If you can’t read freely, how can you ever live freely?

If Republicans truly believe that they can’t defend a 15-week ban, maybe they are right to find any excuse to try not to talk about abortion. But that path leads, ultimately, to implicit surrender.

Though Ukraine enjoys enormous support from the United States and others, military experts are astounded at how its fighters jury-rigged slow Turkish-made Bayraktar attack drones to drop grenades on Russian assets. They gussied up an old Soviet anti-ship missile design by adding modern electronics. They loaded the renamed “Neptune” missiles on a truck, drove it within range of Russia’s flagship, and down went the Moskva to the bottom of the Black Sea.

The Ukraine war has been a conflict of stark phases and strategic adjustments and re-adjustments. The Russians will presumably have their answer to the current Ukrainian push, and if they don’t, one reason will be that they are running out of those pillars of hard power — men and materiel.

Several factors indicate China has a moment of strategic advantage, a window of opportunity from now until 2026 to deal the U.S. a severe defeat. Beijing’s goal: diplomatic and economic superiority lasting decades. U.S. weakness could lead to Taiwanese capitulation.