Hill was asked to compare Trump's towards Russia with the Biden efforts. While she did say there "was an awful lot" done under Trump, she said
I think there's just the one point that sums everything up... that President Trump at a pretty critical period, withheld military assistance to Ukraine that was desperate for it at that particular junction, basically to get Volodymyr Zelenskyy to do him a personal favor.
That sent a message to Vladimir Putin that "Ukraine is a plaything for him" and for the US, too, and she said that was "ultimately a sign of weakness."
It’s our political divisions, our parties are infighting, which was on full display there, that Putin I think is quite shocked now that we've got some collective action together.
Stavridis talked about the possibility of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which President Zelenskyy wants and the West is resisting. The admiral knows more about this than most people; he implemented one over Libya. And it's not a good idea in this instance.
It's quite obvious that if we put US (and) NATO jets in the air enforcing a no-fly zone, they'll be going nose to nose with Russian fighter aircraft. Down that path, the potential for miscalculation and a war between NATO and Russia and a war between Russia and the United States rises significantly.
The better alternative is to help Ukraine to "create a no-fly zone" by getting them the Russian-made jets they need, and "more stingers, more missiles that can go higher than stingers." He also said that our allies have enough Russian jets to give Zelenskyy "a chance at air superiority." NATO collectively outnumbers Russia five-to-one in combat aircraft, and four-to-one, so Putin is "not going to cross a NATO border in anger," he said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Hoping Donald Trump Still Likes Him) recently suggested that the world doesn't need love, sweet love - it needs someone in Russia to assassinate Putin. Hill says
We have to be extraordinarily cautious about how we talk about this conflict. We need to stop the war in Ukraine, but we have to be very careful about talking about war with Russia, regime change, about these other things because then he absolutely will double down further.
Seems that's the last thing we'd want, right?
Switching gears, I dropped in on the group chat on Fox News Sunday, hosted by Shannon Bream. On the panel: Jonathan Swan of Axios; Catherine Lucey of The Wall Street Journal; Mo Elleithee from Georgetown University; and Katie Pavlich of "Town Hall."
Bream asked who President Biden was talking to with his State of the Union address. Swan thought it was "independent voters who have abandoned him in numbers that no one could have believed at the start of his presidency," and said Biden's trying to find "opportunities to not just contrast himself with Republicans, but to contrast himself with the left flank of his own party." Swan's assessment is spot on, I think.
Crime is one of the opportunities - Biden's got to counter the "defund the police" nonsense, which is the gift that keeps on giving for the Rs. Immigration was an unexpected topic, one that Bream said drew a "huge bipartisan response" but she wondered if anything was going to happen on it.
Pavlich acknowledged Biden's approval Bump after the SOTU, and that he's doing well on Ukraine, but said there's an issue of sustainability with the numbers. That requires policy change, which may or may not happen. She pointed to the midterms as a driver of his message.
The midterms pose another problem for the Dems, according to new ABC News/Washington Post poll which Bream referenced. The poll asked
would you rather see the next Congress controlled by the Republicans to act as a check on Biden, or controlled by the Democrats to support Biden's agenda. And Republicans lead that by ten points.
Elleithee said that kind of polling "usually foreshadows a 'big wave election' in a midterm," but he said the Dems still had a chance to "mitigate some of the expected losses." Biden's SOTU was a big part of that; he suggested he was reminding voters why they voted for him - or, for the Biden that campaigned closer to the middle than many of his opponents. And, he added,
I think it was him sort of reorienting the public perception of the Democratic Party, which, for many months now has been defined by a fight between the left and Joe Manchin, you know, and Kyrsten Sinema over the Build Back Better, right? That was what was defining the Democrat Party in the eyes of many voters. And I think Biden said, let me remind you what you got when you voted for me.
It's not just the Dems who are having issues ahead of the midterms. Sen. Rick Scott (R- Florida Man) is pushing his own 31-page agenda which includes naming the (completed) border wall after Donald Trump, sunsetting all legislation after five years, stopping "left-wing efforts to rig elections" (I assume right-wing efforts in that regard are still fine), requiring income tax from all Americans, including those living miles below the ridiculous federal poverty level, and more.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Nobody Respects Me Anymore) isn't happy about that, saying
And let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda. We will not have, as part of our agenda, a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda.
Bream wondered if the Rs can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; Lucey thinks they can.
-- the real thing here is the context, right, which is, as we just talked about, the fact that Republicans are going into midterms that they feel pretty good about. There's a lot of strong indicators for them. Their candidates are feeling pretty optimistic. And Senator McConnell definitely does not want the distraction of a conversation about taxes and Rick Scott's plan.
We'll have to wait and see how that power struggle works out; it might be fun to watch. For some real extra credit, read Scott's agenda, mull it over, and drop your thoughts in a comment.
See you around campus.
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