Monthly Archives: March 2022

Anonymous continues to claim credit for interfering with Russian communications – or maybe enhancing it:

PLEASE RETWEET AND SHARE 1/2 Our action works ! Your action works ! We call on all global citizens to go to https://t.co/tymxfJSJtU and copy the number to your what’s app on sms message. Then send them (see our next message) simply copy and paste it and send it to the number. https://t.co/TTKWeMYfDW

— Anonymous (@AnonymousUK2022) March 6, 2022

And The Daily Beast reports at least one outcome:

On Thursday’s episode of The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, state TV propagandist Vladimir Soloviev complained that he and editor-in-chief of RT Margarita Simonyan are being terrorized by unknown individuals, receiving endless calls and texts about Russia’s military activities in Ukraine. He griped: “Margarita and I can show our telephones to demonstrate that we’re getting a thousand calls and texts per hour.”

Several days earlier, two other state TV propagandists, Olga Skabeeva and her husband Evgeny Popov, also reported a barrage of calls. Skabeeva, who hosts the state TV show 60 Minutes, angrily yelled that Ukrainians or their supporters have been “endlessly calling everybody, everybody, all citizens of Russia, including me and Evgeny!” Later in the show, she loudly interrupted a panelist to grumble about being subjected to a “mass attack that started at 2 a.m… we started getting calls from the territory of Ukraine, two to three minutes apart, Ukrainian and Polish phone numbers calling nonstop… And then, text messages with threats to kill me and my family, and photos—endless photos—of corpses, which they say are the corpses of Russian soldiers!”

That’s gotta be disturbing when President Putin claims all is going according to plan. Worse, it means Putin is losing his grip on the information flow to his own people. And do they understand misinformation like Americans have been learning.

I wonder.

I see digital currency is celebrating a bit of new legitimacy – the US Government is going to investigate the possibility of regulation and even issuing its own digital currency:

I saw on the news last night that local business monster 3M is “halting operations” in Russia. A business like 3M can have huge impact, so why didn’t it do that two weeks ago?

The latest target of the Republicans is the price of gas at the pump, and more generally the price of oil. Certainly, the prism you use colors your views, as Erick Erickson presents:

If President Biden committed to tapping our oil reserves and expanding domestic energy production, oil markets would respond rapidly, just as they did in 2008.

Instead, even now, his administration dogmatically demands Americans switch to electric vehicles and get off fossil fuels. His administration continually, daily signals that they will put the fossil fuel industry out of business. They thereby disincentivize investments in oil and gas, driving up costs on the American people.

Decline is a choice and it is one Joe Biden’s Administration is making on the backs of the American middle class. Their Marie Antoinette moment of “let them have EVs” is going to provoke a backlash.

They can blame Vladimir Putin all they want. Banning imports of Russian oil was the right thing to do — but it should responsibly be done by expanding American energy production, not relying on Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

But it’s hard to take Erickson’s points seriously. He’s complained elsewhere about the Keystone XL pipeline cancellation, but Professor Richardson notes that the Pipeline, a spur on the current Keystone Pipeline meant to lessen travel time, would not compensate for Russian oil. Erickson also ignores the distortions of the market caused by subsidies, which will skew all market responses as pricing moves from up-front to taxation, today and tomorrow. His attempts to ridicule Democrats who are saying more drilling and refining would not lower prices ignores the fact that this is not a standard economic situation of supply and demand, but rather a war situation in which analysis is far more nuanced and difficult – and pricing reflects it. I’m left thinking he doesn’t really have a grip on how this works at all – and I’m saying that as nothing more than an ignorant amateur who happens to have a lot of experience at analysis of complex situations.

Steve Benen sees a half-full glass:

Americans have expressed support in recent weeks for a ban on Russian oil imports, but are consumers prepared to accept the consequences of such a policy by paying more at the pump?

A few recent surveys suggest the answer is yes. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:

A wide majority of Americans, 79%, said they favored a ban on Russian oil imports even if the prohibition increased energy prices in the U.S., according to data from a new Wall Street Journal poll. Just 13% said they opposed it…. The Journal poll surveyed 529 registered voters from March 4-7 on this question: “Would you favor or oppose the U.S. imposing new sanctions on Russia by banning the sale of Russian oil to the U.S., even if you knew it would cause U.S. energy prices to increase?”

On many of the nation’s most contentious issues, there’s a sizable gap based on party affiliation, with Democratic and Republican voters disagreeing in large numbers. But these survey results from the Wall Street Journal suggest the issue is less divisive: 88 percent of Democrats support the moratorium on Russian oil imports, and 77 percent of Republicans agree.

Even 72 percent of voters who would vote for Donald Trump in 2024 are on board with the policy.

Right now, he sees this as a positive, of a citizenry rallying to the Ukrainian cause. How long will the ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) hold it together?

I think, at the moment, Erickson’s behind Benen. Rather than note and appeal to American pride in ingenuity, he instead is solidly in the status quo camp, which forces him into the attitude that his audience, that all Americans, are snowflakes who’ll wilt when oil prices go up. And he can’t stand the thought that the “baby-killing” liberals are urgently pointing the way to a solution.

And that’s really a rather repulsive take in a stressful situation. He looks more like a paid oil industry lobbyist than an honest pundit.

CNN/Politics‘ Chris Cillizza identifies the most important part of omnibus spending bill introduced today – the resurrection of earmarks:

… the actual impact of banning earmarks was very different than what those who pushed the ban hardest believed it would be.

What happened, in practice, was that leaders in both parties lost leverage over their rank-and-file members. They no longer had a carrot to dangle in front of wavering members to get them to sign on to a piece of legislation where the vote was tight.

That loss of leverage was compounded by the rise of third-party groups — led by super PACs — over the past decade. Their ascension signaled a diminution in the power of political parties. No longer could party leaders overseeing campaign committees bend members to their will by offering — or withholding — support.

Add those two factors together, and you get developments like the rise of the House Freedom Caucus, a rump group that has no loyalty to or fear of party leaders. And over the last decade, it’s the extremes — like those represented by the Freedom Caucus — who have increasingly have influence in Congress.

While I hesitate to comment on whether or not this is the most important, it’s certainly very important. If Cillizza is correct as to the levers it gives Congressional leaders over their caucus members, then look for multiple cries of corruption emanating from the lead troublemakers sometime in the next couple of years.

Why?

The extremist screamed in terror. The idea of a reasonable Congressional leader had never occurred to her! And now she was in its clutches!

Because their influence will wane, at least so long as relative moderates are in charge of Congress. The would-be follower extremists, faced with legal bribes, will suddenly be willing to change their votes from NO TO EVERYTHING! to Uh, if I can have this, then OK.

And the ideologues who have been enjoying outsized influence of late will suddenly be back out in the wilderness, right where they belong. And hating it. So they’ll scream foul corruption as loudly as possible, and the cycle will begin anew.

Because I doubt the body politic will actually learn anything from this.

Which is how I visualize proposed laws, not yet passed.

Not really.

But this proposal fulfills a lot of implications:

An anti-abortion GOP lawmaker in Missouri, a state which passed one of the country’s strictest abortion laws back in 2019, says she has a solution to to the problem of people traveling out of state for abortions, The Washington Post reports.

“An unusual new provision, introduced by state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion out of state, using the novel legal strategy behind the restrictive law in Texas that since September has banned abortions in that state after six weeks of pregnancy,” reports the Post. “Coleman has attached the measure as an amendment to several abortion-related bills that have made it through committee and are waiting to be heard on the floor of the House of Representatives.” [RawStory]

If this passes and survives the inevitable SCOTUS review, a principle presumably established by the survival of the Texas anti-abortion law, which has not yet occurred, will protect it, and that principle will receive a confirmation.

Which means that when other states pass private justice laws that attack conservative shibboleths, the Court will have little choice but to uphold those laws as well, or be plastered with a very poor reputation.

If the Court’s conservative wing is smart, it’ll join the liberal wing in rejecting laws such as the Texas law, and this law if it passes, 9-0. Otherwise, the legacy of those in favor will be forever dirtied, even laughed at.

Addendum: And does it matter?

We’re seeing this strategy first in MO largely because a new, 18,000 sq ft clinic on the Missouri-Illinois border has limited the impact of Missouri’s strict antiabortion laws: Since that clinic opened in Oct 2019, 10,644 Missouri residents have received abortion care there. 6/

— Caroline Kitchener (@CAKitchener) March 8, 2022

Yes, I’d say it does.

I don’t know how many such charges have already been lodged and that sort of thing, but this one’s not entirely surprising:

A former campaign staffer and the grandson-in-law of US Senator Rand Paul who received a presidential pardon from former President Donald Trump has been charged with directing Russian money into the 2016 presidential election, according to the US Department of Justice.

The announcement came on Monday via an unseal indictment from 9 September.

Business Insider reports that Jesse Benton, Mr Paul’s former aide, “conspired to illegally funnel thousands of dollars of foreign money from a Russian foreign national” into the 2016 campaign.

He also managed Senator Mitch McConnell’s 2014 campaign.

Mr Benton received a $100,000 wire transfer from an unnamed Russian national in October of 2016, according to the indictment. He was allegedly promised that he would get to “meet a celebrity” at a Philadelphia fundraiser a month earlier.

Though prosecutors did not name the candidate involved in the memo, Insider confirmed that Mr Trump was hosting a fundraiser in Philadelphia the night of the fundraiser mentioned by the Russian national.

Why isn’t this surprising? Senator Paul (R-KY) passes himself off as being from the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, and, if you read libertarian literature, you’ll see that one of their stated goals is to use human greed and selfishness for the good of society.

It’s not a long trek from greed and selfishness to the acceptance of bribes, now is it? It’s almost as elevation of money as the chief goal of existence, both here and hereafter.

That the Russians are involved is of little surprise, given Russian interference in the 2016 elections, as documented in the Mueller Report, and Putin’s interest in keeping America on its heels and divided.

I am expecting more such indictments.

Mr. Benton’s previous conviction, for which he was pardoned, was for campaign finance fraud. This would appear to be more serious. And Mr. Benton does not appear to be burdened with the usual weight of morals.

There’s been a stir in political circles concerning Senator Graham’s (R-SC) remark last week concerning President Putin of Russia. Steve Benen explains:

Graham didn’t just make an oblique reference in an obscure forum. The sitting senator and failed presidential candidate first floated the idea of Russians assassinating Putin on Thursday night, during a national television appearance. When that caused a bit of a stir, Graham pushed the same message again, this time via Twitter. “The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out,” he wrote.

On Friday morning, the GOP lawmaker returned to Fox News and again said he hopes someone in Russia will “take this guy out by any means possible.”

The rhetoric did not go unnoticed. NBC News reported:

Russian officials pounced on Graham’s comments, with Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov telling reporters, “Unfortunately, in such an extremely tense atmosphere, there is a hysterical escalation of Russophobia. These days, not everyone manages to maintain sobriety, I would even say sanity, and many lose their mind.” The Russian ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, said on Facebook that Graham’s statement was “unacceptable and outrageous” and said the degree of Russophobia and hatred of Russia in the U.S. is “off the scale.”

I know my own comments can be interpreted easily as a call for an assassination, and to some extent this is polite company outrage, because it is considered poor form to call for the assassination of a politician, within or without your country. Moreso, this is an entirely justified social convention, because sometimes there are people around who will commit an assassination for flimsy, even personal reasons that are really unjustifiable. This leads to an unstable political environment, and, given the power of today’s weapons, that can lead to disaster.

All that said, I don’t see Putin surviving this war. He physically has no where to go, and while the Ukrainians, along with President Biden and the allied liberal democracies, continue to perform at a premier level, he runs a substantial risk of defeat. Defeat will almost certainly mean his death. If he stubbornly continues this war for weeks or months, the Russian military’s reputation will be ruined, and if he withdraws, ditto. Meanwhile, the economy is rapidly worsening and may be ruined for so long as he’s in power.

Finally, remember, Sun Tzu observed that for an aggressor to achieve success in war, they must vanquish their enemy; the defender, though, need only survive. Which is a bit simplistic; I think Ukraine should like to see Putin unhorsed, as it were, in order to avoid future threats.

In the end, though, Putin will have to be removed in order for this conflict to be resolved, and his government replaced. Graham, I think, simply said out loud what everyone else was thinking. It was just not something you say out loud if you’re a United States Senator.

Via Paul Fidalgo, who has the transcript:

CNN has a video piece on Flat Earth belief with Kelly Weill, which she says is “almost like a religion in its totality; if you believe it, you have a whole new worldview.” And she says:

There is no inherent reason there should be so many Flat Earth Nazis, and yet, there are a lot of Flat Earth Nazis.

Except there is. The enemies of the Nazis – that is, just about everyone in the civilized world – happen to use science against the Nazis, not only to destroy their war machine, but, more importantly, to destroy them philosophically, from their excuse of eugenics, which has been discredited, to their mystical belief in the “Aryan race” and, contrariwise, their anti-semitic beliefs.

All of which is, to be polite, inconsistent with science.

Wildly so, for those of us who are less bashful.

In order to discredit these arguments, one has to start somewhere, and falsifying the proof of a spherical (oblately, if you will) Earth would then put doubt into the minds of science-believers, or at least so the mystically-inclined Nazis would like to think. From there you discredit the rest of the evil secular science, and prove “Nazi science.” And, if the flat-Earth paradigm were to be proven true, the Nazis who led the way would have a barge full of social prestige coming their way.

And, if you’re a Nazi, why not take a shot? It’s not like you have even an outside shot at getting any social prestige anyways, between the way society generally tilts and your limited IQ.

Tyler Dinucci explains how Alaska decided to run an election, and how it snuffs the ideological extremists:

Measure 2 scrapped Alaska’s partisan primary system and replaced it with a blanket primary, similar (but different) to Washington, Louisiana, and California’s primaries. Every candidate would run on the same ballot in the primary regardless of party. But unlike those states, Measure 2 would then send the top four candidates in the primary to the general election. That general election would then be run under a ranked-choice system, similar to Maine.

Confused? Let me give an example:

In 2010, Lisa Murkowski lost her primary to far-right challenger Joe Miller. She staged an incredible comeback, winning only one of two successful write-in campaigns for Senate in American history. But with Measure 2, she wouldn’t have had a primary to lose. That’s because everyone — Miller, Murkowski, the Democratic candidate and more would’ve all competed on the same ballot in the primary. Joe Miller received 55,878 votes in the primary. Murkowski received 53,872, while the top two Democrats running received 18,035 and 6,913 in their primary. In this system, all four of these people who received the most votes in the primary would have advanced to the general election.

By eliminating the outsize influence of ideological zealots of any brand, moderates have a far better chance of victory – and given the zealots’ tendency towards arrogant hubris, I’ve very often been in favor of moderates.

The blanket primary sounds like a winner.

When you forget to turn off your phone in the theater.

A Living Dog (2019) is about our new robotic overlords.

No, seriously! An experiment apparently out of control, the robots now hunt humans mostly by sound, so there’s no dialog to worry about – just a military deserter (or survivor), a really angry civilian with some mad electronics skills, and their pet.

Pet tactical nuke, that is.

And a bunch of 20 ton robots that can, paradoxically, sneak up on you without making a sound, an unsettling skill that really shouldn’t be permitted.

And the dog? Don’t buy the head fake.

So, once again the scientists are to blame for trying to make the world better, and the good guys, well, so-so guys have to go and clean up after them. If you like that, great. And this isn’t a bad take on it. But why would robots key in on sound rather than sight? It’s the little question marks like that which lessen the impact of this story.

But it’s not badly done.

Xenograft:

A surgical graft of tissue from one species to an unlike species (or genus or family). A graft from a baboon to a human is a xenograft.

The prefix “xeno-” means foreign. It comes from the Greek word “xenos” meaning stranger, guest, or host. (Xeno- and xen- are variant forms of the same prefix.)  [MedicineNet]

Noted in “Team in China aims to start trial of pig organs in humans this year,” Michael Le Page (NewScientist, 19 February 2022, paywall):

Other experts say the results are encouraging. “The availability of a modified xenograft that lasts longer could be of significant benefit to patients with large and deep wounds,” says Adam Singer at Stony Brook University in New York.

Erick Erickson, a few days ago, flailed once again in full knowledge that the Democrats have no ill-birthed action like the Republicans’ January 6th insurrection, but, to keep the spirits of the conservatives up, he claimed they do:

Democratic pollsters are telling President Biden and other Democrats to simply move on from COVID. Did the science change? Nope. Only the polling.

Is that right? Well, I suppose it depends on how literally ‘science‘ should be taken. I mean, science is the study of reality, but some would argue that it should be restricted to our technical knowledge of Covid in this case.

I prefer the former, because then it becomes directly relevant to the citizen. How do I mean? From the Minnesota Department of Health:

It’s graphs like these that prompted public health officials to recommend the lockdown, and the various elected officials to follow through. The Hospitalization Rate time-series is the most important graph, because our strongest worry during the pandemic was the overwhelming stress on the health system, meaning not just Covid patients, but anyone admitted with a serious problem – accidents, gunshots, burst appendix, anything that might land you in the ICU or OR in ordinary times.

That plunging graph represents knowledge, and that represents a change in the science. Our knowledge is that the stress on hospitals is lessening rapidly.

Of course, there are infinite nuances to these sorts of analyses. For example, if the omicron variant was more dangerous and more virulent than the previously dominant mutant, delta, the above graph could be questioned. Is omicron worse than delta?

Researchers compared 52,297 cases of COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant with 16,982 cases caused by the delta variant. Rates of hospitalization, intensive care unit admissions, requirement for mechanical ventilation, and mortality were substantially higher for infections caused by the delta variant than those caused by the omicron variant. The authors concluded, “During a period with mixed delta and omicron variant circulation, SARS-CoV-2 infections with presumed omicron variant infection were associated with substantially reduced risk of severe clinical endpoints and shorter durations of hospital stays.” [Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia]

No, it doesn’t appear to be.

If I were operating as a public official, the above graph, and others at the link cited, suggest to me that we may be nearing the end of the acute phase of the Covid pandemic. That analysis could be wrong. The next viable mutant form could have a case fatality rate like cousin MERS, which had a case fatality rate of 34%; by comparison, Covid’s case fatality rate is currently estimated at 1.35% (both numbers are from Wikipedia).

My point is that we’re on the leading edge of science, and science often gets things wrong. But right now, things are not looking too bad.

And Erickson’s a dishonest weasel.

Here’s a dude I’d rather not meet up close & personal:

For more unbearably cute pictures of polar bears occupying a weather station, go to Dmitry Kokh’s site here.

Admittedly, military vehicles are probably too well shielded for this to actually work, but it satisfies a minor fantasy of mine to do something more worthwhile than donating money to Ukraine:

A microwave weapon that can be carried by a drone is powerful enough to shoot down other drones and can also knock out other electronic devices.

The Leonidas Pod, produced by start-up Epirus based in Los Angeles, generates a beam of microwaves to overload a target’s electronics, causing drones to drop out of the sky, but doesn’t affect people.

Other counter-drone microwave weapons are based on magnetrons, the technology found in microwave ovens, and are the size of a shipping container. Instead, Epirus uses compact solid state emitters and last year unveiled a device that can fit on a pickup truck. [NewScientist, 19 February 2022, paywall]

And one need not wipe out all the Russia vehicles, just those at key points in the road. It’s already been demonstrated that four-wheeling across the country-side involves significant risk of getting stuck in the mud.

Here’s Epirus‘ advertising for their HPM. You’ll have to dig about a bit to find it, unfortunately. It’s known as Leonidas and is thought to be effective against drone swarms as well.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021, but still at theaters) follows the old & familiar plot line, but dressed up with effects difficult or impossible on a stage: are those three witches, or one? A castle architecture almost ‘gestural,’ while still brutalist in essence, in the words of my Arts Editor. A crop of fine, seasoned actors round out the mix, and made it a fine afternoon, only spoiled by the Scottish accents which were occasionally unintelligible.

Not necessarily recommended, but a fine effort. Enjoy!

WaPo has published some of the letters written after the 2020 election, but before the inauguration, discussing possible approaches to overturning the election, and this one, from Pence lawyer Greg Jacob to Trump-allied lawyer John Eastman, who has become rather infamous, is a doozy of way to tell someone they’re so full of shit it’s leaking out their ears:

John, very respectfully, I just don’t in the end believe that there is a single Justice on the United States Supreme Court, or a single judge on any of our Courts of Appeals, who is as “broad minded” as you when it comes to the irrelevance of statutes enacted by the United States Congress, and followed without exception for more than 130 years. They cannot be set aside except when in direct conflict with the Constitution that our revered Framers handed us. And very respectfully, I don’t think that a single one of those Framers would agree with your position either. Certainly, [former conservative] Judge Luttig has made clear he does not. And there is no reasonable argument that the Constitution directs or empowers the Vice President to set a procedure followed for 130 years before it has even been resorted to.

The contrast between very respectfully and the idiocy of advocating for ignoring statutes, by someone who, at one time, was a professor of law, kinda tells the story. Mr. Jacob may have been merely trying to soothe an overbearing ego, but it comes out as, You idiot, that’s not how the Law works.

And that this former professor of law apparently wanted to break laws he doesn’t like speaks to the arrogance of Trump’s coterie of devotees. It rather reminds me of a podcast Andrew Sullivan conducted with Michael Anton, a far-right “thinker,” who seemed to have little familiarity with actual thinking. Now, I do have some sympathy with Anton in a podcast, as I would probably sound like an idiot, too, but his refusal to do much but hide behind a screen of “I dunno…” rendered the podcast an implicit condemnation of the right, rather than a raucous debate.

Anyways, back to Jacob’s letter, a few paragraphs later the quote ends with

And thanks to your bull—-, we are now under siege.

Which just makes me laugh. Eastman doesn’t appear to have universal respect.

Former Republican Presidential contender, HUD Secretary, and famed retired surgeon Ben Carson said something that sounds persuasive, but is not, and Paul Fidalgo helpfully provides a transcript:

I feel like Ben Carson doesn’t quite get what the separation of church and state is supposed to be about. Call me crazy. He said:

So if [references to God are] in our founding documents, it’s in our Pledge, it’s on our courts, it’s on our money, but we’re not supposed to talk about it, what in the world is that? In medicine, we call it “schizophrenia.”

It sounds like Carson is providing context, but, in this case, he’s providing incomplete context. What’s missing?

The nature of the ‘God’ references.

Which Divinity is referenced? No identification is given. Could be Christian, Muslim, or even Zoroastrian. Could be something far more outre, now couldn’t it? But Christians were the dominant culture, you cry? But the Founding Fathers contain several faiths, and the Deists and, no doubt, Agnostics were among them. Some would argue they even dominated the group, intellectually speaking. Would they have signed documents that might have contradicted their own beliefs as to the nature of the Divine? No.

The recognition that operating on a lack of evidence, as faith and religious tradition do, does not serve society well, leads to the inescapable conclusion that, while a Divinity was recognized as probably existing, its nature was not known. Further, the lessons of history recent to the Fathers dictated the importance of restraining the actions of supposedly Divine-inspired people from controlling government in regard to those supposed principles, for down that Divine path lay blood and division.

The humility of the Founding Fathers in this regard is in deep contrast to the grasping, arrogant assumptions of Carson and his ilk. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to them.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is widely thought to be a likely candidate for President in 2024, but if this is his impression of the nature of foreign relations, which is a primary responsibility of the Presidency, then he’s disqualified himself already:

“When you see people that are willing to fight, I mean it’s inspiring to see these people just grab rifles who are civilians and going out there and fighting to ward off the Russian Army,” DeSantis said. “A lot of other places around the world, they just fold the minute there’s any type of adversity. I mean could you imagine if they went into France, would they do anything to put up a fight? Probably not.” [USA Today]

France has suffered through two German invasions and occupations, the first partial and the second total; that they completely misunderstood the nature of warfare in the run-up to World War II doesn’t render them pacifists or generally incompetent, just extraordinarily misguided in the preparation phase of the war – and far too close to the aggressor to recover from their mistakes. They fought before and after their country was overrun, and the exploits of the French Resistance are justly famed.

The United States also messed up preparation for World War II, in the area of naval sea power, as anyone who’s taken a moment to understand that the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor signified the importance of same when most American naval commanders at the time didn’t understand it^[1]. But because of our distance from Japan, and greater resources, we were able to recover.

But my real point isn’t to defend the courageous French, but to point out that anywhere there’s nation-level aggression, there’s also defense, whether it’s internal, such as in Thailand, or between nations, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It’s often a spirited, even vicious defense. It’s often a point of pride. It’s world-wide.

But DeSantis doesn’t seem to know this. Oh, he could be simply catering to the prejudices of his audience, but that’s not the mark of a real leader, who should speak truth into the tornado of falsehoods. He’s busy digging for votes, and in a most unjust manner indeed.

¹ Bonus points to those whose study indicated the Pearl Harbor raid, for all of the damage and casualties inflicted, was a failure for the Japanese because none of the few American aircraft carriers were in port.

Long-time readers will recall that I predicted former President Trump would flee the country either prior to or shortly following the transfer of office from himself to President-elect, at the time, Biden.

It didn’t happen.

But the rapidly worsening situation in Russia, consequential to Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine, just now struck me as denying former President Trump a plausible refuge in case his situation goes rapidly south. At the very least, the shortages and social unrest appearing in Russia would be unappealing to the fastidious Trump. If Putin is ousted, or even passes away, Trump’s probably most important protector would be gone.

And is the former President’s situation dire? From a response by the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection to being sued by Trump’s supposed lawyer, John Eastman:

Critically for this case, an in camera [i.e., in private] review of the documents is warranted when the party seeking production has provided “a factual basis adequate to support a good faith belief by a reasonable person that in camera review of the materials may reveal evidence to establish the claim that the crime-fraud exception applies.” United States v. Zolin, 491 U.S. 554, 572 (1989) (citation omitted). That standard has plainly been met here. As discussed in the Background section above, evidence and information available to the Committee establishes a good-faith belief that Mr. Trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts, and that Plaintiff’s legal assistance was used in furtherance of those activities. Accordingly, this Court should conduct an in camera review of the documents to determine whether the crime-fraud exception applies.

Bold mine. Worse yet for the former President, extremely serious charges are now being brought against arrestees of the January 6th insurrection, and one guilty plea, for seditious conspiracy, has already been extracted:

Jan 6 defendant Josh James signs plea deal saying:

"(Stewart) Rhodes instructed James &..conspirators to be prepared, if called upon, to report to the White House grounds to secure the perimeter & use lethal force if necessary against anyone who tried to remove President Trump" pic.twitter.com/kBkKP9y3zk

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) March 3, 2022

This extremely serious charge and guilty plea should be a big red flag for the former President – but now, to put it baldly, his options for refuge are now far more limited than he may have anticipated just a month ago, for his metaphorical brother, President Putin, has committed the same foul as did Trump – engage in arrogant stupidity, like most autocrats.

Honestly, I’m not sure where Trump might run if his situation significantly deteriorates. Even Switzerland has come out against Putin; he can no longer trust that the doggedly neutral bureaucrats of the mountains will harbor him, even with the offer of a deodorizing bribe.

I wonder how the betting pools on Trump’s future are leaning.

Manchin is either too rich or too glib:

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) poured cold water on President Biden’s attempt [during the State of the Union address] to revive the core elements of his Build Back Better agenda, questioning the president’s claim that passing a $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion spending package would “lower costs” for most Americans.

“They just can’t help themselves,” Manchin quipped when asked by reporters after Biden’s State of the Union speech whether he was surprised by the president’s effort to try to use the moment to try to revive his stalled climate and social spending plan. [The Hill]

But as most families that have clawed their way up the economic class ladder are aware, wise spending, also known as investment, usually pays off in the end. For example, you can buy all sorts of cheap shit at Walmart. Then it breaks or wears out quickly, and you have to replace it.

And again.

And again.

Anyone who does the math soon realizes that buying something that is initially more expensive, but holds together and doesn’t need to be replaced, is actually cheaper – over the lifetime of the initially more expensive product. When I’m looking at buying something new amidst a range of competing products, Low low price! is not on my list of requirements; instead, I’m looking for a price point midway, or higher than midway, through the price range, taking the price as a proxy for quality. Then I start checking consumer reviews online. There are no guarantees, but this approach quite often works.

Even with food, you can buy cheap shit that isn’t nutritious and end up at the doc for an expensive visit, or you can eat food that’s good for you for more money, and not end up at the expensive doc. The latter is what you want, financially and existentially.

The point is that staring at the initial price, as Manchin advocates, is misleading. The question really comes down to return on investment, or ROI as investment professionals call it. If we can put a billion dollars into child care and get two billion dollars of productivity, then Manchin should be made to explain why he’s against that. And that should be a fruitful discussion for both sides – because this where real debates begin.

But Manchin shooting his fool mouth off without acknowledging how this is an investment and not a commodity buy is just sheer deceit.

Codel:

of congressional delegation, government-paid trips abroad, designed to give lawmakers first-hand knowledge of matters relevant to their legislation. [Definitions.net]

Noted in “Eight Republicans pick the worst possible place to celebrate July 4,” Dana Milbank, WaPo:

For all that it’s unmitigated tragedy in Ukraine, this article in WaPo tells me that, win or lose, President Biden’s non-egotistical approach to building alliances to oppose Russia is going to bear fruit both now and as far into the future as we’re willing to nurture that tree. In case my reader wasn’t aware, consider this:

Biden has seen one of his major goals as rebuilding global alliances that he viewed as recently tattered, and persuading leaders with disparate interests and varied domestic concerns to come together. As Russia prepared its attack, officials say, Biden engaged in discreet diplomacy with European allies, and in recent weeks he has encouraged them to take action.

“They avoid the political downside of having the view that somehow big brother is corralling or forcing the junior partners to do its own bidding,” said Aaron David Miller, a veteran diplomat and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It’s not just Joe Biden and the United States carrying the load.”

Even while much of the process may be stage-managed by the United States, he added, it helps European leaders domestically by presenting the response as a widespread global alliance and not just one orchestrated by Washington. The strategy is not without risk for Biden’s own domestic political concerns, depriving him of opportunities to tout achievements as he faces low approval ratings and attacks from Republicans who call his response weak.

By not turning this into America and a few allies, we now have a united front in which various nations have equal voices and opinions. This leads away from the toxic Oh, it’s a war between the United States and Russia, fought on Ukrainian territory, and towards the narrative Russia is a violent, rogue nation with a strongman for a leader … and look what happened to them.

This serves to fortify the alliance of liberal democracies, including those who are on the edge of falling off that wagon, or even are off that wagon – looking at you, Hungary! – because they see an alliance that is doing good in the face of evil, and that’s an often attractive option for leaders. The knowledge there are many similarly-minded countries encourages everyone even more.

Hell, if the Swiss abandon their neutrality, you know something is going on.

It also serves as a discouragement to would-be leaders who think they can be a successful strongman. Strongman leaders are rarely successful; instead, they tend to be prideful incompetents, from Franco of Spain to Bolsonaro of Brazil to Marcos of the Phillippines, and now, as Russian forces bog down against Ukraine, Putin of Russia. In this last case, it’s not just that Putin’s military did not immediately succeed, but the fact that Putin didn’t foresee, or head off, the devastating economic sanctions that will send Russia spiraling down to Third World status, the military aid dispatched to Ukraine by various alliance members that will kill more Russian soldiers, the sudden and shocking interest of Finland in joining NATO, the crippling removal of big Russian banks from SWIFT, and no doubt other items I’ve forgotten or missed.

Each failed strongman, whether dictator in fact only, or in name as well, is an object lesson in that failed governance model, a lesson that all its fans, from Trump to Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus to Tucker Carlson, should learn.

And Biden’s approach, as frustrating as GOP leaders and pundits may claim to be by it, is strongly beneficial for the United States, far more than the foolhardy pursuit of personal glory. But the GOP has discarded the old American tradition that politics stops at the American beach. They are not conservatives any longer, simply power-hungry fools who never learned how to govern in a world of hostile powers.

I expect we’ll benefit from Biden’s decisions for decades to come … unless Putin decides to fire off World War III with his nuclear arsenal.