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It’s the accumulation’: The Jan. 6 hearings are wounding Trump, after all

Politico

‘It’s the accumulation’: The Jan. 6 hearings are wounding Trump, after all

David Siders – July 20, 2022

The conventional wisdom about the Jan. 6 committee hearings was that no single revelation was going to change Republican minds about Donald Trump.

What happened instead, a slow drip of negative coverage, may be just as damaging to the former president. Six weeks into the committee’s public hearing schedule, an emerging consensus is forming in Republican Party circles — including in Trump’s orbit — that a significant portion of the rank-and-file may be tiring of the non-stop series of revelations about Trump.

The fatigue is evident in public polling and in focus groups that suggest growing Republican openness to an alternative presidential nominee in 2024. The cumulative effect of the hearings, according to interviews with more than 20 Republican strategists, party officials and pollsters in recent days, has been to at least marginally weaken his support.

“It is definitely kind of this wet drip of, do you really want to debate the 2020 election again? Do you really want to debate what happened on Jan. 6?” said Bob Vander Plaats, the evangelical leader in Iowa who is influential in primary politics in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. “Frankly, I think what I sense a little bit, even among some deep, deep Trump supporters … there’s a certain exhaustion to it.”

Trump’s public approval rating among Republicans remains high as he prepares for a widely expected run for president again in 2024. He still tops most primary polls, and Republicans largely haven’t been persuaded by much of what the Jan. 6 committee is doing. They were more likely last month than last year — before the hearings began — to describe the events of Jan. 6 as a “legitimate protest.”

But for many Republicans, the ongoing, backward-looking call-and-response between the committee and Trump may nevertheless be getting old.

“I think what everybody thought was that the first prime-time hearing was such a non-event that that would continue,” said Randy Evans, a Georgia lawyer who served as Trump’s ambassador to Luxembourg. “But over the course of the hearings, the steadiness, the repetitiveness, has had a corrosive effect. You’d have to be oblivious to the way media works, the way reputations work, the way politics works, to not understand that it’s never the one thing. It’s the accumulation.”

Evans said, “This is all undoubtedly starting to take a toll — how much, I don’t know. But the bigger question is whether it starts to eat through the Teflon. There are some signs that maybe it has. But it’s too early to say right now.”

For more than a year after Trump lost the presidential election, his political durability was not even in question. But the committee hearings appear to have had an effect on Trump’s enormous fundraising operation, which has slowed in recent months. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who may run in 2024, has been gaining on Trump in some polls, including in New Hampshire, the first primary state, where one recent survey had DeSantis statistically tied with Trump among Republican primary voters. Republicans are still poring over a New York Times/Siena College poll last week that showed nearly half of Republican primary voters would rather vote for a Republican other than Trump in 2024.

In a series of focus groups with 2020 Trump supporters from across the country since the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2001, Sarah Longwell, a moderate Republican strategist who became a vocal supporter of Joe Biden in 2020, for more than a year found about half of participants consistently said they wanted Trump to run again. But that number has fallen off since the hearings began, she said.

“We’ve had now three focus groups where zero people have wanted him to run again, and a couple other groups where it’s been like two people,” Longwell said. “Totally different.”

The Trump supporters in her focus groups are still dismissive of the hearings, Longwell said, “and I don’t think people are sitting down and being persuaded” by them.

However, she said, the hearings have “turned the volume up on the Trump baggage.”

“The other thing,” she said, “is I cannot tell you how much these Republican voters want to move on from the conversation of January 6^th.”

‘Political Theater’

That’s a far cry from the Republican view of the hearings when they started: Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) derided what he called a “prime-time dud.” Jim Justice, the Republican governor of West Virginia, dismissed them as “political theater.” And Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri called them a “complete waste of time.”

One reason that the hearings are resonating now is that even if Republicans don’t agree with the committee’s findings, they read polls. The percentage of Republicans who say Trump misled people about the 2020 election has ticked up since last month, while a majority of Americans say Trump committed a crime. Perhaps most problematic for Trump, 16 percent of Republicans in the Siena College survey said they would vote for someone else in the general election or aren’t sure what they will do in 2024 if Trump is the nominee.

That’s a relatively small segment of the Republican electorate, but a critical one in competitive states that will decide which party controls the White House.

“I think you’re starting to see the impact of the hearings, and just overall his behavior since he lost the election,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair and longtime party strategist.

“He’s got a hard-core base, and there’s no doubt about that,” said Wadhams. “I voted for him twice, I loved his accomplishments. But I do think he’s compromised himself into a situation where it would be very difficult for him to win another election for president.”

Electability concerns may loom especially large this year for Republicans, who view Biden as a beatable incumbent. His cratering public approval ratings, now hovering below 39 percent, are worse than Trump’s at this point in his presidency. One senior House Republican aide described the resonance of the Jan. 6 committee hearings as in part a product of the contrast they are drawing between “a golden opportunity to win back the White House in 2024 and the only person who might not be able to do it.”

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Trump has regularly criticized the committee’s work as a partisan exercise. And because most other Republicans view it that way, too, it’s unlikely that many of Trump’s opponents will leverage the committee’s revelations explicitly in the run-up to 2024.

Proxy wars

Still, the Republicans who may run against Trump in 2024 are increasingly breaking with him as the midterm year drags on.

On Friday, former Vice President Mike Pence will campaign in Arizona for gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, while Trump that same day appears in the presidential swing state for Robson’s rival for the GOP nomination, former TV news anchor Kari Lake. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, among others, have split with Trump in midterm endorsements in other states. So has outgoing Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who engaged in proxy war with Trump in the gubernatorial primary held Tuesday in Hogan’s home state.

As much has anything, those midterm primaries – coinciding with the Jan. 6 committee hearings – have laid bare the willingness of Republicans in at least some cases to disassociate their adoration for Trump with support for him politically. Trump’s endorsement has pulled Republicans across the line in competitive primaries in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, but his chosen candidates have flopped in other races, including in Georgia and Nebraska.

“The effect of the hearings will be negligible on Trump’s favorable ratings among Republicans,” said Whit Ayres, the longtime Republican pollster. “The ‘Always Trumpers’ and the ‘Maybe Trumpers’ are resolute in their insistence that they are paying no attention whatsoever to the hearings. It’s almost an article of faith among Republicans to say, ‘I am not paying attention to these hearings’.”

However, Ayres said, “The way it translates is that they believe that other candidates will carry less baggage … and that gets reinforced by what seeps into the political water from these hearings.

And as the Jan. 6 committee prepares for another hearing on Thursday, the ongoing focus on Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6 is now in the political waters.

John Thomas, a Republican strategist who works on House campaigns across the country, said that in recent conversations with state party chairs and Republican activists in numerous states, “almost to the T, and I don’t really care what state it’s in, they all say, ‘Love Trump, love his policies, wish he would just be a kingmaker.’ And that’s really a shift, because six months ago, a year ago, it was, ‘Trump’s got to run again, he’s the only one who can fight the swamp, drive the policy agenda.’”

“It’s not Trump hatred,” Thomas added. “It’s Trump fatigue. I think [the Jan. 6 committee hearings] reminds people to the degree that they’re tuning in that, eh, is this that important of an issue? No. But damn … And then Trump goes on his rants and it’s like, ‘We’re tired of it.’”

U.S. swelters in latest heat wave, with Texas and Oklahoma hitting 115°F

Yahoo! News

U.S. swelters in latest heat wave, with Texas and Oklahoma hitting 115°F

David Knowles, Senior Editor – July 20, 2022

The latest extreme heat wave to hit the United States is showing no mercy, leaving more than 105 million Americans in 28 states under heat advisories and excessive heat warnings from the National Weather Service.

Temperatures of 115 degrees Fahrenheit have been recorded in Texas and Oklahoma this week, and more than 211 million people across the country will experience heat of 90 degrees or higher on Wednesday.

In a year when record-breaking heat waves have become commonplace, scientific research has shown that climate change is behind the uptick in their frequency and duration.

“While each heat wave itself is different, and has individual dynamics behind it, the probability of these events is a direct consequence of the warming planet,” Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist for the Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, told ABC News.

Residents of Texas, a state that has been subjected to daily triple-digit temperatures and is in the midst of a mega-drought affecting much of the West, have for weeks been asked to conserve water and electricity.

As in much of Europe, where local officials have urged residents to avoid unnecessary travel as a heat wave there has buckled roadways, airport runways and rail lines, people in several U.S. states have retreated inside air-conditioned spaces.

“When it’s 110 outside, you’re a prisoner in your home,” Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, told the Washington Post. “Is this the kind of life you want to live?”

Like Texas, Oklahoma has been particularly hard hit by the heat, with every one of the state’s 120 weather monitoring stations recording temperatures of 102°F or higher on Tuesday.

Coupled with high humidity, the high temperatures pose a serious risk to human health. The human body sweats in order to cool off, but when humidity is high and there is too much moisture in the atmosphere, that sweat cannot evaporate and results in even higher internal temperatures.

Over the last several days in Spain and Portugal, where temperatures have reached near 110°F, more than 1,700 people have died due to heat-related causes.

Officials in Phoenix are worried that the city will once again break heat-death records this year, especially among the vulnerable homeless population.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we are in worse shape from a heat-associated-death standpoint than we were last year because there are so many more unsheltered folks that are at 200 to 300 times the risk of heat-associated death,” David Hondula, director of the city’s Office of Heat Response and Mitigation, told Yahoo News.

While climate change skeptics often argue that excessive heat is simply a normal seasonal consequence, scientists have established that the burning of fossil fuels since the start of the Industrial Revolution is responsible for rising temperatures.

This year alone, there have been 92 new high-temperature records set in the U.S., compared with just five new records for low temperatures. That same pattern has played out across the planet, with 188 new high-temperature marks having been set through July 16 as compared with 18 new record lows, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows.

Of course, that would be exactly what you would expect if, as has been proved, global temperatures are rising. In states sweltering in triple-digit heat, meanwhile, the reality of climate change is playing out in real time.

“It looks like we’re going to stay in the range of highs of 100 to 105 degrees for the next week and a half,” Erin Maxwell, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Norman, told the Oklahoman. “But in terms of real relief from the heat, that doesn’t look to be on the horizon any time soon.”

Russia’s mass kidnappings of Ukrainians are a page out of a wartime playbook – and evidence of genocide

The Conversation

Russia’s mass kidnappings of Ukrainians are a page out of a wartime playbook – and evidence of genocide

Alexander Hinton, Distinguished Prof. of Anthropology; Director, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University – Newark

July 20, 2022

A woman runs from a house on fire after shelling in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in June 2022. <a href= — A woman runs from a house on fire after shelling in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in June 2022. AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov

Following months of speculation, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed on July 13, 2022, that Russia had forcibly relocated between 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainians into Russia.

Blinken cited various sources, including eyewitness accounts and the Russian government, to confirm that Russia is removing Ukrainians from their country and making them pass through filtration camps, where some are detained and even disappear.

Approximately 260,000 of these Ukrainian deportees are children, including orphans and others separated from their parents.

Blinken, in addition to major human rights organizations, says the Russian deportations may be a war crime.

Russia acknowledges that it has moved Ukrainian adults and children out of the war-torn country, but has said the moves are “voluntary” and done for “humanitarian” reasons.

But Russia has a history of forcibly moving large numbers of civilians as a war and political tactic.

Other aggressors of war have also forced civilians to move for various reasons – like eliminating a perceived security threat, or the potential to grab the wealth, possessions and property the deportees are forced to leave behind.

In the process of achieving these two aims, perpetrators often commit atrocity crimes, a broad international legal term that encompasses war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Distinct but overlapping, these atrocity crimes can all involve mass deportation. The United Nations’ definition of genocide includes the forced transfer of children.

Russia’s mass deportation of Ukrainians implicates it in all three of these crimes.

Ukrainian soldiers stand in front of a damaged residential building in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on July 19, 2022. <a href= — Ukrainian soldiers stand in front of a damaged residential building in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on July 19, 2022. Nariman El-Mofty/Associated Press

Deporting for economic gain

In international law, mass deportation refers to coerced, large-scale population movements across a country’s borders. Forced transfer involves moving groups of people within a country.

Often an agressor’s aim is to seize land. As I note in It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US, the U.S. has forcibly moved people more than once.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830, for example, authorized the mass deportation of as many as 80,000 Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to the Indian Territory, much of which is now part of Oklahoma. This forced migration resulted in enormous suffering and death.

The U.S. later deported or forcibly transferred other groups, including more than 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. The U.S. also moved millions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico in the 1930s and ‘40s and again in 1954. These deportations were justified by the false claim that Mexicans were stealing American jobs.

People burn leaves at the Manzanar Japanese American internment camp in California in 1943. <a href= — People burn leaves at the Manzanar Japanese American internment camp in California in 1943. Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Deporting ‘security threats’

A second motive for forcibly moving a population is the perceived threat posed by demonized groups.

This was the United States’ justification for Japanese internment.

But there are many other historical examples, such as the Ottoman Empire’s World War I deportation of Armenians and other Christian groups.

The Nazis also undertook mass deportations and population transfers during the Holocaust, most infamously through train transports of Jews to death camps in Poland. They also carried out death marches at the end of the war.

I have conducted research on the Khmer Rouge Communist regime in Cambodia, in power from 1975 through 1979.

Immediately after the Khmer Rouge seized power, they forced over 2 million urban dwellers to relocate into the countryside, in part due to falsified security concerns.

Nazis notoriously carried out a large-scale forced deportation of Jews and others to concentration camps. <a href= — Nazis notoriously carried out a large-scale forced deportation of Jews and others to concentration camps. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Russia’s mass deportations and filtration camps

Now, as Blinken and others have noted, Russia has established at least 18 filtration camps, where they take Ukrainian deportees’ biometric data, which are unique, physical characteristics, like fingerprints.

These camps serve to filter out people Russia deems dangerous, including members of the Ukrainian military, government and media. Those identified as suspect are often harassed, abused and even tortured.

Ukrainians have reportedly disappeared following their entry to the camps.

Eyewitnesses say that those deported from Russia also face harsh conditions and have little choice about where they go.

There are also reports that some of the Ukrainian children have been placed for adoption in Russia.

Still, it is difficult for outsiders to talk with the victims and get detailed accounts, since many deportees have been sent to remote areas of Russia without their phones or Ukrainian passports.

Russia’s playbook

Mass deportation and forced transfers of civilians are considered crimes against humanity under international law when undertaken in a “widespread or systematic” manner during peace or war. Such deportations and population transfers are also considered war crimes if committed during armed conflict.

There is substantial evidence that Russia has committed both of these crimes, given the deportations and additional widespread attacks on Ukrainian civilians, including rapes and other kinds of sexual violence.

In addition, one part of genocide is “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Russia’s deportation of orphans and children separated from parents would constitute such a crime if there is genocidal intent.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments that he wants to “denazify” Ukraine suggest such intent is present.

Russia’s mass deportations should not be surprising.

In the past, Russia has repeatedly committed genocide and other international crimes while forcibly moving people for economic gain and to deal with perceived threats. These aims connect to Russia’s long-standing imperialist ambitions.

In the mid-1800s, for example, the Russian Empire deported hundreds of thousands of Circassians, a North Caucasus group, into the Ottoman Empire. Russia also forcibly relocated numerous other groups, including Ukrainians, during the period of the Soviet Union.

In Ukraine, then, Russia is taking a page out of a well-worn wartime playbook. There are indications that this time Russia may be held to account.

Russia’s crimes are being investigated by the International Criminal Court. And, almost immediately after Russia’s invasion, Ukraine began gathering evidence of Russian atrocity crimes. Ukraine has documented more than 23,000 war crimes cases against Russia, and 14 European countries have launched investigations.

Russia’s mass deportations, and especially its forced transfer of children, are central to the case that Russia has also committed genocide in Ukraine.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Alexander Hinton, Rutgers University – Newark .

London wakes up to the grim realities of heat wave hell

CBS News

London wakes up to the grim realities of heat wave hell

CBS News – July 20, 2022

London — Some European nations were still battling their worst wildfires in decades Wednesday as the U.K. woke up to relief after its hottest day on record. As CBS News correspondent Ramy Inocencio reports, flames have torn through tinder dry brush in an area covering thousands of miles from Greece to Portugal.

The widespread heat wave that fueled those flames stretched all the way up to Scotland on Tuesday, delivering record-high temperatures in towns and cities across Britain and leaving Londoners shocked to see their town hit by the same kind of bushfires they’ve grown accustomed to watching on the news.

Charred ground and gutted homes in the British capital were testament to the fact that even the stereotypically damp and dreary U.K., where umbrellas and overcoats are more commonplace than air-conditioners, cannot escape the consequences of a rapidly warming climate.

Houses destroyed in a major fire in Wennington, Greater London, England, are seen on July 20, 2022. Fires broke out across London amid record-breaking heat the previous day. / Credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty

Rare wildfires burned and billowed across London on Tuesday as much of England endured 100-plus-degree heat. A new temperature record was set in the town of Coningsby, in eastern England, at 40.3 Celsius, which is over 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

As much of the country has gone a month or more with barely a drop of rain, the scorching temperatures were all it took to ignite matchstick-dry grass and brush in back yards and along highways.

The London Fire Brigade worked its busiest day since World War II, with firefighters responding to more than 2,600 calls and fighting 12 fires simultaneously at one point, according to Mayor Sadiq Khan.

At least 41 properties were destroyed by the fires in London, the mayor said, and 16 firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation or other injuries.

Dee Ncube and her family fled their burning neighborhood in the capital, leaving everything behind. She told Inocencio the only time she’d seen anything like it was in movies or on TV.

“We’ve got nothing, everything’s gone,” Timothy Stock, whose home was among those lost to the flames in the village of Wennington, in Greater London, told CBS News partner network BBC News.

Government cabinet minister Kit Malthouse told other members of Britain’s parliament on Wednesday that 13 people died amid the heat wave after “getting into difficulty in rivers, reservoirs and lakes while swimming in recent days — seven of them teenage boys.”

But while many Londoners were shocked by the extreme heat, people who study the Earth’s changing climate were not.

“This is it, right? This is the climate change that we’ve been promised by scientists,” Dr. Michal Nachmany, a climate policy expert at the London School of Economics, told CBS News. “This level of extreme weather is life threatening, and we really want to make sure that people are not under any illusion that this is serious, and this is here to stay.”

Climate campaigners were also keen to stress Tuesday’s extremes as a warning of danger ahead, and a call to action.

Demonstrators from a protest group called “Just Stop Oil” climbed onto metal framework for signs over the M25, one of Britain’s busiest highways, which encircles London, causing a long traffic backup Wednesday morning.

The group said it was sorry about the disruption for morning commuters, but it declared the M25 “a site of civil resistance,” and warned there would be more protests in the coming days. “This is the moment when climate inaction is truly revealed in all its murderous glory for everyone to see: as an elite-driven death project that will extinguish all life if we let it,” the group said in a statement, announcing its action and demand that the U.K. government stop investing in fossil fuel extraction.

Other countries further south were still battling major blazes on Wednesday that erupted last week. Thousands have died and tens of thousands have been evacuated.

Firefighters in southwest France were still battling twin blazes that cover ground twice the size of Paris for a ninth straight day on Wednesday, but weather conditions improved there overnight, too, and officials said they were gaining control.

“Our assessment is generally positive. The situation improved overnight,” local fire service spokesman Arnaud Mendousse told reporters, according to The Associated Press. President Emmanuel Macron was set to visit the hard-hit Gironde region on Wednesday, where the fires have driven about 37,000 people from their homes. Spain and Portugal were still recording new deaths from the extreme heat and fires, with the toll already well over 1,000.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Wednesday that “more than 500 people died because of such high temperatures” over the last week or so in his country, citing a statistical analysis by a public health institute.

“I ask citizens to exercise extreme caution,” said Sanchez, adding that the “climate emergency is a reality.”

A wildfire burns near a house in Ntrafi, Athens, Greece, July 19, 2022. / Credit: COSTAS BALTAS/REUTERS

Further west, police in Greece ran door to door, shouting at residents to flee just north of Athens as a fire approached.

Evacuations continued in Italy, also, where fires were still growing and temperatures haven’t yet started to ease.

While the worst of the heat wave appeared to be over for much of Western Europe, with temperatures dropping dramatically overnight from the north of Britain to the south of France, climate experts and campaigners were desperate to get the point across that while this week has been an exception, these exceptions are expected to become more common — and get even hotter.

Ukrainian forces strike key bridge in Russia-occupied south

Independent

Ukrainian forces strike key bridge in Russia-occupied south

Via AP news wire – July 20, 2022

Russia Ukraine War (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Ukrainian forces have struck and seriously damaged a bridge that is key for supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine, a regional official said Wednesday.

Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Moscow-backed temporary administration for the Russia-controlled southern Kherson region, said the Ukrainian military struck the bridge across the Dnipro River with missiles Wednesday, scoring 11 hits.

He said in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency that the bridge sustained serious damage but it wasn’t closed for traffic.

Stremousov said that the Ukrainian forces used the U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to strike the bridge, adding that some of them were intercepted by Russian air defenses.

Wednesday’s shelling of the Antonivskyi Bridge was the second in as many days. It was lightly damaged by Ukrainian shelling a day earlier, according to the Moscow-backed authorities in Kherson.

Early in the war, Russian troops quickly overtook the Kherson region just north of the Crimean Peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. They have faced Ukrainian counterattacks, but have largely held their ground.

The 1.4-kilometer (0.9-mile) bridge is the main one across the Dnieper River, and if it’s made unusable it would be hard for the Russian military to keep supplying its forces in the region amid repeated Ukrainian attacks.

The British Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the bridge was likely still usable after the Ukrainian strikes, but it is a “key vulnerability for Russian Forces,.”

“It is one of only two road crossing points over the Dnieper by which Russia can supply or withdraw its forces in the territory it has occupied west of the river,” it added. “Control of Dnieper crossings is likely to become a key factor in the outcome of fighting in the region.”

The Ukrainian attacks on the bridge in Kherson come as the bulk of the Russian forces are stuck in the fighting in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas where they have made slow gains facing fierce Ukrainian resistance.

Russia’s ground advance has slowed, in part because Ukraine is using more effective U.S. weapons and in part because of what Russian President Vladimir Putin has called an “operational pause.” Russia has been focusing more on aerial bombardment using long-range missiles.

Ukrainian officials voiced hope that Kyiv could drain the Russian military resources in the fight for Donbas and then launch a counteroffensive to reclaim control of the Kherson region and parts of the Zaporizhzhia region that the Russians seized early in the war.

With indications that Ukraine is planning counterattacks to retake occupied areas, the Russian military in recent weeks has targeted the Black Sea port of Odesa and parts of southern Ukraine where its troops captured cities earlier in the war.

Kherson — site of a major ship-building industry at the confluence of the Dnieper River and the Black Sea near Russian-annexed Crimea — is one of several areas a U.S. government spokesman said Russia is trying to annex. Following months of local rumors and announcements about a Russian referendum, White House national security council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials have amassed “ample” new evidence that Russia is looking formally to annex additional Ukraine territory and could hold a “sham” public vote as soon as September. Russia is eyeing Kherson as well as the entirety of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

“Russia is laying the groundwork to annex Ukrainian territory that it controls in direct violation of Ukraine sovereignty,” Kirby said in Washington.

Kirby also said the White House is expected to announce more military aid for Ukraine later this week. The aid is expected to include more HIMARS systems, a critical weapon Ukrainian forces have been using with success in their fight to repel Russian troops.

Direct hit! Pop song sings the praises of Himars, the rocket that has the Russians on the hop

The Telegraph

Direct hit! Pop song sings the praises of Himars, the rocket that has the Russians on the hop

Nataliya Vasilyeva – July 19, 2022

Ukrainian officials have credited Western arms supplies, including the Himars, for 'stabilising' the situation on the front line — Ukrainian officials have credited Western arms supplies, including the Himars, for ‘stabilising’ the situation on the front line

The invaluable contribution of US-made artillery launchers in Ukraine has been immortalised in a pop song in yet another creative tribute to Western-supplied weapons.

Ukrainians have lauded the Himars artillery units for several recent successful attacks on Russian targets, including killing several high-ranking officers.

Now a music video has emerged featuring footage of the rockets being fired while a deep baritone sings about its battlefield successes.

“Hi-Mars! Our trusted ally from America is here. Do you want to meet him?”

“He’s channeling all of our anger. He’s sending rocket after rocket on our treacherous enemies. Hi-Mars! La la la la.”

The song was written by Taras Borovko, who previously wrote a similar song glorifying the Turkish-made combat drone Bayraktar TB2 that went viral online.

It goes on to deride the Russian army while Ukrainian troops are seen firing more salvoes.

“The occupiers are concocting their plans at the HQ/Then they hear the bang! Hi-Mars!”

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief on Tuesday credited Western arms supplies for “stabilising” the situation on the front almost five months into the war.

“An important factor contributing to our holding our defence lines and positions is the timely arrival of the M142 Himars, delivering targeted strikes against enemy command posts, ammunition and fuel deposits,” General Valeriy Zaluzhny said in a statement after a phone call with the chairman of the US Joints Chiefs of Staff.

Ukrainian activists have created countless memes about weaponry to boost morale and rally the population in the face of Russia’s devastating invasion.

In another example of Western-made weapons turning into pop icons, a Canadian marketer in March created an image of the Virgin Mary cradling a US-made Javelin anti-tank missile that he dubbed “Saint Javelin”.

Saint Javelin - Getty Images — Saint Javelin – Getty Images

The Canadian man has since raised over $1 million for relief efforts in Ukraine by selling “Saint Javelin” stickers and sweatshirts.

In arguably the best-known meme, a Ukrainian officer was caught in a recorded radio conversation rebuffing an invitation from the crew of a Russian warship to surrender the garrison of Snake Island in the Black Sea.

Ukraine’s national postal service has since issued stamps with “Russia warship, go f— yourself!” while some Ukrainian officials were spotted wearing T-shirts with the catchphrase.

U.S. to send four more HIMARS to Ukraine

Reuters

U.S. to send four more HIMARS to Ukraine

Idrees Ali – July 20, 2022

FILE PHOTO: U.S. military forces fire a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) rocket during the annual Philippines-US live fire amphibious landing exercise (PHIBLEX) at Crow Valley in Capas, Tarlac province, north of Manila — U.S. military forces fire a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) rocket during the annual Philippines-US live fire amphibious landing exercise (PHIBLEX) at Crow Valley in Capas, Tarlac province, north of Manila

Hershel "Woody" Williams lies in honor, in Washington — Hershel “Woody” Williams lies in honor, in Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will send four more high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday, in the latest military package to help it defend itself against Russian forces.

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier this week ordered generals to prioritize destroying Ukraine’s long-range missiles and artillery after Western-supplied weapons were used to strike Russian supply lines.

Nearly five months since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion, Russian forces are grinding through the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and occupy around a fifth of the country.

“(We) will keep finding innovative ways to sustain our long-term support for the brave men and women of the Ukrainian armed forces and we will tailor our assistance to ensure that Ukraine has the technology, the ammunition and the sheer firepower to defend itself,” Austin said at the start of a virtual meeting with allies on Ukraine.

The West has supplied Ukraine with longer-range heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems so it can hold out despite Russian artillery supremacy in numbers and ammunition.

Ukraine says it has carried out successful strikes on 30 Russian logistics and ammunitions hubs, using several multiple launch rocket systems recently supplied by the West.

In a press conference after the meeting, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said Ukraine had used HIMARS to hit Russian command and control nodes, logistic network and air defense sites within Ukraine.

About 200 Ukrainian forces had been trained on the HIMARS and none of the systems had been destroyed by Russian forces, Milley said.

He added an issue would be the rate of ammunition being used by Ukrainian forces, though there would be no impact on the readiness of the United States in the next couple of months at the current rate.

Milley said the Donbas region had not been lost by Ukrainians yet and described it as a “grinding war of attrition.”

HIMARS have a longer range and are more precise than the Soviet-era artillery that Ukraine has had in its arsenal.

Austin said the new package would also include rounds for Multiple Launch Rocket Systems as well as artillery munitions.

The latest package would bring the total number of HIMARS the United States has provided to Ukraine to 16.

The United States has provided $8 billion in security assistance since the war began, including $2.2 billion in the last month.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow’s military “tasks” in Ukraine now went beyond the eastern Donbas region, in the clearest acknowledgment yet that it has expanded its war goals.

Austin said Lavrov’s comments appeared to be aimed at the Russian population.

“That’s not a surprise to any of us or anybody in Europe or anybody around the globe, I think he’s talking to the people in Russia who have been ill informed throughout,” Austin told reporters.

The United States and allies are starting to examine possible training for Ukrainian pilots as part of a project to help build a future Ukrainian air force, Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles “CQ” Brown told Reuters.

A number of different options were being looked at on helping Ukrainian troops, including training for pilots, but no decision had been made, Milley said.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh and Mike Stone; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Andrew Cawthorne and Grant McCool)

One Russian warplane downed, 200 more soldiers liquidated, reports General Staff

The New Voice of Ukraine

One Russian warplane downed, 200 more soldiers liquidated, reports General Staff

July 20, 2022

The invaders suffered the greatest losses during the day on the Bakhmut axis.

The Russian military also lost almost 11,000 pieces of equipment, including:

Tanks — 1,700 (+9)
Armored fighting vehicles — 3,905 (+13)
Artillery systems — 856 (+5)
Multiple launch rocket systems — 250 (+2)
Air defense systems — 113 (+0)
Warplanes — 221 (+1)
Helicopters — 188 (+0)
UAV operational-tactical level — 703 (+10)
Cruise missiles — 167 (+1)
Warships/boats — 15 (+0)
Motor vehicles and fuel tankers — 2,775 (+8)
Specialized military equipment — 70 (+0).

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. July 20 is the 147th day of full-scale war. Russian forces initially tried to advance from the north, east, and south, shelling peaceful cities throughout Ukraine using artillery and bombing them from the air.

During this time, the Kremlin has changed the goals of its war in Ukraine several times. After the failed operation to seize Kyiv and then the retreat of its troops from Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy oblasts, Russian forces concentrated on fighting for the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, which were under Ukrainian governmental control before the full-scale Russian invasion.

Kherson remains the only provincial capital under Russian control. Russian forces maintain their hold on parts of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv oblasts.

In some areas, Ukrainian troops are launching counteroffensives, and the Russian army is suffering losses.

Insubordination and drunkenness are rampant in Russian units General Staff report

Ukrayinska Pravda

Insubordination and drunkenness are rampant in Russian units General Staff report

Anastasiia Kalatur – July 20, 2022

The command of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Federation is carrying out preventive measures due to the very low level of military discipline in the units, and drunkenness and insubordination against the orders of commanders are rampant.

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of 06.00 on 20 July

Details: There is a shortage of ammunition, food and water in units of the Russian forces.

There are no significant changes in the Russian occupying forces’ activity on the Volyn, Polissia, and Sivershchyna fronts. Russian soldiers hit the areas of Mykolaivka in Chernihiv Oblast, and Volfyne, Yastrubyne and Pavlivka in Sumy Oblast, using tube and rocket artillery.

On the Kharkiv front, the invaders have fired at the areas of the settlements of Mospanove, Petrivka, Ruski Tyshky, Bazaliivka, Pechenihy, Tsyrkuny, Pytomnyk, Dementiivka, Korobochkyne and Prudianka.

On the Sloviansk front, shelling from tanks and artillery was recorded near Dolyna, Krasnopillia, Kostiantynivka, Chepil, Husarivka and Adamivka.

On the Donetsk front, the aggressor shelled the areas of settlements of Kramatorsk, Siversk, Serebrianka, Hryhorivka, Verkhnokamianske, Spirne, Ivano-Darivka, using tube and rocket artillery. They also carried out an airstrike near Verkhnokamianske. Russian soldiers are leading an assault in the area of Ivano-Darivka, hostilities continue.

On the Bakhmut front, the occupiers are conducting combat operations to create conditions for an attack on Bakhmut and to seize the territory of the Vuhlehirska power station. Shelling was carried out from tube and rocket artillery and tanks in the areas of the settlements of Berestove, Bilohorivka, Yakovlivka, Pokrovske, Soledar, Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, Vesela Dolyna, and Kodema. The Russian forces carried out airstrikes on Berestove, Yakovlivka, Bakhmut, Vershyna, New-York and Pokrovske.

Fighting continues in the area of the settlements of Berestove, Vershyna and Novoluhanske.

On the Avdiivka, Novopavlivka, and Zaporizhzhia fronts, there was shelling in the areas of the settlements of Novobakhmutivka, Vuhledar, Novopil, Poltavka, Huliaipole, Kamianske, and a number of others. The Russian invaders launched an airstrike near Avdiivka. Russian soldiers conducted reconnaissance-in-force near Novoselivka Druha and advanced towards Mykilske, but they had no success and retreated.

On the Pivdennyi Buh front, the Russian army maintains a high intensity of reconnaissance with drones. There are three Kalibr cruise missile carriers in the Black Sea area outside the naval bases. Reciprocal shelling from tube, rocket artillery and tanks continues along the entire front line. The Russian forces launched missile and air strikes in the area of Murakhivka.

Justice Thomas’ lusterless tenure began with a lie. It keeps getting worse.

The Columbus Dispatch

Justice Thomas’ lusterless tenure began with a lie. It keeps getting worse. |Opinion

Michael M. Lederman – July 19, 2022

Abortion-rights protesters demonstrate near the home of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in Fairfax Station, Va. on June 24, 2022, after the Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortions. — Abortion-rights protesters demonstrate near the home of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in Fairfax Station, Va. on June 24, 2022, after the Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortions.

Dr. Michael M. Lederman is professor of medicine (emeritus) and biomedical ethics at Case Western Reserve University. He is editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Pathogens and Immunity.

Clarence Thomas should not be on the Supreme Court.

He was approved to sit on the court by a timid Democrat majority Senate that was afraid to conclude that this Black man had sexually harassed a colleague, Anita Hill.

More: Petition calls for impeachment of Chatham’s Clarence Thomas. Can you impeach a Supreme Court justice?

The truth of the matter is undetermined but to my eye and in the eyes of many, Professor Anita Hill (and two other women) were telling us the truth and Judge Thomas was lying.

Clarence Thomas, then a Supreme Court nominee, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his 1991 confirmation hearing.

A terrible start for a Supreme Court justice and it did not get any better. His tenure on the Supreme Court has been lusterless. For many years, he would not even write an opinion and his writings have been largely pedestrian or extremist.

Law professor Anita Hill testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol hill Oct. 11, 1991. In a 1994 book titled " Strange Justice, The selling of Clarence Thomas," written by two Wall Street Journal reporters, the authors revealed that Thomas' volatile Supreme Court confirmation hearings raise fresh questions about his denial that he had talked dirty to Hill while she worked for him as an aide at two government agencies in the 1980s. — Law professor Anita Hill testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol hill Oct. 11, 1991. In a 1994 book titled ” Strange Justice, The selling of Clarence Thomas,” written by two Wall Street Journal reporters, the authors revealed that Thomas’ volatile Supreme Court confirmation hearings raise fresh questions about his denial that he had talked dirty to Hill while she worked for him as an aide at two government agencies in the 1980s.

His wife – Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a refugee from an 80’s cult – is a danger to America who has placed Justice Thomas proximate to sedition. Ginni Thomas has worked relentlessly to undermine the outcome of the 2020 presidential election using lies and misrepresentations to urge electors to resist the legitimate transition of government.

More: Clarence Thomas’ wife asks Anita Hill for apology

This is an embarrassment to the court.

But even worse is Clarence Thomas’s refusal to recuse himself from deliberations that address this very election.

Most recently, Thomas delivered the majority opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, finding that the right to carry concealed handguns in public for the purpose of self-defense is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Michael M. Lederman, M.D., is professor of medicine (emeritus) and biomedical ethics at Case Western Reserve University. He is editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Pathogens and Immunity.

More: How to submit guest opinion columns to the Columbus Dispatch

Justice Thomas (and other conservative justices) deliberately misunderstand the Second Amendment. None of the other nine amendments to the Constitution that comprise the Bill of Rights requires justification; those are self-evident and fundamental.

The Second Amendment alone has an explanatory introduction: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,” the Amendment begins, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

Nowhere in the Amendment is self-defense mentioned.

More: Supreme Court justices don’t have a code of ethics. Hundreds of judges say that’s a problem

If the framers of Bill of Rights understood that that the right to keep and bear arms was fundamental, why was this unique introduction even warranted?

In the 2008 Heller decision, the unique importance of this introduction is simply ignored as nearly accidental and a labyrinth of decisions is used to link the Amendment to the use of arms in activities such as self-defense. When applied to the original words of the framers, this is sophistry.

Thomas is marinated in conflicts of interest that render impartiality risible. He has been a headliner for the Eagle Forum (an anti-abortion organization) and the conservative Council for National Policy.

He gave a keynote speech at a fundraiser for the conservative Manhattan Institute and has a longstanding relationship with the Heritage Foundation.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, left and his wife Virginia Thomas, right, on Feb. 20, 2016. Virginia Thomas sent weeks of text messages imploring White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to act to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

His wife has prominent roles in a number of conservative activist organizations and she was actively engaged in promoting the Jan. 6, 2021, Ellipse rally that ultimately resulted in the violent assault on the Capitol. Mrs. Thomas has given at least $13,000 to support Republicans seeking elected office.

More: What ties does Ginni Thomas, the Supreme Court justice’s wife, have to Jan. 6?

Apparently, Thomas’ colleagues have been unable or unwilling to get Thomas to recuse himself when conflicted.

His service on the court offers a compelling argument for term limits, if not impeachment.

Dr. Michael M. Lederman is professor of medicine (emeritus) and biomedical ethics at Case Western Reserve University. He is editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Pathogens and Immunity.