P.M. Carpenter

A Lie (nearly) as Big as Trump's: "I’m not interested in political games" - Kevin McCarthy

There is a 12th-century German proverb that warns, "When the fox preaches, look to your geese." Today, only the hapless Kevin McCarthy could assume both roles of the Teutonic metaphor. To President Biden he is the preaching fox, and yet it's his goose that could be cooked — along with 221 of his ravenous, fsermonizing brethren.

Granted, holding the nation hostage to the debt limit wasn't "Speaker" McCarthy's idea. It was, rather, one of the first Republican bullets loaded into the pistol pointed directly at his head. The House GOP caucus commanded its token keeper to threaten and prevaricate about the wholly false concept of debt ceiling increases-cum-increased government spending.

To the republic's ill-informed — that is, the GOP base — the conceptual ruse makes beaucoup common sense; a higher roof = new, greater federal outlays. And to those of the base who uniquely grasp the political con, there's still much joy to be had in conceiving the destruction of the American economy under a Dem prez. What could be more fun?

"Speaker" McCarthy, however, has a bit of a stickler on his hands. Amid all his whooping and hollering about wasteful, fraudulent and abusive federal spending, he and his Gang of 221 have yet to articulate just which waste, fraud and abuse they would cut. In the meantime, they have substituted the slogan of demanding "structural" changes to the federal budget — an utterly meaningless shibboleth designed to sidestep actual thought.

To which Kevin is adding more characteristic rounds of Republican table-turning:     

Mr. President: I received your staff’s memo.

I’m not interested in political games.

I’m coming to negotiate for the American people.

— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) January 31, 2023

Elsewhere on Elon Musk's propaganda sheet, Kevin feigns fiscal virtue: "Does anyone believe there is no waste in government? Does anyone believe there is no place we could find savings?"

These, of course, are not serious questions. Every institution, including families of one, harbor waste in which savings could be had. The pertinent question is: Should the full faith and credit of the United States be held hostage and subjected to devastating torture until a few hotheads in the House get what they want? Whatever it is that they want? 

They have until June to tell us. The U.S. government is already "technically" in default; by early summer, it will be in ruins. I write will rather than may with a rather high level of confidence, since McCarthy's fiscal firebrands — the Matt Gaetzes, Paul Gosars and Marjorie Taylor Greenes, to whom Kevin owes his sinecure — are sickeningly nihilistic to their rotted, sadistic core.

Biden meets with the "speaker" today in the vain hope of getting him to reveal when his cluelessly scattershot members might release their budget "plan." You can see the inherent problem here. Radical, subversive nitwits are not known for coherence, for the laying out of specific plans. At any rate, McCarthy's top henchman, Steve Scalise, has offered an ETA of April. I wonder. Did Gen. Eisenhower plan a June D-Day before knowing what was required to meet it? 

The president and congressional Democrats have a stupendous winner on their hands. Their political and macroeconomic foes are the dumbest, most irresponsible and exceedingly malignant ladies and gentlemen ever to soil seats of the U.S. House. These evil clowns make the erstwhile Thomas Tancredos and Steven Kings look like statesmen.         

So I also wonder: Just how can Democrats screw this up? Most Americans want no monkeying with the debt limit and default. President Biden is on solid political ground. Congressional Dems have idiots as the enemy. House Republicans are hellbent on a global train wreck. Ultimately they'll have to reveal what cuts they're demanding, and each one will anger some significant bloc of voters.    

But if nothing else, Republicans excel at turning the tables. McCarthy is calling Biden irresponsible and "childish" and asking "Why would [he] put the economics of America in jeopardy? Why would [he] play political games? I’m not." The customary concomitant to Republican argument-flipping is jackhammering repetition. And they have a bit more than four months to pound the message of Democratic intransigence.

One of the looser yet relentless fiscal objectives of the House GOP is a balanced budget in 10 years' time — those two magical words that send uncomprehending chills of appreciation up the spines of the macroeconomically challenged. One fiscal watchdog has estimated that if defense, veterans, Social Security and Medicare spending is left untouched — as most Republicans have pledged to do — then to balance the budget, federal spending on discretionary items would require cuts of 85 percent. The remaining, gaunt 15 percent would go to "transportation, education, housing, and social service programs, as well as science and environmental organizations."

Spending on roads, bridges, schooling of the young, shelter for the poor, the ailing planet and the like is merely money that goes to "woke & weaponized bureaucrats," says Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. But compared to Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Roy is a flaming liberal. The Florida malicicus ignoramus told Sean Hannity last week that he's heartbroken over some of his colleagues' refusal to slash wasteful social programs such as healthcare and food stamps for the less well-off.

Says Scalise, "President Biden said, 'Just give me more money.' He just wants to spend more money." Added Scalise yesterday, the day before the president meets with the speaker, "[Biden] wouldn’t even have a conversation" with McCarthy.

Democrats are about to collide with a viciously tight Republican phalanx of outrageous lies, misdirections and repetitious propaganda fashioned to make the responsible party look reckless. In this particular squaring-off, the deciding advantage would seem to go to the Dems, since the heated controversy is, or at least should be, altogether noncontroversial. We ought not mess with America's credit, and we sure as hell mustn't do so at the end of a gun barrel.  

But, as noted, Republicans excel at this sort of thing. For 40+ years they have managed to bamboozle the electorate into opposing its own welfare. Democrats, on the other hand, have excelled at losing their grip on straight talk, and with the same resolute, focused jackhammering. In this go-around, the public cannot afford any screwing up by the party of FDR. The stakes are, potentially, too monumentally, even existentially, disastrous.   

I should say right off, I really tried to postpone asking for your financial support at least until February. But I can't make it. I'm now having to substitute teach whenever I'm free of unwanted medical appointments for the day, and this work has the unfortunate effect of cutting into a lot of writing I'd prefer to be doing rather than babysitting rowdy middle schoolers. That hurts worse; the time away from sharing thoughts on current affairs with you. (You might have noticed I posted today's two pieces simultaneously, at about 7 a.m., a real time-squeeze. I awoke at 4 a.m. to read the papers, research and write the posts, and then get off to work. I try my best to get something written each day.) So here I am, asking for your support — again, and sooner than I had planned. Forgive me, but numbers are intractable things, and the financial numbers propping up this site are woefully limping along. Please contribute today simply by visiting the Make A Donation button in the sidebar. Contributing is a fast, easy process. And, as always, you will have my sincerest thanks. —PM 

Putin goes the Chinese 1950s warfare route

With his recent conscription of 300,000 men — and more to come, say Western analysts — Vladimir Putin is taking the Chinese Korean War strategy to Ukraine: Flood the battlefield with attacking troops.

"Firepower has been crucial in Russia’s gains in the war, but Ukrainian fighters and analysts say that Moscow has relied increasingly on a more crude tactic as its forces try to take the eastern city of Bakhmut: the sheer weight of troop numbers," reports The NY Times.

"Part of Russia’s evolving strategy, Ukrainian officials said, appears to be to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses with waves of soldiers." It's an effective strategy, assuming a wartime leader gives not one damn about the lives of his soldiers. And Putin does not. 

Ukrainian soldiers are taking a beating on the battlefield around Bakhmut. These troops are better trained and experienced, but they acknowledge that "at times [they are] overwhelmed by the numbers ranged against them." 

Those whom Russia is sacrificing are largely part of the Wagner Group, recently recruited from prisons. Says Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at a Virginia-based research institute, "Ukraine’s been forced to essentially trade higher quality troops to hold Bakhmut against expendable Russian forces."

He adds that the losses could "impede Ukrainian plans for an offensive down the line," since Ukraine simply cannot keep up in the manpower chase.

The Times attempts the most hopeful face it can muster: "In the coming weeks and months, Ukraine will be strengthened by defensive and offensive weapons, including tanks and rocket systems supplied by the United States and other allies."

But given the "months" factor, the Times is also forced to recognize that "for now the extra Russian troops give Moscow an advantage." 

Not for want of a horse, but that of a few, carelessly idle Western months, Ukraine's once-accumulating advantages could be lost.

In Arizona, troubles for the Ds or Rs?

Arizona's Kari Lake and Blake Masters, a whining witch and a woebegone warlock, are both eying a Senate seat in 2024, reports Politico. This has the state's semi-rational Republicans worried sick; with Kyrsten Sinema's Democratic departure as an independent, and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in the race, they had hoped to eke out a GOP victory through a plurality of the vote.

Said the Senate's #2 GOP guy, John Thune: "Any candidate in ’24 that has, as their principal campaign theme, a stolen election, is probably going to have the same issues that some of the ’22 candidates had. I just don’t think that’s where the American public is. It’s a swing state — we need to have a good Republican nominee, obviously. You know, whoever gets in, I hope they focus on the future, not the past."

Wise advice. Which was met by this, from a lady "senior adviser" to Ms. Lake — the reigning harpy of Trumpian bitching about imaginary electoral thefts: "[Thune is] everything wrong with the Republican establishment," and the "Washington cartel [is] signaling that they’re willing to hand an Arizona Senate seat to the radical left."

I love it. You go, girl.

What puzzles about Politico's and semi-rational Republicans' premise is that a GOP victory via plurality would still seem a good bet, even with wacky Kari or clueless Blake as the party's standard-bearer. With every Sinema vote, Gallego's total would sink a bit more, because Sinema's votes, it further seems, would come almost exclusively from Garello's Democratic column.

What am I missing here?     

The idea of a Trump third party is delightful

Sarah Longwell, founder of the Republican Accountability Project and publisher of The Bulwark, recently commissioned a poll of likely Republican primary voters. She writes that "one question I was keen to answer with this poll is how many 'Always Trumpers' would follow Trump if he lost the GOP primary and launched an independent bid for president."

What she found is that 28% of these voters are "locked in for Trump [and] say they’ll support him even if he ran as an independent in the general election."

With that — should that come to pass — GOP presidential nominee Ron DeSantis would go down in hellish flames not even Dante Alighieri could have imagined in his most poetically sadistic moments.  

Would Trump try for a third-party run? Or barring that — given the vast difficulties of making it onto 50 state ballots, especially in a late-stage effort — would he encourage the faithful to write in his name? 

The question is a rhetorical one. Because Trump's famous vindictiveness — aimed straight at DeSantis for, undoubtedly, having "stolen" the nomination from him — would virtually ensure a write-in scheme. If he is to be denied the White House, then no other Republican shall have it.

What's more, notes The Bulwark's Jonathan Last, a third-party or massive write-in campaign "could bring in a lot of money" for Trump. Last continues:

"And if the question is: 'Trump could make a lot of money by doing X; will he do X?'

"Well, then the answer is usually: Yes." 

Here, Mr. Last errs. The answer is always: Yes. 

One last chance to fleece the rubes? You betcha. And perhaps again in 2028, should all those cheeseburgers and fries fail to throttle the Orange Blight by then. 

House Republicans' best defense on the debt ceiling is made of worst-ever arguments

Every now and then I enjoy dropping in on the yacht boys of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board. It's another, really strange world over there, at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, one so laden with ideological blinkers and mischief, my visitations are irresistible.   

The board's most recent anguish, as expressed by its assistant editor, James Freeman, is over President Biden's vow last week that "I will veto everything they send me" — they being the crackpots, cranks and charlatans of the Republican House.

About this impasse, Freeman deploys some snarky condescension. "This Biden promise is sure to be broken once someone explains to the President" — a multidecade creature of the Senate — "that his beloved spending bills ... have to pass both houses of Congress before becoming law." 

Freeman neglects to add that both houses of Congress already passed the spending bills, and now the government simply needs to live up to its promised obligations. Freeman, though, feels no need to "explain" this to the Republican House. 

Next the assistant editor combines ridicule of a mere rhetorical flourish — "the President has been staking out a position that he can’t possibly maintain, a veto of 'everything'" — with a tawdry touch of argumentum ad populum: "Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is now making an argument that will surely strike many Americans as reasonable."

What strikes Freeman and McCarthy as "reasonable" is the latter's dimwitted threat to catastrophically hold the debt limit where it now stands, thus throwing the U.S. Treasury into default, and the American economy into indescribable ruin. The globe's, too.

Yet Freeman's populist argument, turns out, isn't all that popular. Obviously, "many Americans" agree with House crackpots about forcing a debt default, since "many Americans" are as looney as Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yet a mid-January poll showed that 58 percent of voters want the debt ceiling raised, "including 78 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Independents, and 39 percent of Republicans." 

But House Republicans prefer pandering to the Gaetzian 61 percent.

I almost wish the House could have its way — and I would definitely wish such a thing if weren't so disastrous for millions of innocents. Go ahead, you militant men and women of the "The People's House," go ahead and refuse a debt ceiling increase; go ahead and let the elderly among the 61 percent watch the cessation of their Social Security checks in July.          

Freeman scowls, "the president and his top aides have stressed they have no intention of negotiating on the issue." Heroically — in the editor's pinwheeling eyes — "Mr. McCarthy said Congress should look at paring back expenditures incurred by every federal department."

When Trump blew up annual deficits, House Republicans voted to raise debt ceilings. Now that President Biden has slashed annual deficits, House Republicans oppose such increases. This, too, Freeman neglects.    

But he's mighty proud of McCarthy for adding that it's Biden who "is 'playing with the markets' by not agreeing to negotiate." 

That one left me speechless. 

A "historian of atrocities' lists 15 reasons why a Ukrainian victory is vital

Timothy Snyder, the distinguished Yale professor of Central and Eastern European history and renowned authority on world democracy and authoritarianism, listed, on 23 January 2023, 15 inarguable reasons why Ukraine must win its war with Vladimir Putin's Russia, or rather, Putin's war on Ukraine. I have reproduced them below, with only slight editing. I then added a few tendentious words of my own, which, as reason would have it, go beyond Prof. Snyder's objective analysis. 

***  

Why does the world need a Ukrainian victory?

1. To halt atrocity. Russia's occupation is genocidal....

2. To preserve the international legal order. Its basis is that one country may not invade another and annex its territory, as Russia seeks to do....

3. To end an era of empire. This could be the last war fought on the colonial logic that another state and people do not exist....

4. To defend the peace project of the European Union. Russia's war is not directed only against Ukraine, but against the larger idea that European states can peacefully cooperate....

5. To give the rule of law a chance in Russia. So long as Russia fights imperial wars, it is trapped in repressive domestic politics....

6. To weaken the prestige of tyrants. In this century, the trend has been towards authoritarianism, with Putinism as a force and a model....

7. To remind us that democracy is the better system. Ukrainians have internalized the idea that they choose their own leaders....

8. To lift the threat of major war in Europe. For decades, a confrontation with the USSR and then Russia was the scenario for regional war....

9. To lift the threat of major war in Asia. In recent years, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan has been the leading scenario for a global war....

10. To prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons.  Russia, a nuclear power, then invaded.  If Ukraine loses, countries that can build nuclear weapons will feel that they need to do so to protect themselves.

11. To reduce the risk of nuclear war. A Ukrainian victory makes two major war scenarios involving nuclear powers less likely, and works against nuclear proliferation generally....

12. To head off future resource wars. Aside from being a consistent perpetrator of war crimes, Russia's Wagner group seizes mineral resources by violence wherever it can....

13. To guarantee food supplies and prevent future starvation. Ukraine feeds much of the world. Russia threatens to use that food as a weapon....

14. To accelerate the shift from fossil fuels. Putin shows the threat that hydrocarbon oligarchy poses to the future....

15. To affirm the value of freedom. Even as they have every reason to define freedom as against something — Russian occupation — Ukrainians remind us that freedom is actually for something, the right to be the people they wish to be, in a future they can help shape.

[Writes Snyder as an afterword:]

"I am a historian of political atrocity, and for me personally number 1 -- defeating an ongoing genocidal project -- would be more than enough reason to want Ukrainian victory.  But every single one of the other fourteen is hugely significant.  Each presents the kind of opportunity that generations of policy planners wish for, but almost never get.  Much has been done, we have not yet seen and seized the moment.

"This is a once-in-lifetime conjuncture, not to be wasted.  The Ukrainians have given us a chance to turn this century around, a chance for freedom and security that we could not have achieved by our own efforts, no matter who we happen to be.  All we have to do is help them win."

***

I have italicized the last words of Snyder's second paragraph. For the tragedy of "number 1" is matched only by the enormous frustration — mine and that of millions of Ukrainians — with the West's failure to fully seize the moment.

Spitting on numerous international laws, Vladimir Putin illegally positioned invading troops on Ukrainian land. And yet the West has refused to even contemplate the legal positioning of its troops in Ukraine, purely for its defense. As thousands of innocent Ukrainians are murdered by Russian butchers, the West has imposed a peculiar double standard on itself.

As lamentable has been the West's persistent lag in supplying Ukraine with the military machinery it needs to defeat Putin's homicidal forces. About a year of this insane war has passed and President Zelensky's forces are still without modern fighter jets, long-range missiles, and adequate air defenses against Russia's raining missiles and Iranian drones. Among Western nations, such unequivocally necessary supplies remain "under advisement."

One can make a reasonable case for withholding the introduction of Western troops into Ukraine. One cannot do so when it comes to withholding critical weaponry.  

Courageous Ukrainians have had to beg for what modern military supplies they now have. They should never have been placed in this medicant position. And presently they should not have to plead for yet more sophisticated weaponry. The West should have been pouring the stuff into Ukraine from Day One; it should have countered Putin's despicable aggression with unshakable resolve, right off.

Its failures in this awful venture are why the war is about to enter its second year — which will bring about thousands more Ukrainian deaths, including those of children. Our failures are not regrettable. They're inexcusable. 

P.S.: "The United States will not be sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine — at least not now," reports Politico. "Asked by a reporter outside the White House Monday if the U.S. would transfer the warplanes that Kyiv is pushing hard to receive, President Joe Biden responded: 'No.' The short remark is likely to send shockwaves across the Atlantic."

Russian society will soon be swarming with convicted criminals

Ukraine, Western intelligence and Russian human rights advocates estimate that about 40,000 Russian inmates joined the mercenary Wagner Group, beginning in July. About 30,000 of them have since been killed in action, deserted or wounded. 

Their service contracts for fighting, dying or barely surviving in Ukraine expire in six months. Which means that roughly 10,000 war veterans and former convicts — some serving time for petty crimes, such as theft, but others for aggravated rape or murder — are now being unleashed on Russian society.

As the Times puts it, the "challenge" presented to Russia is that of "reintegrating thousands of traumatized men with military training, a history of crime and few job prospects." Or, one could think of this thousands-fold collective in the words of Agent K, of Men in Black: "Imagine a giant cockroach, with unlimited strength, a massive inferiority complex, and a real short temper, is tear-assing around Moscow in a brand-new Edgar suit."

Some of these violent young men actually prefer the slaughterhouse of the Ukrainian front. Says one, at home for only three weeks: "I liked everything over there. The civilian life is boring." And so back to the front he's going. 

For those who remain in Russian society, their history of a tough prison life combined with the mental scars of war and Wagner's cruelty in their brief military training will likely conspire to create a domestic army of Frankenstein monsters. Wagner's founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, used "questionable, and possibly illegal, methods" in recruiting these men. From there, their lives got much worse.

"There are no chances of returning to the [penal] colony," said Prigozhin to one group of inmates in September. He promised summary executions for those who disobeyed orders — and sure enough, once at the front, some of the disobedient have simply disappeared from the ranks.  

"We were told, 'Keep going until you’re killed,'" said one Wagner member, who deserted. He escaped Prigozhin's other promise: "Those who get there and say 'I think I’m in the wrong place' will be marked as deserters and shot."

Wagner's entire scheme of prison recruitment collides with Russian law, or at the very least, "circumvents legal precedent." Because in Russia, recruiting mercenaries is illegal. But it's nice to be king. Hence "on paper," reports the times, Vladimir Putin's "prisoners never went to war, but were merely transferred to Russian jails near the Ukrainian border."

Given, shall we say, the reluctance of everyday Russian men to join the army and die in Ukraine, Prigozhin has, of late, been emphasizing to Russian prisoners the ultimate payoff of enlistment: their freedom. "I needed your criminal talents to kill the enemy in the war," says Prigozhin in one video. "Those who want to return, we are waiting for you to come back."

But what then? What awaits a society bubbling with thousands of war-brutalized criminals? It seems Putin gave no more thought to that ramification than he did the invasion.     

Health update, for those of you so kindly keeping tabs. I just saw my pulmonologist, and he said it's astounding I'm doing as well as I am, considering. I attribute my good fortune to clean, virtuous living, for which I've always been known; chunky peanut butter and off-brand mayonnaise sandwiches; exactly 10 fig newtons each day; dark chocolate (82-year-old Nancy Pelosi is in agreement here); abstinence from all organized religion — for which God thanks me; and a healthy hatred of all things Trump. And there you have it, the doctrine of The One-Man Church of Phil, recently ordained by my daughter's Jewish cat, Franny.     

Trump is still hanging with Vladimir

Trump, four hours ago, on Truth Social:

"Remember in Helsinki when a 3rd rate reporter asked me, essentially, who I trusted more, President Putin of Russia, or our 'Intelligence' lowlifes. My instinct at the time was that we had really bad people in the form of James Comey, McCabe (whose wife was being helped out by Crooked Hillary while Crooked was under investigation!), Brennan, Peter Strzok (whose wife is at the SEC) & his lover, Lisa Page. Now add McGonigal & other slime to the list. Who would you choose, Putin or these Misfits?"

That's quite the foreign policy agenda — seeing the world through the bloodthirsty eyes of a Russian dictator. And still trashing one's own intelligence agencies.

Should he become the GOP's presidential nominee, congressional Republicans will be required to agree with this treasonous idiot on the relative merits of Vladimir Putin vs. U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, specifically, the FBI.   

About which, congressional Republicans will have agreeably spent the last two years trashing it as well in their witless committee "investigations." That, to put it mildly, would not be a good look for a party's presidential nominee.

But if Trump can't have the nomination, he'll be intent on taking them all down with him. And congressional Republicans are stupidly abetting his — and their — downfall. So let the committee investigations begin. 

The vulgarity of modern television

In a too-long-form article, "We've Lost the Plot," The Atlantic's Megan Garber essentially repeats the thrust of Neil Postman's 1985 Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. 

Writes Garber: "'Are you not entertained?' Maximus, the hero of Gladiator, yells to the Roman throngs who treat his pain as their show. We might see something of ourselves in both the captive warrior and the crowd.... [Indeed] we have never been more entertained. That is our luxury—and our burden."

Ms. Garber quotes a latter-day Maximus: Newton Minow, whom President Kennedy appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 1961. To an audience of television executives, Minow promptly growled that they were converting TV into "a vast wasteland."

Their airings, he said, were nothing more than "a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons."

Minow was fortunate in that he had yet to experience NBC's "My Mother the Car," which aired in 1965-66.

My complaint about modern television, however, is of a different variety and a whole new wasteland. Or I should say, one of my complaints.

A few days ago I was watching something evidently forgettable when an ad appeared for the national tax preparer Jackson-Hewitt. Its slogan? What the buck? Topped off again with, Buck yeah! Also saturating the airwaves is a hot sauce that advertises itself with someone saying, "I put that ---- on everything."

I'm no prude. Far from it. I myself, on occasion, have asked, "What the fuck?" or responded, "Fuck yeah!" Or perhaps at some long-ago picnic I commented that "I put that shit on everything," whatever that shit was.

But on national television? In 10 years, I'd wager, "buck" will be exchanged for the real thing, and Heinz, let's say, will be encouraging us to put their shit on everything. As a culture we are devolving this quickly.

Such has become the common language of the common man, and advertisers and TV shows themselves are eager to relate to the culture's commonness. In politics, too, Trump has already lowered the English language to that of the gutter.

I see no escape from this cultural corruption. "The People" seem to be fine with it. Will they swarm to Jackson Hewitt to have their 1040s processed? Buck yeah!        

Portrait of a grift: Trump, tricksters and Truth Social

Not quite the Holy Roman Empire — which was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire, observed Voltaire — but Trump's Truth Social strives for the selfsame, threefold fraudulence whenever possible.  

"Between posts about conspiracy theories and right-wing grievances was an unusual advertisement: a photo of former President Donald J. Trump holding a $1,000 bill made of gold, which he was apparently offering free to supporters.

"But there were a few catches: The bill was not free, it was not made of gold, and it was not offered by Mr. Trump."

So writes Stuart Thompson, The NY Times' technology reporter of disinformation on the internet. That's a big, sprawling job, what with Trump still scamming with every fiber of his congenitally unscrupulous being. But Thompson was up to the job, the results of which sprawl across the Times' pages in a sometimes risible, frequently repellent, always deceptive way.   

The $1,000 bill is just one of the stunts from the "hucksters and fringe marketers" who exclusively populate Truth Social's advertising milieu. The proffers are not directly from Trump — he's merely the vendor for vendors — but he's desperately happy to charge for them, since his site is unable to attract legitimate advertisers.  

Thompson looked at hundreds of Trump's ads, and found nothing but grifts for "alternative medicine, diet pills, gun accessories, Trump-themed trinkets, children’s books about the dangers of communism, an 'anti-woke' life insurance company, a vaccine exemption card, coins, bills, gold-plated bars, knives, ammo, tactical gear, hats, T-shirts and other items." Perusing Trump's site is like watching TV infomercials at 3 a.m. for $19,95 junk, free shipping graciously included.   

Truth Social needs every one of these scams — and more. The site raised about $37 million initially but has been eating nearly $2 million each month. Established advertisers and those not under federal investigation adhere to William Safire's condemnation of written clichés — Truth Social is to be avoided like the plague.

But Trump's ad playbook has become self-reinforcing. Notes advertising consultant Tom Denford: "The more you stray from that safe center, the more you become the fringe or the extreme on anything, then the less money you’re going to get." Even Trump's advertisers complain that his reading audience is too small, so Mr. Musk, here he comes. 

As I scoured the various swindles, one in particular jumped out as the most hilariously repugnant. This one:

"Sponsored Truth," says the ad at the top. One wonders how many of Trump's few readers gobbled up this time-pressing offer.  

Have his reader-consumers had enough? Not quite. "Can you not vet the ads on Truth? I’ve been scammed more than once," wrote one apparently eager to be swindled yet again.

That any Truth Social follower would still not "get" the inside joke of Trump's sustained abuse may be dumbfounding to rational beings, but it's impeccable confirmation of Truth's followers' likeness to largemouth bass.   

Will, should, can Ukraine retake Crimea?

As Ukrainian and Russian forces battle for control of the strategic city of the Donbas' Bakhmut, somewhere in President Zelensky's head is the longest-term objective of Crimea — stolen by Vladimir Putin in 2014, along with his illegal incursions into eastern Ukraine. 

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan writes that Crimea is the "one strategic objective that may be the culminating point of this war." In a long essay, suggestively titled "All Roads Lead to Crimea," he analyzes the pros and cons of a Crimean campaign. His arguments follow.

On the pro side, he notes that Zelensky has often included Crimea in the lands he wants returned. Politically, it would be risky for him to dismiss it. Second, notwithstanding Putin's narrative of Crimea as part of historical Russia, a 1991 referendum made it part of Ukraine when residents voted for independence from the Soviet Union — that is, Russia.

Militarily, as well, Russian control of Crimea would represent a continuing threat to Ukraine. After all, Putin's forces swiftly took the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia because of Crimea's close logistical support. 

Among the above's counterarguments are the opinion of Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff: "From a military standpoint, I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all … Russian-occupied Ukraine." Also, given the vast symbolic importance of Crimea to Putin, he might choose to deploy nuclear weapons in its defense.

Last, some analysts believe that a Crimean campaign would fracture Europe's support of Ukraine, largely because the campaign would extend the war's length. Gen. Ryan, however, argues that "European and American concerns over retaking Crimea have gradually, if not fully, abated.... France [has] sought a full military victory for Ukraine, including the return of Crimea.... And as recently as [23 January 2022], the US administration has made it clear that it supports Ukraine retaking Crimea." 

What would Ukraine require for an invasion? The answer is bloody obvious: "munitions" — "large numbers of armoured vehicles (tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armoured obstacle breaching vehicles), replacement artillery systems, helicopters, and modern fighter aircraft." Granted, this is the point at which a Ukrainian invasion of Crimea seems most unlikely. For Ryan goes on to note that its forces would also need "long range weapons such as [more] HIMARS, ground launched small diameter bombs, drones, missiles, long range air defence and other long-range targeting and assessment systems."  

There's no doubt that this tremendous firepower would cause Putin to at least momentarily rethink his position on the peninsula. There's also little doubt that Ukraine's Western partners would be unwilling or, more likely, unable to supply such a massive war machine — this year, anyway. And that may be the unscalable barrier to Zelensky's long-term war planning.  

Still, the retaking of Crimea would seem a necessary objective. For as long as Putin remains in power, he'll use his land, air and naval assets in the peninsula to harass Ukraine with deadly force. Ukraine's allies may not want Zelensky to extend the war, but the Russian president will make the decision for him — and the West.   

Concludes Gen. Ryan: "In 2023, all roads may lead to Crimea. And it may be the final campaign of the Russo-Ukraine War." Ryan's operative words are "may be," though I would argue that the final campaign of the Russo-Ukraine war will come only with Putin's death or involuntary retirement. 

Trump's sleepy kickoff campaign

Have you ever seen a more lackluster, exhausted, spiritless kickoff to a presidential campaign?

He really sounds as though he's thrilled to be back in the Palmetto State, no?

If Trump is to have any chance at the GOP nomination, that chance will be left up to still-potential competitors. He can win only by waddling amidst a sea of primary candidates, pulling out bare plurality wins because of the severely fractured vote.

Which is the way he won in 2016. Most primiary-voting Republicans voted for someone other than Donald J. Trump.

So far, his competitors seem determined to help him on his way to the nomination. They include Ron DeSantis, Glenn Youngkin, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Mike Pompeo, Larry Hogan, Chrises Christie and Sununu, Ted Cruz and Kristi Noem. Yet others are likely pile into the fray as well. 

Only one of them has the muscle to beat Trump — DeSantis. The rest of the gang is hopeless; each would be better off if he or she simply lobbied the Florida governor for the veep slot, which is where one of them will land anyway, should DeSantis gain the nomination. (Trump's probable sidekick would be the indefatigably gibbering Kari Lake.)

But party discipline is history. There was a time when both major parties selected their preferred presidential candidate — all others were unwelcome. Today, each pol is a power base unto himself, with his own fundraising operation, his own media consultants and pollsters, his own surrogates and a gaggle of flatterers whispering sweet presidential nothings into his ear.

The most entertaining of the lot is the evangelical pol who assures his audiences that God shall take him to the White House. Remember Mike Huckabee? Pat Robertson? Does God even remember them? Not once did I hear their post-primary reasons for the Creator's seeming disinterest in their candidacy.  

At any rate, the silliest of seasons is upon us. Enjoy this one. Because if Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis wins the White House, this may be the last presidential campaign we ever see.    

Palestinians armed with "stones and firecrackers" battle Israeli bullets and bombs

What's now occurring in the West Bank and other illegally occupied Palestinian land is a classic case of asymmetric warfare, if, indeed, "warfare" can describe violence between neolithic combatants and soldiers armed with modern weapons, including jet-fueled pterodactyls that drop bombs.  

The asymmetry is, no doubt, one reason why Palestinians see themselves not as "victims" of right-wing Israeli governments, but as enslaved people. Military occupations are rarely conducive to peace, as Nazis discovered in France and Americans learned in Afghanistan. Slaves revolt.

Also infuriating to those in bondage is this type of reporting: "Recent Palestinian attacks ... have targeted Israeli settlements and settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The settlements are considered illegal under international law and by much of the international community."

They're not considered illegal. They are illegal. After a New York City bank robbery, does the Times report that the act is "considered" illegal? 

"The [most recent] violence comes as Israel's new government, the most right-wing administration ever, has signaled even tougher actions against the Palestinians." Bebe is back, lavishly praising his country's incomparable firepower as did George W. Bush after the U.S. defeated Saddam's pathetic, ragtag Iraqi army. One would think they'd be embarrassed to hail such a mismatch, but in politics, shame is a scarce commodity.

Prime Minister-on-an-official-lam Bebe Netanyahu's equally far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, seems to believe that Israel's shock troops are just too constrained by law. Hence he has advocated "open-fire regulations" when confronting Palestinians armed only with "stones and firecrackers." Ben-Gvir also desires immunity from criminal prosecution for reckless, homicidal security forces.

Even Israel's military leaders oppose such changes, and so they remain unimplemented. The security minister's recommendations, however, reveal the government's deadly, take-no-prisoners approach. Palestinians have noted that Israeli soldiers in the West Bank already possess "near total impunity." 

What Israel's far-right government is doing is freeing the military and police to execute more arrests of Palestinians, to loosen regs on search-and-seizure raids, and to speed gun licensing for Israeli citizens. All of which, as the Times writes, will "further inflame the situation and stoke violence."

The violence now raging in the West Bank and Jerusalem resulted from an Israeli military raid on Thursday, which killed nine people. The government's answer is to stage more raids. The pitiable Palestinian Authority called the killings "a massacre" and pledged to file a U.N. complaint and heave this one atop many others already piled before the International Criminal Court.  

Today, a Palestinian man was shot and killed outside an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and Israeli settlers there have "carried out nearly 150 attacks on Palestinians and their properties across the region."

What does the U.S. State Department have to say about the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem's infinite carnage? "With both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the secretary [is underscoring] the urgent need for the parties to take steps to de-escalate tensions in order to put an end to the cycle of violence that has claimed too many innocent lives." That should settle matters. 

Peter Beinart, probably the most astute Jewish observer of all things Israeli and Palestinian, writes in his newsletter that he is "frustrated with a lot of what I read about American foreign policy in general and Israel-Palestine in particular. I don’t think the US possesses any inherent right to run the world. If America wants moral authority, it must earn it. And I believe that the best way to secure the safety of the Jewish people, my people, is through equality and justice for Palestinians."

His premise is so prima facie as to make Occam's Razor seem complicated. One reels at the U.S.'s refusal to coerce Israel to withdraw from illegally occupied Palestinian lands, for to support the occupation is to mock our "moral authority." Coercion might fail, but at least we would have tried to right several wrongs. 

Beinart's other endless battle is that of sorting out allegations of antisemitism — based on criticism of Israel's government — from the real thing. Last month, in a discussion with the Times' Tom Friedman, Beinart smartly observed that "the conversation about antisemitism has had a tendency to exceptionalize antisemitism and disassociate it from other questions of bigotry against other people. Not to center the question that the point that antisemitism is wrong, because bigotry—to deny the dignity and humanity and equality of any group of people—is wrong. Instead, what happens I think often is antisemitism is discussed in isolation."

For that matter, Palestinians, as are all Arabs, are Semites. Thus Israel's assaults on the Palestinian people could be branded antisemitic. They are not, however, for that would be a contradiction of a term. Rather, the Israeli government is hegemonic.

And the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem's violence will persist as long as Israel's hegemony persists. It really is as simple as that.  

In 20 years, will Putinism be seen by Russians as they now see Stalinism?

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul asks, "Are we seeing the beginning of the end of Putinism?" The suffix is more significant than its proper noun, for if the latter were abruptly removed, a like-minded hardcore nationalist would only step into his place. Russia's more distant trajectory is McFaul's targeted question.

But first, Putin himself must demonstrate that his authoritarian, warmongering style of governance is out of sync with the long-term interests of Russia — i.e., the Russian people. And so far, he's been doing a bang-up job of it.  

Consider this contrast. Why did FDR keep Gen. Dwight Eisenhower as his Allied Commander in Europe? Simple. Because we were winning. President Putin, however, just 17 days ago canned Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who held his job as commander in Ukraine for a mere three months. "The only reasonable conclusion," notes McFaul, is that "Putin understands that Russia is losing." 

There are other signs of essence-grasping, if you will. For the first time in 10 years, Putin canceled his year-end news conference, undoubtedly troubled by the prospect of aggressive questions about Ukraine from Russia's otherwise complacent press corps. McFaul also notes his "subdued appearance" at a Moscow cathedral on Orthodox Christmas. And his erstwhile mouthpieces — those rowdy propagandists of recent yore — "sound depressed," observes McFaul.

One, Sergei Markov, summarized the Year of Putin's Unhelpful Lord thusly: "The USA was the main winner.... Especially Biden." A prominent newspaper reporter said on a talk show that Russia's — rather, Putin's — "special military operation" has failed in achieving any of its goals, as initially announced. And a former Putin adviser, Sergei Glazyev, said in public that Russia has neither a clear objective, a sound ideology, nor the resources to win a war against the West. (The last being Nazi Germany's rolling downfall.) 

Ambassador McFaul expects Putin to hang on — but not as an "all-powerful and all-knowing leader," because he'll never recover from his monumental miscalculations in Ukraine. 

About that — Putin's hanging on, that is — I'm not as convinced as McFaul. I'm no professional Kremlinologist, but some familiarity with Russian history and a few intestinal instincts suggest to me that the Federation's president could go down much as the USSR's premier did in 1964 — not, however, as is popularly thought, because John Kennedy embarrassed Nikita Khrushchev in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Foreign affairs had little to do with Khrushchev's removal. Instead, the peasant-as-premier had increasingly gotten on his colleagues' nerves. Khrushchev had a habit of being stubborn, arbitrary and singularly disagreeable in his governing style. He had also constructed a massive bureaucracy accountable to him only, rendering party members and the party itself less influential. As well, Khrushchev fancied himself a crackerjack agriculturalist, which had the unfortunate effect of catapulting Russia into a domestic crisis of food shortages.  

These factors — these homegrown factors — combined and conspired against Khrushchev, leaving Leonid Brezhnev to lead a quiet palace coup. No gaudy stabbing, no unseemly, late-night firing squad, not even a primetime show trial. The conspirators just shipped the old boy off to a rustic retirement. (Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be [further] run / Along [Khrushchev's] hills the setting sun — Lord Byron)

Now Vladimir is behaving as a Nikita². He has incurred Western wrath, resulting in sanctions, thus displeasing the homefolk — and their displeasure is going to become much, much more intense. He's been ruling as a one-man party — stubbornly, arbitrarily and rather disagreeably. His puppetry may extend downward to the vast Russian bureaucracy, but laterally it is pissing off the Kremlineers. All which could lead to a quiet palace coup (assuming there is someone in Moscow's upper circles as stealthy and wily as Mr. Brezhnev.)  

Furthermore, Putin's troubles, unlike Khrushchev's, are directly tethered to his foreign affairs, which are in a bloodbath of shambolic blundering. It wasn't enough for Putin to botch things on the homefront in this way or that; he had to double down on maladministration by remaking Ukraine as a martyr state and ostracizing Russia. And now it's quite unlikely that he'll ever see military victory on Ukraine's battlefields.    

Last, writes McFaul, "Putin’s societal support is soft and declining." I happened to read McFaul's dubious assertion just before stumbling on this retweet by commentator Max Boot. After which, one must strike any future references to the dubiousness of Putin's "declining" societal support. For this is earthshaking:

Wow. 4 Moscow residents said *on camera* that they basically welcome the tanks because it will help Ukraine and help end the war. A brave thing to do! Suggests there is less support for the war than Putin pretends. https://t.co/0RiVakksZ0

— Max Boot 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@MaxBoot) January 28, 2023

Those courageous, videoed souls — each of them willing to risk 15 years in prison for high-fiving Ukraine's new tanks rather than watching more young Russian men go to their deaths — are the most powerful testament yet not only to Putin's softening public support, but to his forehead-stamped expiration date. 

McFaul concludes with: "The most likely scenario is Putin will remain in control for the near future, albeit discredited and diminished.... [But] even if the process of unwinding begins in earnest only once he is out of power, Putin’s colossal failure in Ukraine could well be the beginning of the end of Putinism." 

My emphasis. Because for global peace and a sustained world order, it's Putinism more than Putin that has to go, just as Trumpism in the United States is more poisonous than Trump himself.