “appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors” equal to that state’s number of senators and representatives. The clause doesn’t say anything about the popular vote. This means, in theory, that state legislators can appoint whoever they want to the Electoral College. If SCOTUS side with Moore next summer on the question of federal redistricting, they’re likely to apply the same reasoning to presidential elections. This interpretation was floated by conservative justices — including Thomas — during the Bush v. Gore (2000) case that handed George W. Bush the presidency.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887 stipulates that each state’s slate of electors must be certified by the governor of that state. In states like Wisconsin— which has a Democratic governor — this law could prevent the Republican-led legislature from handing the state’s electoral votes to a losing Republican candidate.

But wait — if the independent state legislature doctrine is correct, then the governor has no right to usurp the legislature’s constitutionally granted powers. That provision of the Electoral Count Act (ECA) would be struck down.

This idea “is quickly becoming dogma among Republican legal apparatchiks,” Cooper wrote. Convincing Republican-controlled states won by President Biden to submit alternate slates of Republican electors was a key part of Trump lawyer John Eastman’s strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election. His plan also rested on the assumption that the ECA is “likely unconstitutional.”

What’s the worst-case scenario?

Zach Praiss of the nonprofit Accountable Tech and progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann have laid out similar nightmare scenarios that could arise if SCOTUS rules in Moore’s favor.

Hartmann imagines a 2024 presidential contest between Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in which Biden wins the popular vote in Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. The GOP-controlled legislatures of these six states then decide to disregard the will of the voters and award their 88 electoral votes to DeSantis, making him the winner and president-elect.

Republicans control both legislative houses in 29 states, plus the unicameral legislature of Nebraska, and they might soon gain the power to gerrymander themselves into a permanent majority. Those states control 306 electoral votes, more than enough to elect a president.

“It is difficult … to see the desire to put sole control of election rules in the hands of a partisan legislative body as anything more than a power grab,” argued Christine Adams in The Washington Post. Laurence H. Tribe and Dennis Aftergut were even blunter in the Los Angeles Times: “Adopting the independent state legislature theory would amount to right-wing justices making up law to create an outcome of one-party rule.”

This Is Putin’s Precious Key to Invading More Countries

Daily Beast

This Is Putin’s Precious Key to Invading More Countries

Shannon Vavra – July 12, 2022

MIKHAIL METZEL/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
MIKHAIL METZEL/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

While Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to redraw the boundaries of Europe, a pair of lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., are trying to scrap his playbook before he can take it even further.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who serves on the same committee, are introducing legislation later Tuesday in an attempt to conjure up ways to further box Putin in.

The concerns rumbling through the halls of Congress center on whether the United States has done enough to prepare for and deter Russian aggression in the Black Sea region, so that Putin doesn’t end up feeling empowered to strike out further beyond Ukraine.

“As Putin continues his war in Ukraine, the United States must be prepared to address the challenges he’s created in the immediate and long term for European and U.S. security,” Shaheen told The Daily Beast. “That is precisely what our legislation seeks to do by looking at a critical geopolitical region: the Black Sea.”

Putin has long been interested in leveraging Russia’s access to the Black Sea to course through other sovereign nations and obliterate their borders. Russia invaded Georgia, which borders the sea, in 2008 and annexed Crimea in 2014. Russia has been attacking Ukraine since 2014, re-invading again this year. But Sens. Shaheen and Romney are banking on the idea that if the United States pays more attention to the Black Sea region and makes a concerted effort to shore up security concerns there, the United States might have a shot at stymying Putin’s progress on his imperialistic crusade through Europe.

Putin’s Cronies Told to Ditch Summer Vacation for Mystery ‘Emergency Meeting’

Focusing on the Black Sea region is necessary to cut Putin off at the source, Shaheen told The Daily Beast.

“Control over access to the Black Sea is fundamental to his delusional dream of building a Russian empire and the United States cannot allow that to happen,” she said.

The legislation from Shaheen and Romney, which is also backed by Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Roger Wicker (R-MS), would require the administration to develop an interagency strategy to increase military assistance with NATO and the European Union and increase security assistance to Black Sea countries.

The Biden administration must step up and pump out a strategy before it’s too late to prevent another Russian campaign, Romney told The Daily Beast.

“The Black Sea has become increasingly critical as Vladimir Putin continues to wage his unprovoked war in Ukraine, and it has become clear that the United States must have both a strategy and presence in the region,” Romney said. “Our legislation aims to accomplish this by requiring the Biden administration to develop a strategy to strengthen coordination between the U.S., NATO, and partners in the Black Sea in an effort to increase security, support economic prosperity, and promote democracy.”

Already, world leaders from around the globe have raised concerns that Putin isn’t interested in just going after Ukraine. Ukrainian President Zelensky warned just last month that Putin will not stop with his country.

Putin’s allies have hinted themselves at grander scenarios beyond Ukraine in which Putin takes on more far-flung battles to fulfill his imperialistic fantasies. Russia’s lower house speaker warned last week that the United States ought to remember that Russia gave the United States Alaska in the 1800s and that Moscow could seek to take it back. Others have suggested Putin could go head to head with Poland, the United States, or the U.K.

If the United States and allies had stepped up and developed a weightier strategy in the Black Sea region years ago, we might not be facing a Russian war in Ukraine now, according to Ian Brzezinski, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Policy.

”A more assertive policy is long overdue. The failure of the United States and NATO allies to having a more robust defense of its interests in the Black Sea has actually provoked Russia and prompted Putin to be more aggressive,” Brzezinski told The Daily Beast. “He sees that as a sign of weakness and opportunity to fulfill his revanchist territorial ambitions.”

<div class="inline-image__caption"><p>The pier in Ukraine's Black Sea city of Odessa on Feb. 21. </p></div> <div class="inline-image__credit">OLEKSANDR GIMANOV/AFP via Getty Images</div>
The pier in Ukraine’s Black Sea city of Odessa on Feb. 21.OLEKSANDR GIMANOV/AFP via Getty Images

“We learn from Ukraine alone that the failure of a robust response to aggression just invites further aggression by Putin,” Brzezinski added.

It’s not just about the prospect of future Russian attacks. Putin’s already leveraging the Black Sea to his advantage, holding hostage grain and wheat exports through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, which could cause famine in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and beyond, as the International Rescue Committee has warned.

The United States hasn’t had a comprehensive strategy towards the Black Sea region, and Russia’s aggression shows we need to step it up, Bill Taylor, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, told The Daily Beast.

“There’s a political strategy that all needs to be put together. We haven’t had that in a coherent form, and we need it,” Taylor said.

Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports shows just how impactful a better policy in the Black Sea region might be in helping to rein Putin in, Shaheen said.

“We are already seeing the fallout from Putin’s action toward that end by suffocating key ports in Ukraine that have spurred a global food crisis,” Shaheen told The Daily Beast. “His belligerence toward Ukraine today is reaping global consequences, which is why strategic action is crucial to thwart those efforts. “

The proposed legislation would touch on more than just military action. It would require the administration to develop a report on democracy, security, and economic initiatives in the region and new policy options for a more assertive engagement there.

The strategy would include plans to increase NATO capabilities in the region, including land and air forces, and military assistance specifically to Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and Georgia. The strategy would also include schemes to improve coordination with NATO forces, better intelligence operations and systems to track Russian ops in the region, and help defending against hybrid warfare—including plans to support more independent media to counter Russian influence operations.

Intel Reveals Putin Plan to Weasel His Way Into American Hearts

The National Security Council and other departments would be tasked with providing a plan for speeding up transitions away from legacy Russian military equipment, according to the draft bill text. The legislation would also kick off an assessment of establishing a multinational three-star headquarters on the Black Sea to coordinate all military activities.

It would also require a breakdown of plans on reducing the region’s dependence on energy from Russia, an issue that’s been left unresolved for years and which has been a key flashpoint in the diplomacy surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in recent months.

The Pentagon is already picking up what Shaheen and Romney are putting down. Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in April the steps the Pentagon is taking in the region now must be focused on two main objectives: “to assure allies and deter any adversary—specifically Russia.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin noted while testifying on Capitol Hill in April that Putin’s decision to wage war in Ukraine has forever altered the geopolitics of the region.

“This unlawful and unprovoked aggression by Putin has had the effect of changing the security architecture in the region for some time to come,” Austin said.

‘Fatigued’: Republicans eyeing 2024 reluctant to support Trump election lie amid Jan. 6 hearings

Yahoo! News

‘Fatigued’: Republicans eyeing 2024 reluctant to support Trump election lie amid Jan. 6 hearings

Tom LoBianco, Reporter – July 12, 2022

WASHINGTON — For the past six years, backing up Donald Trump on his wildest claims became a veritable art form among ambitious Republicans, but through the run of the Jan. 6 House committee hearings, those same Republicans now eyeing the White House in 2024 have been remarkably quiet about the attack on the Capitol.

On the first anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, top-tier 2024 contender Ron DeSantis blasted commemorations of the attack as a “smear on Trump supporters.” But in the middle of the hearings last month, instead of repeating Trump’s election lies or conspiracy theories about voter fraud, the Republican Florida governor dismissed talk of Jan. 6 outright, saying it was a “loser” as an issue with voters.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Mark Meadows when he was White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, is seen as the House Jan. 6 select committee holds a public hearing on Capitol Hill on June 28.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, at a hearing of the House Jan. 6 select committee on June 28. (Jabin Botsford/Washington Post via Getty Images)

When former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson captivated Washington and the country with her testimony that Trump had attempted to wave through rioters carrying military-style weapons past Secret Service security screens and then march with them down Pennsylvania Avenue to join the insurrection, typically outspoken Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz skipped weighing in all together.

Instead, Cruz launched into a Twitter battle with Elmo of “Sesame Street” over coronavirus vaccines for children, which generated plenty of coverage for the possible 2024 contender. A person familiar with Cruz’s thinking said the Texas senator hasn’t been watching the Jan. 6 hearings and, like other Republican senators, considers the House hearings a “clown show.”

And former Vice President Mike Pence, who was the subject of an entire committee hearing last month headlined by his own top aides, has avoided almost all talk of Jan. 6 — much less any defense of Trump.

The reasons are myriad — Republicans are tired of carrying water for Trump, he’s burned too many bridges, he doesn’t command the power he used to, GOP voters aren’t engaged by Trump’s election lies — but they all land at the same conclusion: This is Trump’s fight alone, according to interviews with more than a half dozen Republican strategists, campaign workers and veteran staffers keeping tabs on the pre-campaign for the party’s nomination in 2024.

“They’re fatigued,” said one former Trump aide. “They feel like, ‘Hey, I don’t agree with everything that happened in the election, I don’t agree with X, Y, Z. But I don’t want to have to relitigate your issues every day.’”

Former President Donald Trump prepares to walk onstage after a panel on policing and security on July 8 in Las Vegas.
Former President Donald Trump in Las Vegas on July 8. (Bridget Bennett/Getty Images)

For more than a month now, the select committee investigating Trump’s effort to hold onto power, culminating in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, has dominated headlines. And Trump, without the White House or Twitter, has been relegated to sending “truths” from his beleaguered social media company to reporters to stem the deluge of stunning revelations.

A small coterie of House Republicans, led by Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, whom House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat on the committee, have pushed back on select items from the panel.

But the glaring absence of Trump supporters at the hearings has led to the former president lambasting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for abandoning the committee after fighting with Pelosi over it.

“Unfortunately, a bad decision was made. This committee — it was a bad decision not to have representation on this committee,” Trump told a right-wing radio host last month, shortly after the hearings started.

Most of the Republican Party apparatus has instead been hammering away at the issues they see resonating with their voters — inflation, the rise of China as a global threat, social issues like transgender women participating in female sports and other hot-button topics.

At the same time, Trump’s standing as the de facto frontrunner for the nomination in 2024 has continued to slip, while others like DeSantis are seeing their stock go up. A University of New Hampshire poll released last month showed the Florida governor overtaking Trump in that early-voting state. And a Yahoo/YouGov poll released at the end of June found DeSantis coming within 9 percentage points of ousting Trump as the party favorite for 2024.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a press conference.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a press conference. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

And as his standing has dropped throughout the past few months, Trump has been telling Republican operatives who meet with him that he wants to launch a third bid for the White House this summer. One of his advisers noted that Trump had said he planned to announce on July 4, but Independence Day came and went without an announcement.

“It’s the most selfish, f***ed-up thing he can do. He’s got to change the channel, because it’s all bad for him,” one veteran Republican strategist said.

And it’s the years of those games that have caused Republicans to sour on supporting Trump.

“I’ve got two words for you: Mo Brooks,” said another Republican strategist. The Alabama congressman helped Trump attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and was subpoenaed by the House committee as a result, yet Trump still withdrew his endorsement of Brooks for the Senate because Brooks was trailing in the polls.

“He’s broken his word too many times to too many people,” the veteran strategist said. “If you defend him, you look like a lunatic. If you look like a lunatic, he cuts ties.”

Global population to reach 8 billion this year, India to become most populated country

USA Today

UN: Global population to reach 8 billion this year, India to become most populated country

Jordan Mendoza, USA TODAY – July 11, 2022

The world is continuing to grow.

The latest report from the United Nations projects the global population will reach 8 billion people later this year and continue to rise for the next eight decades.

The World Population Prospects 2022 report, released on Monday by the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division, outlined what countries around the world should expect in the coming years.

The global population is expected to reach 8 billion by Nov. 15, the U.N. predicts, but it won’t stop there. The population could be around 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion in 2100, meaning Earth could have a 31% increase in human population by the end of the century.

The estimated population growth comes as the world’s average fertility rate continues to decline. In 2020, the global population growth rate fell below 1% for the first time since 1950. Currently, it’s at 2.3 births per woman, down from the average five births per woman in 1950. By 2050, it’s expected to slightly fall to 2.1 births per woman.

Still, factors such as the rise of life expectancy are reasons why the global population continues to rise.

“Globally, life expectancy reached 72.8 years in 2019, an increase of almost 9 years since 1990. Further reductions in mortality are projected to result in an average longevity of around 77.2 years globally in 2050,” the report reads.

“Two-thirds of the projected increase in global population through 2050 will be driven by the momentum of past growth that is embedded in the youthful age structure of the current population. Such growth would occur even if childbearing in today’s high-fertility countries were to fall immediately to around two births per woman.”

People ages 65 and older are expected to account for 16% of the human population by 2050, up from 10% in 2022. Men currently make up 50.3% of the population, but by 2050, there are expected to be just as many women as men.

Indians crowd a market selling marigold flowers early morning on Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in Mumbai, India, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016. India is projected to be the most populated country in the world by the end of 2023, the United Nations said.
Indians crowd a market selling marigold flowers early morning on Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in Mumbai, India, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016. India is projected to be the most populated country in the world by the end of 2023, the United Nations said.

How many people are in the world?: A look at the population in 2022

Global population: Elon Musk says there aren’t ‘enough people,’ birthrate could threaten human civilization

World’s most populated country soon won’t be China

China has long been the most populous country, but  that isn’t expected to last long, with India projected to be the world’s most populous country in 2023. Each country currently has a population over 1.4 billion people, accounting for over 35% of the global population, but China’s population is expected to start declining as early as next year.

By 2050, India is projected to have 1.6 billion people, while China is projected to have 1.3 billion people.

India is just one of eight countries – including the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the United Republic of Tanzania – expected to see major population growth by 2050. The increase in several sub-Saharan countries is expected to result in the population doubling in the area.

On the other side of the population spectrum, 61 countries are expected to have a population decrease of at least 1%. Of that list, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia and Ukraine are projected to lose at least 20% of their population.

What about the United States’ population?

North America is projected by the U.N. to reach its peak population in the late-2030s and then start declining “due to sustained low levels of fertility.” But that won’t affect the population of the U.S.

The U.S. population is currently 337 million people and it is projected to be at 375 million people in 2050, still making it the third most populous country in the world, behind India and China.

Brett Kavanaugh’s Right to Dine Shall Not Be Infringed

Esquire

Brett Kavanaugh’s Right to Dine Shall Not Be Infringed

Jack Holmes – July 8, 2022

Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to become a member of our nine-person SuperCongress by a president who took office despite earning the votes of millions fewer Americans than his opponent did. That president never enjoyed the support of a majority of citizens and got spanked in the popular vote by an even larger margin—7 million—in the next election. He then tried to overthrow the government to stay in power. Only one of the five other right-wing justices was nominated by a president who took office having secured the support of a majority of actual Americans.

Photo credit: Pool - Getty Images
Photo credit: Pool – Getty Images

Brett Kavanaugh was then confirmed by 50 senators who represented just 44 percent of the American population. The 48 senators who voted “nay” represented tens of millions more citizens. Kavanaugh secured the crucial 50th vote of Senator Susan Collins based on her publicly stated belief that he considered Roe v. Wade to be “settled legal precedent.” In the public hearings into the question of his confirmation, where he testified under oath, Kavanaugh said this:

Senator, I said that it is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis. And one of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that it has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years, as you know, and most prominently, most importantly, reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

And as you well recall, senator, I know when that case came up, the Supreme Court did not just reaffirm it in passing. The court specifically went through all the factors of stare decisis in considering whether to overrule it, and the joint opinion of Justice Kennedy, Justice O’Connor and Justice Souter, at great length went through those factors.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, Kavanaugh voted with the five other Republicans on the Court to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

If you have a problem with any of this—unelected judges selected by presidents who got fewer votes and confirmed by senators who represent a minority of citizens making policy without regard for legal precedent or their own previous statements under oath—you don’t seem to have much recourse.

You can’t vote the superlegislators out. It is unreasonable to expect any will be impeached thanks to the entrenched advantages that allow Republicans outsize control of the Senate. Even the House of Representatives is dangerously skewed, thanks to gerrymandered redistricting maps and the hyperpolarization they help to generate. The reason Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others worked so hard to seize control of the judiciary was precisely because so many other institutions have ceased to function properly. Even if you do succeed in electing representatives to make policy through the legislature—after this same Court savaged the Voting Rights Act and unleashed an avalanche of money in our elections—the courts can throw out whatever they choose.

Photo credit: Bill Clark - Getty Images
Photo credit: Bill Clark – Getty Images

You cannot protest at the steps of the Supreme Court, as they’ve walled that shit off. You can’t protest at the justices’ houses, and there’s some merit to the idea that private residences—where spouses and children are in the mix—should be off-limits. (Of course, in the case of Clarence Thomas, his spouse has very much been in the mix.) But you can’t protest in neutral public venues, either, even if you’re on a city street outside a restaurant. We learned that this weekend, when Mr. Kavanaugh was disturbed during a meal at a Washington, D.C. steakhouse, as reported by the Beltway encyclical known as Politico Playbook:

On Wednesday night, D.C. protesters targeting the conservative Supreme Court justices who signed onto the Dobbs decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion got a tip that Justice BRETT KAVANAUGH was dining at Morton’s downtown D.C. location. Protesters soon showed up out front, called the manager to tell him to kick Kavanaugh out and later tweeted that the justice was forced to exit through the rear of the restaurant.

We have returned, inevitably, to Red-Henghazi. Do public figures who make the rules we all have to live by get to do whatever they want at all times without any social repercussions? Do they have some right to privacy in public spaces, despite choosing to wield huge power over others in a democratic republic? Morton’s seems to think so.

“Honorable Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and all of our other patrons at the restaurant were unduly harassed by unruly protestors while eating dinner at our Morton’s restaurant. Politics, regardless of your side or views, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner. There is a time and place for everything. Disturbing the dinner of all of our customers was an act of selfishness and void of decency.”

The right to eat dinner shall not be infringed. (Particularly by the Unduly Unruly.) Which, according to Politico‘s Daniel Lippman, it was not.

While the court had no official comment on Kavanaugh’s behalf and a person familiar with the situation said he did not hear or see the protesters and ate a full meal but left before dessert, Morton’s was outraged about the incident.

The right to tiramisu shall not be infringed. Seriously, though, at this point we’re talking about what appears to be a complete non-incident. He went out the back because he heard secondhand there were some folks out front?

But even if the honorable justice had to hear the urban rabble outside—described by Politico as “D.C. protestors”—tell him to fuck himself while he chowed down on a ribeye, what exactly is the problem here? The protesters are exercising their rights to speech and “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Kavanaugh and the others may fashion themselves as blind arbiters of the law, but in reality they are agents of state power, representing the Government. And they have generated some grievances.

Meanwhile, we’re hearing about Brett the Honorable’s right to dine, what we can only assume is an unenumerated one under the Ninth Amendment. It also sounds more than somewhat related to the right to privacy—also rooted in the Ninth—which undergirded Roe and Casey before these six luminaries threw those decisions out. Justice Clarence Thomas has signaled they’re interested in going after the right to privacy itself with a so-called reconsiderationof Griswold v. Connecticut, a move that would go way beyond contraception. Although the prospect of this Republican Court empowering states controlled by their ideological allies to restrict women’s access to the pill in the Year of Our Lord 2022 does have a particular resonance.

And if that happens, you can expect the same bullshit routine from these same people. The work of working the refs is never done, and the self-victimization will never stop. This is the same impulse undergirding much of the Cancel Culture debate: while social-media mobs and a lack of due process are real problems, many of the fiercest Free Speech Warriors actually see free speech as their right to say whatever they want without getting criticized or made fun of. Similarly, these right-wing superlegislators believe they should be able to nakedly advance the policy priorities of the conservative movement by reverse-engineering decisions to meet preordained conclusions, all the while battering the lives of powerless people, without ever getting called an asshole while they drink a $300 bottle of wine. There are consequences for behaving badly in public office, at least until these people are finished savaging the foundations of this democratic republic. Or until the Democratic Party finds the stones to nix the Senate filibuster, expand the Supreme Court, reform the judiciary, and restore the people’s means of translating their will into the law we all are bound to live by.

The Shrinking of the Middle-Class Neighborhood

The New York Times

The Shrinking of the Middle-Class Neighborhood

Sophie Kasakove and Robert Gebeloff – July 7, 2022

A street with a new apartment complex under construction in in the East Nashville neighborhood of Nashville, Tenn., on May 11, 2022. (September Dawn Bottoms/The New York Times)
A street with a new apartment complex under construction in in the East Nashville neighborhood of Nashville, Tenn., on May 11, 2022. (September Dawn Bottoms/The New York Times)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — When Ashley Broadnax thinks of the East Nashville, Tennessee, neighborhood she grew up in during the ’90s, the images that rush in have a modest, middle-class tinge.

After school, she and other neighborhood children bought snacks at the corner store and threw balls on the street as their parents returned home, some in uniform from blue-collar work, others from jobs as teachers or office workers. Neighbors chatted on porches and lawns of unassuming single-story homes. There were some poor families and a few wealthy ones, but more than one-third of her neighbors made between $40,000 and $75,000 in today’s dollars — enough to live comfortably.

But by 2020, the income distribution had tilted so that half the families made $100,000 or more, census data shows. All across the neighborhood, the modest houses of Broadnax’s youth have been replaced by high-end townhomes known informally as “tall skinnies” that tower over the remaining older homes.

So when it was Broadnax’s turn to pay the rent, using her middle-income salary as an educator, the cost was out of reach.

Like many other Americans, Nashville residents are increasingly being buffeted by economic tides that push them into neighborhoods that are either much richer or much poorer than the regional norm, a New York Times analysis has found. A smaller share of families are living in middle-class neighborhoods, places where incomes are typically within 25% of the regional median.

In Nashville, the share of families living in middle-class neighborhoods dropped by 15 percentage points between 1990 and 2020. But the portion of families in wealthy ones jumped by 11 points, and the segment living in poor neighborhoods grew by 4 points.

In some ways, the pattern reflects how wealthy Americans are choosing to live near other wealthy people, and how poorer Americans are struggling to get by.

But the pattern also indicates a broader trend of income inequality in the economy, as the population of families making more than $100,000 has grown much faster than other groups, even after adjusting for inflation, and the number of families earning less than $40,000 has increased at twice the rate as families in the middle.

Broadnax has become part of a great chase nationally for affordable housing. High rents in the city initially sent her to the more affordable Antioch neighborhood in 2011. But home prices nearly doubled there since 2018, so buying a home meant moving farther out to a suburban community called La Vergne.

“The same people that’s working in their city can’t afford to live in their city,” Broadnax said about Nashville.

Nationally, only half of American families living in metropolitan areas can say that their neighborhood income level is within 25% of the regional median. A generation ago, 62% of families lived in these middle-income neighborhoods.

“People are getting pushed out, and that is breaking up some historically sort of working-class neighborhoods,” said Marybeth Shinn, a Vanderbilt University professor who studies homelessness and social exclusion. “You gradually convert a neighborhood from a pretty modest kind of neighborhood that a lot of people could live in to one where only people that have a little more means are able to live in.”

That evolution has mixed consequences for people seeing their neighborhoods change.

When Jim Polk bought his home in East Nashville in 1979, the community left some amenities to be desired. The park near his house was rundown, and the neighborhood had few sidewalks or streetlights.

As the firefighters, nurses and local government employees in the neighborhood were replaced by tech workers, engineers and lawyers, Polk mourned the loss of their old, familiar neighborhood where his four daughters had learned to accept people of diverse backgrounds.

“So many families have moved out over time,” said Polk, who worked for decades as a community education coordinator for the city public schools. “It didn’t remind them of the place they used to live, and it was so expensive to stay.”

But Polk and his wife were able to keep up with the property tax increases on their city pensions, and they could not ignore the improvements to the neighborhood: New sidewalks and streetlights were installed, and the long-neglected park was cleaned up. When his church was destroyed by a tornado in 2020, his new neighbors had the resources to help the congregation buy a new building.

Even more significant has been the rapid price appreciation of homes in the neighborhood.Polk bought his home for $36,000. A home just across the street sold for more than $1.5 million in February, according to Zillow.

“There have been improvements in services available to the people living in the neighborhood,” he said. “But who gets to participate?”

Experts say the changes in housing patterns represent a form of economic segregation, as Americans are less likely to live in neighborhoods with people from other socioeconomic classes. Economic segregation exacerbates the problems often associated with income inequality. There are what researchers call “neighborhood effects,” with studies finding that poor children have better odds of climbing the socioeconomic ladder if they grow up outside of concentrated poverty.

And wealthy neighborhoods tend to command a disproportionate share of resources, such as better schools, more parks and greater access to health professionals.

This economic segregation not only “concentrates low-income families in high poverty neighborhoods, but it concentrates affluent families in affluent neighborhoods, where they can engage in a kind of opportunity hoarding,” said Sean F. Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford University. He and another sociologist, Kendra Bischoff of Cornell University, have written several papers on economic segregation.

Consider Durham, North Carolina.

Since 1990, a surge of wealth and investment has poured into the city’s downtown. At the same time, the percentage of families living in lower-income neighborhoods has doubled.

Turquoise LeJeune Parker, an elementary school technology instructor, said the split reality of rich and poor neighborhoods did her low-income students no good. Describing what she saw as the prevailing mindset of people flocking to prosperous parts of town, she said, “We won’t push for resources for our schools, we won’t push for any of that because ‘I’ve got what I need on my side of the city, so I’m good.’ ”

To some degree, economic segregation has gone hand in hand with the hollowing out of the middle class in general.

At the same time, local governments across the country have done little to maintain or expand affordable housing, instead investing in attracting highly paid workers, which drives up prices and displaces lower-income residents.

And exclusionary zoning laws often prevent denser, lower-cost housing from being built in high-end enclaves — Tennessee has even barred cities from putting zoning laws into place that would protect affordability. Property taxes on many homes have spiked, pushing longtime residents to sell to investors.

But whatever the cause, similar trends can be seen across the country.

In the Boston metropolitan area, middle class neighborhoods have shifted in both directions. In the 1990s and 2000s, many fell behind economically. In the past decade, because of widespread gentrification in the city, many modest neighborhoods have been transformed into much wealthier ones.

A generation ago, Seattle’s tech industry was starting to boom, but the area also was a major manufacturing hub, and 7 out of 10 families lived in middle-class neighborhoods. Today, only 5 out of 10 do. Nearly one-third live in wealthy enclaves.

In the Midwest, the share of families living in middle-class neighborhoods fell by 13 percentage points in Columbus, Ohio, since 1990, by 12 in Chicago, and by nine in Indianapolis.

And in Orlando, nearly 70% of area residents lived in “average” neighborhoods in 1990, according to census data. In 2020, the same was true for just 46%.

That leaves a lot of people feeling like they’re on the outside looking in.

Michael Street is a union electrician who moved from Nashville to Goodlettsville, Tennessee, about 25 minutes away. He said he spent his days driving around Nashville, working on houses that have all been rehabbed, rebuilt or rendered unrecognizable in neighborhoods he can no longer afford.

“Either you’re poor, or you’re rich,” he said. “Middle class is kind of phasing out. Either you have a lot of money, or you’re just barely getting by.”

—

Methodology

To measure the growing level of economic segregation in the U.S., the Times used census data to compare the median family income of every census tract with the median for the surrounding metropolitan area for the years 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020. The analysis counted how many families lived in middle-class tracts, where the median family income was within 25% of the regional median, and how many lived in tracts where the income level was 25% or more above or below the regional median. All figures were inflation-adjusted to 2020 values.

Source data and maps were from socialexplorer.com and nhgis.org.