Daily Politics Update (2023-4)

Access requires a paid subscription. Year-long (until June 2024) subscriptions are $79 for an individual student and $349 for a school. School subscriptions allow access for 100 users.

FISA before Ukraine

MIKE LILLIS AND MYCHAEL SCHNELL – 04/09/24, The Hill, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4581611-johnson-gauntlet-greene-ouster-threat/

Congress is staring down an April 19 deadline to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — which allows the government to spy on noncitizens located outside the U.S. — a target date that is expected to overtake Ukraine aid as priority No. 1 during the House’s first week back in Washington. “I believe that Speaker Johnson will bring up support for the supplemental appropriations for Ukraine, for Taiwan, for Israel immediately after completing the work on FISA and FISA’s extension. That deadline of April 19 makes it a priority for the first few days that we’re back,” Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. But that sequence of events could put Johnson on thinner ice with his right flank. The Speaker rolled out a compromise FISA reform bill Friday and said he plans to bring it to the floor this week, but privacy hawks — including hard-line conservatives, like Greene — are sounding the alarm about the absence of a warrant requirement in the legislation, a dynamic that could nudge the Georgia Republican closer to her motion-to-vacate gambit. “Warrantless spying is wrong,” Greene wrote on the social platform X. “I’ll go ahead and give you my vote, it’s a NO to FISA reauthorization without warrants.”

Opposition to FISA bill

MIKE LILLIS AND MYCHAEL SCHNELL – 04/09/24, The Hill, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4581611-johnson-gauntlet-greene-ouster-threat/

Congress is staring down an April 19 deadline to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — which allows the government to spy on noncitizens located outside the U.S. — a target date that is expected to overtake Ukraine aid as priority No. 1 during the House’s first week back in Washington. “I believe that Speaker Johnson will bring up support for the supplemental appropriations for Ukraine, for Taiwan, for Israel immediately after completing the work on FISA and FISA’s extension. That deadline of April 19 makes it a priority for the first few days that we’re back,” Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. But that sequence of events could put Johnson on thinner ice with his right flank. The Speaker rolled out a compromise FISA reform bill Friday and said he plans to bring it to the floor this week, but privacy hawks — including hard-line conservatives, like Greene — are sounding the alarm about the absence of a warrant requirement in the legislation, a dynamic that could nudge the Georgia Republican closer to her motion-to-vacate gambit. “Warrantless spying is wrong,” Greene wrote on the social platform X. “I’ll go ahead and give you my vote, it’s a NO to FISA reauthorization without warrants.”

Leadership in Ukraine needed to stop nuclear escalation and protect global democracy

Jamie Dimon, April 2024, Chairman & CEO letter to Shareholders, https://reports.jpmorganchase.com/investor-relations/2023/ar-ceo-letters.htm

“We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak,” said Ronald Reagan in 1980. So far, the Western world has done a good job in strengthening military alliances in response to the war in Ukraine. Ukraine is essentially the front line that needs immediate support. Providing that support is the best way to counter autocratic forces that would seek to weaken the Western world, particularly America. But the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East could become far worse and spread in unpredictable ways. Most important, the specter of nuclear weapons — probably still the greatest threat to mankind — hovers as the ultimate decider, which should strike deep fear in all our hearts. The best protection starts with an unyielding resolve to do whatever we need to do to maintain the strongest military on the planet — a commitment that is well within our economic capability. American leadership requires not only the military but also the full “symphony of power.” Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in his book Exercise of Power, writes extensively in the first chapter about “the symphony of power.” He makes the critical point that America has often overused and misused military power and has massively underused other muscles — diplomacy, intelligence, communication (explaining to the world the benefits of democracy and free enterprise) and comprehensive economic policy. America has the most extensive group of partners, friends and allies — both military and economic — that the world has probably ever seen. We should put this to better use. The American public ought to hear more about why this is so important. International isolationism has run through American foreign policy throughout our history, frequently with good reason. The chant, “Don’t get involved in foreign wars” was often right. That said, the American public should remember that even after the Revolutionary War, we did, in fact, have British and French armies on our soil. The sinking of American merchant and passenger ships during World War I and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II brought isolationism to a close for a time. America is never far from being dragged into terrible conflicts. Global wars come to our shores whether we like it or not — we need to stay engaged. In perilous periods of history when our allies and other democracies were under serious assault, great American leaders have inspired the American people — through words and actions — to stand up to help and defend them. Staying on the sidelines during battles of autocracy and democracy, between dictatorship and freedom, is simply not an option for America today. Ukraine is the front line of democracy. If the war goes badly for Ukraine, you may see the splintering of Pax Americana, which would be a disaster for the whole free world. Ukraine’s struggle is our struggle, and ensuring their victory is ensuring America first. It is imperative that our national leaders explain to the American people what is at stake and make a powerful case – with energy, consistency and clarity – for our strong enduring commitment to Ukraine’s survival for as long as it takes (and it could take years). One last point: Ukraine needs our help immediately, but it’s important to understand that much of the money that America is directing to Ukraine is for purchasing weapons and equipment, most of which will be built in America. Not only is our aid helping Ukraine, but it is going directly to American manufacturers, and it is helping the country rebuild our military industrial capacity for the next generation.

Biden’s pressure on Israel undermines support for foreign aid

Andrew Solender, April 4, 2024, Axios, Biden complicates Congress’ calculus on Israel aid, https://www.axios.com/2024/04/04/ceasefire-israel-biden-gaza-aid-moneys

The Biden administration’s embrace of an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and threat of conditions for aid to Israel could shake up the foreign aid vote math on Capitol Hill. Why it matters: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is already trying to perform a tenuous balancing act to cobble together the votes for aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. But Democrats have grown increasingly uneasy with unconditional aid to Israel in recent months as the casualty count in Gaza has risen. Driving the news: In a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, Biden said an “immediate ceasefire” is needed to “protect innocent civilians,” Axios’ Barak Ravid reported. Biden also stressed that Israel needs to lay out “concrete and measurable steps” for protecting aid workers and addressing the humanitarian crisis — a demand amplified by the recent deaths of seven World Central Kitchen workers. Biden “made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps,” the White House said. The latest: Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) a Jewish progressive who signed onto Democrats’ discharge petition to force a vote on a $95 billion Senate foreign aid bill, lamented in an interview on Thursday that the bill includes “the same old money to Israel.” “I don’t see that as something that can be included in that package,” she told Axios. “I’m not against the defensive weapons … but, no, I think we should not be contributing more to this destruction of life.” Schakowsky added she feels “very strongly” about conditioning aid to Israel and “I think a lot of people … feel that way.” Other progressives voiced similar sentiments. “Biden knows the United States has a serious role to play in order for major course correcting to take place,” Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said in a statement. Zoom in: Schakowsky and Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) are circulating a draft letter addressed to Biden calling to halt weapons transfers to Israel in response to the World Central Kitchen strike. “In light of the recent strike against aid workers and the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis, we believe it is unjustifiable to approve these weapons transfers,” they wrote. The other side: Pro-Israel lawmakers in both parties hit back at Biden’s comments. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.). said he supports minimizing casualties in Gaza and sending aid to Palestinians, but “any attempt to fundamentally undermine the U.S.-Israel relationship will only serve to benefit Hamas.” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) called Biden’s remarks “terrible,” telling Axios, “Israel has every right to destroy Hamas after the 7 Oct massacre. If someone did that to us, like 9/11, we’d do everything to destroy the threat.” Between the lines: Asked if Biden’s comments to Netanyahu make it harder to pass an aid package, a House Republican told Axios, “It does.” “His equivocation is more about Democratic politics than good foreign policy,” the lawmaker added. Yes, but: Not every pro-Israel member is pushing back. “I appreciate the president’s frustration with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), who plans to advocate for Israel aid on the Hill next week. Schneider argued Israel can both fight Hamas and protect civilians and “it’s right that the United States expect, indeed demand, that of Israel.” He added lawmakers were “shocked” by the World Central Kitchen incident, which, he said, “draws on a lot of emotions.” What to watch: Johnson has signaled the House will take up aid to Israel and Ukraine when it returns from its Easter recess next week. He will have an enormous lift in getting the two-thirds majority he needs to pass any package, with a group of House Democrats now demanding an additional $9 billion in humanitarian aid to various global hot spots. The bottom line: “I mean, what other leverage does the United States have? To scold? Bibi doesn’t give a damn about scolding,” Schakowsky said of U.S. aid to Israel.

Biden behind in swing states

NICK ROBERTSON – 04/03/24, The Hill, Trump leading Biden in 6 key swing states: Survey, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4571721-trump-leading-biden-in-6-key-swing-states-survey/

Former President Trump leads President Biden in six of seven of the closest swing states, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll, published Wednesday. Leaning on dissatisfaction with the economy and swirling questions over Biden’s age, Trump has a multipoint lead in each battleground except for Wisconsin, where Biden leads by three in a three-way race with independent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., per the survey. To win reelection, Biden will need to retain the “blue wall” of states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — which he flipped in 2020. Trump holds a two-point lead in Michigan and three-point lead in Pennsylvania, though each has a significant portion of undecided voters. Biden also carried Georgia, Nevada and Arizona in the last election, all of which have stronger Trump support, according to the poll. Trump leads in Georgia by 3 points, in Nevada by 4 points and he holds a significant 5-point lead in Arizona. Third party and independent candidates may be the key for either candidate, with the group taking about 15 percent of the vote in the poll across all states. Kennedy has drawn support from both Biden and Trump, and Democrats have doubled down on efforts to urge voters away from him in recent weeks. Despite briefly running for the Democratic nomination, the independent candidate’s outsider position, government skepticism and anti-vaccine posturing has made him popular with anti-establishment voters in both parties. On the issues, Trump holds an advantage on the economy, the border and inflation, while Biden has an edge on abortion. Democrats have emphasized reproductive rights as a key issue for November, focusing on in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a rallying point for supporters and starting a push into Florida after the state Supreme Court paved the way for a strict six-week abortion ban Monday. Despite siding with Trump on economic issues and showing little faith in the national economy, most respondents said their state’s economy was doing well. At least 60 percent of respondents in each swing state except Wisconsin said their state’s economy was in a good situation, while significantly fewer said the same of the national economy. In Georgia and North Carolina, the divide between national and state economics was largest, with just 38 and 33 percent of respondents having a positive view of the national economy but 67 and 66 percent saying the state’s economy is doing well, respectively. Michigan respondents had the most positive view of the economy, with 51 percent of respondents saying the national economy is doing well, and 67 percent saying the same of their state’s. The Wall Street Journal surveyed 600 registered voters in mid-March for the three-way race data, with a margin of error of 4 percent. The economic data came from a group of 300 registered voters at the same time, with a margin of error of 5.6 percent.

Biden needs more support from his base

LEXIS SIMENDINGER AND KRISTINA KARISCH – 04/03/24, The Hill, Morning Report — Can Democrats really win Florida in 2024?, https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/4571646-can-democrats-really-win-florida-in-2024/

👉 Tuesday’s primaries in four states did not alter the trajectory for Biden and Trump toward their respective party nominations, but voters served up some useful clues in Wisconsin, New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut. One is that both candidates showed signs of weakness, although it’s Biden who needs to make up more ground with his base, according to the results.

Trump campaigning on immigration

AP, 4-2, 24, Trump will go after Biden on the border and crime when he visits battleground Michigan and Wisconsin, https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigration-crime-battleground-election-aa4b0912322dee09cf475ffad7c8cec7

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Donald Trump is expected on Tuesday to attack President Joe Biden over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border when he visits Wisconsin and Michigan, both critical battleground states in the 2024 election. Trump will first appear in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to deliver a speech about what his campaign calls “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.” He will then hold a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on the day the state holds its presidential primaries. Polls suggest Trump has an advantage over Biden on immigration issues as many prospective voters say they’re concerned about illegal border crossings hitting record highs. In recent weeks, Trump and others in his party have seized on several high-profile cases of immigrants in the U.S. illegally being charged with crimes, including the killing of Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia, for which a Venezuelan man is charged. ADVERTISEMENT Trump on Tuesday is expected to discuss the killing of Ruby Garcia, a Michigan woman who was found dead on the side of a Grand Rapids highway on March 22. Police say she was in a romantic relationship with the suspect, Brandon Ortiz Vite. He told police he shot her multiple times during an argument before dropping her body on the side of the road and driving off in her red Mazda. President Joe Biden waves as he arrives Air Force One, Tuesday, March 29, 2024, in Hagerstown, Md. Biden is en route to Camp David.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) The Trump camp and the White House clash over Biden’s recognition of ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’ Authorities say Ortiz Vite is a citizen of Mexico and had previously been deported following a drunk driving arrest. He does not have an attorney listed in court records. “Under Crooked Joe Biden, EVERY state is now a border state. EVERY town is now a Border Town — because Joe Biden has brought the carnage, chaos, and killing from all over world, and dumped it straight into our own backyards,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement previewing the former president’s speech. FBI statistics show overall violent crime dropped again in the U.S. last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike. In Michigan, violent crime hit a three-year low in 2022, the most recent available data. Crime in Michigan’s largest city, Detroit, is also down, with the fewest homicides last year since 1966. While Riley’s family attended Trump’s rally in Georgia last month and met with him backstage, it was unclear whether Garcia’s family would attend. Trump told conservative Michigan radio host Justin Barclay on Monday that he’d “love to have her family there, if they’d like to be there — it’d be in my honor” and asked him to try to coordinate. Her sister pleaded on Facebook last week for reporters to stop politicizing her sister’s story. Biden’s campaign, which has been hammering Trump for his role in killing a bipartisan border deal that would have added more than 1,500 new Customs and Border Protection personnel, in addition to other restrictions, preempted the speech by accusing Trump of doing the same. “Tomorrow, Donald Trump is coming to Grand Rapids where he is expected to once again try to politicize a tragedy and sow hate and division to hide from his own record of failing Michiganders,” said Alyssa Bradley, the Biden campaign’s Michigan communications director.

Trump campaigning on immigration

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Donald Trump is expected on Tuesday to attack President Joe Biden over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border when he visits Wisconsin and Michigan, both critical battleground states in the 2024 election. Trump will first appear in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to deliver a speech about what his campaign calls “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.” He will then hold a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on the day the state holds its presidential primaries. Polls suggest Trump has an advantage over Biden on immigration issues as many prospective voters say they’re concerned about illegal border crossings hitting record highs. In recent weeks, Trump and others in his party have seized on several high-profile cases of immigrants in the U.S. illegally being charged with crimes, including the killing of Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia, for which a Venezuelan man is charged. ADVERTISEMENT Trump on Tuesday is expected to discuss the killing of Ruby Garcia, a Michigan woman who was found dead on the side of a Grand Rapids highway on March 22. Police say she was in a romantic relationship with the suspect, Brandon Ortiz Vite. He told police he shot her multiple times during an argument before dropping her body on the side of the road and driving off in her red Mazda. President Joe Biden waves as he arrives Air Force One, Tuesday, March 29, 2024, in Hagerstown, Md. Biden is en route to Camp David.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) The Trump camp and the White House clash over Biden’s recognition of ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’ Authorities say Ortiz Vite is a citizen of Mexico and had previously been deported following a drunk driving arrest. He does not have an attorney listed in court records. “Under Crooked Joe Biden, EVERY state is now a border state. EVERY town is now a Border Town — because Joe Biden has brought the carnage, chaos, and killing from all over world, and dumped it straight into our own backyards,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement previewing the former president’s speech. FBI statistics show overall violent crime dropped again in the U.S. last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike. In Michigan, violent crime hit a three-year low in 2022, the most recent available data. Crime in Michigan’s largest city, Detroit, is also down, with the fewest homicides last year since 1966. While Riley’s family attended Trump’s rally in Georgia last month and met with him backstage, it was unclear whether Garcia’s family would attend. Trump told conservative Michigan radio host Justin Barclay on Monday that he’d “love to have her family there, if they’d like to be there — it’d be in my honor” and asked him to try to coordinate. Her sister pleaded on Facebook last week for reporters to stop politicizing her sister’s story. Biden’s campaign, which has been hammering Trump for his role in killing a bipartisan border deal that would have added more than 1,500 new Customs and Border Protection personnel, in addition to other restrictions, preempted the speech by accusing Trump of doing the same. “Tomorrow, Donald Trump is coming to Grand Rapids where he is expected to once again try to politicize a tragedy and sow hate and division to hide from his own record of failing Michiganders,” said Alyssa Bradley, the Biden campaign’s Michigan communications director.

Ukraine aid uniqueness is 50% at best

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER AND KRISTINA KARISCH – 04/02/24, The Hill, Morning Report — Johnson’s Ukraine balancing act, https://thehill.com/newsletters/morning-report/4569154-mike-johnson-ukraine-balancing-act/

Multiple members of the House GOP leadership said Monday that the odds lawmakers would approve more assistance were no better than 50 percent, and Johnson hasn’t made clear how much of his own political standing he is willing to put on the line (Bloomberg News). Now, the Speaker has told Republican senators that a substantial portion of the assistance in the House bill would be provided in the form of a loan, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports, an idea championed by former President Trump but initially dismissed by Senate leaders in both parties. But given the dire situation on the eastern Ukrainian front, where Ukrainian troops are running out of weapons and ammunition, even senators who were initially skeptical about a loan program are warming up to the idea. Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) acknowledged Monday that Congress is running out of time to help Ukraine and the Senate may be forced to accept whatever passes the House. “I think in whatever form it comes — whatever form it takes to get the aid to Ukraine, that’s the form that we got to go [with],” she told reporters. “I am of course a believer in the bill that was passed here in the Senate, would prefer that the House take that up. I don’t want to have to go through it all here in the Senate again, but getting the aid to Ukraine has to be the priority, and we have to do it as quickly as possible.” ONE OF JOHNSON’S OBSTACLES is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who on Monday accused the Speaker of having “surrendered” to House Democrats and the White House after he knocked her on Fox News. Johnson described Greene’s recent threat to trigger a vote to remove him from the Speakership — while objecting to his willingness to sideline various conservative demands in his conference — as a “distraction from our mission.” The ensuing chaos, he said, would hinder the GOP from defending the House and flipping the Senate and White House this fall.

Ukraine will win, just needs US aid

Farkas, 3-31, 24, Evelyn N. Farkas, Ph.D., is executive director of the McCain Institute and former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, The Hill, Ukraine is NOT losing, US assistance must continue, https://thehill.com/opinion/4566466-ukraine-is-not-losing-us-assistance-must-continue/

The congressional faction that opposes Ukraine assistance shares a common talking point with the Kremlin — that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia anyway. Having just returned from Ukraine, where I met with top Ukrainian officials and participated in a security conference, I have found substantial evidence to the contrary. Yes, obstacles for Ukraine are high. Russia has the benefit of greater manpower resources and the ability to recruit more fighters through lucrative contracts — one Ukrainian official talked about Russian women “selling their alcoholic husbands.” Russian firepower is reportedly ten times greater in aggregate than Ukraine’s and about seven-fold just for artillery and mortars. And U.S. congressional failure to approve the next tranche of support in a timely fashion has led to an increased loss of Ukrainian lives and territory on the front lines and ongoing gaps in air defenses. There is real danger looming with further delay. Nonetheless, none of the Ukrainian towns surrendered in the conflict to date represent strategic losses. So far, the Ukrainians have held on to critical positions along the Dnieper River. One western journalist told me that their reporting found an overwhelmingly determined mindset among Ukrainians in the direct crossfire. While commanders must now ration weaponry, Despite these challenges, data pointing in a positive direction is mounting. First there is the maritime domain: Over the last year Ukraine has systematically destroyed a significant portion of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, forcing the remaining ships to retreat to Russian waters. Using long-range Storm Shadow missiles and their own sea drones Ukraine has established a trade corridor hugging the NATO side of the Black Sea along Romania and Bulgaria. Regular trade, at pre-February 2022 levels, has resumed including major commodities such as grain, iron ore and steel transiting to foreign markets and likely to yield at least several billions in future annual revenue for Ukraine. And just Sunday, Ukraine conducted yet another set of successful attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet, hitting two landing craft and military installations in Crimea. In the last several weeks Ukraine has successfully destroyed or disabled about half a dozen Russian oil refineries (and struck more than a dozen over the last two years) which serve the domestic market, and the armed forces and may also reduce Moscow’s export ability.Indeed, the Financial Times reported that Washington has warned Ukraine to desist, fearing a rise in global oil prices. During roughly the same timeframe, pro-Ukrainian Russian forces conducted raids on military towns inside Russia along the border, forcing a partial evacuation of civilians from those towns. While they didn’t seize and hold any territory, this was the first military incursion into Russia from Ukraine since World War II — and last July’s march on Moscow from Ukrainian territory led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. This is a blow to Putin’s argument that he keeps Russia safe and stable. Indeed, the sense of insecurity in that region spread to the capital in the aftermath of the horrible terrorist attacks on a Moscow concert hall. That Putin cannot fully protect his borders and his people is now a demonstrated fact. While the Ukrainians hardly welcome a new Russian offensive in the spring or summer, they believe it is likely. The officials we met with explained that Putin needs to show progress, some kind of victory to justify renewed mobilization and, emboldened now by his fake elections, he is likely to move on the ground and may try once again to open a land corridor to Crimea. But such decisions may plant the seeds of military overreach. This could be facilitated by vulnerabilities in Russia’s attempt to ramp up defense production. Russia relies on Western technology and tools, and more stringent export controls under the current circumstances could prevent Russia from accessing the resources it needs. And in perhaps the biggest potential game changer, Ukraine appears to be getting closer to receiving $330 billon frozen assets, of which $217 billion is held in Belgium and the remainder in the United States. If the EU and the United States can agree on a mechanism for transferring these assets to Ukraine by the G-7 summit in June, this will be the strongest signal to Putin that time is not on his side. This substantial sum of money will ensure that Ukraine can fight and rebuild for years to come. It will also smooth the way to EU membership for Ukraine, removing fears by the Polish and others about the impact on EU agricultural support funds. Ukraine is winning. The only factor that would change this reality would be if the U.S. and Europe stopped providing assistance. Most Europeans have realized the danger is so great, they cannot stop supporting Ukraine. Most members of Congress understand the implications for our security as well. We should not let a minority in Congress drive U.S. policy towards reckless inaction.

Biden on the politics rebound vs Trump

Alex Thompson, 3-26, 24, https://www.axios.com/2024/03/26/swing-state-poll-biden-trump-kennedy, Bloomberg/Morning Consult swing state poll hints at Biden comeback

President Biden made significant gains against Donald Trump during the past month in six of seven 2024 swing states, according to a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll out Tuesday. Why it matters: It’s the first time in months that the swing state poll has Biden within striking distance of Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. The poll measured a period in which Biden followed his impassioned State of the Union address with a swing state tour and a series of sharp attacks on Trump. Zoom in: Biden performed best in the Rust Belt swing states, where both candidates have been arguing they are the best to resuscitate American industry. The polls showed the president with a 1-point lead in Wisconsin and tied with Trump in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Biden drew closer in Nevada, trailing Trump there 46-44 — well within the poll’s margin of error for that state. Despite some Biden gains, Trump’s lead remained significant in Arizona (5 points) and North Carolina (6 points). Trump’s lead grew only in Georgia, where Bloomberg/Morning Consult had him ahead by 7 points, up from 6 in February. Voters remain pessimistic about the national economy, the poll found — but increasingly optimistic about their local economy. Only 32% of swing state voters surveyed said the U.S. economy was headed in the “right direction.” But 53% said the economy in their city or town was — a 4-point jump in the past month. The poll confirmed that third-party and independent candidates — especially Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — could be a significant factor in November. In all swing states combined, Trump led Biden 47-43. When other candidates were included, Trump’s lead ticked up a point, to 43-38. Kennedy got 9%. Between the lines: The poll shows a central question of the election is whether Trump is better at mobilizing Republicans for him, or Democrats against him. Since October, Trump has reached 50% of the vote just once in one of the seven swing states — North Carolina. Biden’s campaign is betting it can convince the rest of the electorate to rally for Biden — or at least against Trump.

Turning aid into a loan means it will pass

AL WEAVER AND MIKE LILLIS – 03/21/24, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4545430-ukraine-aid-loan-democrats/,

Democrats in both chambers suggest they’re willing to support Ukraine aid in the form of a loan, an idea that’s gaining steam with Kyiv’s GOP champions as they scramble to end Congress’s deadlock and help Ukraine battle Russian forces. The loan design is not the Democrats’ preference. They’re urging the adoption of an emergency foreign aid package the Senate passed last month, which includes $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, while hammering Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for his refusal to put it on the House floor. But if the loan strategy — which Johnson floated to Republican senators last week — can break the impasse, a number of Democrats say they’re all for it. “Democrats support aid to Ukraine. Whether you call it a loan, or whatever, get ‘em some resources,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), the senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. “You’ve got to get them some help. So if it comes in a loan, it’s help; if it comes as an aid package with no requirements, it’s still help.” The loan strategy has gained traction among Republicans in recent weeks, not least because former President Trump is using the campaign trail to promote the idea that all U.S. foreign aid should take the form of loans. Few believe that Ukraine would ever pay back the loans, given the trillions of dollars in reconstruction costs Kyiv is sure to face whenever the Russian conflict ends. But the loan design might provide some political cover to leery Republicans, who could pitch the idea to their constituents as a strategy for easing the financial burden on U.S. taxpayers. Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) raised the proposal to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that the current politics on Capitol Hill suggest that “turning aid from the United States into a no-interest, waivable loan is the most likely path forward.” And Democrats are increasingly open to that concept if it’s seen as the last best chance for securing Ukraine aid before November’s elections. “Ukraine desperately needs money, and we’re trying to find any way possible to get that money out the door. I don’t know what kind of ransom the Republicans are going to demand, but I do understand the urgency of this moment,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said. “If there’s a way to structure money to Ukraine in a way that gets Republican votes, then I’d sure take a hard look at that.” Conversations in recent weeks have centered in the House, as Johnson weighs how he can move funds for Ukraine despite growing opposition within his ranks and from Trump. No action on the subject is expected until mid-April at the earliest; both chambers will leave for a two-week recess in the coming days. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Johnson said Ukraine aid remains a priority — “We understand the importance of sending a strong signal to the world that we stand by our allies” — but emphasized that he hasn’t landed on a set plan for moving it. “I’ve not specifically talked about the mechanism of funding Ukraine,” he said. “There’s talk about what we call the Repo Act … where you could use the seized assets of Russian oligarchs in some manner to pay for the support of Ukraine. … And then the loan concept is being discussed.” The House will address the issue “immediately” after Congress has funded the government, he said. But the sentiment among Republicans is that a loan would have to be the avenue to get Ukraine funds across the finish line, one Senate Republican told The Hill, and that the level of bipartisan support will depend on what else is in the overall package. The emergency supplemental the Senate passed last month included aid for Israel, the Indo-Pacific and for humanitarian purposes. “If the House did something like that … that was the form that they sent it back, I can’t imagine it would be rejected over here because it became a loan,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who voted for the aid bill last month and argued that GOP support for the aid could increase if it is framed as a loan. There are also political issues at hand, as the 2024 general election campaign is already in full bloom, but the desire among Democrats for the aid package is expected to override those considerations, including that Trump has blessed the loan idea. “It’s hard to see why [Democrats] would object, other than it was Donald Trump’s idea, and hopefully we’re over that,” Cramer said. “The aid is necessary. Ukraine needs it. Israel needs it. Frankly, we need it.” Not everyone, however, is on board. “Keep in mind that both Israel and Ukraine — but especially Ukraine — have got to borrow a lot of money in order to deal with this war,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. “So if you’re going to impair their credit-worthiness — and even Israel’s credit rating has gone down — that’s hurting your ally while pretending to help your ally.

Loan solves

Riley Beggin & Ken Tran, 3-20, 24, USA Today, Ukraine aid has stalled in Congress, but a Trump-backed plan is picking up steam, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/03/20/ukraine-aid-congress-trump-gop-democrats-russia/73047397007/

WASHINGTON – As aid to Ukraine has stalled in the halls of Congress, interest is growing in the idea of delivering funds to the war-torn nation as a loan, a proposal first floated by former President Donald Trump. Several powerful Ukraine advocates are still pushing the House to take up the $95 billion spending package the Senate passed in February with bipartisan support. It’s stuck in the lower chamber, with hard-right opposition stopping its advancement. That bill would send $60 billion to Ukraine, though much of the funding would go to U.S. defense contractors or the Department of Defense to offset aid that has already been shared. The rest, however, could be provided in the form of a no-interest, waivable loan, Trump said on the campaign trail last month. The former president has come out against the Senate-passed Ukraine aid as is, putting additional pressure on House Republicans to oppose it. Sen. Lindsey Graham R-S.C., floated the loan idea to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday, saying it is “the most likely path forward.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba didn’t shoot it down Tuesday. Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide Later, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. called the loan idea “a common sense suggestion.” The speaker said it would likely mirror what was done in the Marshall Plan, a post-World War II program that provided $13.3 billion in funding to European countries, $1.5 billion of which were loans. “These are not brand new ideas, these things have been around for a while,” Johnson said Wednesday. “But I think that makes sense to a lot of people.” He added that there have also been discussions about asking Ukraine to provide the U.S. with rare earth minerals in exchange for aid. “But we have to see what that looks like, and we’re talking about it in detail,” Johnson cautioned.

State of the Union didn’t give Biden a political boost

Ed Kilgore, 3-14, 24, MSN, Trump vs. Biden Polls: No State of the Union Bounce for Joe, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-vs-biden-polls-no-state-of-the-union-bounce-for-joe/ar-BB1jSsSS

It is hard to exaggerate the psychological boost Democrats derived from Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union Address. Fears that Biden would show his advanced age on the reelection campaign trail — or worse yet, hide from voters — were dissipated by his fiery upbeat demeanor and extemporaneous feistiness. His team’s strategy for winning in November was on full display as the president chipped away at public skepticism about his record and identified Republicans with deeply unpopular policy positions and their deeply unpopular nominee. After the satisfying main course of Biden’s address, dessert was served to Democrats via Katie Britt’s weird and mendacious Republican response, which was unintentional comedy gold. , But while the State of the Union did wonders for Democratic optimism, there’s simply not much evidence that it changed many minds about Joe Biden’s job performance or flipped many votes from Republican to Democrat. , The president’s job-approval ratings remain subpar. In the RealClearPolitics polling averages, Biden had a 39.2 percent approval rating on March 7 and a 39.9 percent rating five days later. In the FiveThirtyEight polling averages, Biden’s approval actually dropped slightly from 38.1 percent on March 7 to 38.0 now. One pollster (Economist/YouGov) who measured presidential job approval just before and a few days after the speech showed almost no change (a 42 percent to 56 percent approval/disapproval ratio on March 3–5, and a 42 percent to 55 percent ratio on March 10–12). , Even if Biden didn’t lift assessments of his job performance in this one speech, did he at least damage perceptions of Trump? There’s not much publicly available evidence of that either. Yes, a post–State of the Union poll from ABC/Ipsos gave Trump a terrible 29 percent to 59 percent favorable/unfavorable ratio, but it also gave Biden a nearly-as-terrible 33 percent to 54 percent ratio. Other post–State of the Union polls provided better favorability ratios for both candidates, but they were largely identical (the USA Today/Suffolk favorability/unfavorability poll has Biden at 41 percent to 55 percent and Trump at 40 percent to 55 percent; a similar Economist/YouGov favorability poll has Biden’s at 45 percent to 53 percent, and Trump at 46 percent to 53 percent). , The State of the Union address, despite Biden’s combo platter of self-promotion and attacks on “my predecessor,” also had no palpable impact on general-election polling. In head-to-head matchups with Trump, the RCP averages showed Trump leading Biden by 1.8 percent on March 7 and by 2.4 percent today. Specific pollsters found no national pro-Biden bounce: Economist/YouGov had identical Biden/Trump numbers (a two-point Trump lead) as of March 5 and March 12. The Morning Consult tracking poll showed Biden leading by a point on March 3 and trailing by a point on March 10. Publicly available polling of a five-way contest that includes Robert F. Kennedy, Cornel West, and Jill Stein is more sporadic, but the two pos–-State of the Union surveys have given Trump a six-point (Forbes/Harris X) and a two-point (USA Today/Suffolk) lead. It is entirely possible that, later in the year, we may look back on the State of the Union as an inflection point at which Joe Biden got his act together and previewed a campaign message that ultimately gave him a solid advantage over his adversary with or without some help from judges or juries weighing Trump’s various misdeeds. But right now this possibility is aspirational, rather than anything we can see in public-opinion polling. Democrats might want to temper their expectations.

Senate Ukraine bill will not pass

Marianna Stomayor, 3-13, 24, Washington Post, Lawmakers begin efforts to move around Johnson, force vote on Ukraine aid, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/13/lawmakers-begin-efforts-move-around-johnson-force-vote-ukraine-aid/

But Democrats, and several Republicans eager to aid Ukraine, said the myriad urgent situations abroad negate the need for deliberative debate within a conference that cannot reach consensus. Critics say that fractiousness contributes to Johnson’s delay in making a decision. Oddly helping the case of both groups of petitioners is the reluctance of hard-right lawmakers to say whether Johnson would be ousted from the speakership if a discharge petition were successful. Good said he “never expected a speaker to control other members,” while Greene was skeptical the MAGA base would go after Johnson if he couldn’t control a discharge petition. “Those are the rules of the House,” she said. Fitzpatrick, who alongside Bacon approached Golden and Case to find a bipartisan solution, said crafting legislation that appeals to a simple majority of 218 bipartisan lawmakers requires patience and persistence, but “not too much patience because Ukraine has weeks, not months, to maintain its fight against Russia.” Those supporting the bipartisan route echo a reality within the House Republican Conference: The Senate bill is simply “DOA” — dead on arrival, as Bacon put it — and, by extension, so is the Democratic petition, because it does not include border security funding. (A bipartisan Senate border security proposal was negotiated to be included in the national security package but was almost immediately scrapped after Trump and congressional Republicans squashed the deal that House Republicans had initially demanded.) Many defense and national security hawks are interested in signing the bipartisan petition but are waiting to see whether Johnson ultimately proposes a path forward before doing so. Bacon, who met with Johnson alongside Fitzpatrick on Friday, said he asked the speaker whether the duo should shut down their effort if it impeded his course of action. While Johnson did not discourage it outright, Bacon said, “I don’t think he encouraged me, either.”

The new Ukraine money is just a small amount and there won’t be more of it

Lara Seligman & Andrew Ward, 3-12, 24, Politico, White House expected to send more ATACMS to Ukraine, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/12/white-house-aid-package-ukraine-00146487

The U.S. is planning to send a number of additional Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine, as part of a new $300 million package of military aid, according to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the discussions. The U.S. will send Kyiv additional Anti-Personnel/Anti-Materiel, or APAM, missiles, which are an older version of the long-range ATACMS, according to one of the officials. The missiles travel 100 miles and carry warheads containing hundreds of cluster bomblets. The officials were granted anonymity to speak ahead of an announcement. The U.S. first revealed that it had secretly sent an initial shipment of APAMs in September, after President Joe Biden approved the plan to provide Kyiv with longer-range weapons. The administration has debated sending additional ATACMS for weeks, as Ukraine struggles to prevent Russia from making battlefield gains, according to a Defense Department official. The White House announced on Tuesday that it would send an “emergency” package of aid to Ukraine, including artillery rounds and additional rounds for the 155mm howitzers and the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System. National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that the Pentagon was able to use cost savings from previous contracts to make a “modest amount” of new security aid available right now without impacting U.S. military readiness. If history is any guide, ATACMS may not appear on the public list of weapons included in the latest package. Officials did not disclose that they were providing the missile in the first shipment last summer, due to concerns over operational security. Asked on Tuesday whether the missile is in the latest package, Sullivan said he had no announcements on that topic. The news comes as Congress stalls on passing Biden’s supplemental request that includes additional funding for the war in Ukraine, as well as aid for Israel and Taiwan. The Pentagon has been unable to send additional weapons to Kyiv since December, when it ran out of money to replenish its stocks. Soldiers on the front lines have been running out of ammunition and air defenses as lawmakers bicker over the legislation. Biden will meet Tuesday afternoon with Poland’s top two leaders, fierce political rivals, to make the case that differences should be set aside for the defense of Ukraine. While Ukrainians will welcome the new weapons, the latest package is only a temporary solution. Pentagon officials say they still need the full supplemental to cover costs to replenish more than $10 billion worth of weapons it has sent Kyiv from the U.S. military’s own stocks. “This is not an alternative path for a supplemental,” said another DOD official on Friday of the plan to use Army savings for Ukraine. News that a package was coming was first reported by Reuters. The plan to use Army savings was first reported by Bloomberg.

Europe cannot replace US aid

Raik, 11-30, 23 KRISTI RAIKDEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR DEFENSE AND SECURITY, TALLINN, 11-30, 23, Judy Asks: Can Europe Meet Ukraine’s Military Needs?, https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/91146

Although Europe has stepped up its support, it is clear that it cannot meet Ukraine’s military needs without the United States. What is worse, Europe is unable to live up to its own commitments. The landmark decision taken by the EU in March 2023 to provide Ukraine with 1 million shells during one year through joint procurement is not likely to be met. The failure to sufficiently increase ammunition production is emblematic of broader sluggishness. European states’ defense spending is increasing, but most EU member states will not reach the level of 2 percent of GDP in 2023. Defense industries complain about lack of long-term commitments of governments to increase production. Furthermore, it is hard to reconcile the urgent need to assist Ukraine and fill one’s own stocks with the long-term need to enhance cooperation and reduce fragmentation of European capabilities. The fundamental source of Europe’s weakness is a lack of political will and strategic vision. Europe would be able—in terms of industrial potential and economic resources—to do much more for Ukraine and for its own defense. However, this requires difficult political choices. Faced with the prospect of a long war in Ukraine and possibly a reduced contribution of the United States, Europe cannot afford inaction.

Taylor, 11-30, 23 PAUL TAYLORS, SENIOR FELLOW AT FRIENDS OF EUROPE, , 11-30, 23, Judy Asks: Can Europe Meet Ukraine’s Military Needs?, https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/91146

The short answer is no; the medium-term answer is probably not. The EU is not a military superpower with big reserves of equipment and munitions, and even the United States is stretched in helping meet Ukraine’s ammunition needs. The EU’s recent admission that it won’t be able to supply a promised one million rounds of ammunition by March 2024 shows the size of the gap between ambition and reality. Part of the problem is that the biggest member states—Germany, France, and Italy—won’t let go of control of arms procurement and are wary of EU encroachment. Other arms producers like Sweden and Poland also don’t want Brussels at the helm. To be sure, EU member states may be able to aggregate their national efforts to support Ukraine with some military kit, perhaps working with the UK, but this won’t be enough to fill the gap if the United States stops sending military assistance to Kyiv. In addition, after the EU’s failure to collectively procure ammo, France will relent and agree to purchasing munitions from non-EU countries. However, unless and until EU countries agree to do more joint procurement to provide their arms manufacturers with a predictable stream of orders, European efforts will remain patchy, inefficient, and not enough to help Ukraine prevail against Russia’s aggression.

Ukraine aid strengthens the defense industrial base

Marc Thiessen, November 29, 2023, Washington Post, Opinion Ukraine aid’s best-kept secret: Most of the money stays in the U.S.A., https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/29/ukraine-military-aid-american-economy-boost/

At a time when both major parties are competing to win working-class votes and strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base, our military aid to Ukraine does exactly that — it is providing a major cash infusion into factories across the country that directly benefits American workers. It is also creating jobs and opportunities for local suppliers, shops, restaurants and other businesses that support the factories rolling out weapons. Until now, no one had mapped out precisely where these U.S. military aid funds are going. My American Enterprise Institute colleagues Clara Keuss, Noah Burke and I have catalogued the weapons systems being produced in the United States for Ukraine — tracing the states and congressional districts where they are being made and how senators and House members voted on the funding. We analyzed contracts and press releases and spoke to defense industry experts, diplomats and Pentagon officials to determine where U.S. tax dollars end up. We have identified 117 production lines in at least 31 states and 71 cities where American workers are producing major weapons systems for Ukraine. For example, aid that Congress has already approved is going to, among many other places: Simi Valley, Calif.; Fullerton, Calif.; Andover, Mass.; Forest, Miss.; and York, Pa., to build Switchblade unmanned aerial systems, radar systems and tactical vehicles. York, Pa., and Anniston, Ala., to build Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. Aiken, S.C.; Elgin, Okla.; Sterling Heights, Mich.; Endicott, N.Y.; York, Pa.; and Minneapolis to build howitzers. Peoria, Ill.; Clearwater, Palm Bay and Niceville, Fla.; Camden, Ark.; Lancaster and Grand Prairie, Tex.; Rocket Center, W.Va.; and Trenton, N.J., to build HIMARS launchers. Anniston and Huntsville, Ala., and Camden, Ark., to build parts for the Hydra-70 rocket. Farmington, N.M.; Orlando; Tucson; and Troy, Ala., to build Javelin antitank missiles. Many other weapons systems are being built for Ukraine in factories around our country. Nor does this list count the suppliers that provide these contractors with parts, such as plastic and computer chips, or produce smaller items for Ukraine, such as cold-weather and night-vision gear, medical supplies, spare parts and millions of rounds of small-arms ammunition. As one Ukrainian official told me, “Every single state in the U.S. contributes to this effort.” In other words, as happens with foreign military aid, our aid to Ukraine is not only creating American jobs but also reinvigorating our dangerously atrophied defense industrial base. Vance said in October that “the condition of the American defense industrial base is a national scandal. Repairing it is among our most urgent priorities.” Well, our aid to Ukraine is doing exactly that. For example, the United States had not built a single new Stinger antiaircraft missile since 2005. The terrorists we were fighting in recent decades did not have jet fighters, so production faltered. Now, thanks to the Ukraine aid that Vance opposes, the Pentagon signed a $624.6 million contract last year to build Stinger missiles in Tucson, to replace about 1,400 sent to Ukraine. Without our Ukraine resupply effort, the Stinger production line likely would have remained dormant — perhaps until bombs started dropping in a conflict over Taiwan. Or take the $600 million being used to build two weapons systems for Ukraine in St. Charles, Mo. One is the Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM ER), an air-launched GPS-guided weapon that converts dumb bombs into precision-guided glide bombs with a range of up to 45 miles (triple the range of the original weapon). The other is the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), a weapon system newly developed for Ukraine that can be launched from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and can travel 93 miles, almost double the range of current ground-launched precision munition systems. If we were not aiding Ukraine, the United States would not be producing either of these weapons. The funding Congress has provided to manufacture both systems injects many millions of dollars into Missouri’s economy and is busying production lines for these advanced capabilities. Those systems will now be available for the United States and Taiwan should a conflict erupt with China, as well as available for Israel.

Ukraine aid forcing military modernization

Our aid to Ukraine is not only forcing the Pentagon to rapidly increase the United States’ ability to produce weapons; it’s also modernizing the U.S. military. As retired Army Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari, now a colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, recently pointed out, we are giving Ukraine weapons systems that are often decades old and then replacing our stockpiles with more advanced versions. “Because of the existing budget pressures on the Army, it wouldn’t be able to afford this needed modernization of equipment on its own,” Ferrari wrote in an op-ed. “By transferring weapons and gear to Ukraine, the Army would receive more modern weapons in return.” The U.S.-led effort to arm Ukraine reinvigorates our defense production capacity in still other ways. The United States is also creating incentives for NATO allies to donate their old U.S.-produced and Soviet-era weapons systems to Ukraine by authorizing the sale of newer, modern U.S.-made systems to replace them. For example, Poland sent 250 older Soviet and German tanks to Ukraine and signed a $4.75 billion deal in April 2022 to buy 250 M1A2 Abrams replacement tanks that will be produced at the Lima, Ohio, factory. Poland subsequently made a $1.4 billion deal for additional tanks. Poland also sent its Soviet-made Mi-24 attack helicopters to Ukraine and then signed a $12 billion deal to purchase 96 Apache helicopters that will be built in Mesa, Ariz.

Ukraine aid reduces Russia’s threat to Europe and deters China

As I have pointed out, it is in the United States’ vital interests to arm Ukraine in its fight to defeat Russian aggression. Our support for Ukraine is decimating the Russian military threat to NATO, restoring deterrence with China, dissuading other nuclear powers from launching wars of aggression and improving American military preparedness for other adversaries. The “America First” case for helping Ukraine is clear.

Must keep aiding Ukraine to prevent Russian domination; victory is not critical

Fix & Kimmage, 11-28, 23, LIANA FIX is a Fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, MICHAEL KIMMAGE is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and a Nonresident Senior Associate in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio, Foreign Affairs, A Containment Strategy for Ukraine. How the West Can Help Kyiv Endure a Long War, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/containment-strategy-ukraine

On November 1, Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, changed the debate about his country’s war with Russia with a statement. “Just like in the first World War,” he said in an interview with The Economist, the Ukrainian and Russian militaries “have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.” Unless a massive leap in military technology gives one side a decisive advantage, “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.” These words prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to issue a rebuttal. The war “is not a stalemate, I emphasize this,” Zelensky argued. A deputy head of the office of the president noted that the comments stirred “panic” among Ukraine’s Western allies. Such fear is understandable at a moment when the U.S. Congress, by far Ukraine’s largest source of aid, is deciding whether to sustain its military support. Before Ukraine launched its counteroffensive in June 2023, Washington evinced optimism that the Ukrainian military could swiftly achieve major military successes and secure Kyiv a stronger negotiating position to force concessions from Moscow. This has not happened. Not much territory has changed hands, and high hopes have yielded to a dispiriting narrative of impasse. A divided Congress likely has no “mountain of steel,” as U.S. officials have called the materiel they gave Ukraine in early 2023, to provide for a renewed counteroffensive in 2024, and European countries are falling short in the assistance they have promised. In purely military terms, Ukraine’s path to victory is unclear. But Ukraine and its allies must face, not fear, the war’s current reality. They should accept and prepare for a multiyear war and for the long-term containment of Russia instead of hoping for either a quick Ukrainian triumph or, absent that, an imminent negotiated solution. An overwhelming victory is not guaranteed by either Ukrainian valor or Russian folly. And any hope that negotiations right now could benefit Ukraine is naive: Russia is not becoming more malleable or more amenable to compromise. In fact, the Kremlin’s aspirations to reshape the whole international order through violent conflict may be more ambitious now than they were a year ago. Russia continues marshaling resources for its devastating war. And Russians’ support for Putin’s invasion has not collapsed: not when Ukraine’s Western allies imposed sanctions on the Russian economy, not when some Russians protested mobilization, and not when the mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin staged his curious rebellion in June 2023. But the war is not lost for Ukraine. Far from it. Enamored of Kyiv’s early successes and high morale, Ukraine’s supporters became accustomed to stunning Ukrainian triumphs. Yet this David-versus-Goliath framing of the war now generates too much pessimism when Ukrainian forces struggle or come to a deadlock with Russian troops. Even a stalemate, as frustrating as it seems, represents a huge accomplishment. Before February 2022, the idea that Ukraine could achieve military parity with Russia would have seemed fanciful. With the West’s help, however, Ukraine has deterred its much more powerful neighbor. Over a year into the war, Russia has been unable to take Kyiv or any major Ukrainian city besides Mariupol. Despite its vast economic and military resources, Russia has not been truly on the offensive since the early summer of 2022. To make progress now, Western and Ukrainian leaders need to rally around achievable strategic goals. The most pressing is the containment of Russian forces—not only to protect all that Ukraine has already accomplished but also to render Russia’s presence on Ukrainian territory as insecure as possible. Russian positions must be continuously pressured in a forward-leaning approach. This will not be doable without U.S. military support, justified not by the claim that victory is around the corner but by the argument that containing Russia is a core European and U.S. interest. Containment is a policy that is already succeeding in Ukraine. Failure would be giving up on it.

Must keep aiding Ukraine to prevent Russian domination; victory is not critical

Europe can’t replace US air interceptors

Ukraine’s stocks of ammunition and weaponry are already running short. A diminution of or end to U.S. military support would have an immediate effect on Ukraine’s battlefield performance, especially its air defenses. Those air defenses rely on interceptors, a component the United States can provide. If the U.S. government becomes less willing to fund Ukraine’s military efforts, no other country can fill the vacuum. European countries lack the ammunition stockpiles and the military production capacity. In March 2023, the EU pledged to send a million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine by March 2024, but they are at risk of falling short. As of late November 2023, less than a third of the promised supplies had been delivered. Putin has no obvious reasons to make good-faith concessions to Zelensky. Russia’s economy has, thus far, weathered the war. In fact, the Kremlin has been increasing military spending and digging in for a long haul. Russia retains the option of ordering additional mobilizations. Prone to hubris, Putin likely envisions his erstwhile “special military operation” as a years-long war in which Russia will have the fortitude to prevail. As long as he retains that attitude, then negotiation offers no escape from the labyrinth of this terrible war.

Negotiations won’t protect the Ukraine

Despite the stalemate on the battlefield, negotiations are not the right way out of the current impasse. The Kremlin would happily negotiate Ukraine’s near-unconditional surrender. But given that Ukraine has not advanced on the battlefield for over a year, negotiations held now risk, at best, recapitulating the diplomacy behind the ineffective Minsk agreements, which ended the Donbas war of 2014–15 without constraining Russia’s will to control Ukraine. The agreements left Russia too free to build up military assets on Ukrainian territory, paving the way for a much more aggressive invasion eight years later.

New spending results in the ouster of Johnson

Alexander Bolton, 11-27, 23, The Hill, GOP braces for internal battle royal over government spending, https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4324160-congress-faces-spending-battle/

Lawmakers in both parties are predicting a GOP battle royal over federal spending at the start of the election year as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) struggles to balance the demands from House conservatives demanding fiscal reforms with keeping the government operating. The new Speaker was able to prevent a shutdown earlier this month without massive repercussions to his leadership. After his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), was unseated in part for bringing a funding measure to the floor that relied on Democratic votes, House conservatives gave Johnson “a mulligan” in November for basically doing the same thing. Ninety-three House Republicans voted against the funding measure, but there was no effort to end Johnson’s speakership. But Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and other conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus are signaling they won’t give Johnson another free pass — even though he has limited power to get his way given Democratic control of the White House and Senate. Roy said earlier this month that Johnson’s concessions to Democrats to pass a funding stopgap lasting until January and February are “strike one, strike two,” putting the Speaker at risk of getting punched out of his job if he cuts another deal that fails to make significant cuts to federal spending.

Ceasefire won’t happen and wouldn’t hold

Seely, 11-24, 23, BOB SEELY is a member of Parliament in the United Kingdom and a former officer in the UK Armed Forces. He lived in Ukraine from 1990 to 1994. His book 101 Tools of Modern Russian Warfare: A Blueprint for Twenty-First-Century Conflict will be published next year, The Russian Way of War. Moscow Wants to Weaken NATO in Ukraine, Not Just Win Battles, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russian-way-war

Over the last six months, many prominent Western analysts have said Russia and Ukraine should begin negotiations. According to these proponents, a settlement with Russia is inevitable. There is little indication that the Kremlin will consider withdrawing, and it is willing to expend an extraordinary number of lives to hold the land it occupies. Its armies have laid too many square miles of land mines for Kyiv to retake all it has lost. And a negotiated settlement would still be—relative to the West’s initial expectations—a Ukrainian triumph. As the political scientist Samuel Charap wrote in Foreign Affairs in July, a divided Ukraine that is “prosperous and democratic with a strong Western commitment to its security would represent a genuine strategic victory.”

Yet to assume a cease-fire would hold, or that Russia would ever stop trying to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty, misunderstands Moscow’s objectives and, with it, Russia’s way of war. Although U.S. and European analysts may think about warfare in terms of relative wins and losses on the battlefield, for Moscow, conflict is a much more flexible term. It is a spectrum of activity that includes many tools of state power—including religion, disinformation campaigns, energy supplies, assassinations, and grain exports—along with standard tools like artillery barrages.

For Russia, the goal of conflicts is not always to defeat an enemy army. It may also be to give Russia more power over its neighbors or to weaken states or alliances it opposes, such as NATO. In the case of this conflict, Putin is trying not only to stifle Ukraine’s independence but also, he claims, to weaken NATO in a generational struggle to save Russia. This conflict has been ongoing for nearly 20 years, and Russia’s targets include Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield, Ukrainian civilians, and Western populations and leaders.

An agreement that freezes the status quo just lets Russia rearm

As they take these steps, Western officials must recognize that supporting Ukraine’s fight for independence is overwhelmingly in their interests. Any outcome that leaves Putin with a substantial part of Ukraine will enable him to claim he fought NATO to a standstill at the gates of Russia. He will declare victory and rearm for new waves of direct or indirect conflict.

Given Putin’s bloody determination, NATO and the EU must accept that they will be in a state of deep cold war with the Kremlin as long as Putin is president of Russia—and perhaps afterward, too. The West needs to be war-gaming scenarios to avoid future conflicts and seeking out measures to blunt Russia’s attempts to weaken its societies and the international order. The West needs to be mindful of global tactics that Putin could unleash, such as cyberattacks on a scale never before seen, fomenting violence in the Balkans, or cutting Internet cables and energy pipelines in Europe’s seas.

Deterring Russia and China key to stop aggression and protect democracy

Through these acts, Russia would keep the West consumed, draining its resources and weakening its ability to address other international threats. They would certainly make it harder for the United States to respond to challenges from its other main competitors: China and Iran. As with the Soviet Union, both states have revolutionary heritages and, like Russia today, integrated approaches to conflict. Beijing, for example, weaponizes trade to its advantage, much as Moscow has manipulated energy exports. Like Russia, China engages in cyberattacks along with intellectual property theft. Beijing is also seeking to expand its territorial waters in the South China Sea. Iran, for its part, uses religious loyalty, propaganda, and paramilitary and terrorist violence to extend its power without launching traditional wars. Tehran may soon use nuclear threats, as Russia does now.

These countries’ styles of fighting show that conflict is rarely a binary—either war or peace. It is, instead, a continuum that involves multiple aspects of state power. In reality, Russia’s military doctrine is not so much a doctrine for war as it is a doctrine for statecraft, one that it and other states will use to undermine the Western alliance and the international order. Stopping these revisionist powers is essential to protecting democracies from authoritarian countries. But it will not be easy. Like Tsunami’s soldiers on the frontline, we have many miles left to travel.

Political capital key to Ukraine aid

Schoen, 11-20, 23 Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. His new book is “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.” Saul Mangel is a senior strategist at Schoen Cooperman Research, Biden’s promises to Israel and Ukraine are increasingly hard to keep, Biden’s promises to Israel and Ukraine are increasingly hard to keep | The Hill, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/4317557-bidens-promises-to-israel-and-ukraine-are-increasingly-hard-to-keep/

Put another way, amid growing domestic discontent over national security, the economy, immigration and other issues, as well as the political risks to Biden’s presidency, it is an open question whether or not Biden will be able to keep the commitments he made to our allies. This is no longer a hypothetical question. More than $100 billion in wartime assistance to Ukraine and Israel remains stalled in the House, with Republicans opposed to further spending for Ukraine as that war enters its third year. There are also mounting frustrations over our own fiscal situation. Whether Biden has the political capital to push those aid packages through remains to be seen, especially with well-established public opposition on the right to funding Ukraine and the increasingly vocal demands from the left to suspend aid to Israel as it battles Hamas.

Trump win means no more Ukraine aid

Haas & Kupchan, November 17, 2023, RICHARD HAASS is President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior counselor at Centerview Partners. He is the author of The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens, CHARLES KUPCHAN, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University, served as Senior Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council during the Obama administration. He is the author of Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself From the World, Foreign Affairs, Redefining Success in Ukraine

A New Strategy Must Balance Means and Ends

Still, it is much more likely that Moscow would spurn a cease-fire proposal. Putin still harbors expansive war aims in Ukraine and seems to believe that Russia has more staying power than Ukraine. He is no doubt closely following opinion polls in the United States indicating that Trump’s return to the White House is a realistic possibility, an outcome that would surely weaken if not end U.S. support for Ukraine. Even if the Kremlin wanted to avoid outright rejection of a cease-fire proposal in order to sidestep the reputational costs of doing so, it could counter with terms sure to be unacceptable to Ukraine and the West.

Failure to pass the farm bill puts millions in poverty

SAUL ELBEIN – 11/06/23, The Hill, Farm bill faces battle as GOP pushes to strip climate, SNAP funding for subsidies, https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/4292953-farm-bill-battle-gop-push-crop-subsidies-climate-snap-funding/

Compromise promises to be an uphill battle Whatever form it takes, passage of this measure — or any House iteration of the farm bill — will be punishing, and the consequences for failing to do so would be dire. Congress failed to pass a new farm bill before the previous one expired in late September. If the two chambers can’t pass either a bill or a stopgap funding measure by year’s end, then funds for the crucial bill — the underpinning of food aid for 40 million people, crop insurance for millions and a staggering array of programs collectively known as the farm safety net — will run out.

Democrats can win the House in ‘24

Paul Kane, Congressional bureau chief, 11-4, 24, Washington Post, House and Senate elections could provide historic reverse results, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/04/election-2024-house-senate-historic/

Exactly a year out from the 2024 elections, the battle for control of Congress is as tight as it possibly could be and might be headed for one of the more historic outcomes ever. Needing a net gain of just five seats to claim the majority, House Democrats are close to an even-money bet to prevail Nov. 5, 2024, according to a survey of top nonpartisan analysts, with 11 Republican seats in deep-blue California and New York among the Democrats’ top targets. Democrats are trying to buck almost 75 years of history in which the House majority has not changed hands during a presidential election cycle. And Senate Republicans, needing a two-seat gain for a full majority, enter 2024 without a single seat of their own in jeopardy, so far, as Democrats defend three seats in states Donald Trump won easily in 2020 and four others the ex-president lost narrowly.

National politics won’t flip the Senate

In the Senate, currently 51-49 in favor of the Democrats, the biggest wild card, just as in the House races, isn’t likely to be the national political environment. It’s the looming decision of Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who is considered the only Democrat who could possibly win in that deeply conservative state. Should Manchin, 76, retire, Republicans should easily win that seat and Democrats would be forced to win every other competitive race and retain the White House to maintain control of the Senate.

Policy irrelevant to the ’24 election, it’s about Biden’s age

Alexander Bolton, 9-10, 23, https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4195015-democrats-express-frustration-with-bidens-moribund-poll-numbers/, The Hill, Democrats express frustration with Biden’s moribund poll numbers

Senate Democrats say President Biden’s moribund poll numbers are “concerning” and “frustrating,” but they are doubtful any messaging shift by the White House will change how voters view him before the 2024 election. They acknowledge the 80-year-old president’s biggest problem is his age, which negatively influences how many voters view his presidency and contributes to a lack of enthusiasm for his 2024 reelection campaign. “You got to be concerned about those poll numbers, you just do,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said. “There’s plenty of time to get them back up. Whether he can or not, I just don’t know but you got to be concerned.” One Democratic senator who requested anonymity said voters at home expressed deep apathy about Biden’s prospective reelection during constituent meetings over the August recess. The senator said the polling data “reflect all the miscellaneous encounters I’m having all the time.” “There’s just no enthusiasm,” the senator said. “It does pretty much come down to ‘Well, he’s done a pretty good job, but he’s just too old.’” Democratic senators dismiss the possibility Biden will face any real competition for his party’s presidential nomination, even though many of their constituents — especially younger voters — are hungry for new faces in leadership. Instead, Democratic lawmakers, who expect a tough fight to keep their Senate majority, are counting on Republicans nominating former President Trump for the top of their ticket, whom they view as a candidate Biden has a good chance of beating next year, despite his weak poll numbers. A CNN/SSRS poll of 1,503 adults nationwide conducted Aug. 25-31 shows Biden’s job approval rating stands at 39 percent, and 67 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say the Democratic Party should nominate someone other than Biden for president next year. The poll showed 58 percent of Americans have an unfavorable impression of Biden, and nearly three-quarters of respondents say they are concerned about his age. Deep frustration Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said he’s frustrated that Biden’s poll numbers are so bad despite the strength of the economy and the president’s legislative accomplishments, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which gave Medicare broad authority to negotiate lower prescription drug prices and provided $370 billion to combat climate change. “It’s frustrating,” he said, citing a disconnect between voters’ view of the economy and inflation and the latest data. “They think inflation is still running away. Inflation has come from 9 percent to 3, now 3.5 percent,” he said. “It’s, relatively speaking, under control. Now we’re not at 2 percent, but we’re darn close,” referring to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation target. “What can you do? You have to continue to try and find fresh ways of talking about this,” he said. “I think we have to find some fresh ways of letting people know that the reality of what we’re seeing is little short of a miracle.” Hickenlooper acknowledged that, “sure,” Biden’s age is hurting how voters view his job performance but argued it’s not fair. “The age factor shouldn’t sour anyone unless they are seeing results that are not up to what their expectations are,” he said. “My point is the results are pretty darn good.” A second Democratic senator who requested anonymity to discuss doubts about Biden’s political viability acknowledged “everybody is so obsessed about his age or having somebody else” as the Democratic nominee but argued the bottom line politically is “this is a guy that’s gotten more done than anybody half his age.” The senator predicted as the presidential race “moves forward,” Biden’s numbers will improve because he won’t be judged in a political “vacuum” against an ideal alternative but instead will be viewed in comparison to Trump, whom Democrats view as the likely GOP nominee. Some Democrats are expressing frustration with the White House’s economic messaging because an effort to tout the results of “Bidenomics” shows little sign of succeeding. “There’s work to be done, stronger messaging, more aggressive campaigning but we’re still very, very early,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) of Biden’s weak poll numbers. A new Wall Street Journal poll of 1,500 registered voters found that 24 percent of Americans rate the economy as their top issue — well ahead of immigration, abortion rights, inflation or climate change — and only 37 percent rate the economy as “excellent” or “good,” while 27 percent rate it “not so good” and 36 percent rate it “poor.” Only 37 percent of registered voters strongly approve or somewhat approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, while 48 percent strongly disapprove of his economic performance. The poll also found that 73 percent of voters think Biden is too old to seek a second term.

Climate action key to young voters, young voters key to Democrats and Biden

Julia Miller, 8-27, 23, The Hill, Climate activists call on Biden to take more forceful action, https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4162153-climate-activists-call-on-biden-to-take-more-forceful-action/

Ask young activists about the Biden administration’s efforts to address the climate, and they’re quick to point out the problem isn’t close to being solved. Despite historic climate moves put in motion by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which hit its first anniversary last week, many in the critical voting bloc of young Americans want to see the Biden-Harris administration rein in fossil fuels and declare a climate emergency. “It’s not enough now for the Democratic Party to wipe their hands and say, ‘IRA solved it all.’ We’re still in a crisis. This is still an emergency,” Michele Weindling, electoral director at the youth-led progressive environmental advocacy group Sunrise Movement. President Biden marked one year since “taking the most aggressive action ever on climate energy — ever” with the wide-ranging climate and infrastructure bill. By 2030, the IRA is projected to help triple wind power, increase solar power eightfold, and shift the nation’s electric power grid to 81 percent clean energy, Biden touted to applause. “Imagine the impact on climate and the air we breathe. The law is going to help meet all of my bold climate goals by cutting carbon pollution in half by 2030,” Biden said. Weindling said her movement sees the IRA as a historic step that delivered “an insane amount of climate investment,” but contended that “the reality is, the IRA isn’t enough for young people” in the face of escalating environmental concerns, like the onslaught of extreme weather this summer alone. As Biden lauds the IRA among his administration’s environmental achievements on the 2024 campaign trail — along with rejoining the Paris Agreement, his new national monument designations and the establishment of the new White House Office of Environmental Justice — young activists are re-upping concerns about the administration’s moves to open more land to oil drilling, and stressing that the White House can’t rest with the IRA. “I frankly think that it’s absurd that while … the Biden administration is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, it is going unacknowledged that the administration has not done enough to address fossil fuel supply,” Zanagee Artis, a founding member and executive director of the youth-led climate group Zero Hour said last week. The Biden administration controversially approved the Willow Project, an oil drilling operation, in Alaska earlier this year, and pushed forward the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia. The administration also OK’d a Trump-era decision to let Alaska LNG to export liquified natural gas to countries with which the U.S. doesn’t have a free trade agreement. “They’ve done a lot of great work on electrification and the build out of renewable energy. But we think that commitment to environmental justice and the phase-out of fossil fuel production is sorely lacking,” Artis said. Both Zero Hour and the Sunrise Movement are among the youth activist groups calling for Biden to declare a climate emergency, which experts say would give the president more power to act on climate change. The president earlier this month said in an interview with the Weather Channel that he’s “in practice” declared a climate emergency, though the White House has not formally done so. Asked recently about the label, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden “has called it an emergency since day one” and is taking the crisis “very seriously.” She also noted that Biden declared climate “as a basis for emergency action” under the Defense Production Act to set aside funds for bolstering the electric grid and other initiatives. Treating climate change as an emergency is “a completely different thing” than declaring one, Artis said. He also warned against “youth-washing” the issue — which he described as inviting young people to be part of outreach and the celebration of the IRA, but ignoring youth calls to stop the Willow Project or oppose the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The climate is consistently a top issue for the young voter demographic of Americans ages 18 to 29 — who helped Biden to victory in 2020, turned out significantly for Democrats in the midterms and will likely be key for Biden and his fellow Democrats in 2024. Climate change was a “hugely motivating” issue for young voters when Biden won in 2020, said Ashley Aylward, a research manager at the public opinion research firm HIT Strategies — adding that she’s optimistic the matter will be just as mobilizing in 2024. But Aylward said young voters, are not fully recognizing what the White House has accomplished.

Ukraine peace impossible, Russia won’t negotiate

Aris Roussinos is an UnHerd columnist and a former war reporter, 8-22, 23, Will Ukraine recover from its failed counteroffensive?, https://unherd.com/2023/08/will-ukraine-recover-from-its-failed-counteroffensive/

Over the past year and a half, calls for peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have been widely dismissed by the Ukrainian government and its more maximalist online supporters as either Putinist propaganda or defeatism. Yet the so-far lacklustre results of Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive have rendered the entire debate moot: right now, there is no incentive whatsoever for Russia to enter into negotiations.

As Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared last week: “The prospects for negotiations between Russia and the West are non-existent at this stage.” Indeed, Lavrov applies precisely the same argument against peace talks that both Ukraine and its Western advocates made at an earlier stage in the war: that “we regard the Westerners’ hypocritical calls for talks as a tactical ploy to buy time once again, giving the exhausted Ukrainian troops a respite and the opportunity to regroup and to send in more weapons and ammunition”. It takes two sides to negotiate, and even if Washington compelled Kyiv to the table, Moscow will not currently accept concessions distinguishable from surrender, impossible for Ukraine to accept and damaging for America to oversee.\

Western Ukraine aid fails

From Moscow’s perspective, the war is settling into a comfortable rhythm: the modern armour that Ukraine had demanded for so long, whose delivery elicited such angst and drama in Western capitals, is being expended against Russia’s defensive lines to little effect, at least so far. The spring’s flurry of gruesome drone videos showing Russian deaths up close has been inverted, with Russia’s supporters now exulting in the extinction of Ukraine’s increasingly precious reserves of manpower at the hands of cheap FPV drones.

CONTINUES In these circumstances, there is something distasteful about the flurry of anonymous briefings with which the Biden administration is now distancing itself from Ukraine’s ill-starred counteroffensive. Its results have not, after all, come as a surprise to American planners: as the Discord intelligence leaks revealed, back in February, the Pentagon was already warning that the offensive was likely to fall “well short” of its stated goals: Russia’s sophisticated trench fortifications, coupled with Ukraine’s “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” and “enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies”, would “exacerbate casualties during the offensive”, while achieving only “modest territorial gains”. While there are serious dissenting opinions, which assert that the attrition of both Russia’s artillery and manpower under Ukrainian assault will eventually bear fruit, the results so far seem to bear out the accuracy of America’s initial assessment.

Capital key to Ukraine aid

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 8-21, 23, FED’s Overnight Brief, https://www.fdd.org/overnight-brief/august-21-2023/

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air-defense systems shot down a Ukrainian drone in the center of Moscow on Friday, the latest demonstration of Ukraine’s ability to conduct strikes deep in Russian territory. – Wall Street Journal Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 8-21, 23, Overnight Brief, https://www.fdd.org/overnight-brief/august-21-2023/ Presiding over a conference in late July titled “Russia: The Land of Possibilities,” President Vladimir Putin flinched as a tourism official described plans to hold the traditional spring picnics called mayovka. Under the czar, the Bolsheviks had used these seasonal outings as a ruse to conceal their subversive plotting. – Wall Street Journal At least seven people were killed and more than 100 injured in a Russian missile strike on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, according to Ukrainian officials. – Wall Street Journal Russia’s war on Ukraine is in danger of becoming a protracted struggle that lasts several more years. The reason isn’t just that the front-line combat is a slow-moving slog, but also that none of the main actors have political goals that are both clear and attainable. – Wall Street Journal A few feet away from a pile of U.S.-made cluster bombs, an earsplitting boom goes off 50 times a day, marking the latest volley from a Ukrainian artillery crew seeking to hold back advancing Russian forces. – Washington Post Ukraine appears to be running out of options in a counteroffensive that officials originally framed as Kyiv’s crucial operation to retake significant territory from occupying Russian forces this year. – Washington Post The Biden administration’s sprint to supply Ukraine with weapons central to its military success against Russia has yielded a promising acceleration of arms production, including the standard NATO artillery round, output of which is expected soon to reach double its prewar U.S. rate of 14,000 a month. – Washington Post In 18 months of war, Ukrainian land has mostly changed hands in sudden bursts, with Russia snatching a mass of territory at the start and Ukraine recapturing chunks in dramatic counterattacks. Now 10 weeks into its most ambitious counteroffensive, with heavy casualties and equipment losses, questions have been growing about whether Ukraine can punch through Russian lines. – New York Times The Netherlands and Denmark said Sunday that they would donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine — the first countries to do so — in what President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said was a breakthrough in his nation’s quest to acquire the aircraft considered imperative in the war against Russia. – New York Times The total number of Ukrainian and Russian troops killed or wounded since the war in Ukraine began 18 months ago is nearing 500,000, U.S. officials said, a staggering toll as Russia assaults its next-door neighbor and tries to seize more territory. – New York Times President Vladimir Putin visited the commander of Russia’s operation in Ukraine and other top military brass, the Kremlin said on Saturday, a meeting that came after Ukraine claimed counteroffensive gains on the southeastern front. – Reuters Former Kremlin economic adviser Andrei Illarionov was added to a registry of foreign agents, Russia’s Justice Ministry said late on Friday, a designation the government applies to opponents. – Reuters Ukraine has begun discussing with Sweden the possibility of receiving Gripen jets to boost its air defences, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday after meeting Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. – Reuters Ukraine is finalising a scheme with global insurers to cover grain ships travelling to and from its Black Sea ports, the Financial Times reported on Monday citing Ukraine’s Deputy Economy Minister Oleksandr Gryban. – Reuters Russia said Ukrainian drones had attacked four separate regions in a flurry of attempted strikes on Sunday, injuring five people and forcing two of Moscow’s airports to briefly divert flights. – Reuters The situation in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv is “difficult” but Ukraine’s forces are repelling Russian attacks and have re-taken several square kilometres on the eastern front over the past week, a deputy defence minister said on Monday. – Reuters Russia said it foiled attacks by two Ukrainian drones in the Moscow region on Monday but nearly 50 plane flights in and out of the capital were disrupted. – Reuters Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that possession of nuclear weapons protects Russia from security threats and Moscow keeps reminding the West of risks to prevent a conflict of nuclear powers. – Reuters Editorial: Perhaps the President figures ambiguity will give him more flexibility to negotiate a settlement. But if Mr. Biden wants Congress to pass his aid package, he has to make a better case than he has and spend the political capital like the Commander in Chief.

Western arms fail

Burilkov & Satterwhite, 8-21, 23, Dr. Alex Burilkov is a researcher focusing on Russia and the post-Soviet space at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Germany. Alex obtained his Ph.D. on the maritime strategy of emerging powers from the University of Hamburg. Wesley Satterwhite is a U.S. Department of State consultant and a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserves. He holds a master’s in security studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s in diplomacy and international Relations from Seton Hall University. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of any U.S. government entity. With Ukraine’s counteroffensive all but halted, the time has come for Washington to push for peace—particularly given that Russia might launch a new offensive in 2024.

Ukraine’s much-anticipated summer counteroffensive has all but ground to a halt. The dozen new brigades trained by NATO have sustained huge casualties without ever reaching the first line of fixed Russian defenses in strength. Russian forces, fighting a textbook implementation of Soviet maneuver defense, frequently enjoy air superiority and are augmented by increasing numbers of cheap and effective weapon systems such as the Lancet drone. Every passing day draws closer to autumn and the dreaded rasputista—the rain and mud season that impedes maneuver warfare. By all accounts, the Ukrainian counteroffensive is on the clock and unlikely to achieve its major objectives. Western arms deliveries offer little relief. Most of the pledged main battle tanks are already in the theater, and there is limited prospect for further deliveries. Reaching for antiques like the German Leopard 1, first introduced in 1965, won’t be a gamechanger. The “fighter jet coalition” has pledged F-16s, but it’s unclear when and where these will be deployed. In any case, they would be outmatched against an increasingly active and confident Russian Air Force and Russia’s formidable integrated air defense. Stocks of precision weapons are shrinking, which clearly plays a role in the Biden administration’s refusal to provide ATACMS missiles, vital for American security in the Pacific. Given this grim outlook, is a “Korea Scenario” the most likely outcome? This means that by the time the Ukrainian counteroffensive culminates sometime in late August or early September, the conflict freezes at territorial borders roughly corresponding to the frontline. In effect, Ukraine trades significant parts of the four regions annexed by Russia in 2022 for robust Western (American) security guarantees. This certainly wouldn’t be the worst outcome from an American perspective. Washington would be able to gradually defuse tensions with Moscow and reestablish a dialogue on the future trajectory of the European security architecture. Crucially, the United States will finally be able to focus once again on the Pacific. Ultimately, China is the true peer rival to the United States, and has been playing an aggressive diplomatic game in degrading American influence since 2022, in no small part due to the imposition of harsh sanctions on Russia.

Russia won’t negotiate

The problem with the “Korea Scenario,” however, is that it assumes that the Russian leadership is desperate for a ceasefire and negotiations. There is scant evidence of this. Not only have the Russians fought the Ukrainians to a standstill in the south, but they launched their own offensive in the north, aimed at capturing the full extent of the Luhansk region, where Russian troops are steadily advancing. Russian society and the economy remain relatively stable, suggesting Prigozhin’s mutiny was indeed an aberration—and his criticism of the war always was that it wasn’t fought hard enough. In fact, the Kremlin might be eager for victory, rather than desperate for negotiations. Andrey Gurulev, former commander of the Central Military District and currently a nationalist Duma deputy, stated that Russia’s rapidly expanding military production was sufficient for the needs of the “special military operation” and the 150,000 new contract soldiers that joined the military since, but that production can be scaled to the needs of a new partial mobilization. Andrey Kartapolov, former commander of the Western Military District and chair of the defense committee in the Duma, made illuminating statements during the parliamentary procedure that increased the conscription age to thirty. Noting that this would increase the pool of trained reserves that could be mobilized, he argued that this amendment to the 1997 law is written for “a big war” and “general mobilization” which while not necessary in the immediate, would be fundamental for the future. Critically, an additional amendment introduces a travel ban, coming into force in October, on anyone whose name appears on the register of both conscripts and reservists. This gives Russian authorities a legal mechanism to prevent an exodus like that of October 2022, where up to 600,000 Russian men fled the country. The Russian leadership has repeatedly stated that the goals of the special military operation have not changed and will be achieved by military means. Moscow views the partition of Ukraine as a key objective, including Odessa—oft-referenced by Vladimir Putin—but also the rest of the Black Sea coast and potentially all the territory east of the Dnieper. Is it possible that the Kremlin is contemplating a second partial mobilization? Victories in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions late last year are what gave Ukraine sufficient political capital to request vastly expanded military assistance from the West. But this mechanism works both ways. The failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive will grant Putin a significant boost in domestic legitimacy and political capital. Russian nationalist spaces note the similarities between Ukraine’s telegraphed offensive in Zaporizhzhia and the 1943 battle of Kursk, and smugly note that German failure in Kursk was followed by massive Soviet offensives (and victories) in Operation Bagration. Putin could decide to roll the iron dice and spend his domestic political capital on a second round of partial mobilization in October. Putting these men on an accelerated half-year training schedule means that the Russian military enters the 2024 spring campaign season with upwards of an additional 300,000 fresh troops, while Ukrainian forces are gradually attritted during the winter by Russian firepower. The Russian dash to Kiev in 2022 largely failed due to an over-emphasis on mechanized forces over the infantry. A Russian military that enters spring 2024 after two rounds of mobilization will no longer face this constraint. Achieving sufficient mass over an exhausted Ukrainian adversary means the possibility of breakthroughs and the return of maneuver warfare. If Russian forces can drive deep into Ukrainian territory and capture the regions Moscow has identified as its objectives, then the war ends in a significant Russian victory, and crucially one reached by force of arms alone, not a peace settlement mediated by the United States. A Russian victory on these terms is a significant setback for the United States. The reputational damage to American competence and the NATO alliance would be colossal, as the best of NATO hardware and training has already gone into the Ukrainian military, and Russia would be able to make the claim that it stood alone against the West—and won. The Sino-Russian relationship would also strengthen. Finally, the cheap and effective weapons Russia uses to win the war, such as the Lancet, will flow to every regime opposed to American leadership around the world. Therefore, it is imperative that the idea of a peace settlement amenable to all parties in the conflict—including Russia—takes hold and is seriously pursued in Washington. Influential American figures are already engaged in Track 1.5 diplomacy with their counterparts in Russia. These efforts should be encouraged, expanded, and form the basis for sustained engagement in peace negotiations. Only then will the United States be able to focus entirely on containing China, which is of paramount importance to American security and prosperity.

Ukraine aid likely to pass now

Majda Ruge, 8-21, 23, Senior Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Affairs, 8-21, 23, https://ecfr.eu/article/primary-concern-trump-ukraine-and-the-republicans-foreign-policy-divisions/

This Republican division contains both good and bad news for Ukraine and Europeans. The good news is that Congress looks set to allow continued US support for Ukraine until 2025. Biden recently asked for an additional $24 billion for Ukraine assistance, which the Senate and House Republicans are likely to pass after attaching additional military support for Taiwan.

Russian aggression means negotiations won’t end the war. And even if they did, it would be temporary

Ishaan Tharoor, 8-21, 23, Washington Post, Ukraine’s hopes for maximal victory look remote, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/21/ukraine-counteroffensive-hopes-endgame-victory-difficult/

Talk of endgames in the war, though, remains fanciful. So far, no Russian commitment to good-faith negotiations materialized. “No one is seriously considering or discussing a diplomatic end to the war: a notion that looks to many high-profile Russians like a personal threat, given all the war crimes that their country has committed and the responsibility that the entire elite now bears for the carnage in Ukraine,” wrote Tatiana Stanovaya in Foreign Affairs, referring to the consensus view among the Kremlin elite.

“Peace for Ukraine must at some point involve negotiations with Russia,” wrote Brookings scholar Constanze Stelzenmüller in a recent essay. “But given the Kremlin’s implacable attitude, the burden of proof for the credibility of its negotiating offers would be extremely high. An armistice based on a freezing of the status quo in the form of continued Russian occupation of Crimea and the Donbas would reward Putin’s aggression and merely pause hostilities.”

US can’t supply enough ballistic missiles to win, and that risks escalation with Russia

Mukul SharmaUpdated: Aug 21, 2023, US struggles to keep up with demand of ballistic missiles to aid Ukraine: Report, https://www.wionews.com/world/us-struggles-to-keep-up-with-demand-of-ballistic-missiles-to-aid-ukraine-report-627352

The United States lacks the capacity to furnish Ukraine with sufficient quantities of tactical ballistic missiles that could significantly impact its counteroffensive efforts against Russia, the Financial Times reported. The newspaper also highlighted insights from various experts who questioned the potential efficacy of such weaponry in aiding Kyiv’s counteroffensive. Because Ukraine, a former Soviet Republic, prior to the war with Russia, trained its armed forces to use Soviet-era weaponry it held in its reserve. Even if the Ukrainian side receives as many Western weapons, it’s the limited duration of training (in the middle of a war) that makes the difference. The Financial Times report while referring to unnamed American officials, also contended that the US lacks the production capability for the tactical ballistic missiles Ukraine has requested. Furthermore, the report pointed out that concerns about escalating the conflict with Russia serve as a deterrent to Washington shipping such weapons.

Saudi-Israel normalization key to contain Iran and facilitate Israel-Palestinian peace

Hadar, 8-10, 23, Dr. Leon Hadar, a contributing editor with The National Interest, is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia and a former research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He has taught at American University in Washington, DC, and at the University of Maryland, College Park. A columnist and blogger with Haaretz (Israel) and Washington correspondent for the Business Times of Singapore, he is a former United Nations bureau chief for The Jerusalem Post., Normalizing Saudi-Israeli Relations Is in America’s Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/normalizing-saudi-israeli-relations-america%E2%80%99s-interest-206702

A pro-American Middle Eastern bloc powered by the energy resources of the Persian Gulf and Israel’s high-tech industries and scientific centers would be the most effective way to contain the aggression of Iran and its regional satellites. One of the major dividing lines between “idealists” and “realists” in the foreign policy debate during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath was over the centrality of the promotion of human rights and democratic principles in the pursuit of American goals abroad. That debate pitted Kissingerian realpolitik types arguing that geostrategic and geoeconomic interests should be the main considerations guiding American diplomacy against liberal internationalists on the Left and, more recently, neoconservatives on the Right, who countered that the United States should place the goal of spreading its values worldwide at the center of its foreign policy agenda. In reality, when push came to shove—and in particular, over issues of war and peace—realism tended to win the day, even in the case of presidencies infused with idealism, like those of Democratic President Jimmy Carter and Republican President George W. Bush. Those two presidents also demonstrated the way in which preoccupation with human rights and democracy promotion could harm U.S. core national interests. Hence investing diplomatic efforts in pressing the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to improve his government’s human rights record, the Carter administration failed to pay attention to the deteriorating political situation in that country and failed to take action to prevent the fall of the pro-American regime in Tehran and the ensuing Islamist revolution in 1979, resulting in a devastating blow to U.S. status in the Middle East. Similarly, President Bush the Second’s fixation with remaking the Middle East along democratic lines steered his administration to pressure the Israelis to allow the holding of free democratic elections in the Palestinian territories in 2006, leading to the victory of the Islamist and anti-Western Hamas movement that remains in power in the Gaza Strip today. Another president who had entered the White House committed to an ambitious democracy-promotion and authoritarianism-fighting agenda but who gradually ended up readjusting his policies to the realities of international power politics has been Joe Biden. Reflecting the bizarre outcome of dogmatic idealism, Biden invited to his Summit for Democracy in 2023 an Islamist and anti-American country like Pakistan because it, well, holds elections. But Singapore, a leading American strategic ally in the Pacific, was not invited because of its supposedly questionable commitment to democratic ideals. Biden’s earlier pro-democracy campaign included also a vow to isolate and punish Saudi Arabia and its crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), bashing the Saudis as a “pariah” in response to the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. For a while, that approach seemed to be cost-free as far as U.S. strategic and economic interests were concerned. After all, it was a time when America was becoming a major energy producer and oil prices were falling, and that supposedly provided an opportunity to reassess Washington’s alliance with Riyadh. Ending the alliance with Riyadh was a goal enunciated by members of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which also question the U.S. commitment to its alliance with Israel and its entire strategy of engagement in the Middle East. And disregarding Saudi Arabia’s concern about the threat posed by its adversary Iran, one that it shared with Israel, Biden and his aides decided to move towards renewing the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic. But then the war in Ukraine happened, and the Biden administration suddenly found itself operating in an international system dominated by a diplomatic and military conflict between great powers over territories and resources. Energy prices rose to the stratosphere, and whether MBS, the leader of the “pariah” Saudi Arabia, raised oil prices or flirted with the Russians and the Chinese mattered now much more than that country’s human rights record. Obsessing with the Saudis’ commitment to liberal democratic values seems in retrospect to be a luxury that a great power like the U.S. could not afford, especially when other great powers—like China and Russia, certainly not concerned about their potential allies’ treatment of political dissidents or religious minorities—are waiting to fill any geostrategic vacuum left by the Americans. From that perspective, pursuing the possibility of a NATO-level U.S.-Saudi mutual security pact—under which the United States would come to Saudi Arabia’s defense if it is attacked, and would involve Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel—makes a realpolitik sense, especially if it leads to progress on the Palestinian-Israeli front. In the aftermath of the Abraham Accords and Israel’s normalization of relationships with several Arab states, a process of diplomatic detente and economic cooperation between two of the region’s leading powers and allies of the United States would be a major coup as far as American interests are concerned. A pro-American Middle Eastern bloc powered by the energy resources of the Persian Gulf and Israel’s high-tech industries and scientific centers would be the most effective way to contain the aggression of Iran and its regional satellites. Such an arrangement is certainly worth the costs in the form of providing the Saudis with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile defense system, which would be helpful to the Saudis against Iran’s growing mid- and long-range missile arsenal, and helping them develop a civilian nuclear program. There is no doubt that MBS will also demand some concessions from Israel on the Palestinian issues, including stopping the establishment of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank and a clear commitment to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. If Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes such steps that would lead to the withdrawal of two extremist right-wing ministers—Itamar-Gvir, the head of the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit, and Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionism Party—from the current coalition. That would then leave Netanyahu no choice but to rely on the support of the centrist parties in the Knesset and make with them a deal to end the current crisis over the government’s controversial plan for judicial reform.

Conservatives oppose new spending

ARIS FOLLEY AND MYCHAEL SCHNELL – 07/30/23, The Hill, Frustration emerges among GOP spending ‘cardinals’ as conservatives push for cuts, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4125826-frustration-emerges-among-gop-spending-cardinals/

The House Republicans who craft the conference’s government funding bills are showing signs of frustration as hard-line conservatives pressure leadership for further cuts to spending that some worry could be too aggressive. Some of the 12 Appropriations subcommittee chairs — the so-called cardinals — told reporters that they are struggling to see where those additional cuts could come from, as September’s shutdown deadline looms. “I just don’t see the wisdom in trying to further cut to strengthen our hand. I don’t know how that strengthens our hand,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a House Appropriations subcommittee chairman, said of conservatives’ push to further cut the already-scaled-back spending bills. “I do think it puts some of our members in a very difficult spot, particularly those in tough districts, because they’re going to be taking some votes that become problematic,” he added. The House left Washington for a long summer recess Thursday after being forced to punt a bill to fund agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. Conservatives are dug in on their demand for steeper spending cuts, to the chagrin of moderates who are wary of slashing funding even more. The chamber has passed just one appropriations bill, funding military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The internal divisions are gripping the party as time is running out: The House has just 12 days in September to move the remaining 11 appropriations measures and hash out their disagreements with the Senate, which is marking up its spending bills at higher levels, setting the scene for a hectic fall that could bring the U.S. to the brink of a shutdown. Those dynamics are putting GOP appropriators in a bind, leaving them searching for ways to appease conservative requests without gutting their spending bills. “We’ve done a lot of cuts, a lot of cuts,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger (R-Texas) told The Hill this week. “And so if it’s cuts just for cut’s sake, I don’t agree with it. But if it’s something that we can do without, that’s fine.” Republican appropriators in the House announced earlier this year that they would mark up their bills for fiscal 2024 at fiscal 2022 levels, as leaders sought to placate conservatives who thought the debt ceiling deal struck by President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) earlier this year didn’t do enough to curb spending. The Senate is crafting its bills more in line with the budget caps agreed to in the deal, but House Republicans are already fuming about a bipartisan deal in the upper chamber that would allow for more than $13 billion in additional emergency spending on top of those levels. House GOP negotiators also said they would pursue clawing back more than $100 billion in old funding that was allocated for Democratic priorities without GOP support in the previous Congress. While that move drew support from hard-line conservatives, the right flank was far from pleased when it heard appropriators planned to repurpose that old funding — known as rescissions — to plus-up the spending bills. In a letter to McCarthy earlier this month, a group of hard-line conservatives called for all 12 appropriations bills to be in line with fiscal 2022 spending levels “without the use of reallocated rescissions to increase discretionary spending above that top-line.”

US pushing for Saudi-Israel normalization

Jacob Heilbrunn, The U.S. Push for Saudi-Israel Normalization, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/us-push-saudi-israel-normalization-206672

Washington wants to push for closer collaboration between Jerusalem and Riyadh, including potentially a normalization of relations. Yet getting there will require tackling a number of thorny questions. The Biden administration has been making efforts to expand the Abraham Accords by brokering an agreement on the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Saudis have set out their goals, which alongside their desire for progress on the Israel-Palestinian issue include several major “asks” from the United States: a security guarantee, easier access to U.S. arms purchases, and U.S.-Saudi cooperation on the development of a nuclear power industry.

Biden will invest PC on Saudi-Israel normalization, creating a domino of peace in the Middle East

David, 7-27, 23, Barak Ravid , author of Axios from Tel Aviv, Jake Sullivan meets MBS in Saudi Arabia as part of possible Israel normalization push, https://www.axios.com/2023/07/27/saudi-arabia-mbs-israel-normalization-biden-push

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, two U.S. sources told Axios and the White House confirmed. Driving the news: Sullivan’s trip is aimed at continuing the talks over a possible deal on upgrading U.S.-Saudi relations that would also include a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, the two sources said. U.S. officials have previously said the administration wants to try to complete this diplomatic initiative before the presidential election campaign consumes President Biden’s agenda, as Axios reported earlier this year. Such a deal could be unpopular among Democrats and might cost Biden a lot of political capital. But a deal could be a historic breakthrough in Middle East peace, leading to a domino effect of more Arab and Muslim-majority countries normalizing relations with Israel and putting U.S.-Saudi relations back on track. Details: Brett McGurk, the White House Middle East czar, and Amos Hochstein, Biden’s senior adviser for energy and infrastructure, joined Sullivan on his trip, the sources said. The visit was first reported by the New York Times. Sullivan met with MBS and other senior Saudi officials “to discuss bilateral and regional matters, including initiatives to advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world,” the White House said in a readout of the visit. “Sullivan also reviewed significant progress to build on the benefits of the truce in Yemen that have endured over the past 16 months and welcomed ongoing UN-led efforts to bring the war to a close,” the readout added. “Both delegations agreed to maintain regular consultations and follow up on matters discussed throughout the day.”

Expensive, progressive policies cost political capital

Ted Rall, 7-7, 23, Biden Plays a Progressive on TV. Will Progressives Be Fooled?, https://www.creators.com/read/ted-rall/07/23/biden-plays-a-progressive-on-tv-will-progressives-be-fooled

Winning, as your parents probably told you if they were decent people, isn’t everything. It’s OK to lose or fail, as long as you clearly did your best. President Joe Biden doesn’t understand this truth. He’s trying to attract votes from working-class people next year by marketing himself as some sort of Bernie Sanders-style warrior for progressive policies. This is even though he didn’t lift a finger to turn any of those ideas into actual law — and then only after yielding to pressure from his party’s left flank. Sanders’ three main proposals — increasing the federal minimum wage to $15, Medicare for All and student loan forgiveness — were so popular among Democratic voters that most of his 2020 presidential primary rivals, including Biden, signed on to some or all of them. Biden was never enthusiastic about progressive proposals. If Medicare For All passed both houses of Congress, Biden even threatened during the primaries, he would veto it. He’s still against allowing all Americans to see a doctor. Biden is, however, for adding a “public option” to the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare. Problem is, he’s not willing to spend political capital on it. No speeches, no town halls, no forcing a vote on legislation so that congressional Republicans have to go on the record as being against it. Going through the motions? That, he has covered. I don’t know if Biden plans a major campaign push on health care. But he certainly does on student loan forgiveness, an issue dear to the younger voters who were a key component of his 2020 coalition. “This is a tremendous opportunity for Democrats to course-correct from identity-based issues,” Democratic analyst Ruy Teixeira observed after the Supreme Court ruled that the president doesn’t have the authority to single-handedly forgive billions of dollars in student debt, as Biden lamely tried to do. Pivoting to the politics of pantomime, Biden attacked the GOP over the court decision. “These Republican officials just couldn’t bear the thought of providing relief for working-class, middle-class Americans,” Biden said. “The hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is stunning.” Takes one to know one. Trouble for Biden is, college borrowers have known since the beginning that his executive-order plan was doomed in the courts, that he cynically ginned it up as a placeholder to seduce naive younger voters during the 2022 midterms, that he was never there for them in the first place, which is why his effort had all the hallmarks of a dutiful feint, a bare minimum necessary to get progressives off his back. As a senator from the bank-owned state of Delaware, Biden was a mortal enemy of those enslaved by educational usury and a key backer of the 2005 bill that now makes it impossible to discharge student debt in bankruptcy, no matter how poor or broke you are. In 2021, he wrongly characterized college debtors as graduates of elite institutions — in fact, most went to state schools — and ridiculed the “idea that I say to a community, ‘I’m going to forgive the debt, the billions of dollars of debt, for people who have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn.'” Everyone knows that Biden is the Chicago Black Sox of the student loan debate, determined to throw the game to the banks who comprised his donor base. It’s the same story with the federal minimum wage. Biden didn’t really want to do anything; he only endorsed an increase to $15 in order to pacify progressives during the 2020 primaries. As with health care and student loans, Democrats blamed their inability to get legislation through the split Senate, where you need 60 votes to get most bills passed, for their refusal to put a living wage up for a vote. Despite Democrats’ lame excuses, there are ways for a determined president to get his way. Democrats could refuse to raise the debt limit or to fund the military unless Republicans gave them what they wanted. They could threaten to target vulnerable Republicans in purple districts with attack ads that portray them as hating young people, minimum wage workers and the sick.

2024 Biden win depends on the Court continuing to issue conservative rulings

Austin Sarat, 7-7, 23, The Hill, Furor over the Supreme Court could be the key to Biden’s reelection, https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/4082447-furor-over-the-supreme-court-could-be-the-key-to-bidens-reelection/

In response, Republicans defended the court, claiming that it was protecting “the individual citizen in his constitutional rights” against the threats posed by New Deal collectivism. They promised in their 1936 platform that year “to resist all attempts to impair the authority of the Supreme Court of the United States, the final protector of the rights of our citizens against the arbitrary encroachments of the legislative and executive branches of government. There can be no individual liberty without an independent judiciary.” As with FDR, “compelling the Supreme Court to pay attention to modern conditions” should be reason enough for Biden to take on the high court in the coming presidential campaign. To date, Biden has seemed ambivalent about how to respond to the court and what it has been doing in the years since his predecessor managed to produce a six-justice conservative supermajority. In the past two years, Biden has been more explicit in criticizing specific Supreme Court decisions and increasingly outspoken about the court’s overall direction. Yet he has not gotten on board with calls to add justices or imposing term limits. In 2024, he doesn’t have to go full-bore on court reform to rally his base and remind voters of what the Supreme Court has been doing to roll back rights and favor dark money groups with which it seems to be aligned. In his 2020 campaign, Biden tried to walk a fine line when he talked about the Supreme Court. He agreed that the court was even then “getting out of whack,” but he did not endorse proposals for reform that many activists were advancing. Biden warned Democrats against responding to every bad court decision. In an interview on “60 Minutes” in October 2020, Biden explained, “The last thing we need to do is turn the Supreme Court into just a political football [and] whoever has the most votes gets whatever they want. Presidents come and go. Supreme Court justices stay for generations.” His 2020 campaign promise to appoint a commission to study the court and to examine reform proposals satisfied few, as did the work of the commission itself. Things began to change for Biden in 2022, however, when the Supreme Court refused to block Texas’s infamous SB8, legislation authorizing private enforcement of the state’s anti-abortion laws. In a written statement, the White House denounced “The Supreme Court’s ruling […] (as) an unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional rights. […] Rather than use its supreme authority to ensure justice could be fairly sought, the highest Court of our land will allow millions of women in Texas in need of critical reproductive care to suffer while courts sift through procedural complexities.” When, last year, the Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the president spoke out himself. He labelled the Dobbs decision the “realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error.” Biden warned, “This is an extreme and dangerous path the court is now taking us on.” And, in a preview of what he should do in 2024, he urged voters to think about the court when they cast their ballots in the 2022 congressional election. “Roe,” Biden said, “is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot — the right to privacy, liberty, equality. […] With your vote, you can act.” His strategy bore fruit as voters rallied to the defense of abortion rights. Responding to last week’s decisions on affirmative action, gay rights and student loan forgiveness, Biden escalated his criticism of the court. In an interview on MSNBC the night after the court handed down its affirmative action decision, Biden alleged, “This court has done more to unravel basic rights than any other in recent history — it’s not normal. … Take a look at overruling Roe v. Wade. Take a look at what it did today. Take a look at how it’s ruled on a number of issues that have been precedent for 50, 60 years sometimes, and that’s what I meant by not normal.” The president also accused the court of ignoring what “the Constitution says: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women are created equal, endowed by their creator.’” That the phrase is in the declaration, not the Constitution, should not distract us from his larger point that what the current court is doing is un-American. Biden concluded, “The vast majority of the American people don’t agree with a lot of the decisions this court is making.” Initial polls suggest the president is wrong at least with respect to the affirmative action decision, but whether that will be true for the gay rights and student loan forgiveness decisions remains to be seen. We do know that today only 31 percent of respondents in an NBC News poll released this week held a positive view of the court — a record low since the poll first asked about the court in 1992.

Biden capital key to alliances and US global leadership

Betsy Klein, 11-13, 22, CNN, Biden celebrates Democrats holding the Senate on second day of Asia summits, https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/12/politics/joe-biden-cambodia-day-two

President Joe Biden landed in Cambodia on Saturday still reveling in midterm election results that have produced an unexpected boost at home for his second two years in office. A day after he arrived in Asia, he got another piece of news from back home that could give him a lift through the rest of his international swing – CNN and other outlets projected his party would retain control of the Senate. “We feel good about where we are. And I know I’m a cockeyed optimist,” he said from his hotel lobby on Sunday after the projection. Yet the scale of the challenges abroad, and the effort to translate 21 months of intensive engagement into tangible results for US alliances, will put the value of that political capital on the international stage to the test even as votes are still being counted. Biden confronted a series of stark challenges in his sit-down Sunday with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, critical allies in an Indo-Pacific region rattled by an increasingly belligerent North Korea. An assertive and confrontational China, long a central animating issue for the Biden administration, also looms large. “For years, our countries have been engaged in trilateral cooperation out of a shared concern for the nuclear and missile threat North Korea poses to our people,” Biden said at the start of three-way talks. “As North Korea continues provocative behavior, this partnership is even more important than it’s ever been,” Biden said. Biden also met with Kishida and Yoon individually before their trilateral meeting. Biden’s stop at an Asian nations summit comes as advisers see a clear boost from bucking the historical and political trends in the midterm elections. While Biden’s message won’t shift dramatically, the weight behind it is unmistakably more robust after American voters delivered a message that surpassed the hopes of even the most optimistic White House officials. Biden previously met Kishida and Yoon together on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in June, pledging to enhance cooperation – a complicated task for the major US allies that have a historically fraught relationship. But that cooperation is imperative as recent, stepped-up aggression from North Korea will be top of mind for the trio of leaders Sunday. North Korea has conducted missile launches 32 days this year, according to a CNN count of both ballistic and cruise missiles. By contrast, it conducted only four tests in 2020, and eight in 2021. National security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested Saturday the meeting will not lead to specific deliverables, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that the leaders will “be able to discuss broader security issues in the Indo-Pacific and also, specifically, the threats posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.”

Weakening Congressional support/aid for the Ukraine critical to force negotiations

Mai, 10-27, 22, Kevin McCarthy Isn’t Wrong About Ukraine, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/kevin-mccarthy-isn%E2%80%99t-wrong-about-ukraine-205588

Pushing back on the Biden administration’s proxy war in Ukraine provides the GOP with an opportunity to demonstrate that its commitment to an America First foreign policy goes beyond rhetorical gestures. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) signaled last week that a GOP majority in the lower chamber would stop, or at the very least, scrutinize, the substantial flow of aid to Ukraine from America. “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine … Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they [the Biden administration] do,” McCarthy said. Along with the looming post-midterm immigration battle, pushing back on the Biden administration’s proxy war in Ukraine provides the GOP with an opportunity to demonstrate that its commitment to an America First foreign policy goes beyond rhetorical gestures. McCarthy did not offer specifics about how a future GOP majority would change congressional policy toward Ukraine, but his message hinted at a fundamental truth: the first duty of U.S. political leaders is to protect and promote the interests of their constituents. To date, both parties have failed to do this with respect to the Russo-Ukrainian War. U.S. national interests in Ukraine can be distilled into three core objectives. As international security scholar Joshua Shifrinson outlined in an analysis for Defense Priorities, these include: preventing an escalation of the conflict that might lead to a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia, avoiding the total deterioration of bilateral U.S.-Russia relations, and limiting the economic fallout from the war. So far, the Biden administration, with the near-total acquiescence of Congress, has failed to secure the last two objectives. More concerning, Washington’s obstinate refusal to negotiate with Russia to end the conflict, or at least enact a ceasefire, on the disingenuous basis that only Kyiv has the agency to do so, is bringing the world closer to nuclear conflict. A GOP takeover of the House could potentially affect the Biden administration’s calculus on pursuing diplomacy with Moscow. If the GOP decided to significantly reduce lethal aid packages to Kyiv, the White House could react by opening direct diplomatic channels with Moscow while Ukraine still holds the initiative on the battlefield. Of course, a smarter strategy would be to do that now before the impact of the Russian troop mobilization is felt and while time and momentum are still on Ukraine’s side. Military analysts have also warned that U.S. aid to Ukraine is depleting some of the Defense Department’s stockpiles. The Biden administration has made multi-year investments with U.S. defense contractors to produce and transfer defense capabilities to Ukraine, but they may not reach the battlefield in time to make a difference. Congressional advocates of foreign policy restraint are vastly outnumbered by their hawkish colleagues. But a changing of the guard means that the party’s right flank, particularly in the Freedom Caucus, will be looking to hold McCarthy’s feet to the fire if he shifts resources away from the conference’s chief domestic priorities. Pre-midterm polls show that Americans don’t consider Ukraine a top political priority and want NATO allies to pick up a larger share of the burden when it comes to supporting Kyiv through financial and military aid. A September poll conducted by YouGov and Concerned Veterans for America found that a combined 85 percent of Americans said Washington should send either the same (51 percent) or less (34 percent) amount of military and economic assistance to Ukraine than wealthy European countries. Currently, this is not the case. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, from January 24 to October 3, the United States committed $52.7 billion in government support to Ukraine. By contrast, European Union (EU) members and institutions only contributed $30.1 billion. The bloc’s leaders, Germany and France, have respectively committed a meager $1.2 billion and $322 million in military aid. This imbalance is a direct result of the contradictory goals U.S. policymakers have set for the transatlantic alliance. U.S. presidents going back to the Cold War have complained about the costs and incentives associated with assuming responsibility for European security. Yet, at the same time, U.S. policymakers have also stifled European attempts to pursue strategic autonomy, or independent and self-sufficient defense capabilities. Since February, the United States has stationed an additional 20,000 forces in Europe, raising the total number of U.S. servicemembers on the continent to more than 100,000. Rather than encourage European allies to make serious long-term commitments to their defense and evolve into a capable geopolitical actor, the Pentagon doubled down on strategic overstretch and picked up the tab again. The choice facing a future GOP House majority is clear: either support a policy that is raising the prospect of a confrontation between the world’s preeminent nuclear powers while risking strategic overstretch or prioritize U.S. national interests and push treaty allies to contribute more. McCarthy seems attuned to the obvious contradiction of an America First platform that would commit itself to the former.

Bipartisanship produces regressive, racist legislation

Lehman, 9-30, 22, Chris Lehmann is the D.C. Bureau chief for The Nation. A contributing editor at The Baffler and The New Republic, he was the former editor of both publications. He is the author, most recently, of The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream (Melville House, 2016).
When future historians seek out a representative scene to distill the essence of our unique age of political folly, it will be hard to surpass Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s recent star turn at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center. The symbolic pageantry of the occasion alone was overwhelming: here was a feckless apostle of political obstructionism for its own sake holding forth at a podium supplied by the era’s most disciplined practitioner of obstruction for ideology’s sake. Both Sinema and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell are notoriously bankrolled by the most venal and compromising financial interests, and both are militantly proud of that fact. And both, far from coincidentally, profess awestruck devotion to the sacred antidemocratic rites of Senate lawmaking—most especially the filibuster, which began life as a blunt tool of racial suppression and continues to thwart any and all instrumental progress toward the expansion of our formal democracy. To complete the whole dumbfounding picture, Sinema was holding forth on the mythic virtues of bipartisan governance in the intellectual house of McConnell, a man who has redefined the meaning of “scorched earth” when it comes to ramming right-wing Supreme Court nominees through the upper chamber of the national legislature, while blocking Democratic ones. But Sinema’s act of prostration was more than garden-variety hypocrisy—it was a useful limit-test of the hollow pieties of bipartisan comity in a political order that has no earthly use for them in practice. According to political scientist Ed Burmila, author of a new history of Democratic centrism, Chaotic Neutral, the modern D.C. cult of bipartisan legislating owes its origins to the very sort of regressive policy vision that is now Sinema’s calling card. “In the ’90s, Bill Clinton and his allies in the Democratic Leadership Council argued that the only way for Democrats to get back on top and win was to fundamentally accept right-wing arguments, and say Democrats could accomplish those goals better,” says Burmila. “And the only way that could be palatable to Democrats was to redefine success as bipartisan, to say that you can pass legislation with a Republican set of goals, but you can also temper the extremism of a Newt Gingrich.” Hyde Reminds Us That Abortion Is an Economic Justice Issue Over the past generation of congressional Democratic governance, the proceduralist reverence for centrist and bipartisan accords on Capitol Hill has only grown, as Grand Bargains and Gangs of Four, Eight, and Fourteen have solemnly convened to produce new models of adults-in-the-room dealmaking. The mystic spell of the bipartisan ideal continued to exert its appeal among the Beltway set even as those side deals collapsed one after another (the odd occasional breakthrough, such as enabling the continued right-wing capture of the federal judiciary, proving scarcely preferable to collapse). The notion stubbornly endured even while genuine bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill yielded some of the worst legislation of our lifetime. When you name-check Congress’s great bipartisan breakthroughs, you have summoned forth such unlovely specimens of lawmaking as the Clinton welfare repeal law, the Defense of Marriage Act, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley and Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which both laid the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis. You have also invoked the disastrous TARP bailouts that professed to mop up the damage from the 2008 meltdown while directing lavish giveaways and bonuses to Wall Street. (In a particularly grim irony, the TARP bailouts also provided the raison d’être for the ultrapartisan Tea Party movement that would later morph into Trumpism.) And leave us not forget No Child Left Behind, the resolution to invade Iraq and the USA Patriot Act—a multibillion-dollar gift to the national surveillance state passed in a display of bipartisan spirit so overexuberant that almost none of the lawmakers stirringly lined up behind it bothered to read the thing.
By contrast, many of the greatest legislative achievements of modern Washington were achieved in strongly partisan congressional votes. Here I don’t just mean the resolution votes that yielded the Inflation Reduction Act this summer and the Affordable Care Act in 2010. No, the vast body of New Deal lawmaking that is the very foundation of confident liberal governance was fiercely partisan, from the Wagner Act to the Social Security Act to the Glass-Steagall Act fatefully undone by Bill Clinton’s pet pair of laws unleashing deregulation-on-steroids for the financial sector. Lopsided Democratic majorities in Congress gave us Medicare; the party affiliation on voting rights laws has shifted over time, but the overall pattern of strong partisan support for such measures has not. It’s especially worth flagging this latter trend, because Sinema absurdly withheld her support for desperately needed voting rights reforms this winter on the entirely bogus grounds that such measures must get bipartisan backing in Congress. “That’s what you say when you fundamentally don’t believe anything,” Burmila says. “With voting rights, you have two parties, one that says they should be protected, the other essentially saying you shouldn’t have them at all. Just what is the midpoint between those two positions?” Given this dismal track record, what explains the stubborn fealty in the centers of Democratic D.C. power to the household gods of bipartisanship? In her Louisville talk, Sinema predictably bemoaned the “tribal” turn in contemporary American politics and claimed that voters hunger for greater cooperation in Congress. In reality, the public’s fondness for bipartisanship appears to be overblown. Northwestern University political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong notes that the popular attraction to the ideal is a decidedly conditional one. “The public does express a general preference for bipartisanship or compromise,” she says. “But it’s not deeply held, and it’s often overcome by desires for partisan victories.” Pace Sinema, results seem to make a far deeper impression on voters than the niceties of legislative byplay. Sinema and McConnell’s shared ardor for the filibuster is a striking case in point. “When the filibuster leads to real deliberation, there’s a case to be made that it serves bipartisanship, but when it leads to gridlock, it’s not what the public wants. People seem very frustrated by inaction.” At the end of the day, Harbridge-Jones adds, “If you want to be the majority, you’ve got to show you’re going to do something with it.” A far more compelling explanation of the vogue for bipartisan thinking is its allure for political elites heavily invested in status quo arrangements. “It becomes a cover for never having to do anything progressive,” says historian Lily Geismer, author of Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality. As momentum for Clinton-branded policy triangulation built within the Democratic Party, she notes, “progressive voices were forced out of the administration. And that way you had no counterbalancing forces.” In the ensuing decades, this lesson in power and access took firm hold among ambitious D.C. policy insiders; centrist and savvy became the watchwords of political advancement among a liberal political class dedicated to arbitrating just what is, and is not, politically possible. The bipartisan ideal is “only important for people in this 1500-person Beltway reality,” Burmila says. “Anyone who’s going to be designated to survive a nuclear attack on Washington—that’s the constituency for bipartisanship.” An ancillary dogma this class subscribes to is that bipartisanship produces ideological diversity—a necessary asset for any party seeking to carry the day in national elections. In this view of things, senators like Sinema and fellow refusenik Joe Manchin are just part of the pragmatic cost of remaining relevant in a national debate that happens to spontaneously elevate center-right priorities. But with a fascist-leaning right firmly ensconced in the mainstream, traditional notions of centrism are very much a dead letter. “Look at the results,” Burmila says. “How have we gotten to this point if that strategy has succeeded?” It’s the fixation on capitulating to the rapidly vanishing center, he adds, that leaves Democrats flailing. “Look, the GOP has some ideological diversity, but when it comes time to ram Amy Comey Barrett through three days before the election, they’re all on the same page. So maybe the Democrats need to get rid of this arcane procedural rule of the filibuster. Liberals are horrified at the thought of a purity test, but you really need a basic purity test or two like ‘What will you do to help our party survive?’ Yeah, you can have different opinions on entitlement reform, but you can’t on whether we should govern.” The bipartisan pipe dream is ultimately antipolitical—a way of doing politics without actual conflict, clarifying debate, or a coherent strategy extending from one election cycle to the next. Neoliberal political elites cleave to the view “that bipartisanship is somehow supposed to signal a mandate,” Geismer says. “It doesn’t. That’s not where mandates come from. You had, for example, a big vote behind the Civil Rights Act in 1964, but then there’s massive backlash after that. It’s a false narrative about American history, and it’s weird how the Democrats have fed this.” So in one sense, the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center serves as the perfect forum for a shibboleth designed by and for above-the-fray D.C. power brokers who can’t be bothered with the messy business of actual majoritarian politics. The audience at Sinema’s oration was, after all, invitation-only, and she claimed a premium bottle of Old Forester bourbon as part of her honorarium. The only thing the whole set piece appeared to be missing was a hedge-fund lobbyist.

Bipartisan opposition to antitrust legislation

Rory Bathgate, 9-7, 22, IT PRO, US antitrust bill nearing law faces fierce tech opposition, https://www.itpro.co.uk/business/policy-legislation/369007/us-antitrust-bill-near-completion-faces-fierce-tech-opposition

A bipartisan US antitrust bill, which could soon be voted on in the Senate, has reportedly faced an expensive opposition campaign by tech giants. One of several bills included in a wider antitrust proposal, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICO) has been two years in the making and seeks to forbid tech giants from engaging in ‘self preferencing’, using platform data for unfair profitable advantage, and infringing upon the payment or pricing methodology of competitors. Bloomberg reports that Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, alongside trade groups with which they are affiliated, have spent just under $95 million since 2021 to lobby against support for the bill, which they argue will limit their ability to run platforms effectively. In a similar focus to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), the AICO would seek to prevent so-called ‘gatekeeper’ firms, those that run the largest online platforms home to many smaller competitors, from abusing their positions of power for financial gain. For example, Google’s promotion of Google Maps reviews when a customer searches for a restaurant or Amazon’s control over which products are listed highest will be put under scrutiny by the bill. “It is really hard to take on these subjects when you have the biggest companies the world has ever known, that control an inordinate part of the economy, opposed to it,” Vox quotes senator Amy Klobuchar, the co-sponsor of the AICO, as having remarked. In a blog post from January, Google’s president of global affairs Kent Walker argued that potential US legislation on this level would be damaging for customers and the tech sector: “Antitrust law is about ensuring that companies are competing hard to build their best products for consumers. “But the vague and sweeping provisions of these bills would break popular products that help consumers and small businesses, only to benefit a handful of companies who brought their pleas to Washington.” Those sponsoring the bill are confident that if voted on, it has the support necessary to clear the Senate. But it remains to be seen if the bill will be raised for a vote in the narrow window before the midterm elections in November, which are likely to change the voting balance within the senate. If enacted, the AICO would give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with the Department of Justice, the authority to sue companies that fail to comply, though what the penalty could look like has yet to be determined. The bill comes to vote as many legislators around the world consider the power that many tech giants exert over their market. The EU has recently opened an investigation into Google’s dominance over the Play Store, which sees it charging high developer fees and limiting the extent to which apps can use alternative billing systems, while in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an investigation into whether Amazon’s platform gives its retail arm an unfair advantage over third-party sellers. Despite individual reviews of monopolistic practice, however, the UK is not yet pursuing big tech regulation to the same degree as the EU is with the DMA. Set to come into effect in Spring 2023, this will greatly curb the extent to which tech giants can use platforms to unfairly push their services, as well as protect data from being used to damage the competitiveness of the market. In particular, the act seeks to limit the powers of gatekeeper companies. Such firms that fail to comply with the rules will face fines of up to 10% of their worldwide turnover, or 20% on repeat offences. Without lobbying power in Europe as in the US, there is little that Google or any other tech giant can do to halt the implementation of the DMA, and companies may be forced to change their worldwide practice as a result.

Your DA makes no sense in the context of Biden – he doesn’t use capital

Gabrielle Debennedett, 8-31, 22, New Yorker, POLITICS 8:00 A.M. Who’s the Change Agent Now? Joe Biden is delivering breakthroughs that long eluded Barack Obama. Who understands the presidency best?, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/gabriel-benedetti-the-long-alliance-book-excerpt.html

From his perch on an island 500 miles north of the White House, Obama spoke with Biden sporadically. As always, their calls were private and no aides listened in. But as the summer wore on, Obama’s small group of confidants gathered that Biden was impatient with his dismal approval numbers, which rivaled Donald Trump’s. They thought Biden seemed sensitive about the fact that among Democratic candidates running for office in November, the 44th president will be a far more coveted surrogate than the 46th. (One private party poll in the battleground state of Arizona showed Biden’s favorability at a putrid 26 percent.) And it seemed to them that the president was annoyed with some members of his own party, especially regarding what he saw as their fatalistic attitude about the midterms. (The White House disputes these impressions.) Given the hit Biden took after the abortion ruling, some of Obama’s close allies were baffled by Biden’s similarly uninspiring reaction to the July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, that left seven people dead and dozens wounded. As a handful of ambitious Democrats made micromoves that could position them to run in Biden’s stead in 2024, Obama said nothing, either publicly or through back channels. He stayed mum when Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker visited the early-voting state of New Hampshire, and he didn’t reach out to bring Gavin Newsom in line after the California governor rather conspicuously began buying airtime in Florida and newspaper ads in Texas. Much of Obama’s reluctance to engage was tactical; he didn’t want to overshadow the sitting president or get dragged into a new role as Biden’s enforcer, and he’d already determined that he would be most effective as an advocate for the party if he lay low until just before the midterms. Still, coming from the most popular Democrat, Obama’s distancing had the effect of heightening Biden’s isolation, as an idea began to take hold in the public imagination that one of them knew how to be a successful president and the other didn’t. And then, as if out of nowhere, came a very Washington version of deliverance. An agreement between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the fickle West Virginia senator Joe Manchin to make world-historic climate investments and deflate drug prices headlined a run of nearly miraculous news for Biden’s White House. It was the kind of concerted environmental effort Democrats had dreamed of for years, if not decades, and even progressives who wanted more conceded it would make for a genuine sea change in the government’s approach to the existential threat of climate change. The deal came on the heels of the bipartisan passage of a semiconductor-chip-manufacturing bill, and it cast in a better light a June compromise to enact limited gun-control measures, alongside other legislation of substance. (It didn’t hurt that in this stretch Biden had ordered the drone killing of Al Qaeda’s leader and gas prices fell by more than a dollar.) “There is no way to get around the fact the last month or so has been stellar for the administration,” Charles M. Blow declared in the New York Times. “Joe Biden’s Presidency Is Suddenly Back From the Dead,” Jonathan Chait wrote in this magazine. Bob Shrum compared him to Lyndon Johnson. Nobody was under any illusion that Biden had personally crafted the climate deal or artfully twisted the right arms to get it done. More accurately, it fell into his lap — months after he’d last tried to cut a compromise on his Build Back Better plan with Manchin. If Biden could have made it happen sooner, he would have. But just as presidents can fall victim to external disasters over which they have little control (see gas prices), history remembers even indirect victories as their own, too. What Biden did was leave the door open to a bargain, recognizing the awkward reality that Schumer and Manchin had more space to maneuver without his voice in the mix complicating the politics that faced the prickly moderate from coal country. Biden and Schumer had also allowed Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell to believe the administration’s climate ambitions were toast; the prevailing theory in Washington is that the Kentuckian agreed to the chips bill only because he trusted that the big-ticket ones were dead. If Biden’s abrupt turnaround can be attributed to a style of governance that is still emerging, that style is decidedly un-Obaman. The crown-jewel victory — the Inflation Reduction Act, containing the climate provisions — was painstakingly lashed together in secret by a crew of senators, including longtime denizens of Biden’s old stomping ground. The president’s own hand was nowhere to be seen in public until it was on the verge of passage, an echo of how the maximally precarious gun bill had moved through Congress a few weeks earlier. Whether because of changing times and opposition or recognition of their fundamentally distinct political strengths, Biden has veered far from the Obama model to get things done. It’s been months since he mounted a concerted effort to galvanize public opinion with the presidential bully pulpit, and he has never attempted to use an academic style of persuasion, as Obama often did. Obama was elated to learn of the climate agreement. But as the ex- and current president celebrated, a telling gap began to open. Biden’s West Wing sold the Inflation Reduction Act as the largest climate investment ever, period. Publicly, Obama agreed, calling the law a “BFD” — a nod for nostalgists to Biden’s famous appraisal of Obamacare. Privately, however, Obama saw the legislation as a step forward — a bend in the long arc of history he often cites — and not a transformative leap. It was possible to read this as sour grapes, or at least wry analysis, from a retired president whose own grandest ambitions had been thwarted at almost every turn. Yet no one on earth understood what Biden was facing better than the man who’d held the job for eight years. The two simply saw change-making differently. Obama, in fact, had been getting updates from Schumer all summer and had been quietly musing that a climate plan might be revivable, fashioned from the surviving shreds of Biden’s Build Back Better platform. He just hadn’t necessarily seen the idea as an epochal one — more like a pragmatic concession that Biden’s original ambitions couldn’t work in this version of Washington. The difference in perspective speaks to one of the oldest lines of tension in Obama and Biden’s relationship and a question that is now more pressing than ever: What is the right way to be a Democratic president? Neither man’s approach has been static, especially as Republican opposition has escalated from obstruction to nakedly anti-democratic sabotage. Obama entered office in 2009 with large partisan majorities, confident in his rhetorical abilities to unite the country and persuade voters to enact sweeping change, but GOP intransigence hardened his view of what was achievable and left him increasingly reliant on the unilateral powers of his office. He still used his megaphone to urge the electorate toward pluralism in moments of need, but by 2016, he was giving exit interviews about the difficulty of turning ocean liners more than a few degrees at a time. Biden observed all that from a closer vantage point than anyone, and in 2021, he took the oath of office with an altogether different strategy in mind. Although he had only a minuscule edge in Congress, he was convinced that his long decades in the Senate made deal-making possible again — both with members of his own party and with a small, theoretical group of Republicans eager to get some things done after the embarrassments and incompetence of the Trump years. Finding little success in trying to be the country’s protagonist or pastor, Biden settled into a significantly quieter and less confrontationally progressive posture even as he kept his faith in the legislative process to eventually deliver him big wins. Though his achievements were often overshadowed by a generalized perception of feebleness and unrelenting demonization from Republicans, he began to rack up major policy victories. Seismic as it is, the climate law hardly rescues Biden from his doldrums. The presidency is about much more than legislation, and early polling suggests his approval rating has rebounded only modestly. Yet to a degree that would have been unthinkable in the depths of summer, when Biden seemed all but dead politically, it is now possible to debate whether his first two years or Obama’s were more substantively successful…. As Biden’s polling sank on a Jimmy Carter–esque trajectory, it might have been reasonable to chalk up his initial legislative feats to a smart use of early but limited political capital — especially considering how quickly the Democratic coalition on the Hill then started to crack — and conclude all the other responsibilities of the Oval Office and the vectors of 2022’s unforgiving politics were simply swamping him. Yet that’s also why the climate-focused deal represented a genuine breakthrough for the 79-year-old president, who’d begun facing calls from some elected Democrats in Washington to retire. It appeared to reaffirm Biden’s essential approach to politics and his oft-contested theory of change: Dealmongering isn’t dead after all, no matter the president’s age or his political shortcomings and even if he isn’t the one directly negotiating the lines of legislative text. Presidents set the context. Biden could well continue to suffer low approval ratings and the abandonment of factions of his party, even as he continues to deliver prizes of staggering scale. In late August, he said he would forgive hundreds of billions in student loans. Progressives complained loudly that he could have been even more generous; moderates expressed skepticism about the move’s political wisdom. It’s tempting to imagine what might have gone through Biden’s head after eight years at Obama’s side and now two on his own: Do you think the last Democrat would’ve done any better?

Daily Politics Update (2023-4)

FISA before Ukraine

Opposition to FISA bill

Leadership in Ukraine needed to stop nuclear escalation and protect global democracy

Biden’s pressure on Israel undermines support for foreign aid

Biden behind in swing states

Biden needs more support from his base

Trump campaigning on immigration

Trump campaigning on immigration

Ukraine aid uniqueness is 50% at best

Ukraine will win, just needs US aid

Turning aid into a loan means it will pass

Loan solves

State of the Union didn’t give Biden a political boost

Senate Ukraine bill will not pass

The new Ukraine money is just a small amount and there won’t be more of it

Ukraine aid strengthens the defense industrial base

Ukraine aid forcing military modernization

Ukraine aid reduces Russia’s threat to Europe and deters China

Must keep aiding Ukraine to prevent Russian domination; victory is not critical

Must keep aiding Ukraine to prevent Russian domination; victory is not critical

Europe can’t replace US air interceptors

Negotiations won’t protect the Ukraine

New spending results in the ouster of Johnson

An agreement that freezes the status quo just lets Russia rearm

Deterring Russia and China key to stop aggression and protect democracy

Political capital key to Ukraine aid

Trump win means no more Ukraine aid

Failure to pass the farm bill puts millions in poverty

Democrats can win the House in ‘24

National politics won’t flip the Senate

Policy irrelevant to the ’24 election, it’s about Biden’s age

Climate action key to young voters, young voters key to Democrats and Biden

Ukraine peace impossible, Russia won’t negotiate

Western Ukraine aid fails

Capital key to Ukraine aid

Western arms fail

Russia won’t negotiate

Ukraine aid likely to pass now

Russian aggression means negotiations won’t end the war. And even if they did, it would be temporary

US can’t supply enough ballistic missiles to win, and that risks escalation with Russia

Saudi-Israel normalization key to contain Iran and facilitate Israel-Palestinian peace

Conservatives oppose new spending

US pushing for Saudi-Israel normalization

Biden will invest PC on Saudi-Israel normalization, creating a domino of peace in the Middle East

Expensive, progressive policies cost political capital

2024 Biden win depends on the Court continuing to issue conservative rulings

Biden capital key to alliances and US global leadership

Betsy Klein, 11-13, 22, CNN, Biden celebrates Democrats holding the Senate on second day of Asia summits, https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/12/politics/joe-biden-cambodia-day-two

Weakening Congressional support/aid for the Ukraine critical to force negotiations

Bipartisanship produces regressive, racist legislation

Bipartisan opposition to antitrust legislation

Your DA makes no sense in the context of Biden – he doesn’t use capital

U

Recent Posts