PMC Commentary

"Everything was going fine" - Putin, yesterday, appreciating the West's indifference to Russia's evils

Yesterday was quite a day for Vladimir Putin's famous personality of nonchalance, particularly when it comes to international affairs.

In a vertiginous reversal of what his foreign minister and all his little foreign-relations apparatchiks had been saying, yesterday Putin said that "there’s nothing that might concern us in terms of Finland and Sweden becoming NATO members. If they want to then please, go ahead." (CNBC)

As you may recall, his government had maintained that the mere prospect of Finland and Sweden's NATO membership was intolerable to peace-loving Russia. Now, however, Putin is emphasizing intolerability only "if NATO infrastructure and troops are deployed" in the two nations; then "we will be compelled to respond in kind and create the same threats for [those] territories." Added Putin: "Don’t they understand that?"

He then declared that "everything was going fine between us, but now there will be tensions." Putin appeared to forget — correction: he feigned obliviousness to — the five-month-old tensions created by his atrocious war on Ukraine: an illegal invasion, the slaughter of civilians, internationally outlawed cluster bombs, and more.

Yet strangely enough, he may have had a point about "everything was going fine between" the West and Russia before his current, despotic war. But that was only because the West chose to overlook his criminal brutalities in the Russo-Georgian and Chechan Wars. It was the West's obliviousness that likely contributed to Putin's sensation of freedom to kill just that in Ukraine.  

Since the rise, threats, and explosive mass-murder of global fascism in the 1930s and 1940s, Western leaders have prided themselves on asserting, Never again. Henceforth the West would be wary, vigilant, and prepared to militarily dismantle the very kind of fascistic, Russian-warmongering web that Putin had been spinning for years and that he's spinning again, in Ukraine, and no differently from how spidery Hitler crept across the country.

And when Vladimir Putin's Ukrainian evils are successfully done — largely because NATO has been tardy and miserly with its weaponry — the West will assert again, "Never again."

The Environmental Whatever Agency

Ponder, for a moment, this factual statement from Politico:

"The Supreme Court [ruled today, 6-3] ... that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have broad authority to curb planet-warming pollution from power plants."

The Environmental. Protection. Agency. has been stripped of its authority to Curb. Planet. Pollution. (Oh, and to hell with the planet in general.)

What, pray tell, is the EPA's authority? To curb spits on the sidewalk? No, that can't be it. This squalid, "demonstrably erroneous" Court would only find a personal right that extends to one's sidewalk spitting, though not to women's sovereignty over their bodies.

Our 6-3 Court of planet-boiling, industrial-era-choking pollution is playing a devilishly clever game of Catch-22, or rather Catch-50. It ruled that Congress must provide specific authority to the EPA to prevent us from dying early deaths from anything but Blue Skies. (The EPA's other authorities, such as overseeing clean water, will, presumably, also go down.) Which of course Congress shall never do, because if minority Republicans in the Senate don't filibuster it, majority Republicans in Congress would see that it's tabled. 

But if, by some political miracle — perhaps because millions of us begin dropping like gnats from contaminated water, poisonous air and heat exhaustion — Congress does approve such extraordinarily sensible EPA authority, the Court would then find that said authority should be left to the local industry-controlled states, not the federal legislature.

Hence, hoping to hang on to our vastly endangered health, we'll soon be taking bike rides in environments like this.

Texas gays, beware: your state is coming for you

If you're gay and have the misfortunate of living in Texas, welcome back to the late late Middle Ages. In league with America's High Court of Inquisitional Pecksniffery, Texas state Attorney General Girolamo Savonarola, a.k.a. Ken Paxton, is gearing up for another tempestuous bonfire of the inanities — a pyrotechnic display of just how backward a culturally isolated and politically arrested bunch of Christianist bullies can be.

Following the High Court's abolition of our second-class citizens' rights, immediate speculation commenced about the inquisitional panel's abolition of other constitutionally guaranteed and Nature-given liberties. Among them is the freedom to engage in same-sex relationships. We're not talking same-sex marriage here, just sexual coupling, a behavior that humans of all intimate stripes have enjoyed since humans have been on earth.

Enter the Texas attorney general and, for that matter, Texas itself and the Christianist bullies who run it. The latter are keen to revisit the state's criminalization of same-sex togetherness, outlawed by what was formerly known as the U.S. Supreme Court in the same year as Roe, 1973, in the case of Lawrence v. Texas.

A.G. Paxton says he'll not only defend the resurrection of his state's anti-sodomy law, he strongly implies he would be strongly in favor of its resumption. "Certainly the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don’t think there’s any constitutional provision dealing with," says Paxton. "They were legislative issues, and this is one of those issues.... Look, my job is to defend state law, and I’ll continue to do that."

Paxton also expresses unhappiness at "George Soros district attorneys" who have vowed to uphold legal decency by refusing to prosecute women for exercising control over their own bodies.

Parenthetically, a word of television-news caution. A.G. Paxton said these asinine things in an interview with NewsNation's Leland Vittert. The network has heavily promoted itself as a nonideological outlet, just as Fox News did in its earlier years. And it's a lie, just as Fox News' self-promotion was a lie. A Variety piece of last year reported that NewsNation — formerly WGN — was undergoing staff resignations in protest of its "conservative bias." Indeed, anchor Leland Vittert worked for Fox News for 12 years, and NewsNation hired former Fox News executive Bill Shine as a consultant.

As for the Texas legislature — which represents only the state's white, Christianist minority — and Attorney General Ken Paxton? If you're gay, look out. Because they're both coming for you.

Do the West's "values and interests" not include wiping Putin off the map of all Europe?

If a European nation is lucky enough to be a NATO member — Ukraine, which desperately needs allied security, is not — then that nation will be pleased by the United States's announcement of its largest military expansion on the continent since the Cold War. The U.S. mobilization is designed to discourage Vladimir Putin from doing to free, democratic countries in Western, Central and Eastern Europe what he's presently doing so brutally to Ukraine, in Europe's eastern part.

"The announcement," reports The Wall Street Journal (paywalled), "follows a NATO pledge this week to increase its high-readiness forces sevenfold." Said President Biden at the opening of the NATO summit, "We’re stepping up. We’re proving that NATO is more needed now than it ever has been." Given Putin's geopolitical and military recklessness of late, Biden's insight is indisputable — although, as noted, it's also conditional. NATO currently protects European nations at peace with Russia; those being bruised, bloodied and shelled daily by Russian forces are mostly on their own. 

The defense alliance's updated document, "Strategic Concept," declares that Russia and China's now-closer relationship "run[s] counter to our values and interests." This is specially true within the borders of countries being invaded by Putin, who is seeing economic assistance from China, which facilitates his war machine. Russia might someday receive China's military assistance, too, assuming President Xi can find a way around Western sanctions.

The U.S. will add rotational and, in a first, permanent troops to its now 100,000 troop deployment in Europe. It will also deploy more military hardware to its NATO partners, more Navy destroyers to Spain, a short-range air defense battery to Italy, and two squadrons of F-35 jet fighters to the U.K. According to the Center for Arms Control, the cost, "including ancillary costs like depot maintenance, ground support equipment, and spare parts is $110.3 million per F-35A, $135.8 million per F-35B, and $117.3 million per F-35C."

Two squadrons consist of between 36 and 48 fighter planes. Assuming the squadrons' average of 42 planes, and each plane's average cost of $121 million, the U.S.'s total cost will run in excess of a half-billion dollars. Last summer there were five, MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets available on the open market. The U.S. could probably still pick up these little beauties at individual prices ranging from $2.5 million — "less than the sticker on a Bugatti Chiron supercar" — to $4.65 million "for a fully certified, fully flying 1986 model." Ukraine could use them; it's a bit economically oppressed right now, since Putin's activities are running counter to Ukraine and the West's "values and interests."

President Zelensky addressed NATO's gathering today via video, perfectly articulating what the West has failed to sufficiently grasp. "[Russia] must not be present in the international bodies that it wants to destroy," he said. "Ukraine needs security guarantees, so a place for Ukraine in the common security space should be found." Security guarantees + common security space = NATO. And after four-plus months of Russia's pounding invasion of Ukraine, the auxiliary verb should must be must. For if the United States is willing to secure freedom and democracy in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, it must also be willing to protect all free, democratic nations within those neighborhoods, NATO membership or not.

The present future of Republican politics (with !!!s, and more !!!s)

"Tina Peters, the Colorado county clerk who flogged election conspiracy theories and was then indicted for allegedly breaching her own voting machines, lost her primary bid to become the secretary of state.

"It’s not over,' Peters reportedly told supporters at her watch party, while she was 15 points behind the actual winner, Pam Anderson, a former Jefferson County clerk.

"'I’m sorry we had faith in the system once again. [And] we didn’t lose, we just found evidence of more fraud … they’re cheating and we’ll prove it once again.'

"'Biggest fraud!!! We caught them!!!' [Mike] Lindell, the MyPillow mogul, frantically texted The Daily Beast late on Tuesday night, referring to the Peters race. 'We caught them in their fraud!!! Prison for Dominion!

"'How the votes came in. This is impossible!!!!!' he continued."

With this Court, might work

The West's conventional wisdom concerning Ukraine is just another Big Lie

​​​​​Tom Nichols — political commentator, major presence on Twitter, former academic with the U.S. Naval War College — has of late been guest-writing The Atlantic's evening wrap-up. In his last piece, titled "Homicidal Fury," he sets out to "remind the world that [the Russians] intend to continue their campaign of murder and destruction against civilians." He does so in an advisory, conventional wisdom kind of way, although I found little wisdom in his writing.

Its most glaring shortcoming is that of an awkward juxtaposition. Nichols opens by accurately noting the Stalinesque horrors of Vladimir Putin. Yet then, throughout the piece, he incongruously advises a good deal of caution by the West. What follows are the relevant passages.

"[Putin] has decided that the Ukrainians must be brutalized into submission and punished for resisting his rule," writes Nichols. "His bid to create a new (Soviet? Christian? Russian?) empire has devolved into nothing more than the homicidal fury of a humiliated old Mafia boss hiding behind the walls of the Kremlin."

All true, and all of it traumatizing to millions — as well as lethal to thousands — of innocent Ukrainians. "But what can be done?" asks Nichols. Here, besides offering the West's commonplace "wisdom" — "[We must] stand firm and stay calm" — he writes that the U.S. and its NATO partners "must thread a narrow needle." In more straightforward terms, he's advising restraint and reserve; that, in the face of Putin's Stalinesque horrors, which know nothing of either.

That is to say, Nichols recommends the most uneven of all wartime perspectives. The punishing, brutalizing Russian dictator is free to keep punishing and brutalizing at will, however the West must thread some sort of half-hearted, Putin-indulging, fine and narrow needle. Nichol's thematic juxtaposition is simply out of square, and there's no way to correct it within his boundaries of what Kant called "crooked timber" — of thought.

Though the former Naval War College professor can't square it, he does attempt to justify it. "Remember ... that the Russians have already lost this war," he writes. Then, oddly: "His goal is now to partition the country, expanding Russia’s occupation in the east while pummeling civilians until President Volodymyr Zelensky relinquishes more territory." What Nichols neglects — purposefully, I gather — is that Putin's revised goal, after the Kyiv calamity, is now within reach. And that's a far cry from Russia having "already lost this war." Or at least President Zelensky, 44 millions Ukrainians and a billion Westerners are rather unlikely to see it that way.

Then comes more of the conventional-head stuff: "The U.S. and NATO can do more by accelerating our assistance to Ukraine, including the weapons and training they need to fight back." Military analysts and geopolitical commentators have been saying that for four months, and now we're into five. It's not going to happen. Furthermore, Western leaders appear to be just fine with Putin's Ukrainian partition, his expansion of Russian territory in East Ukraine, and — because of the West's sin of proper weapons omission — his mass pummeling of Ukrainian civilians.

As for the West's civilians, we have been lied to — big time, as Dick Cheney would say. We've been fed spin, hypocrisy, platitudes, misdirection, mediocrity of thought masquerading as bold thinking, and timidity of action masquerading as intrepid activity. Far, far worse is that Ukraine has been lied to. Its freedom, democracy, self-determination and people have, from the start of this war, been on an auction block, in deference to Vladimir Putin's slaveholding regime.

Everythinggate: The Kitchen Sink v. Donald J. Trump

Star witness Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony before the Jan. 6 committee was that White House counsel Pat Cipollone had glumly told her, on 3 January 2021, that "We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable." Those words got me wondering what, more manageably, every imaginable criminal charge might be. After a bit of searching, turns out that Mr. Cipollone wasn't far off. Let's dive in.

For starters, Donald Trump is facing this trio of legal troubles, probably the most likely of criminal charges: Obstruction of a congressional proceeding — penalty, five years in prison; Defrauding the United States — penalty, five years in prison; Willfully inciting or urging others to engage in a riot — penalty, six months in prison, or, if the riot caused "serious bodily harm" (which it did) or more than $5,000 in property damage (which it did), 10 years in prison.

On 18 Feb. 2022, federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled that three civil suits filed by members of Congress and police officers could proceed against Trump for the violence of Jan. 6. But Judge Mehta additionally found that Trump could be criminally charged with aiding and abetting any Jan. 6 rioter who assaulted police officers. The president, wrote the judge, had created an "air of distrust and anger" through his incessant claims of a stolen election, which amounted to "a call to action." (NYT.)

Trump might also be charged with mishandling national security documents — merely one allegation he quite effectively made against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign. National Archives officials discovered that Trump had taken such documents from the White House to his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. In February 2022, the press asked the Republican National Committee about Trump's seeming hypocrisy. The RNC refused a reply. (NYT.)

In Georgia, Fulton County's (Atlanta) district attorney has convened a special grand jury to hear evidence about Trump's criminal attempt to overturn the state's presidential election of Joe Biden. (Newsweek.) The evidence is clear-cut: The sitting president — on tape — (unsuccessfully) instructed Georgia secretary of state to "find" 11,780 votes, thus changing the result. 

On 1 March 2022, the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington published a piece titled "President Trump’s staggering record of uncharged criminal misconduct." The article itemized 48 crimes alleged to have been committed by Trump "while he was serving as President of the United States or campaigning for that office." The offenses range from "Causing (or accepting) an individual contribution in excess of the lawful limit" to "Criminal violation of the Ethics in Government Act" to "Seditious conspiracy."

In the way of actual prosecution for any of Trump's criminal activities, former Justice Department official Alan Rozenshtein had this thought: "There’s still a lot of uncertainty about the question of criminal intent when it comes to a president" — one might ask, why only a president? — "but what just happened changed my bottom line. I have gone from Trump is less than likely to be charged to he is more than likely to be charged."

That which "just happened" was, of course, the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who is now yet another jittery frog in the Jan. 6 committee's heating pan of water, in which the biggest frog is Trump. And the nation's most pressing question is now this: Will the committee's soon-boiling water slop over to the Justice Department?

A dazzling day of dirt on Donald "the Strangler" Trump

Well.

Well, well.

Today we learned that on 6 January 2021, the sitting president of the United States lunged for his limo driver's steering wheel and then tried to strangle a Secret Service agent.

Also, with lethal weapons everywhere, this president opined that the "rally" at the Capitol would be safe for him, but he could not have cared less about others. He should have been charged on the spot with assault against a federal agent.

Also, the president conveyed that his vice president, Mike Pence, deserved to be hanged — incidentally, people are hanged, pictures are hung — so the rioters, in this president's opinion, were doing nothing wrong in chanting "Hang Mike Pence," and hoping, trying to do so.

Also, virtually everyone around this president had told him by 6 Jan. that he had lost the election and he should stop peddling his "stolen election" slogan, after he had clearly attempted, in various ways, to steal the election himself.

One is left to ask, simply, Where in hell is the Justice Department?

Ukraine's darkest days: The West is now siding with Russia

"Russia," writes the Independent, "has repeatedly blamed the West for prolonging the conflict." Today, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, repeated the blame again, saying that the more weapons the West sends to Ukraine, the longer the war will last.

The Independent is correct, Russia is right, and Lavrov is spot on. The West is prolonging the war. Without mercy it has shorted Ukrainian forces of the weapons they need. For months President Zelensky has begged for the West's longest-range artillery, thousands not dozens of drones to knock out Russia's artillery, and long ago he pleaded for fighter jets, though on that, he appears to have given up. The West won't budge. It has opted to starve Ukraine of most essential weaponry.

And now the West is accepting that Ukraine will lose territory, as CNN noted in a recent segment. At a minimum, this would be the entire Donbas and the Ukrainian South, from Mariupol to Odessa. But the nation will lose more than territory; it will lose its ports for the export of agricultural and other goods, permanently wrecking Ukraine's economy. This courageous country, battling for survival, will have little to offer the European Union — another loss.

In effect, the West has sided with Russia. It will continue depriving Ukraine of the weapons it needs, thus permitting Russia to kill more Ukrainians, grab more land and inflict more injury on Ukraine's economy. It'll persist in pressing for negotiations in which Ukraine will have no leverage. It will forgive Vladimir Putin for having grossly violated international law and for having massacred thousands of Ukrainian citizens. It will do whatever is necessary to make economic life easier for its citizens.

Earlier I heard a member of Ukraine's parliament say in an interview (the aforementioned CNN segment) that the West hasn't "the courage to stand up to Russia." There can be no more accurate assessment of an essentially passive position. Early in the war we heard gallant words from the West about freedom, democracy, self-determination. In fact we still hear these words and those touching sentiments from Western leaders. But they're hollow, disingenuous and, increasingly, words of treachery. The West is unreasonably, unfathomably frightened of Vladimir Putin. It would also like to have his oil back.

Perhaps I'll move to Ukraine. I'd rather live in a country that lives up to its words, in a country that means them, in a country willing to stand up to Russia. The West is without each. I am ashamed of President Joe Biden and dumbfounded by Britain's Gen Patrick Sanders, who said, quoting The NY Times: "'This is our 1937 moment',... making reference to Western Europe’s failure to confront Nazi Germany’s territorial expansion in the years preceding World War II. 'We are not at war, but we must act rapidly so that we aren’t drawn into one through a failure to contain territorial expansion.'"

My dear General, the West, today, is doing precisely that.

Perhaps Tucker Carlson will join John Eastman in the hoosegow

I'm not a lawyer, but is this not conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice?

Tucker Carlson, interviewing John Eastman, urges people who didn't vote for Joe Biden to erase their text messages and emails "every single day" pic.twitter.com/O2QTvV3VCe

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 28, 2022

With friends like these ...

It's been 13 years since progressives failed to grasp that President Obama and the Democratic leadership lacked the Senate votes for a "public option" in the proposed healthcare plan. They're now demanding that President Biden and the Democratic leadership do something muscular about the Supreme Court's degenerate ruling on Roe. Yet once again the president and leadership haven't the Senate votes — and once again, progressives are uncomprehending.

I shall never understand why they can't understand. Sure, much of their incomprehension springs from anger, impatience, frustration — all of which clouds the mind. And some is the flowering of boastful purity — they're right and they'll never yield. Theirs is the political equal of Pickett's Charge. But what of progressives' root word — progress? What do their emotional, ideological tactics, ranging from anger to purity, actually achieve? 

Friday, when the Court's sledgehammer came down, Biden and Democratic leaders urged what they could, as paraphrased by The NY Times: "exhortations to vote, calls for contributions, micro-websites portraying Republicans as extremists." Progressives promptly denounced these tactics "as painfully inadequate to meet a moment of peril." Of course they're inadequate. If there were doably adequate measures at hand, Biden and Democratic leaders would have announced them. In which case, American women would not be in a moment of peril.

Neither of which seemed to occur to the angry —> boastfully pure crowd. "I wish the Senate would go for broke and get rid of the filibuster," opined Melissa Byrne, progressive activist. "This is one of those moments where the people in power have to do more than the people who are voting for them," declared Rebecca Katz, progressive operative. "There needs to be more fight," brayed David Atkins, progressive DNC member. And, naturally, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood in front of the Supreme Court, shrieking Into the streets! Into the streets!

All of which accomplished, what? The activists could have acted — they could have been organizing GOTV campaigns, soliciting contributions, writing for the general public about Republican extremism. What they did instead was demand impossibilities: end the filibuster, expand the Supreme Court, impeach two sitting Injustices (Gorsuch and Kavanaugh) for perjury.

The Senate lacks the votes. Thus each of the countermeasures is unserviceable. Even Speaker Pelosi knows the measures she has proposed — protecting women’s health data from right-wing prosecutors; guaranteeing the right to travel across state lines for abortion services; and enacting Roe's protection into federal law — will never make it through the Senate.

Observes the Times: "The split inside the Democratic coalition is partly generational, as younger activists make the case that the Republican Party and the dynamics in the nation’s capital have fundamentally changed in the decades since Mr. Biden, 79; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 82; and Senator Chuck Schumer, 71, the majority leader, arrived in Washington."

Again, of course political dynamics have changed. That Republicans are radical, sociopathic nihilists eager to watch the world burn is something progressives need not point out to the Biden-Pelosi generation. Things are, rather, the other way around. The Biden-Pelosi generation is forever having to point out to progressives this simple, straightforward fact of politics: There are not the votes to do what progressives and many moderates, too, would like to see done.

Though progressives' incomprehension is as tediously prevalent as it was in 2009, or for that matter, during FDR's days, there is also something dolefully striking about their modern deportment. It's truly equivalent to that of the far-right's base — utterly unskeptical, profoundly demanding, and ideologically cloistered. What's nonequivalent is the right's prospective, majority votes in Congress. For which, there is only one cure: small-r republicanism, beginning with massive turnouts in November, including progressives. Just as President Biden urged.

Ukraine needs missiles — for proportionate retaliation. Russia's slaughter of Ukrainian civilians is intolerable.

This has got to stop. Russia has free rein to bomb and terrorize Ukrainian citizens while Ukraine is unable to bomb Russia.

Today, Russia hit a crowded shopping mall in the city Kremenchuk (top map), central Ukraine. CNN International's last report was that 13 had been confirmed dead, though the death count is expected to rise. Dozens on innocents were wounded. In a Telegram post, President Zelensky reported that the number of victims was "unimaginable"; more than 1,000 civilians were in the mall when Russia attacked.

The site was "no threat to the Russian army," it had "no strategic value," said Zelensky. But Russia is a state terrorist, giving no signs of relenting. Today's bombing of innocent Ukrainians was just more of the same.

In March, Russia bombed a Mariupol theater in which civilians had sought shelter from Putin's terrorism. Approximately 600 civilians were murdered in the attack. In April, Russia again struck a civilian target in Kramatorsk, a train station. That bombing murdered at least 59 noncombatants.

Also today, Russia released cluster bombs on a residential neighborhood in the city of Sloviansk (map). "Authorities said the number of dead and wounded had yet to be confirmed," reports Reuters.

"Russia," said Ukraine's president, "continues to take out its impotence on ordinary civilians. It is useless to hope for decency and humanity on its part." Zelensky can still hope, although "useless" has been an apropos word for decency from others.

For what did Western leaders at the G7 meeting promise Ukraine today? "Secure communication and anti-drone systems." The West keeps supplying Ukraine with plastic squirt guns while the Russians slaughter Ukrainians — many of them, civilians — with long-range artillery and ballistic missiles. And that is what has to stop.

The U.S. has warehouses full of short-, medium- and long-range missiles, most of which can easily reach a distance of 553.7 miles, which just happens to be the distance from Kyiv to Moscow. The U.S. has refused to supply Ukraine with long-range weaponry of this sort, fearing that it might use them to strike Russia itself. Ukraine has denied that it would.

But it should. Inexplicably cruel are the appropriate words for Ukraine's Western allies to deny it weapons for the purpose of proportionate retaliation. As noted, Russia can lob or fly into Ukraine whatever screaming long-range artillery or ballistic missile it cares to, yet Ukraine is told by the West it must sit and take it. This is nearly as inhumane and merciless as Russia's bombings; for Ukraine to know it could retaliate, except for tied hands, is a deadly, unforgivable insult.

Because Vladimir Putin has no reason to stop murdering Ukrainian citizens. And for that, President Zelensky can thank his "allies."

The U.S. House worm has turned

From a Marist poll (rated A by 538) released this morning, NPR reports:

"78% of Democrats say the court's decision makes them more likely to vote this fall, 24 points higher than Republicans....

"Democrats have regained the favor of voters to control Congress, with 48% saying they are more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate in the fall and 41% more likely to vote for a Republican. In April, Republicans led on that question in the poll 47% to 44%, which was within the margin of error."

But there's always a but: "However, the lead for Democrats may not translate into maintaining control due to the way voters are geographically distributed and how boundaries of congressional districts are drawn."

State-drawn boundaries have become so partisanly fixed, no longer do Democrats have 2006's 80 competitive districts to run in, which, by nominating moderate candidates, allowed the Dems to flip the House.

On 15 June, Cook Political Report released its assessment of competitive 2022 seats. Forty-five were ranked as "Lean Democratic," "Democratic Toss Up," "Republican Toss Up" and "Lean Republican." Of those, 10 were among the latter, leaving 35. But with a bit of luck, Democratic enthusiasm, smart Democratic campaigning and Republicans' Supreme Court, that number will grow.

Republicans worried about women? Of course not. They're worried about reelection.

​​​​​Let us begin with some political insight from The Washington Post on the G.O.P.'s midterm worries: "Republican leaders, who have long felt well-positioned to make gains, are wary of refocusing on topics that could diminish their advantage."

Now that we know that politicians are "wary" of focusing on issues that cost them elections, we can move on to the Republican Party's youthful Augustinian philosophy, which was, as you recall, a desire to be chaste — but not too soon. Suffice it to say that Republicans' Supreme Court tripped them up by callously stripping American women of their rights just months before a national election. This was bad, as the Post might observe.

Politico reports that, privately, Republicans are not quite the vocal human-rights bashers they had pretended to be in campaigns past. "Quietly," writes Politico, Republican strategists and party operatives admit they very much wanted to blackball women from the whole human rights thing, "they just didn’t want it to come right now." 

Even Trump is just barely bright enough to realize that the G.O.P.-S.C. campaign to abolish the rights of half the American electorate was, shall we say, rather ill timed. (And it always would be.)

Publicly, the organized crime boss is hogging the credit. Roe’s repeal was "only made possible because I delivered everything as promised," he said in a statement. Privately, he is throwing another of his famous tantrums, according to a source who had the misfortune of talking with him.

"He keeps shitting all over his greatest accomplishment," said the source to Rolling Stone. "When you speak to him, it’s the response of someone fearing the backlash and fearing the politics of what happens when conservatives actually get what they want. I do not think he’s enjoying the moment as much as many of his supporters are."

Always the huckster, however, Trump is capitalizing on that which he sees as "so stupid." Immediately after the Court released its decision, out went another of his emails: "Roe v. Wade has been OVERTURNED thanks to Pres Trump! Do you support the Supreme Court’s decision? TELL US HERE."

From the Reagan administration on, the genius of Republican politics was to promise, re-promise, then promise again that the party and Jesus would soon relegate women's rights to history's dustbin. But at promises — full stop. The strategy was to keep hustling the holy ones to the polling booth, while suburban women, who vote, would retain their rights.

But Trump has never touched anything without contaminating and then destroying it. So too with his aggressive push to seat three Torquemadas on the Supreme Inquisitional Court. With that, Republicans' game was at an end. And now they wish to act as though nothing has happened except rises in gas prices.