The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[N.E. Brigand]

New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says that the Canadian trucking protest, which involves only a few hundred people (there were only about 75 people blocking the bridge between Detroit and Windsor), has probably had a bigger economic impact on the U.S. than that caused by all fires, vandalism, and rioting that could be associated even loosely with Black Lives Matter protests, which involved some 15 million people. I wonder if he's right about that.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It is easy to lump Sens. Manchin and Sinema together as the obstacles to moving Biden's agenda, particularly the Build Back Better bill (as well as Voting Rights, and filibuster reform, but those are other issues). However, a closer look reveals that the problem with advancing some version of the BBB is that their positions are actually diametrically opposite, which will make it very hard to satisfy both of them, as needed to pass something in the 50-50 senate.

Manchin Pushes Democrats to Revisit Tax-Rate Increases

Democrats hoping to resurrect the party’s economic agenda are facing a problem: Sen. Joe Manchin’s goal for raising tax rates clashes with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s opposition to doing so.

I'm with Manchin on this one.

[N.E. Brigand]

Mike Pompeo, who was Secretary of State in the Trump administration, wants to blame Joe Biden for the crisis in Ukraine:

"American weakness always creates risk for our friends and our interests."

It was Pompeo's boss who withheld military aide that Congress had authorized for Ukraine in an attempt to secure a personal favor from the Ukrainian government.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yeah, but her emails!

[N.E. Brigand]

Mike Pompeo, who was Secretary of State in the Trump administration, wants to blame Joe Biden for the crisis in Ukraine:

"American weakness always creates risk for our friends and our interests."

It was Pompeo's boss who withheld military aide that Congress had authorized for Ukraine in an attempt to secure a personal favor from the Ukrainian government.

And here's what Donald Trump said today when asked "what went wrong?" that allowed Putin to invade Ukraine:

Well, what went wrong was a rigged election, and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn't be there and a man who has no concept of what he'd doing. I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.

So Putin is now saying, 'It's independent,' a large section of Ukraine. I said, 'How smart is that?' And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy. I know him very well. Very, very well.

By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened. But here’s a guy that says, you know, 'I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,' he used the word 'independent,' and 'We’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.' You gotta say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn’t have one for that. No, it’s very sad. Very sad.

So this would never have happened if Trump were president, but it's also "genius" and "smart" and "wonderful"?

Also, does Trump think the U.S. should be sending in armed "peackekeepers" to Mexico?

[N.E. Brigand]

At a Mar-a-Lago event tonight, Donald Trump was again praising Vladimir Putin almost exactly as Russia started bombing Ukraine.

[N.E. Brigand]

Fox News host Laura Ingraham said that Ukraine President Zelenskyy's speech early this evening imploring Russia to stand down was a "pathetic display."

Then she had on former U.S. President Trump, who said that ***the U.S. tonight was launching an amphibious attack on Ukraine.***

Which isn't true, and even Ingraham had to correct Trump. (It's Russia who apparently has launched such an attack near Odessa.)

With such a stupid man as president, it's a miracle that even more people didn't die in the four years he led this country.

[N.E. Brigand]

It has been clear for some years that Mitt Romney was right to point out the dangers that Russia poses for the world in a 2012 presidential campaign debate with Barack Obama, and Obama's funny quip in response -- "the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back" -- was at least partly wrong. So I think it's fair for Romney to gently remind people about his prescience in the statement he issued last night condemning Russia's attack: "'The '80s called', and we didn't answer."

That said, in practice, I'm not sure that a President Romney's policies toward Russia would have been any different than President Obama's were. One reason that Putin covertly assisted Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election (assistance which Trump accepted and probably enabled) was his frustration with U.S. sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.

[N.E. Brigand]

In non-Russian news, one year ago, Joe Biden tasked the executive branch to conduct a comprehensive review of supply chain reports. Today they issued this sheaf of reports from six different agencies:

Department of Defense

Department of Homeland Security

Department of Commerce

Department of Energy

Department of Agriculture

Department of Transportation

These are followed by a series of steps the Biden administration plans to take based on information in the reports.

- - - - - - - - - - -
Speaking of supply chains, and returning to the big news of the past 14 hours: Russia's invasion of Ukraine is going to cause prices for certain goods to increase. Notably the price of gas. I agree with those who say that one way the Biden administration needs to respond by temporarily making it easier to drill for oil in the U.S. (Among other reasons: higher gas prices will make it easier for Donald Trump to win back the presidency in 2024, and even if global warming is the only issue you care about, ask yourself whether a second Biden administration or a second Trump administration will be better for the long-term prospects of stopping global warming.)

But regardless of Biden's response, no one should doubt but that all such disruptions and costs are entirely the fault of Vladimir Putin.

[N.E. Brigand]

Why didn't Russia invade Ukraine like this during Donald Trump's presidency?

Prior reporting strongly suggests it's because Vladimir Putin believed the U.S. would back him in a second Trump term.

Eight months ago, it was reported in the Washington Post (and reporters at other outlets have since matched the reporting) that according to Mark Esper, who was the U.S. Secretary of Defense under Trump in 2019-2020:

"Trump had privately indicated that he would seek to withdraw from NATO and to blow up the U.S. alliance with South Korea, should he win reelection." He was even contemplating making those moves in 2020, but backed down when aides warned him it would be "politically dangerous."

To which Trump responded: "Yeah the second term. We'll do it in the second term."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Which still may come.

[Sunsilver]

Voronwë, dear God, no...

I have a right-wing friend who thinks Trump's friendship with Putin was nothing more that showing good international relations, and that Russian interference in Trump's election had been proven false. She posted today, expressing sympathy for the Ukraine.

I took the opportunity to post verbatim Trump's reaction to the invasion, as quoted above!

[N.E. Brigand]

At a Mar-a-Lago event tonight, Donald Trump was again praising Vladimir Putin almost exactly as Russia started bombing Ukraine.

Three Republican senators were at this event: Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham.

[N.E. Brigand]

Fox News host Laura Ingraham said that Ukraine President Zelenskyy's speech early this evening imploring Russia to stand down was a "pathetic display" by a "defeated man."

Then she had on former U.S. President Trump, who said that the U.S. tonight was launching an amphibious attack on Ukraine. Which isn't true, and even Ingraham had to correct Trump. (It's Russia who apparently has launched such an attack near Odessa.)

This was just shy of four days ago.

Ukraine and Zalenskyy very may well yet be defeated, but I think it's pretty clear who the pathetic ones are.

[Frelga]

The timing of Trumpists singing Putin's praises just as he launched the attack that he had thought would be a cakewalk is a bit telling, innit.

[N.E. Brigand]

Edit: wrong thread.

- - - - - - - - - -
Since I made and deleted an errant post here, I may as well use it to add something that could work in this thread.

The comparison of two recruiting ads below is one I've seen U.S. conservatives make several times over the past year as an example of how the U.S. military has become "woke" and lost its edge thanks to Democrats:



But this time the comparison was made several hours after the Russian invasion of Ukraine started.

And in the four days since, it's become clear that while Russia may very well defeat the Ukrainian defenders thanks to numerical and technological superiority, they're finding it much more difficult than they expected, and there's certainly nothing to suggest that Russian soldiers are superior on an individual basis than their Ukrainian counterparts. In fact, by now we've seen footage of captured Russian soldiers who look absolutely miserable, including one literally crying on the phone to his mother. (To be clear: if ever I find myself in the custody of a foreign army, I expect I'd be crying too.)

Now it's true that we have no idea how an American military force would do (and we really, really don't ever want the chance to make a proper comparison), but at the least, I think we have some reason to doubt that the military has become degraded due to Obama and Biden.

[N.E. Brigand]

The New York Times fact checked President Biden's State of the Union address last night, including this claim: "Our economy created over 6.5 million new jobs just last year, more jobs created in one year than ever before in the history of America."

The Times found that claim to be only "partially true," because the government didn't collect jobs data prior to 1939.

(The U.S. population was less than half what it is now in 1939, so it's a sure bet that Biden's claim is completely true. Media bias against Democrats! Whether the job growth reflects well on Biden's presidency or not is a different and more slippery question, to be sure. But in describing the "state of the union," it's relevant statistic.)

[Sunsilver]

Whether the job growth reflects well on Biden's presidency or not is a different and more slippery question, to be sure.

Could you please explain this? Why would job growth not be a good thing?

[N.E. Brigand]

Whether the job growth reflects well on Biden's presidency or not is a different and more slippery question, to be sure.

Could you please explain this? Why would job growth not be a good thing?

It's definitely a good thing. But it's hard to directly tie economic results to the actions of particular presidents. The U.S. economy was quite strong for the first three years of Donald Trump's presidency and then took a nose dive during his final year, but I think that neither trend had much to do with Trump's policies.

[Sunsilver]

Okay, gotcha!