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.
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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.
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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 21stCentury post-Soviet Russian Federation on kleptocratic oligarchs. Perhaps he’s hoping for that legacy.
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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
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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?
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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