P.M. Carpenter

On growing European authoritarianism and Putin's evasion of sanctions

I recently read Anne Applebaum's searing Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. Applebaum, a writer for The Atlantic and a Senior Fellow of the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, knows European authoritarianism well. She lives in Poland with her Polish politician husband, who opposes the nation's accretive illiberalism. Her excellent book deals as well with the "seductive lure" of newly rooted American authoritarianism. 

Applebaum was among the 2000s' neoconservatives, but she seems to have tempered that unfortunate inclination. She's a firm moderate in her politics — as I recall it was Applebaum who once wrote that the middle is where the fun is, because it's situated between the clashing extremes — a superb writer and presently more down-to-earth about the U.S.'s handling of foreign conflicts.

I strongly recommend Twilight of Democracy. Her work brims with logic, history and intelligent analysis while staying out of the weeds. "How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum's answer." —Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny

Today she remarked on merely one way Putin has been able to laugh at Western sanctions.

The men bombing supermarkets, torturing POWs, murdering civilians - all of them are being paid directly with money paid to Russia by Europeans.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) July 31, 2022

On a related note, there's also this from a Guardian article earlier today:

"Though western sanctions on hi-tech components that could be used for military purposes have made things slower and more difficult, Russia appears to have found ways to evade them. The US authorities have blacklisted dozens of companies for helping the Russian military dodge sanctions since the invasion."

Criminals and cutthroats always find paths that can circumvent sanctions, no matter how stringently enforced. 

Trump appears to be losing his truest believers

I'm not saying that. ​​​​​Sarah Longwell is saying it. She's executive director of Republicans for the Rule of Law and host of the Focus Group podcast, writing here (The Atlantic, paywalled) about her face-to-face research conducted among 2020 Trump voters.

These voters are still true believers in Trump's lies about the stolen election, are contemptuous of the January 6 hearings — which they see as a witch hunt and "dog and pony show" — and staged to make Trump bad. "Only a few had watched some of the hearings before turning them off in disgust," writes Longwell.

She notes that until June about half of the respondents in her focus groups wanted Trump to run in 2024. Since they believed in the stolen election lie, "or at least [it was] unfair in some way," he should give it another go. Since June, however — which suggests the "witch hunt" has had some effect — Longwell has conducted "nine focus groups ... and found that only 14 percent of Trump 2020 voters wanted him to run in 2024, with a few others on the fence. In four of the groups, zero people wanted Trump to run again. Their reasoning is clear: They’re now uncertain that Trump can win again."

She quotes some of the comments she heard: "He’s just too divisive and controversial" ...  "There are good candidates out there waiting to shine" ... "I feel like there’s too many people against him right now. He’s never gonna make it … so I feel like somebody else needs to step in that has similar views, but not as big of an ego — who people like, I guess" ... "I think it’s time to move on" ... "They keep talking about the results of the election. And I feel like even when he’s doing his road show, he keeps bringing that up [and] I just feel like we’ve moved past that."

Longwell surmises that the voters are "exhausted," both by Trump and, of course, the media. If one is a right winger, when in doubt blame the media — a beloved oldie madly popular since Spiro Agnew. Said one voter, "I do not want four more years of 'orange man bad' and everybody screaming about every time he tweets—and believe me, he did some really bad tweets." Then said another, "After hearing what you said, it makes more sense to maybe not want Trump there for certain reasons. When you bring back all of that, it makes me think again." (Rather, possibly for the first time.)

The focus grouper adds that other Republican wingnuts are now attracting the rank-and-file wingnuts, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ("the most popular alternative"), South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo. The dedicated ballot-casters may not be feelin' the love for Trump any longer, but they're schoolchildishly giddy about a lot of likeminded crackpots.

Longwell also notes that "this dynamic" of alienation of affections for Trump "could be fluid." If When Trump announces and then proceeds to do what we all know he will do — belittle his competitors with prepubescent gibes — "voters who have been drifting away from the former president could snap back," she writes. Longwell observes that they still like Trump, "and they don’t like Joe Biden." Hence they will fall in line, literally, to vote for the twice-impeached, soon-to-be-criminally indicted, psychoneurotic liar Trump, "if [when] he is the GOP nominee for president."

Here's another interesting item. Some of these 2020 Trump voters were actually capable of thinking two moves ahead. "Even if Trump could win, they say, he could be president for only four years," writes Longwell. "But if it’s DeSantis or another rising star, Republicans have a better shot at eight years of political dominance."

And we'd have a seeming eternity of gut-wrenching, nerve-racking and liberty-denying authoritarianism unraveling everything good for which America once stood.  

The Tragic Embarrassment of American Commentary on the Russia-Ukraine War

Tuning in to a brief interview with retired U.S. Navy admiral and former Joint Chiefs chairman Mike Mullen, I just heard this question put to him: "Do you believe Ukraine can win in its counteroffensive in Kherson?"

Adm. Mullen paused and carefully answered, as best as I can rephrase: "I do, but it's going to be difficult and it's going to be a long slog." He went on to praise the fighting spirit of Ukraine's forces and said
 their military skills have largely evened the score against the Russians, who, he added, had been terrible at their job but have gotten better.

Mullen then came back to the Ukrainians' challenge in a Kherson counteroffensive, noting the Russians' tremendous advantage in firepower.

Not once did the full admiral also note that his team of the U.S. and its vast military could further even the score and, better yet, tip the "game" to Ukraine's advantage by loading up its forces with more heavy artillery, missiles and especially long-range rocketry.

The Russians are hurting; they're hunkering down in Kherson, mostly starved of supplies from Crimea, whose line has been disrupted by Ukrainian strikes on two essential bridges. With the proper and adequate weaponry from the U.S., Ukrainian forces could retake the province — thus militarily preempting Vladimir Putin's loosely scheduled September annexation — and turn around this godforsaken war.

For this American, it's embarrassing that U.S. officials and too many among the military's retired brass so faithlessly, deliberately excise from their war commentary the plain, simple fact that the "long, long slog" in Ukraine — a now-obligatory Western cliché that Mullen also repeated today — could readily be cut short

... by a U.S.-provisioned Ukrainian victory — so near yet tragically, even catastrophically, unreachable. 

A brief stroll down an immemorial lane: a remembrance of 2015

A glance just now at my stats revealed someone somewhere had read a post of yore, my 10 May 2015 "Come on, surely SOME of Stonekettle's readers are only there to marvel at the gaping masses." That post was prompted by a few readers' hypersensitive reaction to my 9 May post, "The political Internet's devolution."

Both were a delight for me to reread. They reminded me of a "writer" long forgotten who is, for all I know, still sociopathically afflicting critical thinking and neglecting to check facts before putting pen in hand. As I vaguely recall, what inspired me to meditate on the awful Jim Wright was one of his typically logorrheic pieces of condescension toward others whom he deemed ignorant, in that case, of some Middle Eastern affair in which he himself utterly botched the facts.

Even though my 10 May 2015 post had little to do with the exhilaratingly tough-guy, militarily heroic (as he repeatedly advised us) Mr. Wright — he was merely a micro-metaphor for so much of the political internet's poor writing and, whenever possible, even worse thinking — my thesis remains standing strong and healthy: "It's true that I'm offended by bad writing, but I'm far more offended by the popular embrace of it." Such an embrace is also distressing, an inextricable part of the Great Dumbing Down of America.

Anyway, I thought it amusing — for you — to repost my 10 May piece of 2015, which comes additionally with a slew of irate comments from Stone Kettle or maybe StoneKettle's abused readers. Enjoy.

***

"Come on, surely SOME of Stonekettle's readers are only there to marvel at the gaping masses"

It seems the zombies really do come out at night.

*Your writing is pretentious, overblown, and frankly, boring. You might do well to study and try to emulate Mr. Wright's style and populist voice rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks. The blogosphere prefers his writing to yours by roughly 1,000 to one; perhaps not all of those are simply brain dead zombies.

*this writing is depressingly, hopelessly pedantic, humorless, self-absorbed and dull. how or why this writer finds it profitable to criticize others is a mystery

*You … write like every precocious 11th grade emo boy [whatever that means] whose English papers I ever had the misfortune to grade.

*I can't tell the crux of your issue, whether it's that you disagree with Mr. Wright's opinions or merely his writing style.

That's a stiff-armed, pinwheel-eyed sampling of overnight and early-morning comments left on my previous post, such comments reportedly inspired by what one of the magnificently disgruntled says was a "masterful take-down of Dr. Carpenter's critique of Stonekettle Station." I would read the take-down, but I gather it's somewhere on Facebook, which, I find, has blocked me. I suspect skulduggery — hurt feelings and all that, which generated a petty complaint to Facebook's censors — but since my suspicion isn't a worrying one, I can't say I care.

The only comment that momentarily hurt was the one that called my writing "humorless." I may be depressed by the screaming popularity of juvenile prose (the Michelle Malkins and Stoned Kettles) which defines the chronic dumbing-down of the political Internet; I nevertheless make every attempt to battle my dysthymia with pluck and, above all, good humor, which befits a drowning depressive. I'm also a confirmed skeptic of the Montaigne School (oh dear, is that "name-dropping"?), but of one thing I'm certain: Humor is essential to survival on this planet overpopulated in cyberprint by the popularly godawful, and let's just say I'm surviving. My hurt soon passed.

Elements of the first and last comments above were spot on. "The blogosphere" does prefer commonness; indeed, I daresay by more than 1,000 to one. A literate reader made a brilliantly apt comparison yesterday Images when he observed that Stonekettle is the Thomas Kinkade of the political Internet. I most emphatically don't blame its scribbler for exploiting the vulgar appreciations of a mass market, which leads me to that other comment: "I can't tell the crux of your issue, whether it's that you disagree with Mr. Wright's opinions or merely his writing style." First, one doesn't "disagree" with a style. One may find it abhorrent and jejune and thus lacking in sophistication, but abhorrence is not disagreement. David Frum once wrote one of the most enjoyable, polished political works (Dead Right) I've ever read, and I disagreed with nearly every word of it. I also read, for instance, Krauthammer regularly — not because I agree with him, but because the man can write. (A too obvious pun comes to mind, so I won't go there.) Stonekettle I've read only three times. Each has been agonizing, so I avoid it.

Second, it's telling that this commenter found my larger point unintelligible, since I made it blisteringly clear: Stonekettle's dreadful writing "is not what haunts me," I explained. "Bad writing, in its commonness, is scarcely anything horrifying. No, what haunts me is that this particular piece has, as of this morning, 44,354 Facebook 'Likes.'" See: Thomas Kinkade, and then anyone with an eye for true artistry.

One last time. It's true that I'm offended by bad writing, but I'm far more offended by the popular embrace of it. And that, gentle readers, is why, on occasion, I'm paradoxically content with the aforementioned 1,000:1 ratio. That likely underestimated imbalance confirms my "elitism," which, sadly, there isn't nearly enough of in this world.

***

postscript: Lord am I ever grateful for the regular readers of this site, and many thanks to its heroically commenting Anne Js, Peter Gs, Bobs et al. But folks, this is one battle that you, my fellow elitists, have lost. Together, we always will. Intelligent platoons of refined taste and critical thinking are no match for armies of, well, you know. As for the "writer" in question, earlier he tweeted me so that he might re-express his abject incomprehension of it all: "Oh come now, Carpenter, you wanted a spike in your pageviews, I gave it to you. Have a happy day, ya mother." Thus, once again, he reduces himself to Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man: the self-satisfied triumph of the herd.

Another regular reader emailed this: "The awful writing to which you allude is more than just 'dumbing down' or 'hysteria sells'. It's part and parcel of something larger, much more calamitous." To those of you who understand that perceptive sentiment, no interpretation is required. To those of you who don't, no explanation would assist.

**

As far as I know, I'm still blocked on Wright's Facebook page, and I simply haven't the intestinal wherewithal to revisit his website — which I assume is, for the unhygienic masses, still up and running subliterately and benightedly? 

Hoping to kill the 234-year-old Constitution, the unAmerican right wants a Constitutional Convention

Today's the day for powwowing, right-winging state legislative tribes to gather and brainstorm how to shred our founding document and recreate it in their own image. The little big men are meeting in Denver to learn new tactics in pursuit of their objective; lessons provided by the infamous American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has for years drafted legislation for backward state legislatures.

This news comes to us via Insider, formerly Business Insider, which in turn was alerted by The Center for Media and Democracy, a Madison, Wisconsin-based progressive watchdog. Both reports are an update of CMD's report of last December, now characterized by Insider as, "The conservative movement isn't done reshaping the Constitution from the ground up." That should read, trying to reshape the Constitution. 

That said, ever since Trump, what, we may ask, is politically out of bounds? The black swan of 2016 was positively unthinkable in 2015. Yet, it attacked America in nearly full force and is still with us, threatening more irreversible damage to the fundaments of our constitutional protections and guarantees. As the poet W.H. Auden observed, More than ever / life-out-there is goodly, miraculous, loveable, / but we shan’t, not since Stalin and Hitler, / trust ourselves ever again: we know that, subjectively, /  all is possible.

We re-knowed that with Trump. But it seems that every generation — born idealistically — must be retaught and relearn the perils of nonvigilance. Though education is a shortcut to experience, in matters of self-governance our brains are lastingly imbued with John Locke's tabula rasa — only experience is the instrument of writing.     

ALEC, its attentive pupils of rightist extremism, and today's powwow-hosting Academy of States — a self-described "collaborative effort of leading advocates who desire that our several state legislatures would bring reform to our federal government" — aim to rewrite the U.S. Constitution to balance the budget, enact term limits on officeholders, nix environmental standards, eliminate nationwide educational requirements, and further inhibit Congress' ability to grant statehood to Washington, DC or a territory. 

Such a convention would likely be unlimited in its constitutional redesigns, however. Theoretically, a convention could itself adopt Locke's tabula rasa and begin writing from scratch. Explained Republican ex-senator Rick Santorum at ALEC's December coven, "You take this grenade and you pull the pin, you've got a live piece of ammo in your hands." He also re-enlightened the assembled lawmakers as to the spectacular benefits of de-facto minority rule: "We have the opportunity, as a result of [of the political system's misshapen, rural, small-state power], to have a supermajority, even though … we may not even be in an absolute majority when it comes to the people who we agree with." 

Added former Tea Partier Mark Meckler, "We would be aiming at the Deep State and potentially the federal judiciary as well. It's every leftist group in America, radical leftist group in America that stands for, I would argue, the destruction of America, the destruction of babies in the womb, the destruction of life itself." 

Writes Insider: "Interviews with a dozen people involved in the constitutional convention movement, along with documents and audio recordings reviewed by Insider, reveal a sprawling, well-funded, at least partly by cryptocurrency, and impassioned campaign taking root across multiple states." Rob Natelson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Independence Institute, "predicted to Insider there's a 50% chance that the United States will witness a constitutional convention in the next five years. Whether it happens, he said, is highly dependent on Republicans' success winning state legislatures during the 2022 midterm elections." 

The Academy of States passionately calculates on its website that "a convention could take place in 24 months!" Insider denies Natelson and the Academy's reasoning, writing that "it will likely take years more work to reach their goal, if they ever do. At minimum, Republicans will need to flip several Democratic-controlled state legislatures and convince remaining GOP holdouts of the necessity for a convention."

Still, we must keep in mind alternatives to 2016's black swan — one of which could very well assume the identity of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a national convention supporter. As are Fox News' Sean Hannity and Mark Levin, on-air point men for the right's rabble-rousing and mass psychosis. Also on board is Convention of States Action, a project of Citizens for Self Governance — see above, re: this "sprawling, well-funded" movement. 

In sum, we can take nothing for granted. In a 1946 essay, Orwell wrote that "To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." Indeed in so many ghoulish ways, today is 1946 anew, or 1933, or perhaps '39. To rephrase Marx, a spectre is haunting not only Europe but America. Along with Hungary and to a lesser extent Poland, the United States is steering a menacing course to the right's crash barriers. A foreseeable though yet still-unlikely national convention to refashion the U.S. Constitution would be a typically reckless, pseudoconservative careening. And so it is time for us others to become, once again, vigilant backseat drivers.

It's coming: Putin's September theft of Kherson by "referendum"

Since his forces seized the city of Kherson and its surrounding areas in March, Vladimir Putin has planned to absorb them into what he envisions as Greater Russia. To that end he has introduced Russian state TV to Kherson, issued Russian passports to locals (without which they're unable to access government services), established the ruble as currency, changed Ukrainian school curricula to Russian,  installed pro-Russian citizens in government positions, and crushed dissent by arresting, torturing and executing political leaders considered a threat to absolute Russian control.  

Now Putin is approaching the finish line in pursuit of that goal. A pro-Russian newspaper in the neighboring province of Zaporizhzhia headlined an edition last week as "The referendum will be!" On Russian state television last weekend, a report announced that "everything is being done to ensure that Kherson returns to its historical homeland as soon as possible." The final push is on to incorporate — via illicit referenda — the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and Luhansk and Donetsk in the east. This week Russian-appointed authorities in Kherson declared they are creating "election commissions" in preparation for a referendum to be held, most likely, on 11 September. Tensions in the Kherson region are particularly keen; Ukrainian forces there are now executing a soft counteroffensive and hope to soon amplify it to a major, war-turning thrust.

Today The NY Times outlined the worst of all possible worlds. "Any referendum would be totally illegitimate ... but it would carry ominous consequences. Analysts both in Moscow and Ukraine expect that it would serve as a prelude to Mr. Putin’s officially declaring the conquered area to be Russian territory, protected by Russian nuclear weapons — making future attempts by Kyiv to drive out Russian forces potentially much more costly," wrote the Times. "The prospect of another annexation has affected the military timetable as well, putting pressure on Kyiv to try a risky counteroffensive sooner, rather than waiting for more long-range Western weapons to arrive that would raise the chances of success."

In short, Ukraine lacks a belligerent's preliminary time needed for a meticulously planned offensive. Once Putin declares the Kherson province as Russian territory and thus under the Kremlin's nuclear umbrella, the West will almost certainly run scared, severing its military support of Ukraine in the region. The most optimal time for a magnificently pivotal Ukrainian move will have been lost. Therefore time, as they say, is of the essence.  

Aleksei Chesnakov, a Kremlin political adviser on Ukraine policy, told the quering Times in a written response that "The referendum scenario looks to be realistic and the priority in the absence of signals from Kyiv about readiness for negotiations on a settlement" — a readiness which, you may recall, Moscow has refused. "The legal and political vacuum, of course, needs to be filled."

In a Times interview of late June, Kherson's Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev said Russian propaganda and feelings of Kyiv's abandonment among five or 10 percent of the city's population, mainly pensioners and the poor, are "something [that] is changing in relationships.... This is an irreversible process that will happen in the future" and, he added, "that’s what I’m really worried about. Then it will be almost impossible to restore it." The Times followed up with this: "Days later, his assistant announced he had been abducted by pro-Russian occupying forces. As of Friday, he had not been heard from."

I'll forego my usual fulmination over the West's seeming indifference to Ukraine's plight on the southern front, where it has an excellent opportunity to strike Russia hard with sufficient imported weaponry, which it lacks. I'll simply note that the Ukrainians' guns of August, it seems, will fall tragically short.  

In the South, Ukraine is refighting an American Civil War battle of 1862

The comparison is eerie. Ukrainian forces have largely stagnated on the southern front, even though Russian forces are in a perilous position, just as Union forces stagnated against Confederate forces in 1862.   

In the bloodiest one-day battle of the Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee's forces confronted Gen. George B. McClellan's. The fight in Maryland drew to a standstill. But what happened next prolonged the North's struggle against the invading South for more than another two years.  

Lee huddled his 43,000 troops along a defensive line above Antietam Creek against McClellan's forces of around 50,000, with more on the way. Lee's position was extraordinarily endangered; his back was against the Potomac River, his men were exhausted from marching and the previous day's battle, and his troop casualties were about one-quarter.

With an influx of fresh troops, McClellan outmanned Lee nearly three times over, Yet the Union general failed to pursue Lee as he withdrew into Virginia. President Lincoln begged McClellan to do so, however the general overestimated the size of Lee's forces and claimed that his opponent had another 40,000 troops on its way.

Thus Gen. McClellan permitted Gen. Lee to escape. Antietam was the North's best opportunity to then end that terrible war, which instead dragged on, ultimately killing an estimated 620,000 men. (Lee would again invade the North in 1863, at Gettysburg.) 

Here, obviously, the North represents Ukraine in the southern region of Kherson, a strategically invaluable port city where thousands of Russian soldiers are essentially stranded after Ukrainian strikes on the invader's supply lines. A US Defense Department official acknowledged Ukraine's heretofore success and said Russia's efforts had been a failure on the battlefield and back home, where the Kremlin is once talking of regime change in Kyiv. (The NY Times.)

"While the Russians were working to repair a vital bridge over the Dnipro River further south near the city of Kherson, the Ukrainians said that it remained impassable and that Russian forces based on the western side of the river were largely isolated from resupply and support," reports the Times. 

Using vastly increased heavy armaments from the West, now is the time for Ukraine to strike Russia along the southern front. A successful offensive—exceedingly likely with sufficient supplies—would fundamentally reset the war in Ukraine's favor, radically shorten and perhaps compel Vladimir Putin to hold war-ending talks, as the American South's Gen. Lee was forced to do with the North's Gen. Grant in April 1865.

The Civil War probably would have ended in 1862, if only Union forces had bloodily pounded Antietam's fleeing Confederate forces. In today's setting, Ukraine is eager to bombard Russia in Kherson. An imposed tragedy for Ukraine is what looms instead, one in which Russia will be allowed to escape, similar to the South in 1862—not for want of a nail, but that of a colossal armaments surge from West to East.   

Russia murders 53 Ukrainian POWs

Yet another Russian abomination occurred early yesterday. A shattering explosion annihilated the barracks of a prison camp in the Russian-occupied town of Olenivka in the Donetsk province, killing 53 and wounding 75 captured Ukrainian fighters, reported The Washington Post. (Photo, Reuters.)

The NY Times wrote that "videos posted by Russian war bloggers show twisted metal bunk beds and the charred bodies of their former occupants."

Among the imprisoned Ukrainians at Correctional Colony No. 120 were an estimated 2,500 who held out at the Azovstal Iron and Steel works in the city of Mariupol. The Times described them as "trophies" for the Russian invaders, given the global notoriety of the steel-plant battle in which Russia, with all its firepower, was for weeks unable to dislodge the Ukrainian soldiers.    

Each army blamed the other for the carnage. Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine had bombed the camp using a US-made advanced rocket system, intending to send a warning to Ukrainian troops who might be thinking of surrendering. A Russian war blogger posted a video of the wreckage claiming it was caused by a HIMARS rocket. Curiously, no Russian was killed or even injured in the explosion.

The Ukrainians said the accusation was preposterous, which it is. They countercharged with the more reasonable explanation that the Russians had caused the destruction as a cover-up of the atrocities they had committed at the prison camp. "Russian occupiers are pursuing their criminal goals, accusing Ukraine of committing war crimes, while hiding the torture and shooting of prisoners," said the Ukrainian general staff in a statement.

Well it is to remember that Russia routinely blames its own attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets, such as after the airstrike in April on Kramatorsk's train station, killing 59. Moscow offered no evidence that Ukraine carried out a "false flag" operation to smear Russia, as it claimed. Said a U.S. military official of the Russian accusation of a HIMARS attack on the prison camp, "We have seen no evidence to back these claims whatsoever."

Moreover, Ukraine's intelligence service, the SBU, released an audio recording of two Russia-backed separatist fighters talking about the explosion on their phones. One said he heard no sound of a rocket landing and added that Russian forces had probably blown up the barracks. 

Ukraine’s SBU, military and its human rights ombudsman labeled the attack "an organized murder of Ukrainian prisoners" and asked  the United Nations and the International Red Cross to visit Olenivka to investigate. The Times further reported that "prisoners who have been released from Correctional Colony No. 120 described hellish conditions. Guards provided just enough food for prisoners to survive and meted out regular beatings."

Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's commander of military intelligence, said he believed the attack was carried out by Russian mercenaries, catching the Russian defense ministry off guard and hastening its ludicrous allegations after the fact. 

Whoever the Russian perpetrators of the murderous assault actually were — Putin-supported mercenaries, separatists or regular forces — the Kremlin's defense ministry looks as absurd as ever, charging that Ukraine bears responsibility for the heinous attack which Russian goons so clearly committed.    

"Sickening evil" - a noted European observer describes Russia at "war."

Paul Massaro, a senior policy adviser for the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, tweeted yesterday that the "sickening evil committed by the Russian invaders" should alert the world to Ukraine's desperate need for more weaponry. "No more delays. Help Ukraine end it," he added. One minute earlier Massaro also tweeted that "The barbarity and depravity of the Russian invaders is revolting. Castration, murder, rape, killing children, leveling cities. Unmitigated evil." 

The “sickening evil" referenced in the first tweet by the policy adviser centered on recently released video footage of a Ukrainian prisoner of war being bound and gagged by Russian soldiers—then castrated, then shot dead, and last, dragged by a rope through a city's street. The Kyiv Post reported that "further posts include photos of the body of a Ukrainian soldier with severed hands and his head planted on a fence, the comment says that Ukrainian mothers should not send their sons to war."

The ghastly video shows camouflaged soldiers kicking the tortured soldier in the head as he lay bound on the floor. As the prisoner squirmed and moaned, the Russians used a box cutter to slice off his genitals, then threw them on nearby ground. Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Zelensky, was one local official who confirmed the video's authenticity, and tweeted "the world has to realize" that Russia is "a country of cannibals who enjoy torture and murder." 

"Ukraine Alert," a war news operation, is in possession of the video but refuses to post it "for ethical reasons." Ukrainian member of parliament Inna Sovsun differed with Ukraine Alert and lashed out at Twitter for "bann[ing] my profile today. Because I posted a video where a Russian soldier castrates a Ukrainian POW. @Twitter decided it was too cruel. But this is what happens. And deleting the video won't change that. People should know what #Russia is doing!" Hers is a sensible observation. 

Other prominent voices expressed their outrage, principally to urge the West to swiftly send Ukraine much more of the most effective killing machines. John Spencer, chief of Urban Warfare Studies at Madison Policy Forum and US Army veteran, tweeted "I just watched the video showing Russian soldiers cutting off the genitalia of Ukrainian POWs. How do you unsee that? WTF are we waiting on to halt this evil? Stop incrementally sending weapons, we all know they need- 100 MLRS, all types of rounds, ATACMs"—a US Army Tactical Missile System—"tanks, etc, send it!"

Wrote the aforecited European policy adviser Massaro, "ATACMS" for Ukraine. And modern battle tanks. Give them everything. Everything they need to end this crime against humanity." 

These are merely two among millions of world citizens who are frustrated and angered by Western leaders' sluggish behavior. For instance the Biden administration's most recent announcement of more weapons for Ukraine specified four—four—long-range rocket systems, when the incontestable need is in the dozens.

The US and its European allies claim they're afraid of running low on such weapons for their defense. Among European leaders, the argument might carry some weight. But the US, the globe's largest weapons dealer, is in no immediate need of these weapons. The White House simply objects to sending more of them to Ukraine.

And that, in itself, is a kind of war crime. Ukraine is battling Vladimir Putin's unthinkably vicious armed forces, which also torture and murder Ukrainian prisoners of war. The "barbarity and depravity" of the Russian dictator's sadistic troops, as Paul Massaro noted, as well as their deadly cruelty toward Ukrainian civilians, should be intolerable to all the West's leadership. This (to-date absent) intolerance should also be confirmed by rapid, sizable shipments of heavy weaponry to Ukraine.

For months, this writer and far better-known war commentators have been shouting pleas to national commanders in chief to do more—much, much more for Ukraine. Yet the listeners aren't listening. Aside from pleasant-sounding rhetoric of determined support for Ukraine, they're conspicuously indifferent to the nation's monstrous plight.

This war is winnable; Ukraine is superior to Russia in fighting spirit and warring knowhow. It requires only the West's stepped-up military aid. The consequences of the US and its NATO allies persisting in rhetoric over action will spell a catastrophe for Ukraine—later, tragedy for Europe. Putin is reading the West's passivity, and someday he'll test it further. Western regret for having done so little today will be painfully irrelevant to the European calamities of tomorrow.               

Putin's Russia must be labeled a terrorist state, despite what Biden's State Department says

The US Senate wants Russia officially labeled as a terrorist state, which it is. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants the same, as does, understandably, the Ukrainian parliament and President Volodymyr Zenelnsky, whose nation has suffered Vladimir Putin's most recent, unspeakable war crimes.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, however, is equivocating, with President Biden's support. "For weeks, pressure has mounted on Mr. Blinken to formally declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism," reports The NY Times, which then adds this curious remark: "But despite the emotional appeal, Mr. Blinken is resisting a move that could force him to sanction U.S. allies that do business with Russia and might snuff out the remaining vestiges of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow."

Emotional appeal it may well harbor, but the appeal is more firmly grounded in the searing logic of identifying a wanton killer and reckless imperialist, Russia's dictator.

Wednesday, the Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution virtually begging Mr. Blinken to officially name the Russian government as a sponsor of terrorism in its unconscionable invasion of Ukraine. The resolution also includes Chechnya, Georgia and Syria. 

Asserts the Senate: "Armed forces of the Russian Federation have committed numerous summary executions against innocent civilians and have attempted to cover their atrocities with mass graves across Ukraine,”

But the following day Blinken replied "noncommittally," and in line with White House officials, when asked about the procedural efforts to designate Russia as a massive terrorist cell. The secretary maintained that such a decision depends on existing legal definitions while adding that the issue is moot since Russia is already under sanctions.

That's not the whole of it, though. The State Department's designation would prompt more sanctions on Russia’s economy, as well as penalties on nations that persist in doing business with Moscow. "It would also waive traditional legal barriers that prevent private citizens from suing foreign governments for damages," observes the Times. 

While it's true that a draconian severance of relations between the White House and Kremlin would do injury to talks over the release of wrongly held Americans in Russia, the international acknowledgment of Putin's regime as a terrorist state — perhaps announced subsequent to certain Americans' release — is a must. Putin is still grinning about Western sanctions imposed, since Russia won't feel their full, damaging economic effects for probably years. Whatever else the West can do to make him feel the pain, it should be done. 

Meanwhile, House Democrats have filed a new measure which, if passed by the Senate and signed by Biden into law — an unlikely prosect — "would end-run the State Department," notes the Times.

At least we would have tried.

Putin's "genius," geopolitical energy schemes get blasted as just plain stupid by Fortune magazine

Writing for Fortune magazine, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean at Yale School of Management, and Steven Tian, research director at Yale's Chief Executive Leadership Institute, mockingly, brutally but refreshingly dismember the media's self-appointed, foreign policy connoisseurs. These opening paragraphs provide a taste of what the authors say the faux mavens of Putin's geopolitical strategizing have served up.

"The dramatic coverage and media commentary are filled with fact-free speculation and dark, foreboding images of a savvy, smirking triumphant Vladimir Putin splintering the West. Many of these voices imply that Putin holds the grand puppeteer position on energy issues, with enormous economic leverage over the rest of the world, worsened by weak Western governments that are supposedly asleep at the switch, divided amongst themselves, or reflexively hostile on energy challenges plunging Western nations into Russia-induced recession....

"Sure, it is fun to throw bean bags at the Biden administration’s energy policies–but the alarmist image that business media narratives have relentlessly promoted is not supported by the facts. In fact, quite the opposite is happening under the surface, even if it has been little trumpeted."

Sonnenfeld and Tian cite "genuine energy experts" who have explained the geopolitical stupidity of Putin’s "energy reactive machinations, especially as the Russian economy implodes and Russia’s status as an energy exporter deteriorates significantly." Says energy scholar Daniel Howard Yergin, an economic historian and vice chairman of S&P Global, "In just a few weeks, Putin has destroyed the internationalized economy he has been building for more than 20 years, as well as the reputation Russia has cultivated as a reliable supplier…. What he has done is to undermine and debase Russia’s most important source of economic power.” 

The authors also refer us to Jason Bordoff at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and Meghan O'Sullivan, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America’s Power. Say these scholars succinctly, Russia's entire energy policy has been "self-defeating for Putin economically."

In that vein, the Fortune mag commentators add that Putin is "far more" dependent on European markets than the world is on Putin's energy supply. For example, in 2021 Europe imported 46% of its energy from the Russian dictator, but Russia "exported 83% of its energy to Europe!" The authors also write that as they showed in the online, scholarly journal SSRN, formerly known as the Social Science Research Network, Putin's maladministration of his nation's energy "is just one dimension of a systematic collapse of the Russian economy."

They then resume what I find to be their delightful bashing of certain broadcast and print imposters of foreign policy expertise. "Clearly, there is no economic genius or market savvy" — as daily feeds inform us — "driving Putin's disruptive energy hijinks." As for the West, they observe that it's "far from being passive"; "policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic largely recognize the pressing energy challenges and are taking decisive collective action accordingly."

Peppered throughout their article, the authors offer plentiful, tasty lambastes of the pseudo-chefs: "Unfortunately for Putin, besides the Cassandra-like handwringing of some misguided media commentators, there remains little evidence that his efforts to lever energy as the wedge to divide civil society are paying any concrete dividends." 

In conclusion, Sonnefelfd and Tian offer this exacting swipe: "Despite the riveting doomsday coverage designed for TV audiences and the fact-free cynical skepticism, the facts suggest that when it comes to energy challenges, it is Putin who is running out of gas while the West has been busy refueling elsewhere."

As noted, the authors write "unfortunately for Putin...." Yet also unfortunate is that Sonnenfeld and Tian's article will likely go unread by the all-knowing pretenders. If it is read widely, their biting commentary will also likely be dismissed as eggheaded sour grapes; the scholars and real experts also desire the fame and fortune that stems from being part of major media outlets, the naysayers will say to themselves. And that will be that. Poor, misguided reporting will soldier on.  

The proper, official salute to Republican Congresspeople

Those who persist in calling for amity among congresspersons and remain convinced of American goo-goo government while Republicans hold levers of power in Congress — throwing industrial-sized monkey wrenches at virtually every piece of reasonable legislation — and still refuse to acknowledge Donald Trump's many presidential crimes, are delusional. 

Democrats should not only silently scorn these backward, reactionary non-lawmakers and Trump-abetting scofflaws, they should make their scorn audible and indiscriminately visible. As did Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez at the congressional baseball game last night.

Linda “The ‘T’ Doesn’t Stand for Tee Ball” Sanchez gives the Republican bench a finger as she passes by. pic.twitter.com/KWvSKfbZMh

— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) July 29, 2022

Preferable would have been a bloody, no-gloves, multi-ring boxing match betwixt the wannabe goo-goo-government types and the troglodytic, emotionally arrested arses. But as we all know in this age of the Trumpian miasma, we just can't have nice things.

The stench spreads: More Trump administration text records go missing

Now we learn that text messages from Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are "missing." Not by happenstance but circumstance, the period for which the texts are absent were the days leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection — same as with Secret Service agents' text messages. The Washington Post reports this morning that the messages "were deleted more than a year ago and may never be recovered."

Nor is that the whole pestilence of the story; the stench intensifies and widens.

DHS notified its inspector general in late February that the secretary and deputy secretary's texts went missing in a "reset" of the agency's phones when both left their jobs in January 2021. The department’s undersecretary of management also notified the inspector general that these text messages, as well as those from undersecretary Randolph "Tex" Alles, the former Secret Service director, were no longer accessible because of the phone reset. 

Yet the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, failed to insist that the department's leadership explain why the records were not preserved, nor did he investigate possible ways to recover the data, nor did he notify Congress of the government records' destruction. In December 2021, the Secret Service alerted Cuffari's office of its deletion of thousands of agents and employees' text messages in a similar phone "reset." Only in mid-July did Cuffari notify Congress, "despite multiple congressional committees' pending requests for these records," reports the Post.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee, called this latest revelation "extremely troubling."  

It's also extremely indictable. Aside from obstruction of justice, it seems that DHS and Secret Service officials could be charged with violating 36 CFR § 1230.12. This, from Cornell Law, pertains to 18 U.S.C. 2071:

"(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

"(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

Writes the Post, "Neither Cuccinelli nor Wolf responded to requests for comment. DHS’s Office of Inspector General did not immediately respond to requests for comment."

It should also be noted that Wolf, in disgust, resigned from his job five days after the insurrection. This could have a bearing on his personal responsibility in the text-wipeout scheme. Still, his refusal to comment raises questions about his activities leading up to the insurrection.  

Wait for it ...

This artwork.. 😏 pic.twitter.com/K7kUMYSpDr

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) July 28, 2022

We'll defeat the "pedaphiles and satanists" so we can "people the stars." A reasoned, Alex Jones discourse.

I think his trial and the prospect of imminent financial ruin is getting to Alex. Because, this is just, well, i don’t know what to say … pic.twitter.com/nWfawzgAYj

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) July 29, 2022