P.M. Carpenter

Might Putin use nukes in Ukraine? You can BET he might. (He's telling! us that.)

Russian authorities at the highest levels keep telling the U.S. that they're serious about using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine — note: "tactical" nuclear weapons are ... nuclear weapons — and U.S. analysts keep unseriously closing their ears. 

This week, following up on President Putin's "this is not a bluff" threat, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Putin's security council, reiterated that Russia is willing to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia's newly acquired states in eastern and southern Ukraine, adding that this is "certainly not a bluff." (Reuters.)  

"Let's imagine that Russia is forced to use the most fearsome weapon against the Ukrainian regime which had committed a large-scale act of aggression" — on its own sovereign territory, mind you — "that is dangerous for the very existence of our state," wrote Medvedev on Telegram. Such as act would fall under long-standing Russian military doctrine, and if carried out, continued Putin's lackey, no problem, because the West would not intervene: "[The] demagogues across the ocean and in Europe are not going to die in a nuclear apocalypse." 

Like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin enjoys advertising to the world what actions he might take, as he openly did, for instance, in his runup to invading Ukraine. And of late, his higher mobilization has been that of dispersing his mouthpieces to assure the world that he's dead serious about nuking his neighbor.

One prominent public intellectual and U.S. analyst of Russian affairs is The Atlantic's Tom Nichols, a former Naval War College professor. He asks, "How worried should we be?" But his answer is offered beforehand. It's embedded in his column's title, "Russia's Nuclear Threats Are All Putin Has Left" — implicit emphasis on threats. Writes Nichols:

"I still believe that Russian use of a nuclear weapon is unlikely. This is only an informed guess, because my expertise on Russia does not extend to the interior of Putin’s skull. But Putin has almost certainly contemplated the high probability that using a nuclear weapon could bring about the end of his rule faster than any of the bungled decisions he’s already made. This is not because global nuclear war would break out — although any use of a nuclear weapon runs that risk — but because a nuclear attack on Ukraine could provoke a collapse of the Russian regime itself."

Nichols' argument is one of peculiar logic. Going further, I'd say it's downright farcical. He merely circles back on his initial contention in a kind of tautology: to wit, Putin won't use nukes because that would end his rule because using nukes would end the Russian regime. But as Louis XIV was the French regime, Putin is the Russian regime. Thus Nichols' premise is – voila! — his following conclusion.

Much of the rest of his column is somewhat insufferable. He reminds us that he has advised against direct Western military action in Ukraine, citing his March 2022 Atlantic column — insufferably titled "Stay Calm, America" — in which he casts superior wisdom upon the weak-minded neurotic sort. "In recent days, I’ve heard various proposals for Western intervention, including support for a no-fly zone over Ukraine from former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Breedlove and the Russian dissident Garry Kasparov, among others."

Nichols now finds he must re-explain things to feeble-headed NATO commanders and war-gaming geniuses. "But emotions should never dictate policy," he writes as he facepalms before the preceding, excitable types. Nichols is mansplaining to men; he's lecturing such tremendously rational minds as Breedlove's and magnificently logical minds such as Kasparov's.

Nichols also asserts that "the entire world would coalesce against Putin, including China," if he were to use a nuclear weapon on Ukraine. This, if nothing else, will prevent Putin from doing so, says Nichols. But if anything else, given President Xi's recent cold-shouldering, Putin would be more inclined to use nukes, just to show Xi and the world that he is still his own man.

After noting each reason he can think of to argue rather decisively the "unlikelihood" of a Russian nuclear strike, Nichols, at the end, undoes it all by writing that "Putin might think that a nuclear bomb is his only option. Whether anyone would stop Putin from giving this order, or whether the Russian high command would carry it out, is anyone’s guess."

Nichols' guess is no. Mine is 80:20 yes. But I won't insult you by explaining that my guess is grounded in intellectual composure, whereas yours, whatever it is, most "likely" lies in emotional instablity. 

***

I should have added, which I'm adding now, that generally I like Nichols' writings. But this one I found, well, insufferable. 

You thought Britain was already in bad economic shape? Just wait until Liz Truss is done with it.

Other than slashing taxes so as to eventually gut government services, thus reducing the Leviathan's size and influence in society — an ulterior purpose suspected of President Reagan during his revenue-enhancement via revenue-disembowelment days — conservatives seem to genuinely believe that cutting taxes always benefits the nation's economy. Mounds of macroeconomic studies and decades of empirical data have shown their belief to be altogether without merit. Yet put a conservative in power, and he or she will cut taxes every time.

So it is with Prime Minster Liz Truss of Great Britain, which as I write is becoming more economically imperiled each day. She's on a supply-side offensive, and notwithstanding Greek choruses all around her singing refrains of imminent doom, she is showing no signs of retreat.   

To battle inflation in Britain, the prime minister has cut taxes, which, as is obvious to everyone but Liz and her Exchequer, will only add to inflationary pressures by putting more cash in the marketplace. Meanwhile, Britain's central bank is raising interest rates in the more traditional route of combating inflation.

These two acts in tandem — those of Truss vs. the Bank of England — have rendered the International Monetary Fund rther befuddled by the new prime minister and it is begging Truss to rethink her fiscal policy, which, asserts the fund, is working at "cross purposes" with monetary policy.

Adam Posen, an American economist who formerly sat on the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, was more blunt. He told The NY Times that "the government’s policies are not only outrageously irresponsible, but they don’t seem to understand that the bank has to respond to these policies by raising interest rates a lot."

And that's creating an entirely separate, imminent catastrophe. Higher interest rates were already causing the housing market to slow — so rapidly, in fact, that two of Britain's large mortgage lenders announced they would cease offering fresh loans because of the housing market's instability. This will come as an especially severe blow to hundreds of thousands of homeowners who must refinance their fixed-term mortgages.

Britain is "not like the U.S., where people are on 30-year mortgages," said economics professor Jonathan Portes at King’s College London. More than 60% of British mortgage holders have "floating" rates or "loans that will expire in the next two years," observes the Times — many of them, Conservative voters, or at least they were. 

Another gift to the Labour Party arrived on Friday when the chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, made a surprise announcement. The government, he said, will also dispose of the 45% income tax rate for those earning more than £150,000. "Kwarteng did not submit the package to the scrutiny a government budget normally receives," reports the Times. But lower-income Brits can take heart: Four days later Mr. Kwarteng informed bankers and asset managers that he's confident the government's new tax schemes will work.

From a political standpoint, Truss & Co.'s fiscal policies appear even more insane. The Labour Party is currently running 17 points ahead of Conservatives in a YouGov poll (B+), reports The (London) Times. As the Democratic Party should be doing more of in the United States — not as a political fluff, but as the truth — Britain's Labour is now selling itself as the party of fiscal responsibility.  

Labour's approval rating is 45%; Conservatives', 28%. The gap will widen even further as Truss' fiscal madness deepens her party's unpopularity. To retake parliament, Labour need only avoid the radical talk of its yesteryears, which, granted, may prove as difficult as moderate Democrats' efforts to keep politically reckless progressives' mouths shut. And for heaven's sake, Labourites, please tell voters you've never even heard of "wokeness." 

To be clear, mine is no schadenfreude post about the regnant missteps and maladministrations of Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Conservative Party. The denizens of the United Kingdom are still our lovable cousins, thus I would much prefer to see Ms. Truss succeed. But it seems unlikely that anyone can help. She is unswerving in her determination to wreck the British economy.    

A pro-Putin, anti-Ukrainian-'Nazi' writer drops me a note

Below is an email that awaited me in my inbox this morning. The sender, one Michael Averko, is not a Russian bot. His name appears in numerous Google links — referenced always as "Michael Averko is a  New York based independent foreign policy analyst" — and he was cited in a 28 July 2020 NY Times article, "Russian Intelligence Agencies Push Disinformation on Pandemic," in this passage:

"Michael Averko, a contributor to the [Strategic Culture Foundation. which has ties to the Russian intelligence agency SVR, which is being investigated by the FBI], did not return a request for comment, but he said in a recent mass email to reporters that he had been visited by the F.B.I. Mr. Averko said he told the F.B.I. that he did not know about any ties between the foundation and Russian intelligence, but that he doubted they existed."

Here, in full, is Averko's email:

***

Re: Below Linked Article on US Open Azarenka-Kostyuk Match

The Kiev regime is a corrupt, undemocratic and neo-Nazi influenced regime with blood on its hands. Let's see Kostyuk, Svitolina, Klitschko, et al make some acknowledgement to that.

As previously noted -

In the not too distant past, US and Israeli athletes were never penalized when their respective nation killed many in a foreign land.
The carnage in Yemen is greater than the one in Ukraine. The former involves Anglo-American and Saudi complicity.

The Wimbledon wipes allowed for white South Africans to compete during the apartheid era.

Like I said, the Kiev regime is a corrupt, undemocratic and neo-Nazi influenced entity with blood on its hands.

So much for Western establishment arrogance, ignorance, hypocrisy and bigotry.

Russian and Belarusian athletes should be competing under their respective flag and anthem. If anything, the likes of Sebastian Coe and Thomas Bach should be banned.

[Last, Averko cites an RT.com piece, titled:]

"Ukrainian player refuses handshake with Belarusian rival at US Open"

The Ukrainian appeared to accuse two-time Grand Slam champion Azarenka of not doing enough to “condemn the war publicly” and failing to criticize her government, headed by President Alexander Lukashenko, which is seen as aiding the Russian military campaign in Ukraine. “We had a great match, don’t get me wrong. She’s a great competitor, I respect her as an athlete but that has ...

***

I sent this reply to Averko:

"How much do you get paid to peddle horseshit for Putin?"

He responded moments later:

"Mr Carpenter,

"Who pays for your pro-Kiev regime bullshit?

It's good to know my Russia-Ukraine War articles are aggravating the likes of vile, genocide-supporting minds such as Michael Averko's.

A ferocious Russian television war hawk freaks out when he's called to fight in Ukraine

One more video, which I found too irresistible not to share. 

You may recall Vladimir Solovyov from several of my posts in which I featured his radically bellicose thoughts and bizarrely abnormal hatred of Ukraine, even for a Russian hardliner. He is the popular Russian TV host of "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov." 

In hosting the program, his favorite topics have been the accelerated progress of Russia under Putin, the decline of the West, and ... his patriotism.

Until, a Russian official came to his door and handed him "mobilization papers," as Solovyov puts it in the video. This supremely patriotic Putin propagandist and determined destroyer of Ukraine had been drafted — and on his television show, he lost control of himself. In short, he freaked out.

In opposing his participation in Russia's virtuous war against its neoNazi-infested neighbor, Solovyov shrieked that he's too old, that he's too important — "You know who I am"? he told the doorknocker — that Russia's "ethnic minorities" should do the fighting, and that dying for Russia is for somebody else.  

These two minutes may be the most fascinating, arrogant cowardice you shall ever see.  

Solovyov gets drafted and goes crazy. pic.twitter.com/bd8lMf4zFi

— RealSubtitles (@R82938886) September 27, 2022

I believe the older gentleman in the light blue suit is retired Lt. Gen. Andrei Gurulev, who has happily spoken of turning Britain into a "Martian desert" via Russia's nuclear weapons. The older gentleman in the dark suit — the one who calmly scorns Solovyov as a coward — I am, regrettably, unfamiliar with.  

Will Vladimir find his chatty namesake a military desk job in Moscow so that he can continue his show? — in uniform and once again supremely patriotic. I suspect that is Mr. Solovyov's wartime fate. Unless the first Vladimir simply has the second one murdered. A freak accident, you know.

When the paper you love is unfaithful: The NYT and Maggie Haberman

The question being: What is to be done?

The New York Times, a publication I have relied on for years for accurate and often excellent investigative reporting, has done us wrong. It has "circled the wagons," as one writer put it, in defense of White House correspondent Maggie Haberman's indefensible concealment of Donald Trump's mishandling of, and possible destruction of, top-secret national security documents while president. There can be no justification of either Haberman's or the Times' misconduct. Both are journalistically deplorable and ethically offensive.

For her part, Haberman sat on news of White House staff having discovered that official papers were once blocking the president's bathroom — "the assumption by staff was that Mr Trump was tearing [them] up and flushing them away," reports The Independent. Yet Haberman hid from the public this immensely troubling story. She kept it private to enhance the sales of her book, Confidence Man, due out 4 October.

Thus a NYT White House correspondent withheld vital information about a sitting president's gross mishandling and probable vandalism of sensitive national security documents, entirely for personal profit. More shocking: Go to the New York Times and enter "haberman" in its search window. Right. Nada. The nation's "paper of record" has chosen to stay off the record about one of its own — an enormously unethical journalist.

Observes D. Earl Stephens, former managing editor of Stars and Stripes: "I worked at five newspapers in my career. At every one of them our first and only responsibility was to our readers, NOT reporters who were sitting on stories and writing books to serve themselves. I am past sick and tired of Maggie Haberman, the NYT and all these damn books."

In an accompanying tweet, Stephens wrote: "As hard as we should be on the Habermans of the world, it’s her bosses at The New York Times who should get 99 percent of the blame for allowing and even encouraging this breathtaking bullshit. They are taking our money, to sit on the news."

Wrote author Amy Siskin: "Reporters at the NYT and beyond circling the wagons to protect Maggie Haberman, and openly ridiculing accusations of what clearly appears to be unethical behaviour, is why journalistic practices don’t improve and trust in journalism is largely in the basement."

Other tweeters have joined in the recriminations of Maggie Haberman, writing that she "is the poster girl for what’s wrong with modern journalism; profit over profession," and "Yea congrats to her sitting on a story about the sitting president destroying classified documents just so she can get paid." Quite handsomely, one should add. 

It's one thing for a greedy journalist to heave financial self-interest over professional obligation. But in the board rooms of the NY Times, whole groups of men and women sworn to uphold the public interest have conspired to aid and abet a journalistic felon on the run.

I won't, I can't cancel my subscription to the Times. Other journalists in its cubes are worthy of the trade and daily provide information essential to any fair-minded news consumer. The New York Times, however, is, at its highest levels, showing itself to be no more conscientious than a Trump lawyer. So I suppose I'll just have to live with the pain of the bosses' infidelity.    

(P.S.: While coincidentally browsing former Stars and Stripes editor Stephens' Twitter thread I ran across a pretty nifty description of the abovementioned scofflaw: "[A] thrice married, serial philandering, casino bankrupting, Bible shaking, North Korean despot love letter exchanging, coup plotting, insurrection inciting, intel stealing puppet for Putin.")

A live-action battle - in which the Russians run for their lives

I don't mean to post videos in any excessive way — this is the second today and atop yet another. Such visual piggybacking falls outside my usual style. But this two-minute film, which I found "captivating" (excuse the pub), seems to me essential viewing.

Unless the enemy was hopelessly outnumbered, the ease with which Ukrainian soldiers were able to overrun the Russian camp — taking some invaders prisoners and sending others in flight — further reveals either the reported depletion of Russian troops in Ukraine, or Russian troops' reluctance to risk their lives for Vladimir Putin's ego.  

Mr. Ponomarenko is a defense reporter with The Kyiv Independent. The location of this seemingly one-sided battle was, I'm sure, kept secret by the reporter for security reasons.  

Ukrainian National Guard troops taking Russian POWs pic.twitter.com/Wr7Xvk3QO0

— Illia Ponomarenko🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) September 27, 2022

Matt Gaetz admits coming House investigations are pure political hit jobs; says governing won't be a priority

Speaking yesterday on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast, Rep. Matt Gaetz opened his reckless mouth and sputtered what his Republican colleagues have tried to keep under their fright wigs: Speaker Kevin McCarthy's putative policy statement, the party's "Commitment to America," is a scam.

Gaetz explained that should a Republican House not launch "impeachment inquiries" against President Biden, the party's Trumpian base will feel "betrayed," which in turn will disgruntle the base and cause low 2024 turnout. Added Gaetz, and "that could be the biggest wind that Democrats could hope for in 2024."

The Florida congressman also conceded that for House Republicans, the business of governing will be a "far, far diminished priority" — which puts a torch to McCarthy's much-ballyhooed "Commitment to America" and all the wonderful things he has said it would do.

Gaetz says if Republicans don’t immediately begin impeachment of Biden and Cabinet officials if they get the majority “our voters will feel betrayed” heading into 2024, “and that’s why it should be investigations first, and policy as a far, far diminished priority.” pic.twitter.com/vCdKGvxnLN

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) September 26, 2022

Republicans' impeachment panels were destined for 2023 anyway, and they would have had McCarthy's full blessing. As I wrote last Saturday: "Not one word of McCarthy's ["Commitment to America"] has anything to do with what his House caucus will actually do once nestled back in power.

"Which is nothing more than one rube-feeding committee investigation atop mounds of other committee investigations. You name it, and if it has Joe Biden's name on it or anything they stamp as Biden, the precious McCarthyites will be 'investigating' it — all in a runup to the ultimate game of creating at most one sort-of new job, for Donald Trump, or maybe Ron DeSantis, whichever one is unincarcerated in 2024."

But McCarthy certainly never planned on unchained House Republicans pouncing on publicly available podcasts and blaring to the nation that the mountainous socioeconomic problems they say have been exacerbated by Democrats will be of no policy concern to the new majority.  

The only national betrayal would be that committed by House Republicans, and a leading voice in the party just announced that it shall be so. This story — America's socioeconomic troubles shall be of "far, far diminished priority" for the GOP — should have been above-the-fold, headline news in the New York Times and Washington Post this morning. It is not.

Gaetz's for-once honest blunder mirrors Kevin McCarthy's 2015 exchange with Sean Hannity. Said the Fox News host: "Sixty percent of Republicans polled this week feel betrayed by the Republican Party in Washington."

McCarthy's eventual reply: "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's un-trustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen."

Thus the "Benghazi special committee" was but a political weapon — a blunt-force instrument meant to severely wound her 2016 presidential campaign — and Kevin McCarthy stupidly admitted it. As Matt Gaetz has done, again.   

Where's the press? Why are we privy to the GOP's scam only because of one lone soul on Twitter?  

What a Biden-Trump rematch looks like today

The latest initial exchange between NY Times columnists Gail Collins and Bret Stephens, always a good read.

G.C.: "Bret, which do you think is more of a threat to Trump’s political future, the classified document drama at Mar-a-Lago or the legal challenge to his businesses in New York?"

B.S.: "Gail, I suspect the most serious threats to Trump’s future, political or otherwise, are Big Macs and KFC buckets. Otherwise, I fear the various efforts to put the 45th president out of business or in prison make it considerably more likely that he’ll wind up in the White House as the 47th president."

Stephens's crack about Trump and Big Macs as threats and Trump and federal indictments as electoral bonuses is no joke. (I did joke about a Trump/cheeseburger eulogy on Twitter once, and got banned for a week — perhaps for good reason; mine was more solemn prayer than a comic one-liner.) Because ...

A Washington Post-ABC News poll (A+) released yesterday found that in a rematch between the honorable, sitting president of the United States and a known swindler, tax cheat and head of a crime family, the mobster is 2 points ahead, 48-46.

Within the margin of error, sure, but there can be no comfort taken from a presidential dead heat between a national security-threatening gangster and an honest, competent, intelligent chief executive. And then add this to that: Just wait until Jerome Powell drags the country into a deep, 2023/24 recession — then see what happens to President Biden's numbers.    

There is one hope, however. According to the WaPo-ABC survey, 56% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want someone other than Biden in 2024. In the 18-39 age group, 75% prefer a Democratic alternative. And if Powell accomplishes the economic devastation he is so ardently striving for, Biden will be more than happy to start packing while booking a train ticket to Delaware. So yes, at least some hope could come from this mysterious stranger, possibly one who could distance him- 0r herself from what is unfairly perceived as an unsuccessful Biden administration.   

On that other planet, 47% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said a Trump redux is desirable, while another unearthly multitude of 46% said they'd prefer someone else— but not really something else; pretty much just any evil clown, whether a DeSantis or Cruz or only God knows what. In brief, no matter who the Republican nominee, Trumpism will be at the top of the luney-orbiting ticket.

Again, I wish to be clear. With affection and admiration (notwithstanding some of his Ukraine decisions), I believe Biden has earned his place as the Democratic nominee. But I love the winning of elections — the entire point of a political party, which can do nothing principled until it's in power. Hence I'd have to go to the November dance not with my old comfortable shoe, but with a mistress.  

Story or no story?

Nothing to see here? From CNN, just released:

At 4:34 pm on January 6, 2021, a cell phone registered to a Capitol rioter who had stormed the building, received a phone call from a White House landline, according to records obtained by CNN.

The call lasted for only nine seconds.

 

Who placed the call and why remains a mystery, but it is notable as the only known call made from the White House to the phone of a rioter during this critical time period.

The call's recipient says he has no recollection of it — sound familiar? — and "a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in Washington DC declined to comment."

The Jan. 6 committee is downplaying the significance of the story.

How the history of history is being corrupted and the discipline blighted

A friend, reader and contributor forwarded to me the "author's note" I have posted below. The author is James Sweet, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and president of the American Historical Association. I was appalled but unsurprised by his follow-up note to his quite reasonable reproach of contemporary historians' injection of "presentism" into their work — the historiographical sin of imposing modern sociocultural and political attitudes onto past events. Sweet's forced apology for having written such a sensible assessment of what is wrecking the discipline of history is but a poltroonish bow to intellectual totalitarianism. His most embarrassing pretense is "I take full responsibility that it did not convey what I intended." Well, it damn well did, and it did it damn well. He then undid it with a towering bastardization of what he so clearly had written. Should presentism take permanent hold of the profession, the discipline is doomed as a worthy and honorable constituent of the humanities. It shall be no more intellectually valid than Putin's propagandists. The reigning plague of intellectual totalitarianism has occurred not only in the profession of history; it's a reckless, blinkered pandemic that has spread throughout the humanities, and more recently in the sciences as well. Only determined consortiums of old-school yet new-thinking scholars can cure this awful disease of academic absolutism.              

***

FROM THE PRESIDENT

IS HISTORY HISTORY?
Identity Politics and Teleologies of the Present
James H. Sweet | Aug 17, 2022

AUTHOR’S NOTE (AUG 19, 2022)

My September Perspectives on History column has generated anger and dismay among many of our colleagues and members. I take full responsibility that it did not convey what I intended and for the harm that it has caused. I had hoped to open a conversation on how we "do" history in our current politically charged environment. Instead, I foreclosed this conversation for many members, causing harm to colleagues, the discipline, and the Association....

If my ham-fisted attempt at provocation has proven anything, it is that the AHA membership is as vocal and robust as ever....

I sincerely regret the way I have alienated some of my Black colleagues and friends. I am deeply sorry. In my clumsy efforts to draw attention to methodological flaws in teleological presentism, I left the impression that questions posed from absence, grief, memory, and resilience somehow matter less than those posed from positions of power. This absolutely is not true. It wasn’t my intention to leave that impression, but my provocation completely missed the mark.

Once again, I apologize for the damage I have caused to my fellow historians, the discipline, and the AHA. I hope to redeem myself in future conversations with you all. I’m listening and learning.

***

What Prof. Sweet gently describes as the interjection of "teleological presentism" is in reality the repressive bullying of unethical historians with preconceived axes to grind — notional nonfiction works which are the twins of bad historical fiction that contorts and tortures the undesirable past. (Think of 1936's Gone With the Wind as a preceding doppelgânger of today's equally "virtuous" historical writings.) And Sweet's descriptions of much of the AHA membership as "vocal and robust" are merely euphemisms for shrill and intellectually intolerant of interpretations unacceptable to the godly adjudicators of Historical Truth. 

Absent a vocal, robust correction of presentism's many academic strains, our progeny won't know realities from Hollywood films.

Many women in Russia are showing more spine than the United States

Dagestan is a republic of the Russian Federation located along the Caspian Sea. The videos below, taken yesterday in Dagestan, reflect rising domestic anger over President Putin's war in Ukraine and his fresh conscription of up to 300,000 Russian citizens, many of them living in poor, rural areas populated by ethnic minorities. The courageous activism of Dagestani women is also a reflection of history; throughout the ages, women have openly opposed stupid wars. The first fictional account of such militancy was comic playwright Aristophanes's Lysistrata. 

«We are not blind! Russia attacked Ukraine. Russia is on foreign soil. No to war!” Dagestan women protest Putin’s criminal mobilization. We thank them for their bravery and urge others to join. Do not let Putin pay for his failed military adventures with lives of your close ones. pic.twitter.com/B1Q63SYbGV

— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) September 25, 2022

Dagestan, Russia. Putin’s portraits are being burned by the protesters. Is this a new Russian Revolution? It’s not yet clear, but Kremlin won’t be sleeping tonight for sure. pic.twitter.com/FI3UsLnk09

— Taras Berezovets (@TarasBerezovets) September 25, 2022

🚨#Dagestan: People have demanded that Putin's fascist regime release all arrested protesters. They set a 1-hour deadline from 10:09PM local time, and said they will start setting everything on fire if the demand is not met. Current time 10:34PM. pic.twitter.com/7vHwYVS1E6

— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) September 25, 2022

Also yesterday, Jake Sullivan, President Biden's national security adviser, said "Russia understands very well what the United States would do in response to nuclear weapons use in Ukraine because we have spelled it out for them" (The NY Times).

Sullivan would only impart to the public that the administration has warned Russia that there would be "catastrophic consequences" if the Kremlin opts to use nuclear weapons in some fashion, perhaps from their detonation over the Black Sea to their massively lethal use in Ukraine.

Reports the Times (bold highlighting mine): "There has been discussion of several non-nuclear military responses — using conventional weapons, for example, against a base or unit from which the attack originated, or giving the Ukrainian forces the weaponry to launch that counterattack.... But many of the options under discussion also involve nonmilitary steps, casting Mr. Putin as an international pariah who broke the nuclear taboo for the first time in 77 years."

That, even though Mr. Putin is already an international pariah. The dropping of jaw was my acute, involuntary reaction to the news of the U.S.'s considered, wildly disproportionate response to a madman's any-way-you-cut-it catastrophic detonation of a nuclear bomb in this war — that of, maybe, saying bad things about a bad man.

America's now long-slouching spinelessness in confronting a genocidal tyrant who is murdering thousands of Ukrainians, threatening all of Europe and endangering what's left of the postwar global order is but an invitation to tyrants everywhere that the U.S. is set on the throwing of pillows in a gunfight.

This should not be construed as this observer's endorsement of a U.S.-nuclear-proportionate reply to Putin's possible and likely probable use of nukes in the Russia-Ukraine War. That too would be insane. It is uttermost confoundment that the U.S. is unwilling to say — and say openly — that Putin's use of "conventional weapons ... against a base or unit from which the attack originated" shall be the very least of its reasoned responses.

When the women of Dagestan demonstrate more than balls than a freedom-defending world superpower, something is woefully out of whack.         

Two drum-banging oddities: Putin's referendums are no "sham," and his Ukrainian conscripts could help Ukraine

For months we have read of Vladimir Putin's plans to hold "sham" referendums in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. And for two days now, he has been carrying out those plans in the provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, though not all are fully occupied.

In describing the illegal referendums, the word "sham" has a certain unambiguous ring to it, denoting a "trick," a "hoax," a "cheap falseness." Here, the word cheap itself is true in its first meaning; NPR reports that "Russian news outlets confirmed that door-to-door voting is how most of the referendums would be held." Putin has spared himself even the minor expense of an electoral infrastructure — such as, voting booths.

As have other news outlets, NPR also reports that the voting "is largely seen as a sham." Yet Timothy Snyder, professor of modern European history at Yale and noted scholar of authoritarianism, contrarily — and with respect to terminology, correctly — offers this observation:

"There is not only no legal basis for speaking of a 'referendum,' but not even much factual basis for speaking of a “sham referendum.” A sham is shambolic but it does actually exist. What Russia is undertaking is nothing more than a media exercise designed to shape how people think about Russian-occupied Ukraine."

A sham represents something nonetheless real, while a distinct media event — such as a Putin referendum or a Donald Trump speech — does not. Writes Snyder: "There will be no more reason to report [the results] in a sentence with the word 'referendum' or 'vote' in it than there would be to report my claim, made here, that 97% of the inhabitants of Brooklyn wish to join Mississippi."

Still, Prof. Snyder neglects that there is indeed something very real in Putin's bottomless unrealness. Holding media events of imaginary referendums, in Ukraine in which imaginary pro-Russian Ukrainians express their electoral will at their front doors with actual rifle barrels in their faces, is only the first measure of Putin's intent.

For with those phantom results in hand, he'll declare Russia's annexation of the occupied Ukrainian territories. Then, quite realistically, he'll announce that those "re-acquired" provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are as much a part of Russia as is the province of Moscow — which, under sovereign Russian law, they are.

From there, the four additional Russian provinces will rest under President Putin's nuclear protection. An attack on Kherson will be no different from an attack on Moscow, Putin will further announce, adding, again, "This is not a bluff." Whereupon Western leaders will become paralytic with fear and anxiety, questioning the destinations of their weapons supplies to Ukraine.  

If there can be a lighter side to Putin's clinically corrupt judgment, it lies in his "partial mobilization" at home. Let's just say his recruitment trucks have hit some bumpy roads. The NY Times reports that "thousands have been arrested for protesting the call-ups in Russia in the face of harsh laws against dissent." And Reuters relates that "the burden of the mobilisation - and the war itself - is falling on poor, ethnic minority regions to avoid triggering popular anger in the capital Moscow." 

In Ukraine, however, Putin is decidedly impartial. There he is drafting every last Ukrainian man under Russian occupation, ages 18 to 35. The pounding depletion of his own forces — 80,000 dead or wounded — has impelled him to forcibly enlist Ukrainians to kill other Ukrainians. Or so he thinks.  

Western military analysts have reported that Putin's unconsenting Ukrainian conscripts from the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces were part of Russia's spectacularly ineffective defenses in northeastern Ukraine — the Kharkiv region — which, along many front-line points, permitted President Zelensky's forces to kick Putin's forces back to their border. 

And in the south — the Kherson region — Ukrainian intelligence reported last week that Putin's unwilling Ukrainian conscripts have "refused to take part in combat missions." Supported by reliable sources, the intel agency said Russian commanders have had to resort to bullying the Ukrainians, threatening to send them "to the front line without weapons if they refuse to follow orders." 

Although the Russian tyrant's "electoral" scheme in Ukraine is merely a meretricious phantasm — a farce more ghostly than any sham — his war in Ukraine is as realistically ghastly as Stalin's Holomodor, possibly soon to get ghastlier. We shall see what Putin does with his annexation-nuclear ultimatum, but at least his forcible conscription of Ukrainian men appears to be doing only injury to his offensive gambits. 

FiveThirtyEight & the U.S. House

FiveThirtyEight is updating daily the results of its computer model, should you have faith in data-driven probabilities (not predictions).       

Kevin McCarthy's "Commitment to Investigations"

This week House Minority quasi-Leader and anthropomorphic Trumper Kevin McCarthy sprang his "Commitment to America" on millions of us — we, the nonMcCarthyite undeserving of his Gingrichian humbuggery.

Said Kev: "Republicans have a plan for a new direction, one that will get our country back on track."

Now, be it understood and accepted that no out-of-power party has ever or will ever offer a detailed itemization of the marvelous wonders it shall bestow on the nation once back in power. But the generalities that McCarthy and Gingrich dreamed up, lo these many exciting months of anticipation, was, let's say, a bit of a disappointment.

Granted, the McCarthyites wouldn't know a decent, sensible policy if it rammed up their clinically retentive butts. Nevertheless, they propose to "strengthen the economy" by ... cutting "wasteful" government spending! (This, of course, is GOPCodeSpeak for slashing-by-privatizing Grandma's Medicare, that is, that of its own voters or their voters' grannies, as well as handing her Social Security checks to investment bankers.)

They also promise to "create good-paying jobs" (now there's a stunner) and accomplish other little tasks such as curing the globe's supply-chain mess — by thinking about it, one assumes. Oh, and they mean to build a "future that’s built on freedom"! That, and hold "government accountable by protecting constitutional freedoms" (for instance, by denying your vote and installing whomever they damn well please into the nation's highest public offices).   

Okay, so it's nothing unusual for a midterm spiel, at least not for determined authoritarians, "good-paid" squirts and Trumpian imbeciles. Except not one word of McCarthy's peddled horseshit has anything to do with what his House caucus will actually do once nestled back in power.

Which is nothing more than one rube-feeding committee investigation atop mounds of other committee investigations. You name it, and if it has Joe Biden's name on it or anything they stamp as Biden, the precious McCarthyites will be "investigating" it — all in a runup to the ultimate game of creating at most one sort-of new job, for Donald Trump, or maybe Ron DeSantis, whichever one is unincarcerated in 2024.   

This is modern Republicanism, home of the bravely unAmerican. 

A Russian lieutenant general, throwing around words of the West's nuclear destruction

Ms. Davis of the Daily Beast should know that this is not "more of the usual" — and that Russian contradictions are the very least of our justified worries. The speaker is Lt. Gen. Andrei Gurulev. He.is also a member of the Duma, Russia's parliament. His is the manner of casual, freak-show talk about nuclear devastation by which the Russian people are being deluged, deluded and softened. There is something exceptionally frightening going on inside the Kremlin and among Vladimir Putin's hardest hardliners. And the West should let them know in what is commonly termed "no uncertain terms" that Russia is backing itself into a devastating corner of its own.  

Meanwhile in Russia, more of the usual: nuclear threats against Germany and Britain, cautioning NATO against going into Ukraine. This directly clashes with their lies, constantly spewed by state TV, that Russia is already at war with NATO & "uniformed NATO troops" are in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/ioMgbrzhbF

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 19, 2022