Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the possibility that Putin's days are numbered as he is forced to scale back next Saturday's Victory Day celebration,

while shutting down the Internet and telegram, as the Russian people become more and more aware that the war is going badly and is getting close to home with a high rise in an upscale Moscow suburb struck by Ukraine along with oil infrastructure deep inside Russia.

Joining us to discuss what Russia's official and non-official media is saying is Michael Gorham,

Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Florida.

He's the author of multiple award-winning books on language, culture, and politics, including

After Newspeak, Language, Culture and Politics in Russia, from Goebachev to Putin.

And his latest book is Networking Putinism, The Rhetoric of Power in the Digital Age.

Then we're looking to the country's most effective Republican operatives,

the six right-wing activists on the Supreme Court,

who just tipped their hand in killing off the Voting Rights Act to expose their main agenda,

which is to make sure Republicans win elections,

regardless of how the majority intends to vote against them.

Joining us is Lisa Graves, one of the nation's foremost experts on the right-wing influence

on the U.S. Supreme Court and other levels of power. She leads True North Research and co-hosts

Legal AF and has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal

government, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General and the Justice Department, as Chief Justice

for nomination on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a Deputy Chief of the Article III

judge of division for the U.S. courts.

And she's the author of the new book, Without precedent, our Chief Justice Roberts and his accomplices

rewrote the Constitutional and dismantled our rights.

...