...What is clear to anyone who has ever tried to understand [Trump] is that he lives in a binary world of the dominating and the dominated. The visuals around the man endlessly illustrate this. Most of us live in a much more fluid and textured world. We interact with most people on a ground of relative equality. Where real differentials of power exist most of us try to paper over those realities with softening trappings. Trump’s whole world view, the way he interacts with friends and foes, won’t accept any middle ground. And this is more than just performance. It’s clear that this is deeply rooted in his experience of the world. Being dominated is a kind of social and ego death. That’s why he’s so good at his whole racket. Because it’s coded so deeply into him.
Nothing puts you more squarely in the bucket of the dominated than being a defendant in a criminal trial and at risk of losing your freedom. The state makes its case against you and you have to sit there and take it. In case there was any question, the judge told Trump you have to be here in my court and sit here. A dozen randomly picked people hold your fate in their hands. You have to make your case, an actual case. Bullshit and attitude, Trump’s coins of the realm, could work. Unless those twelve people decide it doesn’t.
Seeing Trump sitting there, even on this least weighty prosecution, you get a sense of why he’s fought so tooth and nail to avoid this. The biggest and most obvious reason is that he doesn’t want to go to jail. That is certainly a sufficient reason. But it’s not the whole story. At the most basic level, sitting in the dock is horribly and perhaps even fatally off brand. Trump’s brand is swagger and impunity. Always be dominating. Until you’re not.
Tom Cotton@TomCottonAR
I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way.
It's time to put an end to this nonsense.
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6:06 PM · Apr 15, 2024
“If something like this happened in Arkansas on a bridge there, let’s just say, I think there would be a lot of very wet criminals that have been tossed overboard, not by law enforcement but the people whose road they’re blocking,” he said. “If they glued their hands to a car or the pavement, well, probably painful to have their skin ripped off, but I think that’s the way we’d handle it in Arkansas. I’d encourage most people anywhere that gets stuck behind criminals like this, who are trying to block traffic, to take matters into their own hands.”
On Sunday, April 14, 2024, Iran fired about 170 drones, more than 120 ballistic missiles, and more than 30 cruise missiles from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and areas controlled by Hezbollah in Lebanon toward Israel. The strike was in retaliation for a strike on Iran’s diplomatic complex in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, which killed two top commanders in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, along with other officials. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the Syrian strike, but officials from other countries believe Israel is responsible. Iran warned its attack was coming, and Israel and the U.S., along with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and France, shot the missiles down. Israel sustained almost no damage. One Arab-Israeli girl was critically injured.
In the leadup to the attack, Arab countries shared intelligence and radar tracking, opened their airspace while closing it to Iran, and even supplied forces to withstand Iran’s attack. According to David S. Cloud, Dov Lieber, Stephen Kalin, and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal, in March 2022, top military officials from Israel and Arab countries met in Egypt at the invitation of U.S. Marine General Frank McKenzie, then the top U.S. commander in the region, to discuss coordination against Iran’s growing military capabilities.
That prospective coordination had never been tested, but the fact that Arab states stood alongside Israel against Iran highlights changing dynamics in the Middle East. In the aftermath of the attack, a source connected to the Saudi royal family charged Iran with instigating the Gaza war to stop normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon are Iran’s proxies.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250 others, President Joe Biden’s apparent top priority has been making sure the crisis doesn’t spread. On October 10, he warned: “to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t. Don’t.”
The U.S. moved two of its eleven carrier battle groups, which usually consist of an aircraft carrier, at least four other ships, and about 7,500 personnel, to the region. At the same time, while Biden has been careful to note that the U.S. cannot dictate policy to another country, he warned Israel against a planned preemptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The U.S. has also led the effort to stop Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen from attacking ships in the Red Sea. The attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing ships to reroute around Africa.
Since the early days of the conflict, the approach of Israel’s government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to destroying Hamas has caused a deepening rift with the Biden administration. While the U.S. supports Israel’s right to self-defense and “legitimate military objectives,” it has repeatedly called out mounting Palestinian civilian casualties. Then, while the administration has consistently called for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the plan for a postwar settlement Netanyahu finally proposed in February rejected that policy and instead called for Israel to maintain military control of Gaza indefinitely.
Increasingly, the Israeli government has rejected U.S. requests to protect civilian lives, including by allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza, where people are starving. After a brief humanitarian pause in fighting in November, efforts to achieve another pause to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza have failed repeatedly. Frustration in the U.S. over mounting civilian deaths and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has led to widespread protests against Biden as well as against Israel, and has led Democratic critics of Israeli policy to demand that the U.S. condition military aid to Israel on a ceasefire.
Tensions rose higher when Israel announced it would launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, without a plan for protecting civilians. More than a million Palestinians have taken shelter there. In March, national security advisor Jake Sullivan said that the president would not support “a military operation in Rafah that does not protect civilians, that cuts off the main arteries of humanitarian assistance and that places enormous pressure on the Israel-Egypt border.”
Israel did not notify the U.S. when on April 1 it attacked the Iranian diplomatic complex in Syria, a strike U.S. defense officials believed put U.S. forces at risk. Also on April 1, Israeli forces killed seven aid workers—including individuals from Australia, Poland, and the United Kingdom, as well as a Palestinian and a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen—with the humanitarian aid group World Central Kitchen. The workers had coordinated with the military and were in three separate marked vehicles.
On April 3, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directly called out Israel’s silence about its attack on Iranian leaders in Syria in a telephone call to his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
On April 4, in a telephone call, Biden told Netanyahu that “the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable.” He said Israel must “announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.” He reiterated support for Israel but appeared to distinguish between Israel and its current government. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was on the call, told a reporter: "The president made clear we will make sure Israel isn't left without the ability to defend itself. At the same time, if there are no changes to their approach, we are likely to change our approach.”
Israel has pointed to the inefficient distribution of aid within Gaza as a cause of hardship, but three hours after the call, Israel announced that it would open the Erez crossing into northern Gaza for the first time since October 7, use the Port of Ashdod in Israel as a hub for supplies, and allow more Gaza-bound aid trucks into Israel from Jordan. Days later, Israeli officials dropped the plan to open Erez, and the Ashdod port is not yet accepting aid shipments; Defense Minister Gallant said, “We plan to flood Gaza with aid and we are expecting to reach 500 trucks per day,” but he did not say when that would happen.
While this was taking place, according to the four Wall Street Journal reporters, the administration pressed Arab states for intelligence about a retaliatory strike from Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia shared intelligence, and Jordan allowed warplanes to use its airspace while also intercepting Iranian missiles with its own planes. The White House coordinated Israeli and Arab defensive measures. According to U.S. officials, officials from the State Department, the Defense Department, and the National Security Council were “in constant, ongoing, continuous contact with Israelis, with other partners in the region, as well as Iran with a series of direct communications through the Swiss channel and other relevant players,” as well as with “Turkey and China,” “in anticipation of the events that transpired.”
This was the background when Iran attacked Israel on Sunday.
In the aftermath of the attack, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said, “The matter can be deemed concluded.” The White House immediately gathered the leaders of the Group of 7 wealthy democracies, who issued a statement calling on all parties to “avoid further escalation.” Then Biden urged Netanyahu to “think very carefully and strategically” about retaliation and noted that Israel had “got the best of it,” as it had killed senior Iranian military commanders but lost none of its own leaders. Netanyahu is under great pressure from his right-wing coalition to retaliate, but some members of his war cabinet have stressed that they want “to establish an international coalition and strategic alliance to counter the threat posed by Iran.”
The U.S. warned Israel it would not participate in any offensive counterstrike against Iran, although it has announced new economic sanctions against Iran. Matt Bradley of NBC News pointed out that an aggressive Israeli response would run the risk of dissolving the fragile cooperation between Arab states and Israel that helped to repel the Iranian attack. That cooperation illustrated that Iran is increasingly isolated, but as Oraib Al Rantawi, director of a Jordanian think tank, told Bradley, “Those Arab countries are in a very critical situation. There is no easy position to take….”
In the U.S., Republicans, including House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner (R-OH) and Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton, immediately said the U.S. should join Israel if it launched a retaliatory attack, saying they hoped to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. (David Sanger of the New York Times reminded readers yesterday that in 2015, in a deal with seven countries after two years of negotiations, Iran agreed to surrender 97% of its uranium, but Trump pulled out of that deal in 2018, and Iran returned to developing weapons-grade uranium.)
In the House, Republicans who have been refusing to pass the national security supplemental bill that provides additional funding for Ukraine and Israel, as well as the Indo-Pacific and humanitarian aid to Gaza, have suddenly snapped to and are demanding additional funding for Israel. A researcher at an Israeli think tank estimated the cost of Israel’s interception of the Iranian weapons on Sunday at more than $550 million.
The Senate passed the measure in February, and the House is expected to as well if House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) brings it up for a vote. But Johnson is facing a revolt from MAGA Republicans who are so adamantly opposed to aiding Ukraine they threatened to oust him as speaker if he tries to pass it. Yesterday, Johnson said he would break the measure up and try to pass it in four pieces. Extremists don’t like this either. Two Republicans—Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kentucky’s Thomas Massie—have said they will challenge Johnson’s speakership, meaning that Johnson will have to rely on Democratic votes not only to pass an aid measure, but also to keep his speakership.
The House is due to recess from Thursday, April 18, until Monday, April 29. This afternoon, House Intelligence Committee chair Turner and the top Democrat on the committee, Jim Himes (D-CT), released a statement: “We must pass Ukraine aid now,” they wrote. “Today, in a classified briefing, our Committee was informed of the critical need to provide Ukraine military aid this week. The United States must stand against Putin’s war of aggression now as Ukraine’s situation on the ground is critical.”
Today the House finally delivered impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate, two months after approving them, and demanded a full trial.
The Texas Legislature has raised eyebrows and hackles in recent weeks as lawmakers advanced a trio of religion-related education bills championed by conservative Christian activists and lambasted by liberal critics as evidence of Christian nationalism.
The bills include one that would allow public schools to hire chaplains, another that would mandate Texas classrooms to hang a donated version of the Ten Commandments and a third that would allow schools to set aside time for staff or students to pray or read religious texts.
One prominent critic of at least two of those bills, Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico, is a Presbyterian seminarian, and his public, faith-infused back-and-forth with another lawmaker over the Ten Commandments bill caught fire on social media last week.
Talarico took a moment on Tuesday (May 9) to speak to Religion News Service from the floor of the Texas House of Representatives as he prepared for a vote on the chaplains bill. A few minutes after the interview concluded, he stood before the House and gave another impassioned, religion-filled speech criticizing his Republican colleagues — this time for failing to pass gun control legislation.
The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You’ve mentioned your Christian faith a lot in recent debates over legislation in Texas. Can you say a little bit about your religious background?
I’m the grandson of a Baptist preacher from South Texas. I was born and raised in the Presbyterian Church, baptized when I was 4 years old, and I have taught Vacation Bible School. I am now a seminary student myself.
Faith is the whole reason I’m in politics. My church taught me that the two most important commandments Jesus gave us were to love God and love our neighbor. Both of those commandments, but particularly the second one, compel us to enter into the political arena. Whether it’s as elected official or an activist or an advocate or an organizer, that love we’re taught to have for our neighbors has to grow into justice. Justice is just another word for love out in public.
My faith, my church growing up, is why I became a political organizer in college. It’s why I became a public school teacher. It’s why I became a nonprofit leader. It’s why I ran for office, and why I serve here.
What compelled you to go to seminary?
The emphasis in my church growing up was “Love thy neighbor,” and the political dimension of that commandment. But after serving here in the Legislature for three terms, you know, it can be really difficult to love thy neighbor, especially as a progressive policymaker in the Texas Legislature. So, I came to believe I needed to spend an equal amount of time focused on the First Commandment, of loving God, because that first commandment sustains the second.
It can be really difficult to love thy neighbor, whether it’s fighting for marginalized neighbors here in the Capitol, or whether it’s loving my neighbors who are pushing those bills that hurt those marginalized people. Doing both of those things can lead to burnout pretty quickly. So seminary was, I think, a way for me to try to right the ship and create a better balance between those two equal commandments we were given as Christians.
The chaplains bill is expected to pass in the Texas House of Representatives later today, at which point it will be sent to the governor’s desk. Do you have any reaction to that? (The bill passed shortly after this interview.)
These things are hard for me, because I am a former teacher who, when I first got elected, introduced a package of legislation called the Whole Child Agenda. The idea behind that legislative package was that students should be treated as human beings first, and students second. We should not just focus on academics, but also tend to the physical, mental and spiritual health of our students. I do believe we have a spiritual crisis in this country — including in our schools. That is something that should be addressed by policymakers and by educators and by parents.
But this bill, especially in its current form, is not the way to do that. As it’s written in its current form, there are very few protections for students and parents. There are very few guardrails. There is no oversight. There are weak definitions of what a chaplain is, and no standards they have to meet. So I worry this bill will lead to Christian nationalists infiltrating our public schools and indoctrinating our students.
Texas Republicans are trying to force public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
I told the bill author: “This bill is not only un-constitutional and un-American, it’s deeply un-Christian.” #txlege pic.twitter.com/TI7TmGvIKM
— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) May 3, 2023
You garnered attention recently for criticizing a proposal that would require schools to put a version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom if they are donated. You called the idea “unconstitutional and un-American, but also deeply un-Christian.” Speaking more generally, what do you find onerous about that and other religion-related bills working their way through the Legislature?
I see this as part of a troubling trend across the country of Christian nationalists attempting to take over our democracy and attempting to take over my religion — both of which I find deeply offensive. This is the culmination of 40 years of the religious right taking over our political system, and I think my fellow Christians and I have a moral obligation to speak out against this growing Christo-fascist movement.
About that: You’re a person of faith pursuing ordination, but you seem to disagree with conservative Christian activists and your own religious colleagues on pretty core issues here. What is that like for you?
It’s incredibly personal, right? Because it’s not just a perversion of our Constitution, it’s a perversion of my faith. Jesus, when he was in the wilderness, was tempted by Satan with, among other things, political power— with all the kingdoms of the world. That should go to show us Christian nationalism is kind of an oxymoron. The idea that this universal faith, based on radical universal love, could be confined to one political subdivision is just contrary to the entire gospel. Furthermore, to use political power to hurt marginalized people — whether it’s folks from other faith traditions like Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims, or whether it’s to hurt LGBTQ people, or women seeking reproductive health care — (is) blasphemous, according to my reading of the New Testament.
What has the reaction been to your strident criticism of these bills — be it from constituents or, perhaps, seminary professors?
Well, my seminary professors are waiting for me to turn in a few assignments that are late, so they’re probably not thrilled about that.
But I’ve had high profile moments before. I was part of the group of lawmakers that broke quorum in 2021 and went to Washington, D.C., to protest the voter suppression bill. I usually get some passionate support and passionate criticism, as these can be polarizing moments.
But the thing about (my) Ten Commandments speech from last week is it hasn’t been that polarizing. It’s been almost universal support that I’ve heard — and not just from Democrats. I’ve had Republicans calling my legislative office and thanking me for speaking from a Christian perspective. In fact, I’ve been confused for a Republican by people who just see the clip and don’t know anything about me. I’ve had a lot of posts saying, “We’re so thankful to have Republicans standing up to this thing,” and, you know, “Glad that a Republican is finally speaking out.”
So, I guess that just goes to show how unusual it is for Democrats to be speaking about faith in that kind of way.
You mentioned Christian nationalism earlier. As a three-term legislator, has the intensity of the Christian nationalism movement in Texas increased during your tenure?
Yes, it has.
Again, I don’t want to limit it to just my three terms, because I really do think it’s the culmination of 40 years of the religious right taking over Christianity, taking over the Republican Party and now taking over our democracy. But I’ve seen just in my three terms, since 2018, it get worse and more flagrant, more arrogant, more extreme. The Ten Commandments bill, I think, is a perfect example of that. I think if you had told me the Legislature was introducing a bill to force schools to put up the Ten Commandments in every classroom, I would have thought you were telling me about an SNL (skit). We’ve become a caricature of ourselves. Some of these bills read like an Onion headline.
So yes, I think these Christian nationalists have gotten more bold, and I think they’ve been emboldened by President Trump and that movement within the Republican Party that really no longer feels constrained by the Constitution or democratic values.
As a Palestinian American, I can’t vote for Joe Biden any more. And I am not alone
Ahmed Moor
The president’s moral failure in Gaza has taken on historic proportions, like Lyndon Johnson’s in Vietnam before him
America is big, diverse and polarized. Yet, when it comes to the war in Gaza, opinions here are converging. A Gallup poll in March found 55% of respondents “disapprove of Israel’s actions”, up from 45% in November. Among registered Democrats, the figure is 75%. As the number of citizens voting “uncommitted” in Democratic primaries makes plain, President Biden’s unqualified support for Israel is a problem. Beyond the human carnage – 32,000 Palestinians, including over 14,000 children, have been killed by Israel in Gaza – Biden’s Israel policy could cost him the election.
“We have given Biden and his administration and the party a gift,” said Layla Elabed, organizer of the Listen to Michigan campaign, where 100,000 voters marked the “uncommitted” box in February. The vote in Michigan, a battleground state where Biden beat Trump by a little more than 154,000 votes in 2020, has triggered a cascade of protest votes in primaries across the country. At least 25 uncommitted delegates will be sent to the Democratic national convention in August.
Elabed explained to me that these protest votes in swing states are meant to warn Biden that it’s time to restrict US military aid to Israel and call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. “Listen to your constituency and take action now,” she said, “or you’re going to have trouble in November.” Notably, Elabed and the campaign she leads hope that the president may correct course and earn their vote, thereby preventing a second Trump term.
Prominent Democrats, Governor Gretchen Whitmer among them, have failed to engage with the substance of the argument and with the campaign’s stated goals.
“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” Whitmer announced ahead of the Michigan primary vote.
Whitmer’s argument that critics of the president’s policy in Palestine, in effect, offer support to former president Trump seems designed to encourage voters to fall in line. Yet, as Judith Max Palmer, a Philadelphia voter and registered Democrat, said to me: “The Democrats think they can scare us into submission and people are tired of it.”
The intraparty fight has taken Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan as its totem. As the only Palestinian American in Congress, she has used her sizable public platform to decry the “level of support for Netanyahu’s war crimes by the Biden administration” in commission of Israel’s “genocide in Gaza”. She also advised her constituents and others who are dismayed by the Biden policy to vote uncommitted in the primary. In doing so, she earned the opprobrium of other Democrats.
Don Calloway, a Democratic strategist, railed against Tlaib.
“When Jalen Rose Leadership Academy and Wayne State and Cass Tech don’t get the proper appropriations from the Democratic administration … remember it’s because your Democratic congresswoman told them to not vote for the Democratic president in the primary,” he said.
Calloway’s argument, which seems to prize party discipline over individual choice, is basically at odds with the tenets of participatory democracy. Voters are not beholden to a party – rather, the candidate is charged with crafting policies that appeal to an electorate to win votes. If voters in Biden’s coalition are now advocating for a change in policy, that – as the protesters say – is what democracy looks like. The candidate, and not the voters, is to blame if he fails to win in November, a point the Democrats appear to have struggled to comprehend in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016.
“The cruelty [of Israel’s campaign in Gaza] is beyond my worst imagination. It changes the calculus,” said Rabbi Alissa Wise, another Philadelphia voter and one of the founders of Rabbis for a Ceasefire. She admitted to me that she worries Donald Trump “would be even more horrific” as president, but she wants to concentrate on the value of a protest vote now: “My hope is that the uncommitted campaign could really scare [policymakers] into a conscience.”
Unlike Elabed and others I interviewed for this story, I have a different perspective.
I am a Palestinian American in Pennsylvania, a contested state. I plan to write in “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary on 23 April and in November, I will vote for a third-party candidate.
Like many Democrats, I was underwhelmed by the prospect of another Biden term, but I was prepared to move past my concerns about the president’s age and cognitive fitness to support the broader agenda on climate, among other things. I reasoned that Biden is supported by a cadre of experts, and that his job is mostly to set priorities and enlist the best and brightest to fill in the gaps. Now I am no longer able to rationalize support for this administration; the president’s moral failure in Gaza has taken on historic proportions, like Lyndon Johnson’s in Vietnam before him.
Nor am I alone. “There’s no way I can see myself supporting Biden in the next election,” Will Youmans, associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, told me. “Supporting a genocide is the reddest of lines,” he explained. In November, Youmans plans to vote for down-ballot Democrats, but he will write in a protest vote for president.
For Palestinians, the prospect of a second Trump administration is distressing, even if Representative Debbie Dingell’s statement that Trump, were he president, might have “nuked Gaza” seems a little overheated. Jared Kushner, who advised Trump in his last administration, openly opined about “very valuable … waterfront property” in Gaza as he described a vision of ethnic cleansing in the Strip.
Yet it’s not clear that Trump’s putative policies will be worse than Biden’s current policies are. In reality, if Benjamin Netanyahu decides to invite Kushner and others to develop Jewish settlements in Gaza, there is no reason to believe Biden will stop him from doing so. The president, after all, has only mouthed his discontent with Israel’s actions. That’s even as he has actively armed the Israelis, who seem able to do whatever they please. Actions – for better or worse – speak more loudly than words do.
Nor is the question of who may be worse – measured against the lesser evil – sufficient to drive voter behavior on this issue. For many, myself included, a vote for Biden is simply impermissible – the extent of the moral calamity is so great as to render a vote for Biden a vote for complicity.
Our values in this country – freedom of speech, enterprise, equality before the law – are unique among countries and are worth fighting for. In the best expression of America, our values are regarded as inviolable, and they provide a roadmap for our activism. This country is bigger than Trump or Biden and while elections matter, they only gain meaning as a way of expressing our values. We cannot be the source of arms that destroy the lives of millions of people. We cannot abet a famine.
The uncommitted campaign – citizens banding together to petition democratically, in good faith, for a change in government policy – is the greatest expression of what it means to live in a democracy. Tlaib, Elabed, Wise and other engaged Americans who have worked to move the president to adopt a humane policy in Palestine embody our best values. As the president of the Center City mosque in Philadelphia, Mohammed Shariff, said to me: “My vote is the purest form of expression and speech.” President Biden ignores our voices at his own peril, and ours.
Yesterday on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, Miles Taylor wrote: “After 2016, I helped lead the US gov[ernmen]t response to Russia’s election interference. In 2024, foreign interference will be *worse.* Tech[nology is] more powerful. Adversaries more brazen. American public more susceptible. Political leaders across party lines MUST UNITE against this.”
Taylor served as chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security under Trump.
Today, Catherine Belton of the Washington Post reported on a secret 2023 document from Russia’s Foreign Ministry calling for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures that attack “‘a coalition of unfriendly countries’ led by the United States. Those measures are designed to affect “the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres” of Russia’s perceived adversaries.
The plan is to weaken the United States and convince other countries, particularly those in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, that the U.S. will not stand by its allies. By weakening those alliances, Russian leaders hope to shift global power by strengthening Russia’s ties to China, Iran, and North Korea and filling the vacuum left by the crumbling democratic alliances (although it is not at all clear that China is on board with this plan).
According to Belton, one of the academics who advised the authors of the Russian document suggested that Russia should “continue to facilitate the coming to power of isolationist right-wing forces in America,” “enable the destabilization of Latin American countries and the rise to power of extremist forces on the far left and far right there,” increase tensions between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, and “escalate the situation in the Middle East around Israel, Iran and Syria to distract the U.S. with the problems of this region.”
The Russian document suggests that the front lines of that physical, political, and psychological fight are in Ukraine. It says that the outcome of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine will “to a great degree determine the outlines of the future world order.”
Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky told Belton: “The Americans consider that insofar as they are not directly participating in the war [in Ukraine], then any loss is not their loss. “This is an absolute misunderstanding.”
Media and lawmakers, including those in the Republican Party, have increasingly called out the degree to which Russian propaganda has infiltrated American politics through Republican lawmakers and media figures. Earlier this month, both Representative Michael R. Turner (R-OH), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned about Russian disinformation in their party. Turner told CNN’s State of the Union that it is “absolutely true” that Republican members of Congress are parroting Russian propaganda. “We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.” When asked which Republicans had fallen to Russian propaganda, McCaul answered that it is “obvious.”
That growing popular awareness has highlighted that House Republicans under House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) have for six months refused to pass a national security supplemental bill with additional aid for Ukraine, as well as for Israel and the Indo-Pacific, and humanitarian aid to Gaza. After the Senate spent two months negotiating border security provisions House Republicans demanded, Republicans killed that bill with the provisions at Trump’s direction, and the Senate then passed a bill without those provisions in February.
Johnson has been coordinating closely with former president Trump, who has made his admiration for Russia and his disregard for Ukraine very clear since his people weakened their support for Ukraine in the 2016 Republican Party platform. Johnson is also under pressure from MAGA Republicans in the House, like Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who oppose funding Ukraine, some of them by making statements that echo Russian propaganda.
While the White House, the Pentagon, and a majority of both chambers of Congress believe that helping Ukraine defend itself is crucial to U.S. security, Johnson has refused to take the Senate measure up, even though the House would pass it if he did. But as Ukraine’s ability to defend itself has begun to weaken, pressure for additional aid has ramped up. At the same time, in the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel last weekend, Republicans have suddenly become eager to provide additional funds to Israel. It began to look as if Johnson might bring up some version of foreign aid.
But discussions of bringing forward Ukraine aid brought not only Greene but also Thomas Massie (R-KY) to threaten yesterday to challenge Johnson’s speakership, and there are too few Republicans in the House to defend him.
Today, Johnson brought forward not the Senate bill, but rather three separate bills to fund Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and Ukraine, with pieces that House Republicans have sought. A fourth bill will include other measures Republicans have demanded. And a fifth will permit an up-or-down vote on most of the measures in the extreme border bill the House passed in 2023. At the time, that measure was intended as a signaling statement because House Republicans knew that the Democratic Senate would keep it from becoming law.
Johnson said he expected to take a final vote on the measures Saturday evening. He will almost certainly need Democratic votes to pass them, and possibly to save his job. Democrats have already demanded the aid to Gaza that was in the Senate bill but is not yet in the House bills.
Reese Gorman, political reporter for The Daily Beast, reported that Johnson explained his change of heart like this: “Look, history judges us for what we do. This is a critical time right now… I can make a selfish decision and do something that is different but I'm doing here what I believe to be the right thing.… I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important.… I’m willing to take personal risk for that.”
His words likely reflect a changing awareness in Republican Party leadership that the extremism of MAGA Republicans is exceedingly unpopular. Trump’s courtroom appearances—where, among other things, he keeps falling asleep—are unlikely to bolster his support, while his need for money is becoming more and more of a threat both to his image and to his fellow Republicans. Today the Trump campaign asked Republican candidates in downballot races for at least 5% of the money they raise with any fundraising appeal that uses Trump’s name or picture. They went on: “Any split that is higher than 5% will be seen favorably by the RNC and President Trump’s campaign and is routinely reported to the highest levels of leadership within both organizations.”
Nonetheless, Greene greeted Johnson’s bills with amendments requiring members of Congress to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” if they voted for aid to Ukraine.
A headline on the Fox News media website today suggested that a shift away from MAGA is at least being tested. It read: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot. She is trying to wreck the [Republican Party].” The article pointed out that 61% of registered voters disapprove of the Republican Party while only 36% approve. That approval rating has indeed fallen at least in part because of the performative antics of the extremists, among them the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that made him the first cabinet officer to be impeached in almost 150 years. Today the Senate killed that impeachment without a trial.
As soon as Johnson announced the measures, President Joe Biden threw his weight behind them. In a statement, he said: “I strongly support this package to get critical support to Israel and Ukraine, provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, and bolster security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. Israel is facing unprecedented attacks from Iran, and Ukraine is facing continued bombardment from Russia that has intensified dramatically in the last month.
“The House must pass the package this week and the Senate should quickly follow. I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: We stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed.”
The calculus, for me, is that we won't be voting for the president of deciding what US policy on Israel's war will be.
I don't get it . . .
Quote:The calculus, for me, is that we won't be voting for the president of deciding what US policy on Israel's war will be.
At this point in time, biden is helping nutanyahoo in his commission of a genocide against Gazans. He is in compliance with nutanyahoo's plan of starvation and murder of innocent human beings. He says he doesn't like what nutanyahoo is doing, but continues to facilitate it by refusing to allow food to innocent starving human beings, and by supplying the war criminal with as much destructive power he needs to get the job done.
What is it about the guy that causes you to forgive his immoral support for an immoral war criminal in action? Do you believe that, other than that, you can count on him to be an upstanding guy of good character? What would he have to support or do before you'd question his integrity? Support two genocides? What? Are you sitting back watching it and saying to yourself, "Let's not jump to conclusions, now. Let's just be patient and wait and see where this thing is going."
I don't get it . . .
Regardless of whether he is a good candidate or not . . .
An Apology, or Constantly Being at Each Others’ Throats is Not Good For Us
I want to mend some fences this week. We should all do so from time to time.
So. An apology. Over the years, I imagine that people get offended or hurt by some of things I have to say. I’m sorry about that.
Let’s talk about it for a moment. This is how it is on social media. We divide into warring clans, and pick one another apart. Minor differences get amplified, and major ones, never resolved. It’s a..bad…thing. A terrible form of culture and social interaction. A norm that we need to discard now.
And I’m as guilty of it as anyone. Over the years, as I sort of rose to a little bit of prominence, I’d…fight. Fight back, I imagined to myself. But that was foolish and wrong of me. In a world this divided, this is how we’ve learned to be, and of course, I fell into this trap more so than a lot of people. Spats, skirmishes, quibbles—and worse.
It wasn’t good for me. How could it have been? I still remember the time, vividly, when an activist for some cause or other called me a “murderer,” and I was sort of left reeling. I tried to “defend myself,” but what are we really defending or impugning, in these little battles? I’m not a murderer, obviously, but I was hurt, and lashed out right back. But for weeks, months, I was sort of haunted, humiliated, weirded out, because I didn’t know…what else to do.
You might say: that’s not much of an apology. If you really want to play the game I’m talking about. But I’ve already said what I think I need to, and this game is what’s driving us all a little bit insane. Is it really worth bickering and squabbling over…little things? Is this how we really want to spend our lives?
Not me. Not anymore. And so for the last couple of years now, I’ve retreated from this form of interaction. Twitter? Barely use it. Funnily enough, I checked out LinkedIn, and this sort of micro culture as war is even prominent there now, in an indication of how omnipresent it is. That’s one of the reasons we set up The Issue, by the way. I think the perpetual battle is an awful way for us to…be. Exist.
What does it yield? You see, if you’re a certain kind of person, you can make a whole career out of being a Very Nasty Person Online. You know who I’m talking about—manfluencers, mostly, who win notoriety, and a kind of hushed acclaim, for saying crazy, demeaning things, like maybe women aren’t people, or sex and money are all that matter in life, and so forth. But the rest of us…can’t win this game…even if we play it, nor should we to begin with.
If you’re a woman or minority or both, the instant you attempt to…be not like those guys, but just…I don’t know…unyielding, tough, honest, and maybe a little bit demanding…you’ll be tarred and feathered as “controversial” or “combative” or “difficult.” So of course the second I’d get involved in these foolish brouhahas, they’d say I was this sort of character. And I’d wonder to myself: how is all this even happening? I’m not a fighter. I loathe conflict, and yet here I was, sort of enmeshed in it day after day. So, like I said: I’m sorry.
Understanding a World Melting Down vs Judging and Reacting To It
What’s happening to us, exactly, as we descend into war-as-a-form-of-discourse-and-interaction? What we’re doing is standing in judgment of others. And that’s easy to do, in a divided world. When I predicted the rise of Trumpism, and its ilk, even I was baffled. The economics told me with absolute confidence it was going to happen, but the person in me was still bewildered: how could you become a fan of a person like Trump?
Today, I think I’m an advocate of a gentler approach. Let’s call that…understanding. Not “understanding” as in the sort of dishonest way of mutely “being understanding,” or just sitting there in silence. But genuinely understanding.
Today, I try to understand. Not just in the sort of academic way—the economics tell me these Big Transformation are Going to Happen. But at a human level. And when I do that, I begin to get it.
Let’s take Trumpism. I get why people are this attracted—let’s just call it what it is, there’s this weird erotic charge to it—to Trump. He emanates strength and purpose and firmness in a world going haywire. We all know our institutions and systems are broken, and at least he admits it. There’s a kind of nugget of truth there, even if what comes next—the scapegoating, rage, Big Lies, coup attempts, etcetera, is pretty odious. After all, it’s not Trump that we’re trying to understand, just his flock.
You see, we’re all sitting in judgment of one another in this divided world. The Trumpists and their ilk think everyone is a godless heathen, maybe an “invader,” maybe not even a “real” person. That’s judgment to the extreme. So should the rest of us…judge them right back for it? It’s human to want to do that, and it leads to…a place of retribution, really. Look at these idiots! They hate us! Get them back! Get them first!
The side of democracy can’t really win this way. Its job is much harder than mere power or dominance. Only by winning the desperate and broken back into the fold can it prosper again. We should think of people who’ve turned away from democracy as something like religious converts. Have you ever had a friend who suddenly found religion to an extreme degree? And turned fundamentalist or fanatical? That’s sort of what’s going on here, and we can’t win just by out-arguing them. But only by converting them back.
And to do that, just sitting in judgment isn’t going to work. It hasn’t worked for Biden, after all. It hasn’t worked for any liberal or democratic institution or force, who are all only weakening by the day. Judgment’s easy—but we need to desperately understand the reasons why so many people are turning to conflict and demagoguery, and that means really sort of empathizing with, grasping, seeing, holding, how broken and afraid and hurt they really are.
The path of judgment leads right through to the battlefields of what’s become everyday social life, and that leads nowhere. We’re in a kind of Cold Civil War already, in many societies, where, sure, we aren’t kind of gunning each other down, but we’re beginning to genuinely despise one another, and take every opportunity to sow conflict and enact retribution. Where does this end up? In, as Alex Garland’s new movie suggests, actual civil war. Or something very much like it, whether it’s authoritarianism or fascism or what have you.
I think I’m on the side now of understanding for all those reasons. But I mean that in a true way: not sitting in judgment, while biting your tongue, resentfully saying the same things in your mind you want to scream online. But actually trying to understand what it is that’s motivating this self-made series of collapses, how deep these feelings of betrayal and abandonment and neglect really are, why they erupt in rage and fury, how they erotically charge figures like Trump as salvational near-religious icons.
None of that means merely “tolerating” it, accepting abusiveness, or being complicit in sordid hate, by the way. But it does mean something more challenging than I myself used to do, which is give the rage and spite right back, only harder: find what slender thread of human connection remains, if one does at all, between us.
What Would the Trump Economy (Really) Be Like?
That’s a lot of goopy stuff. Now let’s talk about some hard stuff. I’m sure you’ve been dying, practically sobbing, for a Hat-Wearing Economist to tell you the ins and outs of Trump’s latest plan, crazy as always, to devalue the dollar, by delving deep into…macroeconomics.
Well, here I am. Don’t worry, I’m going to simplify it, and try not to bore you to death at the same time.
In case you haven’t heard, Trump’s latest crazy plan is to…devalue the dollar. One of Trump’s advisers is a guy called Robert Lighthizer, who appears not to really understand how economics works, I know, what a surprise, and his Big Idea is…just this.
📰
Economic advisers close to former President Donald Trump are actively debating ways to devalue the U.S. dollar if he’s elected to a second term — a dramatic move that could boost U.S. exports but also reignite inflation and threaten the dollar’s position as the world’s dominant currency.
The idea is being discussed by former trade chief Robert Lighthizer — a potential Treasury secretary pick for Trump and the architect of the former president’s bruising tariff campaign against China — and policy advisers allied with him, according to three former Trump administration officials granted anonymity to discuss confidential policy plans.
All of this tells us what the Trump economy will (really) be like. So what’s this going to do? Oh, just cause probably another huge inflationary shock, and send prices skyrocketing all over again, maybe even higher this time.
Why is that? Devaluing currencies does two things. It makes imports more expensive, and it makes exports cheaper. Now. Trump and his advisor want to devalue the dollar so that exports are cheaper, and America’s trade deficit “falls.”
There’s only one Incredibly Big Problem with that, which should make anyone with a bit of common sense groan. America imports much, much more than it exports. So of course the effect on imports will be devastating for the average person. Imagine all that stuff you buy now—from China, or Vietnam, or India, or wherever—is suddenly 10, 20, 30% more expensive. I’m sure that made you shudder, because who isn’t feeling the pain of inflation these days?
So even if it makes America’s exports “cheaper,” the countervailing effect on import prices will be ruinous for the average person—there’ll be an inflationary Big Bang.
That’s what the Trump economy is really going to be: a stagflationary mess that does nothing to solve the problems of the average person, which are fast declining living standards.
Now. Let’s add a wrinkle to that freshman level analysis, which is that it probably won’t work anyways. This idea is based on a treaty, or “deal,” that happened in the 80s, called the Plaza Accord. America then was beset by cheap Japanese imports, and so, after a lot of hoo-ha, a deal was struck to basically devalue the dollar. But even then, it was incredibly hard to do. America, Europe, and Japan all had to cooperate, and rebalance their national budgets, and continue that cooperation for decades—and the price for Japan was decades of stagnation, as the yen rose and rose in value, killing jobs and industry.
Can you imagine anyone much wanting to cooperate…especially like that…with Trump? Today, that deal would have to be struck not just with Europe and Japan, but with Europe, Japan, China, Asia’s trading bloc, South Korea, Canada, Australia, and many more. Good luck getting them to cooperate for decades with a Trump administration.
So all this approach is likely to do is trigger a full on currency war. That’s what trade wars often result in. Nations try to competitively devalue their currencies. That has a devastating effect on societies which try to do it, for a very simple reason. How do you “devalue” a currency? A Treasury and or Central Bank has to sell it, which they do by buying other currencies. That costs money. Money which should be used for better and more productive things, like, in America’s case, everything from healthcare to infrastructure to education and beyond.
Trying to competitively devalue a currency is one of the world’s most foolish games. It’s why large parts of the world, from Latin America to Africa to Southeast Asia, have been mired down for so long. Trying to somehow gain a path to “cheap exports,” the price was functioning societies—and ruinous inflation, too.
So that gives us now a fuller picture of the Trump economy. Stagnation. Inflation. And a lack of investment, which comes from the futile act of trying to devalue the dollar, basically, ironically, handing money to other countries, buying their currencies en masse. Pretty foolish—and incredibly self-destructive, because America’s already in a bad place, economically, despite the Biden team’s sort of eye-roll inducing claims that “everything’s great!” Imagine a decade or more of stagnation, inflation, and underinvestment in everything that matters, because the effects of the Trump economy would last easily that long, even if he ever leaves office.
I know, I know. Maybe that doesn’t sound too “understanding.” But really, it’s an example of what I mean by being understanding. It’s a sort of warning, to those who really believe, unfortunately, that “the economy will be better under Trump.” It won’t—the tailspin above will begin to happen. And yet, at the same time, I get why people believe that. They’re desperate for anything to get better, and anyone to offer it to them, and along comes Trump, with his (ew) erotic charge. So here we are. I get it, and I have to warn, and that’s not a judgment…it’s more like a…hey, dude, that’s a cliff, not a swimming pool. Don’t jump.
Your post reflects your strange belief that of all the people in the country, biden--the guy who's supporting a war criminal with the weapons he needs to commit genocide--and trump are the best examples of American morality and integrity that we have.
No, he doesn't get it.
He's a single-issue voter
Quote:Regardless of whether he is a good candidate or not . . .
Oh he's not.
Your post reflects your strange belief that of all the people in the country, biden--the guy who's supporting a war criminal with the weapons he needs to commit genocide--and trump are the best examples of American morality and integrity that we have.
I see where you're coming from.
The one thing about your post that is glaringly obvious is your omission of joe's support of genocide in Gaza right now. In your own words, explain how joe's material support of a war criminal who's stuck in the biblical past where murdering innocent present day Gazans amounts to finishing off the Amalekites of old-testament fame is someone you can get behind.
That kind of loyalty doesn't sound sane to me. How about you?
