Today in Congress: Johnson’s inexperience showing; Ukraine stalemate continues

Posted on December 7, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on a major defense and national security policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, on Wednesday. It’s likely to be the only legislative accomplishment they achieve before leaving for the the end of the year, if it does indeed pass. The bill authorizes nearly $900 billion in defense and national security, though it doesn’t include funding—it just directs where the eventual funding bill will be spent. What the new House-Senate conference report doesn’t do is overturn the Pentagon’s abortion policy or strip health care from transgender troops.

That’s enough to have members of the hard-right House, which loaded their version of the bill up with all those toxic provisions, howling and vowing to vote against the bill. The bigger problem in the House, though, is Speaker Mike Johnson’s bungling of another provision in the NDAA. The conference committee decided to add a short-term extension of the nation’s warrantless surveillance powers in the bill, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, after several misfires on the issue from Johnson.

In the course of the last week or so, Johnson has taken three different positions on getting that done. On Nov. 29, he said he wanted to include an extension of it until Feb. 2. Then on Tuesday of this week, he told the GOP conference that he would put two competing reauthorization bills—one from House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan and another from House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner—on the floor in a head-to-head matchup. Whichever bill got the most votes would be sent to the Senate. Punchbowl News reported that he had instructed the members of the defense authorization conference to keep the FISA extension out of the bill, and “got cheers from conservatives for this statement.” Then on Wednesday, he made a complete about-face, agreeing to include an extension of the surveillance powers until April.

That same day, Jordan’s committee passed his bipartisan overhaul of FISA in committee by a 35-2 margin. Jordan had every expectation of his bill passing and wanted it to go to the floor next week, as he thought Johnson had promised. That’s precisely the kind of indecision and flip-flopping that already has Johnson in trouble with his fractious caucus, and since they are all unappeasable, it’s not going to get any better for him.

The Senate took up the defense authorization on Thursday with the initial procedural vote, which gives Johnson the weekend to try to smooth ruffled feathers and get the bill done on their side next week, likely the last substantive thing that will happen before they leave for Christmas.

That’s the worry for Ukraine and other countries in need of aid: that the House will leave town before the Senate passes its $110.5 billion supplemental foreign assistance package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. There’s been no advance in the stalemate on that issue since GOP senators threw their border security tantrum Tuesday. It’s looking likelier by the day that the urgently needed aid for Ukraine is not going to be passed before the end of the year.

And when Congress returns in January, as Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington reminds everyone, they’re going to have to get serious about passing government funding. Her concern is that Johnson’s supposed fallback proposal—to just extend current funding until the end of the fiscal year—will end up being the default. "It’s dangerous and a non-starter," the Senate Appropriations Committee chair told Politico Wednesday. "Everybody needs to understand that it’s dangerous, and we can’t go there."

She’s right to be worried. The budget agreement that President Joe Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy made back in May tried to avert just that eventuality by levying cuts if lawmakers extended funding with continuing resolutions. The $777 billion now budgeted for non-defense programs would plummet to $704 billion if regular funding bills aren’t passed.

Murray is also right to be worried that it’s Johnson in charge of figuring this out for the House. His combination of inexperience and arrogance makes him an unpredictable and dangerous negotiating partner.

White House has things to say as Speaker Johnson reverses course on impeachment inquiry

The honeymoon is ending for Mike Johnson

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On Thanksgiving, I remember my Jewish ancestors who left Europe and am thankful America took them in

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Ian Reifowitz

“I’ve got something I’d like to say.” That’s what I usually offer up as a preamble as I try to get the attention of my kids and other family members gathered around the Thanksgiving table. It takes a couple of attempts, but once we’re all on the same page I offer words of thanks for my ancestors. I talk about how brave they must have been to leave the communities of their birth, which were at least familiar to them despite the hardship, discrimination, and all-too-common violence they faced. They came to a land where they didn’t speak the language, didn’t know the culture, and, in many cases, didn’t know a soul.

In this offering, I mention the family names of the people who came and the places they came from. We’ve done quite a bit of genealogical research on my side and my wife’s side of the family, and we’re lucky to have as much information as we do. My goal is to give my kids a sense of who their ancestors were and what they went through to give us a chance to have the life we do here in America. One branch of my father’s family came from Vilnius, now the capital of Lithuania; another from Riga, Latvia’s capital; another from Minsk, the capital of Belarus; and the last from Odesa, now in Ukraine, which is a country fighting back with growing success against Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s vile aggression.

Growing up, I had learned that all my father’s ancestors were “Russian.” It turns out none of them came from places that are now in that country—and let’s hope its borders don’t expand any further.

The story is similar on my mother’s side. One branch was described to me as Austrian; in fact, they came from Skole in today’s Ukraine. The other was Hungarian and came from Sighet (Elie Wiesel’s hometown) in Transylvania, now a province of Romania. During my Thanksgiving meal talk, I also thank my wife’s family, who came from Vienna, Poland, and Russia. In reality, the primary point of identification in terms of culture and identity for all these people was not the country of origin on their passport, but the fact that they were members of the Jewish people, regardless of any particular level of belief or religiosity.

In addition to being Jews, the family ancestors I’ll be acknowledging were also, of course, Americans. That’s the other part of the thanks I’ll give on the holiday: I’m thankful my ancestors had a place to go, that they could become Americans and make a life here.

The last of them got in just under the wire, arriving a few months after the first world war and only a couple of years before a series of immigration “reforms” severely limited the number of immigrants our country accepted from outside the British Isles and northwest Europe. My wife’s grandmother’s family got out of Poland in 1937, and only because the youngest child had been born here (it’s a long story). One of the oldest living “anchor babies,” I’d surmise. Very few Jews were able to find refuge here at that point and immediately afterward, during the years they needed it most.

I make sure my kids know about these restrictions on immigration as well as the fact that people coming from Asia had almost no chance to emigrate and become U.S. citizens until the early 1950s. We also talk about how although their ancestors and other Jewish immigrants certainly didn’t have it easy, they at least had opportunities that America denied to the large numbers of African Americans and American Indians who had arrived long before our family.

America didn’t treat everyone living here equally, either on paper or in practice. Certainly, as the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Patrick Lyoya, and too many others have reminded us, we’ve still got room for improvement on that front as well, to say the least, though we have come a long way thanks to those heroes who fought and bled to get us as far as we have.

Over the course of four long years, the twice-impeached former guy made the process for coming here far more difficult and far more treacherous for refugees and asylum-seekers. But thankfully, The Man Who Lost an Election and Tried to Steal It was unsuccessful in that endeavor. We now have a far more humane president, one who led the Democratic Party to its best midterm performance in six decades as well as another night of victories earlier this month. These are developments for which my family and I are deeply thankful, for many reasons.

Contrast Trump with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of Pennsylvania, which for more than a decade has organized a Thanksgiving event in Philadelphia specifically for immigrants. Over 100 people shared the holiday meal in 2019:

Vanessa, who declined to give her last name, says the event is exactly what she and her family needed after being under the threat of deportation.

"We couldn’t miss it today, because recently my parents were in deportation court," she said.

Vanessa says she's thankful her family can stay together just in time for the holiday.

If that organization sounds familiar, it might be because of the wonderful work it does on behalf of immigrants, or it might be because the terrorist who killed 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh specifically mentioned HIAS in a post just a few hours before committing that mass murder:

A couple of hours before opening fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue, Robert Bowers, the suspected gunman, posted on the social network Gab, “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” HIAS is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and Bowers had posted about it at least once before. Two and a half weeks earlier, he had linked to a HIAS project called National Refugee Shabbat and written, “Why hello there HIAS! You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us?” Another post that most likely referred to HIAS read, “Open you Eyes! It’s the filthy EVIL jews Bringing the Filthy EVIL Muslims into the Country!!”

So while I’m thankful to our country for taking in my family and so many others, I am aware that not everyone approves of America’s generosity, or the support Jews have generally shown for it. There’s another person whose family is also Jewish and from Eastern Europe who expressed a sense of gratitude that reminded me of my own: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. He did so in the context of coming forward to testify in an impeachment inquiry focused on Donald Trump. Vindman has faced antisemitism from the Tangerine Palpatine and his allies in retaliation for stepping forward and telling the truth. Here are his words, words that make me proud to share my heritage with this man:

Next month will mark 40 years since my family arrived in the United States as refugees. When my father was 47 years old he left behind his entire life and the only home he had ever known to start over in the United States so that his three sons could have better, safer lives. His courageous decision inspired a deep sense of gratitude in my brothers and myself and instilled in us a sense of duty and service. All three of us have served or are currently serving in the military. Our collective military service is a special part of our family’s story in America.

I also recognize that my simple act of appearing here today, just like the courage of my colleagues who have also truthfully testified before this Committee, would not be tolerated in many places around the world. In Russia, my act of expressing my concerns to the chain of command in an official and private channel would have severe personal and professional repercussions and offering public testimony involving the President would surely cost me my life. I am grateful for my father’s brave act of hope 40 years ago and for the privilege of being an American citizen and public servant, where I can live free of fear for mine and my family’s safety.

Dad, my sitting here today in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.

Thanksgiving—at least in the form we celebrate in this country—is an American invention, a holiday about each of our relationships to America and to our fellow Americans. It means different things to different people depending on how their ancestors were treated. For me, America is my home, the only one I’ve got. It is the place that made my life and my family possible. My membership in the American people, the diverse yet singular American national community, is central to my identity. Although I don’t always agree with the policies of our government, I love America deeply.

We are living in a time when, once again, demagogues are playing on our deepest fears to argue against taking in people fleeing oppression in their homelands, just as was the case in 1939. Demagogues are also casting doubt on the loyalty of Jewish Americans who were born elsewhere, just as was the case in the Dreyfus Affair over a century ago.

Antisemitism in our country is on the rise from across the political and ideological spectrum. Although the most dangerous anti-Jewish hatred comes from the right wing, the antisemitism on college campuses since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks that killed 1,200 Israeli civilians has been impossible to ignore.

I am truly grateful for what America did for me: taking in my ancestors when they needed a place to go. I know many others will end up being far less fortunate. They are the ones we have to fight for now.

Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)

This is an updated version of a piece I have posted the last few years on Thanksgiving.

Sunday Four-Play: Zelenskyy seems skeptical that Trump will bring peace, and Mike Johnson lies

Posted on November 5, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

For a guy who’s supposedly a multibillionaire, Donald Trump sure spends a lot of his time scrounging for ha’pennies with which to stuff his gross, linty, panko breading–lined pockets. That reality was on lurid display this week as his real estate empire-cum-perpetual grift machine got flayed over and over during testimony meant to establish just how yuuuge a fraud he and his company really are—and always have been.

Would a really rich guy stiff his blue collar contractors? Would he sell tacky NFTs for $99 a pop to a heaving throng of marks who are still hoping their Beanie Babies recover their value? Would he sell mail-order steaks? And would he sell out his country and, by extension, the whole of Western democracy for the chance to build a big tower in a country led by a brutal, murderous war criminal?

Trick question! He’d sell out his country for a week-old Wetzel’s Pretzel, and toss in Eric in his official Team CCCP banana hammock mankini.

No, Trump has been pretending. All along. Do you think Warren Buffett lies awake at night trying to figure out how to squeeze ever-more filthy lucre from his fawning fanboys? Of course not. But Trump does—because he apparently has to. And thanks to Trump’s ever-skeevy ambitions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests are now reliably represented by a small-ish, but hugely significant, segment of the Republican Party.

In fact, while House Republicans have swiftly passed an aid package for Israel, whose military is already far superior to its enemy’s, it left out badly needed aid for Ukraine (while also offering a deficit-ballooning helping hand to America’s patriotic, hardly working tax cheats). New House Speaker Mike Johnson claims Ukraine aid is still on the agenda, but it’s hard to take him completely seriously given his recent skepticism on the issue, as well as his declaration that any bill authorizing new Ukraine aid should come with “conditions.”

So why are Republicans far more eager to help the ally that clearly needs less help than they are the largely overmatched ally that’s been bravely defending itself against a much larger imperialist aggressor, and doing so on behalf of the world’s liberal democracies? Because Donald Trump made loving Vladimir Putin fashionable. And why is that? Because he’s is a greedy, soulless prick who adores dictators.

How do you like that? I buried the lede.

And now, on to the usual nonsense.

1.

If this universe really is a simulation—and there’s a fair chance it is, frankly—I really regret buying the “Donald Trump is president” expansion pack. He’s ruined so many lives, after all.

Trump is fond of saying Russia would have never invaded Ukraine had he been president, but it seems far more likely that his lingering presence actually encouraged Pee Wee Putin’s Big Adventure—because Putin knew he had good friends in the USA to rely on if things started to go south. After all, Putin doesn’t need to defeat Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy; he just needs to defeat Joe Biden. Then Trump will be able to pull the U.S. out of NATO, as he’d planned on doing all along, and end the war in 24 hours, as he’s promised. Of course, any “peace plan” would almost certainly be made on his good buddy Vlad’s terms. Putin would likely get all the territory he’s stolen from Ukraine, along with a 600-foot statue of Stalin peeing in the reflecting pool at the National Mall; Zelenskyy would get a some-expenses-paid weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago and double scoops of ice cream every night during his stay.

Zelenskyy appeared on “Meet the Press” with host Kristen Welker, and Welker asked him about a new NBC News report that U.S. and European officials have begun talking with Ukrainian officials about what peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia might look like.

WATCH: @NBCNews reports that U.S. and European officials have quietly begun talks around Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations, but Zelenskyy says he is not ready to begin that dialogue with Putin.@ZelenskyyUa: "We can’t trust terrorists because terrorists always come back." pic.twitter.com/aHQXqcQtxJ
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 5, 2023

WELKER: “President Zelenskyy, NBC News is reporting that U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to your government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might look like to end this war. Have you personally been involved in these talks, and what’s the status of these talks?”

ZELENSKYY: “A lot of different voices around us, I’ve heard a lot of different voices and emotions and … a lot of different things, but as for me, I don’t have, for today, I don’t have any relations with Russia. And they know my position, that is the position of my country. That is the position of our people. We don’t want to make any dialogue with terrorists, and the president of the United States and Congress, bipartisan support, all of these people, they know that I’m not ready to speak with the terrorists, because their word is nothing. Nothing. We can’t trust terrorists, because terrorists always come back.”

Yeah, they do, don’t they? We’re learning that in this country, too:

This is the GOP's frontrunner for president. pic.twitter.com/rEzSUaMnp7
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 2, 2023

Welker also asked Zelenskyy about Trump’s boast that he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. At the very least, Zelenskyy seemed skeptical. Feel free to either stare at this picture until you attain satori or, if you don’t have that kind of time, watch the following clip. Either way, you’ll get the gist.

WATCH: Fmr. Pres. Trump — the GOP front-runner — has said he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Ukrainian President @ZelenskyyUa responds: “If he can come here, I will need 24 minutes … to explain … that he can’t manage this war. He can’t bring peace because of Putin.” pic.twitter.com/iykBUuH6hw
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 5, 2023

I won’t transcribe the entire clip, but Zelenskyy’s big takeaway is this: “If [Trump] is not ready to give [us] our independence, he can’t manage it.”

2.

Republicans want to pass aid to Israel in the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attack, but they also want to make sure wealthy tax cheats can go on cheatin’. What to do? Oh, here’s an idea! Take $14 billion away from IRS enforcement, then pretend that saves the country money, even though it will actually blow another $12.5 billion hole in our budget. But hey, that deal looks pretty sweet to people who don’t pay attention—which includes most voters, unfortunately. After all, it’s easy to scare Americans by shouting “IRS!” Though somehow this video isn’t quite enough to make them shit fluorescent green armadillos till the heat death of the universe:

This is the GOP's frontrunner for president. pic.twitter.com/rEzSUaMnp7
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 2, 2023

Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer joined George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” to discuss Republicans’ decision to play silly political games during a fraught moment in our nation’s—and the world’s—history.

After House GOP passes emergency aid package for Israel tied to cuts in IRS enforcement, White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer tells @GStephanopoulos the move is “without precedent in recent history.” https://t.co/Qnz5e41SgQ pic.twitter.com/KwnEAHtjA5
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 5, 2023

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Finally, the president’s request for aid to Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan and others appears to be the victim of a stalemate right now. House Republicans have passed aid to Israel tied to cuts in IRS enforcement. We have the Republican Leader Steve Scalise on the program next. What’s the president’s message to House Republicans?”

FINER: “I think the message is pretty clear, that it is not good for the United States, good for the region, or good for Israel to tie emergency assistance to Israel to what we consider to be essentially a partisan request for a way to offset that spending. … That is basically without precedent in recent history, and we don’t support it, and are urging the members of our party and the members of Congress from any party not to support it either.”

Well, maybe this particular outrage is unprecedented, but remember, Republicans have long since decided that taking hostages and threatening the economy while a Democrat’s in the White House are acceptable governing tactics. So yeah, shocking but not surprising. Like most everything the GOP does these days.

3.

Ah, Mike Johnson. The new House speaker who’s basically just Mike Pence if you gave him a Howdy Doody wig and steeped him in beef broth for 20 minutes. Johnson appeared on “Fox News Sunday” with Shannon Bream and said some stuff. Spoiler alert: It was mostly lies and deflections. In other words, business as usual.

Wow. Mike Johnson on Fox News Sunday doesn't rule out voting against access to contraception but then says "I really don't remember any of those measures" when asked about his past votes against reproductive health care pic.twitter.com/4pDl3BGGD3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2023

BREAM: “I want to talk about some social issues. You’ve got a lot of critics who say that you’re wildly out of step with the American people. Let’s talk abortion first. One of the groups opposing you [Emily’s list] says this: ‘He wants a total abortion ban with no exceptions. He supported bans that would not only criminalize abortion but ban IVF treatments and common forms of birth control,’ and that you voted against access to contraception. Where are you on these issues? Is that an accurate assessment of where you are, because that’s not in step with the American people.”

JOHNSON: “No, Shannon, look, I’m pro-life. I’ve said very clearly I’m a Bible-believing Christian. I believe in the sanctity of every single human life. So I come to Congress with deep, personally held convictions. But guess what, so do my 434 other colleagues in the House. Everyone comes to Congress with their deeply held convictions. But the process here is that you make law by consensus, and I have not brought forward any measure to address any of those issues. Right now our priorities are funding the government, handling these massive national security priorities that we have and crises around the globe, and taking care of changing and reforming how Congress works. That’s what we’re going to do. Listen, prior to the modern time—until recently, actually—almost all of our nation’s leaders openly acknowledged that they were also Bible-believing Christians. This is not something that should cause great unrest, okay? It’s just that Washington right now, what you’re seeing, Washington and the … press corps are engaging with a leader who openly acknowledges faith and the foundational principles of our country. I think this a healthy discussion, but it doesn’t affect how we run Congress.”

BREAM: “To be clear, though, have you voted against fertility treatments and access to contraception? Would you?”

JOHNSON: “I don’t think so. I’m not sure what they’re talking about. I really don’t remember any of those measures. I am personally pro-life.”

BREAM: “But do you oppose [crosstalk] IVF?”

JOHNSON: “No, no, of course not. No, that’s something that’s blessed a lot of families who have problems with fertility. Of course that’s a great thing. I would support that. But again, these are not issues that are on the front of the agenda, and we can come with our convictions and we can govern in an accountable, transparent manner for the American people, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Okay, while my admittedly limited Googling has failed to turn up much on Johnson’s voting record regarding fertility treatments, he does have a pretty well-established record on birth control. Uhh ... he doesn’t like it.

An Oct. 30 Rolling Stone article titled “House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Long Crusade Against Birth Control” laid out some of the gruesome details:

Johnson is known for being among the most anti-abortion lawmakers in Congress, and for railing against the use of “abortion as a form of birth control” before he was in office. But his statements and actions suggest he does not see much difference between abortion as a form of birth control and birth control as a form of birth control.

As a lawyer, Johnson worked on multiple cases representing plaintiffs who refused to dispense, counsel, or provide emergency contraception, which they considered to be abortion-inducing drugs. And as a congressman, Johnson has repeatedly voted against efforts to expand, fund, or protect access to birth control and other family planning services — including for members of the military.

While a certain, largely female segment of the Republican party has undertaken efforts to expand access to birth control in the wake of Dobbs, Johnson has not joined those efforts.

And—oh, lookee here—he joined 194 of his Republican House colleagues in voting against the Right to Contraception Act.

So let’s take another look at his answer, shall we?

BREAM: “To be clear, though, have you voted against fertility treatments and access to contraception? Would you?”

JOHNSON: “I don’t think so. I’m not sure what they’re talking about. I really don’t remember any of those measures. I am personally pro-life.”

Wait, so that was just a … lie? But Bible-believing Christians never lie! Because lies make Baby Jesus cry.

Ah, but don't worry about any of that. Johnson is focused on other priorities. And as we all know, people who’ve been on the job for less than two weeks never get around to doing anything else. The new bill requiring chastity belts for women living within a 500-mile radius of Jason Momoa will be taken up in late March at the earliest. So don’t worry your pretty little heads, ladies! Johnson won't get around to banning contraception until he’s finished screwing up a bunch of other stuff first.

4.

Wait, are Republicans still talking about impeaching President Biden? After that oily ferret orgy of a hearing they held in September? A hearing that was so bad, House Oversight Chair James Comer recently said they don’t want to hold any more hearings?

Comer appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo and tried to pretend that impeaching Biden is still a hot topic of conversation anywhere outside the musty pingpong room inside Marjorie Taylor Greene's head.

Comer tells Maria Bartiromo he thinks Biden should be impeached but is leaving it up to Mike Johnson pic.twitter.com/g2MI0PNiwh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Based on what you know today, Congressman, should Joe Biden be impeached?”

COMER: “I think he should, but that’s going to be left up to the speaker. You know, people ask me why I haven’t put someone in jail yet. All I can do is investigate. The House of Representatives can determine whether or not to impeach, but at the end of the day we’re going to need an attorney general who does the right thing and prosecutes people according to the law and doesn’t have a two-tier system of justice.”

Actually, we probably need more than two tiers in our justice system—if only to accommodate Trump’s dozens of felony charges. But hey, if Comer can find a grand jury to indict Biden based on the fact that he loaned money to his brother and his brother—gasp!—paid it back, he’s welcome to test out his theory that Trump is the most unjustly persecuted individual in the history of whiny little snowflake toddlers.

If nothing else, it should be interesting.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for now! Hope you remembered to turn your clocks back and aren’t reading this one hour in the future. But if you are, please let the rest of us know if civilization survived.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

The Ukraine War is core to our American domestic politics

Posted on October 3, 2023 by kos

I attempted to run this story last Thursday, but a nasty site bug ate most of it, so readers only saw the first couple of paragraphs. Normally, I go into comments to check reaction and note any corrections, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do so that day. So ultimately, the comments were full of confused “this is the shortest Ukraine Update ever!” Sorry about that. Unfortunately, Ukraine is still a big factor in our domestic politics and the original story is still timely, so we’re running it in full.

It might not be obvious, but the war in Ukraine has always been an issue of utmost domestic importance to the United States.

Ukraine was at the center of Donald Trump’s first impeachment, and featured heavily in internal Republican machinations. Remember, the one change that the Trump camp made to the 2016 Republican Party platform was watering down support for Ukraine.

And then there are the strategic considerations. Russia is a big part of the reason that the United States’ defense budget is north of $800 billion … and fast approaching $900 billion. Not only does Russia’s battlefield defeat have budgetary implications, but it will inform whether we have to fight a hot war against either China or North Korea that would cost trillions of dollars, claim untold lives, and destroy the world economy.

This is all quite clear to Democrats and old-guard Republicans. But Trump’s MAGA cult has lined up behind their authoritarian pro-Putin leader, rupturing the Republican Party and leading to a seemingly inevitable government shutdown at midnight on Sept. 30. [Edit: the shutdown was averted, but only after all Ukraine aid was stripped from the legislation.]

In my list of Republican presidential debate winners and losers Wednesday night, I listed Ukraine as one of the few winners. It started with the running of this excellent ad from Republicans for Ukraine:

It got even better when the moderators adopted the ad’s narrative when asking the assembled candidates about Ukraine.

“So, Governor DeSantis, let me go to you. Experts say President Putin has ordered assassinations across Europe, cheated on arms control treaties with the U.S., and seeks to work with China to force our decline,” former White House press secretary and debate moderator Dana Perino asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “President Reagan believed that if you want to prevent a war, you better be prepared to fight one. Today the Republican Party is at odds over aid to Ukraine. The price tag so far is $76 billion. But is it in our best interest to degrade Russia’s military for less than 5 percent of what we pay annually on defense, especially when there are no U.S. soldiers in the fight?”

DeSantis, hack that he is, had nothing. “It is in our interest to end this war, and that’s what I will do as president,” he answered impotently, spewing empty words. “We are not going to have a blank check.” He then awkwardly pivoted to border border border. But it did open up the field to more forceful defenses.

“[O]ur national vital interest is in degrading the Russian military,” said South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. “By degrading the Russian military, we actually keep our homeland safer, we keep our troops at home.” Former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley added, “A win for Russia is a win for China.”

After tech bro Vivek Ramaswamy claimed that supporting Ukraine was “driving Russia further into China’s arms,” former Vice President Mike Pence made the obvious point that, “Vivek, if you let Putin have Ukraine, that’s a green light to China to take Taiwan. Peace comes through strength.” Remember, China and Russia declared they had a “friendship with no limits” right before Russia invaded. It would take an ignoramus conspiracy theorist like Ramaswamy, who has admitted to not knowing anything about foreign policy until six months ago, to think that supporting Ukraine would bring those two countries further together. They’ve been using the BRICS framework to try and balance out U.S. and Western power for years—since 2001, actually. China and Russia are already allies.

After that exchange, moderator and Fox Business host Stuart Varney teed up a softball for the rest of the pro-Ukraine candidates, asking, “[Former New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie, President Biden’s first two years have brought China, Russia, and Iran closer together. Are we focused too much on Ukraine, and not enough on this threat from the new world order?” Christie smashed it out of the ballpark: “No, they’re all connected, Stuart. They’re all connected. The Chinese are paying for the Russian war in Ukraine. The Iranians are supplying more sophisticated weapons, and so are the North Koreans now as well, with the encouragement of the Chinese. The naivete on this stage from some of these folks is extraordinary.”

He wasn’t done. “And the fact of the matter is, we need to say right now that the Chinese-Russian alliance is something we have to fight against. And we are not going to solve it by going over and cuddling up to Vladimir Putin,” Christie added. “Look, Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin was brilliant and a great leader. This is the person who is murdering people in his own country. And now, not having enough blood, he’s now going to Ukraine to murder innocent civilians and kidnap 20,000 children.”

This isn’t hard. Ramaswamy is clearly trying to ingratiate himself with the MAGA seditionist crowd, so perhaps his willful ignorance makes sense. But DeSantis? This is one of the most momentous issues facing the world community today, and rather than deliver a forceful defense of the international rule of law and America’s clear interest in defeating Russia, he pulled a Trumpian “I’ll immediately bring peace” and tried to pivot to something else. His weakness permeates everything he does and says, and he can’t mask it with hateful attacks against trans and gay people. He is a small and scared man, and people see through him. That’s why he’s gone nowhere but down in the polls.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been on an on-again, off-again merry-go-round on whether to include new Ukraine aid in the defense budget, and it is currently out. The House Freedom Caucus’ MAGA-aligned nihilists wanted it stripped out, but there’s no indication that they’ll vote for the clean spending bill anyway, so no one knows how things will proceed without cutting a deal with Democrats.

One person losing patience is Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who must really regret not impeaching Trump when he had the chance. “We’re lined up here against China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran,” McConnell said while speaking at the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank on Sept. 27. “That ought to tell you right from the beginning that you’re on the right side. If Putin is to win this, some NATO country will be next. And I think it’s a lot smarter to just stop this invasion, to push him back.”

It’s smart to message the new China-Iran-Russia-North Korea axis. The MAGA cult pretends that focusing on Ukraine and Russia somehow detracts from China, but they are all one and the same fight. Any future Chinese war against Taiwan would feature strong Russian support, if not outright participation. North Korea would similarly need strong Chinese and Russian support for any sustained war against South Korea.

It is U.S. and Western pressure, and the threat to China’s rickety economy, that is keeping them from overtly supplying Russia with military support. But make no mistake, those repressive expansionist regimes are all working to undermine Western democracies and national self-determination. And even if it refuses to provide direct (and overt) military aid to Russia, China has still offered a lifeline and sanctions evasion to keep Russia’s economy from completely collapsing.

At the other end of the Republican spectrum, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has gone off the deep end into nutso conspiracy land. “And over in Ukraine, Charlie, by the way we haven't even talked about this, the country that Mitch McConnell and Schumer and Lindsay Graham and Tom Cotton and everybody can't wait to give another 100 billion dollars to, Ukraine is one of the worst countries on the Earth for child sex trafficking and they're harvesting children's organs over there,” she said on Charlie Kirk’s radio show, amplifying one of the more bizarre Russian-spread conspiracy theories.

At some point, reason will likely prevail and Ukraine aid will pass through both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support. But that doesn’t mean the issue will be domestically dead. Expect the MAGA crowd, fueled by an aggrieved Trump, to keep agitating against Ukraine and building more opposition to further U.S. assistance. How it plays in the 2024 presidential election remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t assume it plays to President Joe Biden’s advantage, particularly given how reluctant he and many of Ukraine’s European allies are to provide Ukraine everything it needs to win quickly and decisively.

Slow-rolling Ukraine aid hasn’t served anyone’s interests except for Russia’s, using the delays to further entrench itself in occupied territory.

Ukraine Update: The Ukraine War is a core American domestic political issue

Posted on September 28, 2023 by kos

It might not be obvious, but the war in Ukraine has always been an issue of utmost domestic importance to the United States.

Putin Republicans ready to rebuff Zelenskyy on aid to fight Russia

Posted on September 21, 2023 by Joan McCarter

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, holding meetings with President Joe Biden, Pentagon officials, and Congress. He first met with the bipartisan leadership of the House, followed by a briefing with the Senate. In both chambers, Zelenskyy’s request for further assistance depends on the ability of Congress to overcome the Republican dysfunction in the House of Representatives.

The signs aren’t auspicious. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy went into the meeting with a bad attitude, starting with his refusal of Zelenskyy’s request to speak to a joint session of Congress. “We just didn’t have time,” McCarthy told reporters. “He's already given a joint session.” Then he reiterated that he would demand Zelenskyy justify his request for continued assistance. “What is the plan for victory? Where are we currently on the field? The accountability issues that a lot of members have questions, just walk through that."

Zelenskyy could very well turn those questions on McCarthy, who has no plan for victory over the dozen or so members of his own conference who are refusing to do their one basic job: keep the government funded and functioning.

The Senate provided a more receptive audience. Zelenskyy has powerful allies there, including the Democratic majority, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the majority of Republican senators who realize the stakes in this war.

Zelensky inside the historic old Senate chamber briefing Senators on the state of the war. Two standing ovations so far. pic.twitter.com/mysq5afJKE
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) September 21, 2023

Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas spoke to the concern that the dysfunction in the House and the threat of the government shutdown fight is delaying assistance. “Am I worried that might be the case? Yes,” he told Politico. “It’s a terrible message, as we struggle to take care of assisting Ukraine in this war. Just even the process is damaging to the view of the stability of the United States and being an ally.”

That’s not to say there aren’t problems in the Senate, as well. The usual suspect, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, threatened to help the House shut the government down Wednesday, by saying he would not allow the Senate to move a stopgap government funding bill through quickly if it included Ukraine aid. Not to be outdone, freshman Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio piled on with a letter to the Biden administration, rejecting the request. He had just five other senators on board, plus a bunch of House Freedom Caucus jerks.

That attitude is deepening the divide in the Senate, where one Democrat is ready to blow. “These guys need to get goddamn with the program,” Sen. Jon Tester of Montana exclaimed. “These guys don’t want to protect democracy in the world? What the hell have we become?”

That’s what the world is probably wondering now, watching one half of the Congress being held hostage by just a handful of nihilists.

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Republican Party has to make a choice: Putin or democracy

Does would-be Speaker Kevin McCarthy still think Putin pays Trump?

Kerry and Markos talk about what is happening in Ukraine, what needs to be done, and why the fate of Ukraine is tied to democracy’s fate in 2024.

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McCarthy thinks impeachment inquiry rules should apply to everyone but him

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Mark Sumner

On Tuesday morning, Barely House Speaker Kevin McCarthy shambled in front of the cameras to publicly extract the last crumbling vertebrae from his spinal region. McCarthy announced an evidence-free start to impeaching President Joe Biden by moving to begin an “impeachment inquiry”—without the trouble of actually holding a House vote.

The whole announcement was patently ridiculous, and is gathering exactly the level of ridicule and disdain it deserves.

In effect, McCarthy’s announcement does absolutely nothing. It takes the pointless investigations already being conducted by three House committees and simply gives them a new name, though it doesn’t give them a mote of authority or a scintilla of validity. The only thing that McCarthy’s statement really does is confirm, again, that the Republican leader of the House will readily fold to the slightest pressure from the most radical elements of his party—no matter the cost.

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Less than two weeks ago, McCarthy went on Breitbart to tell them he would not start an impeachment inquiry without a vote. “To open an impeachment inquiry is a serious matter,” McCarthy said in the ancient times of Friday before last, “and House Republicans would not take it lightly or use it for political purposes. The American people deserve to be heard on this matter through their elected representatives. That’s why, if we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person.”

In the past, McCarthy was even more insistent that a full House vote before initiating impeachment wasn’t just something that was owed to the American people, but was required by law. He said as much in 2019 while attacking Rep. Nancy Pelosi. “Speaker Pelosi can't decide on impeachment unilaterally. It requires a full vote of the House of Representatives,” McCarthy said.

But McCarthy dropped this requirement like a hot potato on Tuesday because … someone looked at him mean. That someone was Rep. Matt Gaetz, who threatened to go out there and say bad things about McCarthy.

Understand that Gaetz didn’t say he was going to push for McCarthy’s removal from his big office; he simply threatened to go out there and make a speech in which he outlined things he thought McCarthy was doing wrong. This was a threat delivered by a guy who, according to Rep. Eric Swalwell, makes “more empty threats—day in/day out” than anyone he’s ever worked with.

But Gaetz looking at McCarthy cross-eyed was enough to trigger a complete collapse, showing again that McCarthy will fold to the slightest bit of pressure. Puppets everywhere look at McCarthy with pity. At least they wait until someone actually pulls their strings.

Oh, and Gaetz said mean things to him anyway. So there.

Ukraine Update: MAGA support for Russia rising as Trump attacks Ukraine in his campaign

Posted on July 31, 2023 (Updated August 1, 2023) by kos

Over the weekend, Donald Trump resuscitated the same anti-Ukraine crusade and tactic that got him impeached the first time around: holding Ukraine aid hostage unless the Biden family is “investigated.” No one will ever accuse him of learning from his mistakes.

Yet his renewed and vocal ire against Ukraine is having a real effect on the MAGA view of the conflict, according to Civiqs polling.

Civiqs doesn’t publicly track attitudes about the Ukraine war, but it has tracked one relevant question for the past six years: ”Do you see Russia as more of a potential ally, or a foe of America?”

Among the general public, Russia’s ratings are in the gutter—10% consider it an ally, while 76% are correct that it is a foe. It’s not a subjective matter. Russian leadership regularly threatens to launch nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies. It’s hard to “Make America Great” if America (and the rest of the world) is a nuclear wasteland. This shouldn’t be controversial.

Yet that 10% is a very special decile. It represents MAGA country, and they are increasingly warming up to Russia’s fascist dictator Vladimir Putin, as Trump and MAGA leaders like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene lead the charge.

Check out the chart among Republicans:

Civiqs Results

What’s initially interesting is that despite Trump’s railing about the “Russian hoax,” Republican attitudes toward Russia worsened throughout Trump’s first impeachment proceedings, the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2020 elections, and ultimately, Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Yet attitudes about Russia among Republicans have improved from their nadir in November 2022, going from 11% ally, 71% foe, to 15-64 today, an 11-point net swing. Russia’s brutality and nuclear rhetoric have only worsened since, so the shift is all from domestic politics.

Indeed, that November 2022 nadir is notable, as that is when Republicans took the House, emboldening Greene to make promises at a Trump rally that, “Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first."

She and Rep. Matt Gaetz unsuccessfully tried to defund Ukraine aid this past month. Greene’s effort got 89 Republican votes, with 130 opposed. Gaetz’s push got 70 votes, with 149 opposed. It’s not a majority opinion in the Republican Party, but Trump is moving his base’s opinion on the matter.

What’s interesting is which Republicans are changing their minds.

Among Republicans older than 65, the spread is 8% ally, 78% foe. These are old Cold War survivors who lived under the threat of Soviet annihilation. But the younger the Republican, the more likely they support Putin. Among Republicans age 18-34, the spread is 20-52.

Civiqs Results

This is the crowd that worships incels like Nick Fuentes, megalomaniacs like pro-Russia Elon Musk, and weirdos like Jackson Hinkle.

If you don’t know who Jackson Hinkle is, this is a taste:

Satanic Zelensky has signed a law moving Christmas in Ukraine from January 7 (Orthodox Christmas) to December 25, in his effort to "renounce Russian heritage.” pic.twitter.com/Ks3a8n12F3
— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) July 28, 2023

Can you think of anything more satanic than celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25? This is a great thread if you want to hate-read more about Hinkle. It includes stories about his pathetic romantic life and his parents smacking him down for his lies.

Those younger conservatives lack the personal memory of Russia’s long history of aggression and fascism, and they are part of a social media algorithmic culture that rewards contrarianism and outrage-harvesting. It really is telling that the geriatric Republican caucus in the Senate has little patience for Russia, while the youngest Republican House members drive divisions in the House.

These numbers among Republicans will likely keep swinging toward Putin as Trump centers much of his campaign on this message. He is under legal assault for breathtaking corruption, he feels an existential need to “both sides” that level of corruption, and he still weirdly thinks that centering Ukraine in that narrative gets him there. And let’s face it, Trump loves Putin. He wants to be Putin. And any enemy of Putin is no friend of Trump.

“Make America Great,” indeed.

As of now, the pro-Putin MAGA crowd is far from garnering the necessary support to block Russian aid. That doesn’t mean that they won’t be making this a defining rallying cry for both the Republican primary (former vice president Mike Pence was booed on a campaign stage for defending Ukraine aid), and the 2024 general election.

I’ve mostly ignored Russia’s big push around Kreminna and Svatove up in northeastern Ukraine, on the Luhansk-Kharkiv border. At one point, Ukraine claimed that 100,000 Russian troops had gathered to try and retake the strategic logistical hub city of Kupyansk, which they lost in last year’s fall counteroffensive.

The whole notion was as stupid as fears that Belarus would invade Ukraine, or that Russia would launch an amphibious assault on the Black Sea port city of Odesa. When something seems implausible, it most likely is. And the idea that Russia would move one-third of its forces to a part of Ukraine with little strategic value when it was failing to advance anywhere else on the map was ridiculous.

But Russia is dumb; we know that. So it made sense to keep an eye on things. In the end, the most that Russia could accomplish was to capture three “towns” with a combined population of around 80 people. If there were 100,000 Russian troops in the area, why were we only seeing a few dozen here or there?

In any case, Ukraine has recaptured at least two of those three “towns,” and maybe even the third. There is violence and death in that section of the front, so I don’t mean to minimize what those troops are experiencing. But in the greater scheme of things, it’s not very relevant at all. There were never 100,000 Russian troops, and Ukraine never worried too much about it.

The real action is happening down south.

After the initial attempt at a big armored breakthrough failed, Ukraine reverted to a more cautious approach, with a refocus on shaping the battlefield in southern Ukraine. That meant two things: 1.) degrading Russia’s massive artillery advantage, and 2.) degrading Russia’s logistics. If Russian frontline troops can’t get the supplies they need, and if they can’t put up a wall of artillery in front of a Ukrainian advance, things look a lot different for any Ukrainian advance.

Ukrainian counterbattery fire has done a number on Russian artillery, and General Staff still claims between 20-30 artillery kills every single day.

Russia has long ago adjusted for GMLRS rocket artillery, moving its supply depots and hubs beyond its range. But that changed with the arrival of British Storm Shadow cruise missiles and their French counterpart, SCALP. Suddenly, supply depots, troop concentrations, and command control centers once considered safe by Russia are going “boom” all around Russian-occupied territory. And just as importantly, so are bridges.

In fact, Ukraine just shut down the last remaining rail link connecting Crimea to southern Ukraine.

In connection with the confirmed damage to the Chongar railway bridge, I consider it appropriate to recall the importance of this connection for Russian military logistics. The railroads that Russians can use to supply the entire southern front are a connection from Armiansk… pic.twitter.com/xNRJpe9g4v
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 31, 2023

Russian can truck supplies in, but it is infinitely more challenging to do so. Trucks use more fuel, they break down, they get ambushed by partisans, more stuff gets stolen or “diverted,” and you need far more vehicles to transfer the same amount of supplies that a single train can ship.

It’s the same problem with closing the grain shipping corridor. There are other ways for Ukraine to move that grain—like trucks and rail—but those have nowhere near the capacity of a single one of those massive container ships.

Given current satellite photos and a single Russian on-the-ground photo (they’re being better at hiding the evidence this time around), it’s hard to tell just how extensive the damage to the bridge is. Rail lines can be fixed quickly, so it depends on how damaged the bridge’s supports are. But now we know Ukraine can hit it, and can continue to hit it to keep the bridge out of action.

Indeed, we’re starting to see something akin to last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensives, where Ukraine spent the spring and summer shaping the battlefield, targeting Russian logistics, command, and control, then pulled the big trigger in the fall. Let’s hope for equal success!

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Still at the top of Trump’s agenda: Sabotaging Ukraine to benefit Russia

Posted on July 31, 2023 (Updated August 1, 2023) by Hunter

Over the weekend Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania. It was noteworthy for a few reasons: It got Donald to actually leave his house, which was an impressive feat by his aides considering that Trump has been obsessively toilet-tweeting insults about his current indictments, expected future indictments, and everyone even tangentially involved with his indictments.

Also of note was his usual grifting podium sign, one telling the crowd to "Text PENNSYLVANIA -----" to give him money. This means Trump's campaign team genuinely believes Donald's rally crowds have the attention span to phone-thumb their way through all the letters of “Pennsylvania” without losing interest, so you can't say they've lost their optimism.

Then there was the part where he demanded all of the Republicans competing for the nomination besides him should drop out so that all the money they spent on their own campaigns could instead be given to him. Ah, classic Trump. I imagine he thinks he's being charitable by not demanding they all hand him the keys to their homes as well.

But the weirdest part was probably when Trump once again pressed his bizarre crusade against Ukraine, the same one he got impeached over the first time around, the same one that turned out to be a Rudy Giuliani snipehunt backed by crooked European oligarchs boosting crooked Russian disinformation. Trump once again really, really wants Republicans to block all military help to Ukraine—and this is apparently urgent enough that Trump doesn't think it can wait until his own theoretical second term. It's got to happen now.

"He's dragging into a global conflict on behalf of the very same country, Ukraine, that apparently paid his family all of these millions of dollars," Trump alleged. "In light of this information," Congress, he said, "should refuse to authorize a single additional payment of our depleted stockpiles ... the weapons stockpiles to Ukraine until the FBI, DOJ and IRS hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the Biden crime family's corrupt business dealings."

Oh. My. God. See, what's amazing about Trump is that the man's brain is impervious to new information. It might be laziness, or he might just have too much grass and dirt lodged up there from all the holes he's knocked out of golf courses in his lifetime, but that could be a direct quote from any one of his speeches from his first two campaigns. It's only the fact that he's ranting about Joe Biden and not Hillary Clinton that gives it any context at all.

Trump was going on about "depleted stockpiles" throughout his 2016 campaign. It was his version of the Republican talking point that's been used without fail by each of their candidates of the past 40 years. Every time, the Republican says that our troops are suffering from a lack of readiness, or that the Navy doesn't have enough ships, or the Army doesn't have enough tanks, and it's because a stupid jerk not-Republican is in charge and only a Republican can fix the problem.

Then, if the Republican wins, the problem magically goes away and we don't hear about it again until the next time a Democratic president appears. Trump was very big on the "our troops have no bullets" nonsense. It vanished when he won, and we're possibly supposed to believe it was because he chipped in bullet money out of his own pockets or something. Eight years later, the problem has subtly changed: Now it’s that we're giving Ukraine all our bullets and missiles and phased-out stockpiled vehicles, which means we're not going to have any bullets or missiles or mothballed vehicles left over for ourselves, and our troops will have to train using water pistols and tactical assault bicycles.

What might be most on Trump's mind, however, is that he still really, really wants to build a new hotel in Moscow or God knows where, and it's very hard for him to suck up to Russian mob boss Vladimir Putin when he is unable to stop the United States from arming Ukraine.

So what does he do? Well, this is Donald we're talking about, so he repeats the same bullshit-premised propaganda Giuliani delivered to him the very first time around. It’s a theory about how Russia was completely innocent of both conducting espionage operations against the United States with the aim of making Trump president, and of attempting to seize control of Ukraine.

In the Giuliani-Russia retelling, it was Trump's political enemies who did the real "hacking," and they did it with the help of "Ukraine” (because sure why the f--k not), and Russia was framed for all the rest of it by Hillary Clinton. And, uh, then-Vice President Joe Biden's shiftless adult son. And the former comedian-turned-new-Ukrainian-president.

And Trump is still pushing this completely insane counternarrative, one in which the Democratic National Committee apparently hid (?) a secret server in Ukraine and leaked their own information to frame Russia. Then Hunter Biden got a consulting gig in Ukraine. He claims that unlike Paul Manafort and Giuliani's aggressive humping of European strongmen and criminals, that was actually the real scandal here. And when you say it all at once, it's so painfully stupid that you can see why the masterminds of these theories would find themselves accidentally booking press conferences in the Four Seasons Landscaping driveway just a few effing months later.

That is what Donald Trump has on offer as the seditionist coup leader scrapes together a post-treason, post-indictments second act: retreads. The man is still clinging to the original, Giuliani-authored plan that resulted in his damn impeachment!

Donate to help those escaping Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Top Republicans might be divided on Ukraine, but the party's activist base is united behind Russia

Hunter Biden’s ‘laptop’ looks more and more like a politically motivated criminal scheme

Trump and Putin need each other more than ever. It’s a matter of survival for both

Posted on July 28, 2023 by Dartagnan

Last week, Donald Trump lost a critical motion to keep a grand jury in Georgia from hearing evidence about his efforts to strong-arm Georgia election officials into overturning the state’s 2020 election results. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis also indicated that her office has developed evidence of what The Guardian characterizes as a “sprawling racketeering indictment” against Trump for those alleged criminal acts. At the same time, Trump confirmed that he has been designated as a target in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury investigation of Trump and his cohorts’ activities in instigating, among other things, the violent insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Coupled with his indictment last month on charges of mishandling, appropriating, and then lying about his possession of classified government documents, these recent developments put Trump in serious jeopardy of a potential—and perhaps quite lengthy—prison sentence.

The character and timing of these multiple prosecutions, all of which will likely be instituted or pending at least a year prior to the November 2024 election (for which Trump continues to be the presumptive Republican nominee), provide Trump with very few realistic options to legally avoid or escape them. They are weighty, serious, and by all appearances, not subject to any quick or summary dismissal. If Trump follows his usual pattern, however, he will make every conceivable attempt to delay the trials until after Jan. 20, 2025, which will afford him an opportunity to resume his occupancy of the White House and have at least the federal charges dismissed by a compliant, hand-picked Justice Department seeded by his own sycophantic appointees.

But before any of those efforts, he absolutely must get himself elected. For Trump, winning in 2024 is now quite literally an existential imperative.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Vladimir Putin is facing his own crisis. Like Trump’s, it is one of his own making. For Putin’s sake, getting Trump reelected is also something of an existential imperative.

These two need each other now, and they’ve never needed each other more desperately since their own survival is literally at stake.

Putin’s war on Ukraine is going very badly, the Russian economy is being decimated, and his kleptocratic, authoritarian regime is starting to show obvious cracks. One reason is the sheer fierceness and bravery of the Ukrainians in defending their land, but Putin can’t do much about that one. The other factor, however, is the unexpected resilience of NATO and its successful, fairly unified strategy of heavily arming and advising the Ukrainian military forces. Absent some radical change of military fortunes on the battlefield in Russia’s favor, NATO is the one circumstance that Putin has the power to change in order to salvage his misguided war, and probably his regime as well.

Trump has already publicly provided Putin with implicit assurances that if he is reelected, Trump will disparage, defund, and ultimately seek disengagement from NATO, thus crippling that alliance. Part of Trump’s rationale for his pro-Putin and pro-Russia sentiments is doubtlessly payback for the assistance that Russian intelligence provided in helping Trump get elected in 2016. Should Putin again oblige Trump with the full power of Russia’s intelligence and disinformation apparatus in 2024, it is practically certain that Trump will do everything in his power to gratify his Russian patron, including abandoning Ukraine and NATO. Despite some recent Senate backlash, he appears to have a significant degree of support among like-minded members of the Republican Party. Without U.S. leadership propping up NATO, Russia stands a decent chance of reversing the war’s course, and Putin’s survival chances along with it.

Despite the Republican Party’s best efforts to obfuscate or ridicule it through their own media outlets, the magnitude of Russia’s assistance to Trump in 2016 and the complicity of Trump’s campaign in soliciting and accepting that assistance is as unquestionable as it is damning. The treasonous implications of that relationship are, in fact, the reason why Trump so vigorously pushed his insistence that the Mueller investigation found “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia, neatly sidestepping the fact that determining “collusion” (not a legal term) was never the subject of that investigation. It is also the reason why both Trump and his allies invariably followed the word “Russia” with the word “hoax” in their public statements to foster a reflexive reaction of disbelief in the minds of supporters.

In 2016, Trump’s campaign apparatus operated to solidify his Russian contacts through a network of go-betweens and intermediaries, such as then-campaign advisers Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos, and various Russian private citizens with ties to Russia’s intelligence services. It is possible that Trump’s precarious legal position will prompt him to reestablish or reinvigorate those same ties, albeit with a brand new cast of characters for 2024, or at the very least establish some lines of communication with the Putin regime (assuming one is not already in existence). Or the understanding between Trump and Putin may, at this point, be implicit and no such contacts or conversations are even necessary.

Either way, the prospect of another such mutually beneficial collaboration is simply too attractive a proposition to ignore. For both Trump and Putin, the downside is negligible while the potential benefit is incalculable. Both will be able to reap the benefit of a gullible and credulous Republican voter base, one that has already demonstrated its susceptibility to external influence. Both will also have the advantage of a compliant right-wing media juggernaut already predisposed to regurgitate both pro-Russian and anti-Democratic propaganda.

But regardless of whatever “alternative universe” of facts with which Republicans sought to delude themselves and the American public about the interplay between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence surrounding the 2016 election, this country’s intelligence agencies shouldn’t be operating under the same delusion. They should prepare themselves for an even greater onslaught of such interference in 2024 given that sordid history and the fact that the actual, real-life stakes right now for both Trump and Putin are literally unprecedented.

That preparation must extend beyond simply beefing up our existing capabilities to thwart actual, physical election interference, but should include a far more robust public accounting, where possible, of Russian (or any foreign) efforts to directly or indirectly benefit any political candidates in this country, through social media or otherwise. It is not necessary for the Trump 2024 campaign to be singled out, even though it makes the most sense that they would benefit from such meddling. But the simple fact is that Americans have an inherent right to know what hostile foreign influences are working to influence or sway the decisions of any political officials, party, or constituency.

Trump’s return to the White House is no longer an aspirational goal for Putin, but an operational necessity: If he is to survive his Ukraine debacle, he has to find a way to weaken NATO. His only way to do that effectively within the limited time he has available is by getting Trump reelected. Likewise, despite Republican pronouncements to the contrary, Trump’s own path to reelection must now find a way to circumnavigate the existence of multiple messy indictments and two prior impeachments. He needs an assist that no one except Putin, with his vast and proven disinformation networks, can provide.

And that is simply too glaring a fact for any of us to ignore. RELATED STORY: Remember how Putin helped Trump get elected? Republicans are trying to make you forget