THU-FRI 3/3-4/22

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky: “We are a nation that broke the enemy’s plans in one week.” (Axios) 

Words of the Day: Conspiracy to Defraud – …This is a key potential charge against then-President Donald J. Trump over an alleged attempt to overturn the presidential election listed in a brief that the attorney for the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection has filed in a California federal court.

The brief challenges lawyer John Eastman’s refusal to turn over thousands of emails the House committee had requested that the panel believes reveals his role in trying to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to reject electors from states now-President Joe Biden won. (The Washington Post and NPR)

Eastman cited attorney-client privileges as a shield against releasing the emails. The House panel has questioned whether Trump was in fact an Eastman client, and the panel’s attorney also argues that Eastman’s claim is a potential violation of the “crime/fraud” exception.

A statement released by House panel Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) says in part; “The facts we’ve gathered strongly suggest that Dr. Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power.”

Known Knowns: It has been nearly 13 months since most of us witnessed the obvious in coverage of the attack that disrupted Congress’ certification of the electors from the November 2020 presidential election, and it will likely take additional time for Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide whether and of what, exactly, to charge Donald J. Trump. As long as we still have a democracy, the ex-president can thank our judicial system for that much.

•••

More Words: Seditious Conspiracy – That’s what Oath Keeper Joshua James pleaded guilty to in a Washington, D.C., federal district court for his participation in the January 6 Capitol insurrection (per Newsweek). To be exact, it contains one count of seditious conspiracy and one count of obstructing an official proceeding (the electoral count certification). James’ attorney filed a separate statement of offense in the plea in return for dropping all other charges, according to the Newsweek report. 

James is expected to “fully co-operate” with the Justice Department during its investigation of Oath Keepers’ role in the riot. Sentencing, at a later date, is expected to be 87 to 108 months.

Known Knowns: The big Oath Keeper catch in this investigation is organization founder Stewart Rhodes. When District Judge Amit Mehta asked whether he entered the Capitol to prevent certification of Biden as president, James replied, “Yes sir.”

Masks are a violation of liberties, but not government interference with one’s self? — Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents who allow their children to medically transition genders for possible crimes. According to The Washington Post, a Texas judge has granted a temporary restraining order against those covered by the plaintiffs who brought the suit, not others.

Note: Abbott initiated bans on mask mandates. According to the Centers for Disease Control “Masking is a critical public health tool and is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask.”

Yet Abbott said no!

And now here is Abbott, going after parents as criminals with regard to their children who may undergo medical procedures. 

Last year it was an abortion law that bars the procedure after six weeks.

This is really quite remarkable.

Somehow the man believes that when it comes to personal medical decisions, if it is politically popular it is good. Otherwise, no one is going to mess with the political freedom of Texans.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics

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By Stephen Macaulay

“Jefferson suggested it was a waste of time.” —The American Presidency Project

I’m with Jefferson. It is a waste of time. Especially now, as there is a war in Europe that requires the absolute attention of political figures across the globe.

Yes, there must be a message to Congress. As Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states, “He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Putting aside the pronoun, nowhere does it say that this must be done live and on television. Nowhere does it say that it must be a speech. He can send a memo. He could tweet it.

He could simply say: “I need to be spending this time talking with world leaders who are actually doing something besides pissing and moaning about some personal, artificial grievances. I’ll get back to you once this is over.”

Let’s face it: outside of people who read such outlets as The Hustings, there are very few people who care about the State of the Union. Even Trump’s 2020 State of the Union had a viewership that declined 20% from the year before. There were 33.7-million views, according to Variety, and I would be willing to bet that there were far more than 33.7-million people who were annoyed that their prime-time viewing was interrupted.

For those people who do read things like The Hustings, is there any possibility that there will be something said that they’re not already aware of?

What’s more, the whole thing has turned into a urination Olympics, before, during and after the speech.

And to what end?

Do we really need to see more politicians showing off?

It is no longer something where there is someone talking to other people. It has become a political sideshow where people are talking at others or past others.

Rhetoric replaces substance.

The content of most of these speeches is “I’m a great guy. I have done great things. I will do more great things. Isn’t that great?”

Then the “counter” speeches are: “He is a jackass. He has done jackass like things and plans to do more of them. Isn’t that what a jackass would do?”

And then there are gigabytes of memory (the contemporary analogue for “barrels of ink”) spent breaking that all down.

To what end?

Today’s headlines are all about what Biden did or didn’t say. About gaffes. About people sleeping or people who didn’t stand and applaud.

It is all a show. And not a very good one.

People are dying in Ukraine, a democracy, right now because of an autocrat who is making a land-grab.

Every bit of attention and energy in Washington and other national capitols needs to be on that.

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Macaulay is our pundit-at-large. His commentary most often appears in the right column.

By Charles Dervarics

In political parlance, it’s called a reset or pivot — a chance to start anew. For a nation weary of COVID and worried about Russia, President Biden last night offered a vigorous pep talk and a detailed agenda that he hopes will improve his political fortunes and those of fellow Democrats.

“Last year, COVID kept us apart. This year, we are finally together again,” he said at the start of a State of the Union speech designed to turn the page on the pandemic and emphasize unity. He spoke early and forcefully against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, telling a supportive audience that Vladimir Putin will pay “a high price” for this military action and announcing further steps such as closing off U.S. airspace to Russian flights. 

But he turned from there to his domestic agenda, touting first-year achievements such as the infrastructure bill and American Rescue Plan plus an ambitious second-year agenda. Whether Congress will approve Build Back Better is a big question, given the failure of the plan last year. 

[Asked whether Biden’s effort to revive the $1.5-2.0 trillion package with claims it would “lower costs” for most Americans, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) laughed it off. “They just can’t help themselves,” Manchin responded, The Hillreports Wednesday.]

But the president offered a sales pitch not only to woo lawmakers but also persuade skeptical voters in this fall’s midterm elections.

His agenda items included a $15/hour minimum wage, lower prescription drug prices, more funds for education and clean energy tax credits. To address inflation, he called for companies to “lower costs, not your wages.” One way to do this is through a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing of everything from cars to semiconductors. 

“Rather than rely on foreign supply chains, let’s make it in America,” he said.

Clearly aiming at moderate voters in the upcoming midterms, he broke with progressives by praising both law enforcement and border security. “The answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police,” he said, calling for more resources and training for law enforcement.

He touched briefly on the fight against COVID, noting that the nation now has the tools to fight the disease and citing a need to open schools and bring workers back into the office.

But another topic high on the White House agenda got barely a mention Tuesday night—climate change. That is perhaps testament to the way inflation and foreign policy now dominate the short-term outlook for 2022. 

•••

Meanwhile in the U.S. — Three Bits of Data that are Massively Telling:

1. “Biden didn’t spend much time explaining why Americans should care about the deadly war in Eastern Europe, although he did warn that the country faces risks both economically and militarily.” —Punchbowl News

2. According to polling by Morning Consult, after the invasion, 66% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Russia. While that figure comes from polling between February 21 and 27, a poll taken February 14 to 20 had that number at 58%. It is worth noting the U.S. has the lowest unfavourability view of Russia among any of the countries polled: France, 68%; Germany, 74%; UK, 77%; Italy, 69%; Spain, 67%; Australia, 68%; Japan, 76%; South Korea, 75%.

3. In a survey conducted February 1-17 by Gallup World Affairs, 51% of Americans think the U.S. has the number-one military in the world. Gallup noted that it was conducted prior to the Russian invasion and that it isn’t clear whether a post-invasion poll would have had an effect on the results, given that the U.S. military is not on the ground there. 

So what does this mean? It means that the consequences of the Trump administration still resonate, particularly (a) his “American first” rhetoric and (b) his bombast about the military.

Why would it have been necessary for Biden to explain to us the reason Americans should care about a democracy being invaded by a leader who is a foe of the American way of life? Despite what people have been led to believe by Trump’s undoubtedly one-sided chumminess with Putin, that guy is attacking Ukraine because it is becoming too Westernized, a.k.a., becoming more like America. That needs to be explained to us? Citizens of other Western or Westernized countries don’t have that issue to the extent that American citizens seem to.

Remember Trump talking about supporting the military (and his diminution of the leaders of the military because he, of course, claimed to be smarter than they are)? While 51% is better than 49%, it isn’t all that impressive. While Biden has been in office for more than a year, odds are that had Trump done as much for the military as he often claimed, those effects wouldn’t have disappeared in the last year.

Strange how we no longer know who our enemy is and that we consider our military to be #1 — but by a small edge. (Here’s something to consider: the U.S. FY ’21 military budget: $705 billion. The Russian spending? -- $65 billion.)

--Gary S. Vasilash

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All images this page from C-Span’s broadcast.
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Due to the nature of the State of the Union address, today’s left and right columns do not line up directly with our usual liberal-conservative format.

By Todd Lassa

Republican Response

Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has never come up as a potential presidential candidate for 2024. She did not receive one straw in last weekend’s poll at CPAC in Orlando. Conversely, Reynolds did not have to gulp down gallons of water during her GOP response in Des Moines to President Biden’s first State of the Union address, like Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) in his response to President Obama in 2013. Nor was she an absolute disaster, like ex-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, also in response to Obama, but in 2011.

She may have a future as a running mate. Reynolds’ politics appears to fit somewhere between Trump-tolerant Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA) and the faithful pro-Trump MAGA-right – a preternatural Glenn Younkin.

Reynolds hit on the expected talking points to counter Biden’s State of the Union address. The president promised to move the country forward, she said, but instead has taken us back to the 1970s and early ‘80s with four-decade-high inflation in the U.S. 

Biden also favored “political correctness instead of military readiness,” Reynolds said, with a response toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that’s “too little, too late.” The White House’s “anti-energy policies” have driven up prices at the pump by 50%, she said. “You don’t have to check grocery prices,” the governor said, “just step outside the D.C. bubble.”

Reynolds characterized Biden’s spending plans as “giveaways” to millionaires and billionaires “in California, New York and New Jersey.” Good thing Build Back Better did not pass “because of President Biden’s own party,” she added, referring to Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Krysten Sinema (AZ). 

But the Iowa governor spent much of her time criticizing the Biden administration for trying to force mask mandates on public school students while Republican governors were allowing parents the right to determine what their children are taught. She did not mention Critical Race Theory (which is not taught below the college level anywhere) by name.

Reynolds’ GOP counterpoint to Biden’s State of the Union address stands out for not in any way standing out; She checked all the boxes in the list of Fox News nation grievances – repeating recent Republican talking points on Ukraine and inflation even as Biden’s address had anticipated them – without a full embrace of Donald J. Trump’s MAGA movement and with none of the sort of gaffes that once made Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio stand out for their awkwardness. 

•••

Response from the Left – As part of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) Squad Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is a key member of the progressive wing of her party who tilted at President Biden’s Build Back Better windmill last year. Tlaib was chosen to respond to Tuesday’s State of the Union address on behalf of the Working Families Party, although unlike the GOP response, which was carried on all the major networks shortly after Biden concluded his hour-long speech, hers was on YouTube (which carries perhaps a hipper, cut-the-cable vibe these days). 

The purpose of Tlaib’s response was to revive Biden’s BBB plan, last sticker-priced in the $2-trillion neighborhood. Democrats have roughly eight months to get tranches of the plan passed (as Biden already has announced he push “big chunks” of it this year). For the Squad and the Working Families Party, that means reviving the Child Tax Credit first. 

Tlaib did her cause no favors by calling out as the “two forces” that stopped BBB in 2021 – all 50 Republicans and “just enough corporate-backed Democrats” to “make them succeed.” 

Manchin and Sinema, of course. And now progressive Democrats want “Manchinema” to get on board this year and provide the necessary plus-Vice President Harris majority to pass “big chunks” of BBB, after Reynolds’ shout out in the Republican response. 

On Build Back Better, big chunks or otherwise, look to 2022 to be much like 2021.

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

TUE 3/1/22

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an address Tuesday urged the European Union allow his country to join.

Messing With Texas – First bellwether of the 2022 midterm primary season is in Texas today, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott faces a couple of pro-Trump challengers and Beto O’Rourke hopes to take the Democratic primary for governor on the way to an upset in the November finals. Texas has a runoff system, so not all key primary challenges will be determined. (The Washington Post)

One challenge is by George P. Bush, the only prominent pro-Trump member of the traditional GOP political family, who takes on scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Among the most-watched races for Texas’ 38 U.S. House seats is progressive Jessica Cisneros’ second challenge to Rep. Henry Cuellar, in the Democratic primary for the 28^th District seat.

Known Knowns: Restrictive rule changes by the Texas legislature will especially affect seniors and people of color, WaPonotes. It’s harder to mail in a ballot, and there are no more drive-through or 24-hour polling places. Thousands of early ballots already have been rejected. David M. Carney, a GOP consultant to Gov. Abbott, told the newspaper, “Their [Democrats’] turnout is going to be dwarfed by our turnout.”

Polls close at 7 p.m. Central time.

•••

It Got Worse – Monday we mentioned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) attendance at white supremacist (according to the Justice Department and Anti-Defamation League) Nicholas Fuentes’ America First Political Action Conference, across town from the CPAC annual meeting last week in Orlando. Turns out Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) gave a pre-recorded video presentation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has stood up to take notice.

After quietly brushing aside for months the white supremacist dog whistles being blown by MTG and Gosar, McCarthy threw caution to the wind regarding their potential support of his bid for House speaker following an anticipated GOP retaking of the chamber in November by calling their actions “unacceptable,” according to The Hill. 

“The party should not be associated any time, any place, with somebody who is antisemitic,” McCarthy said. 

MTG, who with Gosar last year briefly considered forming a House “America First Caucus” had told CBS News last week she was unaware of Fuentes’ views. “I won’t cancel others in the conservative movement, even if I find some of their statements tasteless, misguided or even repressive at times.”

Tasteless, Misguided and Repressive: At one point in the America First conference, The Hill reports, Fuentes said, “Now they’re going on about Russia and Vladimir Putin as Hitler … and they say that’s not a good thing.”

Known Knowns: Number of Republican House members who voted against certifying President Biden’s Electoral College vote: 147.

Known Unknowns: How many pro-Trump Republicans will take House seats after the midterms. We’d bet a large portion of them -- not just MTG and Gosar -- would rather vote for Donald J. Trump than McCarthy for speaker, anyway. Conversely, more forceful criticism of the MTG-Gosar wing might have some effect on this year’s GOP primaries.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics

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MON 2/28/22

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Another Look at Trump’s Foreign Policy – Donald J. Trump might have been expected to pull back from his “savvy” and “genius” compliments of Vladimir Putin when the former U.S. president spoke at CPAC in Orlando Saturday night. Of course, he didn’t.

Meanwhile, the Russian president continued to rattle his nuclear sabre when his troops faced more resistance from Ukrainian freedom fighters than he had expected.

Trump blamed the “atrocity” on President Biden, and “not so smart” North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nations. He seems unaware that U.S. and/or NATO troops were not invading Ukraine. “When you have a weak president who is not respected by other nations, you have a very chaotic world. The world hasn’t been this chaotic since World War II.” (Per Yahoo!News). “Weak president” and “not respected by other nations” stand out for irony here.

Meanwhile in Orlando, the Conservative Political Action Committee crowd could do nothing more than cheer and nod their heads. The narrative pushed by Fox News and outlets to its right is, so far, that Trump would be a much stronger leader in dealing with Putin, and the MAGA faithful are buying it, despite Trump’s 2018 sock puppet behavior with Putin in Helsinki. 

Mainstream media have to constantly remind us that President Trump appears to have tried to hold up military aid to Ukraine in 2019, contingent on Zelinsky's cooperation on the "request" to find dirt on Hunter Biden from his time as an employee of the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.*

Known knowns: That Trump is an aspiring autocrat is obvious. Consider this less-oft repeated quote from his appearance on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show last Tuesday: “And [Putin’s] going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border.”

Known unknowns: Asked at CPAC whether he would take up arms to defend the U.S. in a similar situation, according to Newsweek, Trump responded: “You never know about bravery. Some people think they are brave are not brave and other people think of themselves as very brave and step up. You never know until you get tested.” Which is probably best interpreted as a hard “no” from, in Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-IL) brilliant nickname, “Cadet Bone Spurs.”

•••

Trump’s GOP, Even More So – Donald J. Trump took 59% of CPAC’s 2022 straw poll of leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, according to a report in the U.S. edition of the The Sun tabloid. That compares with 55% for Trump in last year’s CPAC straw poll [The Gray Area, https://thehustings.news/forum/, March 1, 2021]. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was second this year, at 21%, down from 28% in 2021. In the 2022 straw poll, the Trump administration’s secretary of state and Fox News habitue’ Mike Pompeo registered third, at 2% of the vote.

•••

On Either Side of CPAC – In a separate summit “across town” from CPAC in Orlando, according to The Washington Post, the America First Political Action Conference gathered together “right-wing media personalities and tech entrepreneurs” to hear a speaker call for sending political adversaries to the electric chair. One right-wing commentator at the alt-right white supremacist summit helped paint CPAC’s “useless own-the-libs conservatism” as too moderate. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) reportedly stopped by AFPAC, and later said on social media she was not aware of the group’s white supremacism. AFPAC organizer Nicholas Fuentes had “stormed” a 2021 CPAC event in Dallas, WaPo says, shouting “America first” and “white boy summer.” (When does being not aware of such things become something that no longer get a pass?)

Meanwhile: Republican attendees who were required to present a vaccination card to enter at a two-day “Principles First” conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., last week, including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, perceive AFPAC and CPAC as having “too much in common,” WaPo reports. Cheney’s fellow Republican on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, who was scheduled to speak Sunday night, earlier called out politicization of Biden’s response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered. Kinzinger is not running for re-election this year.

•••

Meanwhile, on the climate front -- Last week, Tom Linebarger, chairman and CEO of Cummins, the American company widely known for the diesel engines used to power big rigs, speaking about the acquisition of an automotive supplier that makes electrified components, said, “Climate change is the existential crisis of our time and this acquisition accelerates our ability to address it. Our customers need economically viable decarbonized solutions.”

The chairman and CEO of a diesel engine company.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approved a report on Saturday, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC, described it saying, “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction.” The report describes the effects on human-induced climate change on people and ecosystems.

That sounds somewhat like something happening elsewhere to someone else, but consider this: “Increased heatwaves, droughts and flood are already exceeding plants’ and animals’ tolerance thresholds, driving mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals. These weather extremes are occurring simultaneously, causing cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage. They have exposed millions of people to acute food and water insecurity, especially in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, on Small Islands and in the Arctic.”

This isn’t theory.

Note: Hoesung Lee said, “It emphasizes the urgency of immediate and more ambitious action to address climate risks. Half measures are no longer an option.” In other words, debating whether this is happening is no longer viable, nor are greenwashing activities.

Which brings us back to Cummins’ Linebarger’s quote: “existential crisis of our time.” More people like him are needed throughout the world.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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*An earlier version of this story conflated Trump’s withholding military aid to Ukraine with his first impeachment. As the Center for Public Integrity notes, the connection is murky at best: https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/timeline-how-trump-withheld-ukraine-aid/
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Please email comments to editors@thehustings.news, or hit the comment button on this page.

FRI 2/25/22

•Ketanji Brown Jackson is President Biden’s choice to succeed Stephen Breyer on SCOTUS, The Hill reports Friday. Jackson, a former Breyer clerk who has had a “meteoric rise” through the federal judiciary, will become the court’s first former public defender if confirmed by the Senate.

Nuclear Rich, House Poor – As Russian troops advance on Kyiv, Ukraine, in what will certainly end in the removal of President Volodymyr Zelensky and installation of a Putin puppet, President Biden has stepped up economic sanctions against Russia, adding four banks Thursday and cutting off assets of the country’s elites and their family members. Once a superpower in all aspects of the word, Russia’s economy now is comparable in size to Texas’. But the adjective still fits the country’s nuclear firepower.

“Today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, per The Hill. “Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. … 

“No matter who tries to stand in our way, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

No Idle Threat: Russia has 6,257 nuclear weapons as of 2022, with 1,458 active and 3,039 available, according to World Population Review [worldpopulationreview.com]. The U.S. has 5,500 total, of which 1,389 are active and 2,361 available. Add in the nuclear weapons of France (290) and the United Kingdom (225) and the total for NATO is 6,065. The website does not list data on the level of destructive power of each country’s weapons.

Blame Game: Speaking at a media event in Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called on Biden to ratchet up economic sanctions to the max, according to The Wall Street Journal. He repeated criticism, though, that Biden’s initial sanctions were weak and that the White House’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last year “sent an invitation” to autocrats to make the move.

Recently retired German Chancellor Angela Merkel blamed European leaders including herself in letting Putin get away with Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, and 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula without adequate consequences, NPR’s Morning Edition reports.

Article 5: Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-VA) warned Thursday that a major cyberattack by Russia against Ukraine could have a “ripple effect” on a NATO country – cutting off electricity to Polish hospitals, say – and trigger NATO’s Article 5, which essentially says that as one member country is attacked all member countries, including the U.S., are required to respond. Which gets us back to those nuclear arms numbers. 

•••

Binary Attacks — While it has been widely reported that the Russians are assiduously attacking Ukrainian government sites with impunity, what is not as well known is that there are pro-Ukrainian hackers taking it to Putin. According to Politico, “The global hacktivist group Anonymous on Thursday evening said in a tweet it was ‘officially in cyber war against the Russian government’ and claimed it had taken down the website of Russia's state-controlled media network RT. The network said it was able to ‘repel’ the attack.” In addition, there are the Belarusian Cyber Partisans who are working to assist the Ukrainians.

Note: It is arguably part of Putin’s disinformation campaign to make it seem like the Russians have digital invincibility. Odds are there are lots of exceedingly smart coders who don’t like what Putin is doing and may have as big effect on the Russian economic and political infrastructure as all of the G7 sanctions combined.

•••

Meanwhile, in Orlando – The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has assembled for its annual meeting in Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago backyard, Orlando, where Sens. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee and Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are among the potential candidates vying for a run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, NPR reports. Presumed frontrunner Donald J. Trump has not yet appeared, however – expect a big weekend splash – and there’s been little talk of Ukraine or the White House’s response to Russia’s invasion, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.

Meanwhile, at Mar-A-Lago: “You should run for Senate majority leader,” ex-President Donald J. Trump said to Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), Politico reports Friday in a scoop. Scott, who is the GOP’s Senate election chief, reportedly responded; “My only focus is on winning” … a Senate majority in this fall’s midterms. A little reminder that Trump and presumed future Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a huge falling out after McConnell denounced Trump’s involvement in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, after voting to acquit the former president in his second impeachment.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics

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THU 2/24/22

On Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine – Cooler heads have warned for years that the left and right in the U.S. should avoid the hard-core rhetoric of accusing the other side of being “Nazis” or “Hitlers.” Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing what the rest of the world sees as a military invasion by 150,000-plus soldiers said his “special military operation” would achieve the “demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine” (MSN’s The Week US). Then his shells started bombarding Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine early Thursday morning.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky has responded: “Russia treacherously attacked our state this morning, as Nazi Germany did. As of today, our countries are on different sides of world history. [Russia] has embarked on a path of evil but [Ukraine] is defending itself and won’t give up its freedom no matter what Moscow thinks.” (Per Politico)

Zelensky’s words are accurate, of course, as Russia conducts the biggest military action in Europe since World War II. But Putin doesn’t need to be compared with Hitler or Stalin or any other historical villain. Putin is his own kind of dictator, and he can count on his own name being evoked to criticize future political figures, as the Russian president attempts to re-build a 21^stCentury post-Soviet Russian Federation on kleptocratic oligarchs. Perhaps he’s hoping for that legacy.

•••

DeJoy Doesn’t Deliver -- The U.S. Postal System released a 382-page document yesterday titled “Record of Decision and Record of Environmental Consideration: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle Acquisitions.” 

Essentially it is a document that provides the U.S.P.S. rationalization for “the purchase and deployment over a 10-year period of 50,000 to 165,000 purpose-built, right-hand drive NGDV [Next Generation Delivery Vehicle] consisting of a mix of internal combustion engine (‘ICE’) and battery electric vehicle (‘BEV’) powertrains, with at least 10 percent BEVs.” Simply put, while the Biden administration is working to facilitate consumers' purchase of EVs, and other government agencies are questioning the postal service's move to renew its fleet primarily with gasoline-powered trucks, DeJoy is arguing that the U.S.P.S. can't afford to go electric.

In a release about the report and the decision, Postmaster General and U.S.P.S. CEO Louis DeJoy stated, “As we have reiterated throughout this process, our commitment to an electric fleet remains ambitious given the pressing vehicle and safety needs of our aging fleet as well as our fragile financial condition. As our financial position improves with the ongoing implementation of our 10-year plan, Delivering for America, we will continue to pursue the acquisition of additional BEV as additional funding — from either internal or congressional sources — becomes available.”

Said more simply: Never.

Note: Ford Motor has recently introduced the E-Transit, a cargo van. Not purpose-built like the postal trucks will be, but a close comparison. One of the things that Ford notes of the vehicle: “it offers clear cost-of-ownership advantages. Scheduled maintenance costs for the all-electric E-Transit are estimated to be 40 precent less than the average scheduled maintenance costs for a gas-powered 2020 Transit over eight years/100,000 miles. And with lower maintenance requirements and the opportunity to avoid fill-ups, companies can help improve uptime and productivity.”  That’s right: Ford is comparing the electric truck with its gasoline-powered truck. And note that Ford is continuing to sell its gasoline-powered truck so it isn’t dissing it, simply stating the benefit of going electric.

DeJoy was appointed to the U.S.P.S. position by the Trump Administration. Postal experience? Nope. Big donor and fundraiser for the Republican Party? Yep. DeJoy’s 10-year plan includes the elimination of overtime, additional trips to deliver mail, and the decommissioning of mail sorting systems. Meanwhile, FedEx and UPS are investing in — yes — electric vehicles. Amazon is building out an entire logistics structure to deliver packages with everything from a fleet of more than 80 cargo planes to electric vehicles.

Clearly DeJoy doesn’t understand the competitive landscape. Or he doesn’t care.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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WED 2/23/22

•“Ukraine is not Russia:” Protest signs held up in Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine.

Inspired by Invasion? – Donald J. Trump is not known for returning the sort of loyalty he expects of his sycophants, but the former president appeared unwavering in his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview from Mar-a-Lago on something called The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show on iHeart Radio, calling the dictator’s invasion of two “breakoff” regions of Ukraine “very savvy.”

When first hearing about Trump’s comments, we searched foxnews.com as the likely source of the interview. Instead, Fox was busy painting President Biden as a weak leader on the conflict. Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, rewrote the administration’s history on Sean Hannity’s show, which played tape of Trump warning Germany not to rely on Nord Stream 2 and advocating for more gas and oil drilling to reduce reliance on Russian exports. No mention by Pompeo or Hannity of how Trump wanted the U.S. to leave NATO. 

[On Tuesday Biden announced the first tranche of economic sanctions on Russia, including cutting off loans to the country’s VEB bank and its military bank, and freezing western assets held by Russian elites and family members.]

But wait, here’s the transcript: “So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy. I know him very well. Very, very well.” – The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show per CNN.

There’s the clearest look so far at what type of authoritarian leader Trump would make if he were to return to office.

•••

Cue the Alanis Morissette – As reported in The Washington Post about former President Donald Trump, “His long-promised social network, Truth Social, has been almost entirely inaccessible in the first days of its grand debut because of technical glitches, a 13-hour outage and a 300,000-person waitlist.” So he goes on a radio talk show and says of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, “This is genius.” 

You may recall that Trump described himself as a “stable genius.” Which makes one wonder about whether he is truly interested in making America “great” again or simply making things swell for what he perceives as his like-minded cohorts. (Although does anyone think that an out-of-office Donald Trump is of much interest to Putin, beyond Trump’s continuing sob-story of the Big Lie, which helps serve to divide Americans, which is the sort of thing that would make Putin happy?)

Note: Some may recall the former official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which operated from 1918 to 1991. Pravda. Translated, that is “Truth.” Wonder where Trump got the name for his app?

•••

Arbery Killers Found Guilty of Federal Hate Crimes – A jury found Greg McMichael, his son, Travis, and William Bryan guilty of federal hate-crime charges Tuesday in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery two years ago today in a coastal suburban town in Georgia. The convictions, of interfering and attempting to intimidate Arbery’s right to use a public street (he was jogging) and attempted kidnapping (a modern lynching) is the “first race-based conviction in any of the high-profile slayings of Black people that sparked mass protests in 2020,” The Washington Post reports. 

Meanwhile, jury deliberations are due to begin today in a St. Paul, Minnesota court in the trial of three officers accused of failing to try to stop their colleague Derek Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes, in a May 2020 arrest.

The Issue: Is the tide in any way beginning to turn in the myriad cases of alleged police violence in Black communities? 

•••

SCOTUS Nominee Expected Monday – President Biden has interviewed “at least three” contenders to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court this week, and is expected to name his choice next Monday, The Washington Postreports. The three are Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has sat on the federal bench for nine years, Judge J. Michelle Childs, a federal judge in South Carolina and favorite of House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger. 

Note: While Childs, as a favorite of the congressman who helped Biden win the Democratic nomination in 2020 might be the lead favorite, Jackson would become the first former public defender on a court traditionally heavy with prosecutors. 

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics

_____________________________________

TUE 2/22/22

•Economic sanctions against Russia for its incursion into Ukraine are piling up, and now Germany is putting a stop to the Nord Strom 2 gas pipeline, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday (Politico). As the IEA noted in its 2020 report on German energy, “Planned nuclear and coal phase-outs are set to increase the country’s reliance on natural gas, making it increasingly important to continue efforts to diversify gas supply options, including through liquefied natural gas imports.” Seems like they need to rethink their natural gas reliance. No better time to shift to renewable energy sources.

Invasion to MRGA – That’s for “Make Russia Great Again,” meaning President Vladimir Putin’s struggle to take the country back to the days it ruled much of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. 

There have been times we may have missed the post-Stalin era of the Cold War, when we suspected the USSR’s gray bureaucrats were no more interested in dropping the bomb on us than we were on them. We were relatively fond of Mikhail Gorbachev, who let the Berlin Wall be torn down, as President Reagan demanded, and his vodka-soaked successor, Boris Yeltsin, who in 1996 handed over the keys of a much-diminished Russia to ex-KGB chief Vladimir Putin.

[Here it’s also worth remembering that the Soviet Union’s disastrous war in Afghanistan of the 1980s accelerated the USSR’s decline.]

During the Cold War, it was a conservative American shibboleth that it was communism, specifically, and not totalitarianism that kept Russia and the Eastern Bloc from being set free. Since the ‘90s, Russia has been suppressed by Putin, who has an ideology that is closer to Peter the Great than Vladimir Lenin, and a small group of oligarchs who maintain a huge wealth gap between themselves and the nation’s people. Populists – rather than conservatives – in the U.S. seem unfazed by this post-communist totalitarianism. Ask Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

End of Liberal Democracies: ICYMI, Putin told Financial Times in mid-2019 that the growth of national populist movements in Europe and America has “become obsolete.” The following year, President Trump was considering pulling out of NATO and cutting the U.S. alliance with South Korea, according to Phil Rucker and Carol Leoning in their book, I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year. So, Putin’s timing is off – or like the rabid MAGA supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol January 6, 2021, he expected Trump to be in the White House today.

And so now Putin has sent troops into Eastern Ukraine, formally recognizing two Kremlin-backed separatist regions. If sanctions and NATO support for a resolute Ukrainian government don’t stop Putin, how much farther will he go? 

•••

Build Back Biden? -- President Joe Biden’s approval ratings are in the barely lukewarm range according to recent Gallup polling, which shows his overall job approval rating has declined from 57% in February 2021 to 41% today (i.e., polling conducted from February 1-17). Biden was at 50% last July but has since languished in the low 40s. The 41% is an improvement of where he was in January — 40%.

Specific areas examined show that the public isn’t particularly chuffed with how he’s handling them. That is, response to the coronavirus has declined from 67% in February 2021 to 47% now. Foreign affairs (which may change quickly due to the situation in the Ukraine) has gone from 56% to 38% and the economy 54% to 38%.

Even among Democrats his numbers have sagged significantly, having had a job approval rating by Dems of 98% last February and 79% today. 

Perhaps more troubling is how Independents rank him, with 61% approving 12 months ago and 35% now.

Note: Although Biden isn’t running for anything any time soon, presumably this anemic performance will not be helpful for those Democrats up for election in November: those proverbial coat tails are obviously short.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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