Citizen Cartwright

Sky won't fall: Senate passes, Biden to sign debt limit bill

The Senate vote Thursday night was 63-36 on the bipartisan legislation suspending the debt limit and imposing new spending caps, sending it to President Biden for his signature and ending the possibility of a government default.

 

As in the House, Democrats provided the most votes for passage, with 44 of them and two independents joining 17 Republicans in support; 31 Republicans, four Democrats and one independent voted no.

 

Biden is to address the nation at 7 p.m. Eastern time Friday.

 

The Senate vote came after an afternoon of closed-door talks to resolve a last-minute flareup over Pentagon funding among Republicans who said the debt-limit package severely underfunded the military. Senate leaders resolved the dispute with a formal statement that the debt-limit agreement “does nothing to limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds to ensure our military capabilities.”

 

Biden had refused for months to engage with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy but finally did so after the California Republican managed in April to pass a GOP fiscal plan, spurring negotiations with the White House that produced the compromise.

 

McCarthy defied expectations and even earned grudging respect from White House officials while defusing the debt limit time bomb he planted by insisting on concessions in return for raising the nation’s borrowing limit, says an analysis by long-time New York Times reporter Carl Hulse.

 

The bar was low for McCarthy, known more for politicking and fundraising than for policymaking, after he struggled to win his post in the first place as House Republicans took control in January, the Times says.

 

In the end, he delivered an agreement that met his goal of cutting spending from current levels. But he managed to do so only with significant help from Democrats, who rescued him on a key procedural vote and then provided the support needed for passage. McCarthy exceeded his goal of winning the support of the majority of his members with 149 backing it, but more Democrats — 165 of them — voted for the bill than members of his own party, an outcome that will fuel GOP criticism that he cut a deal that sold out his own people, the Times says.

 

That's not the way powerful speakers of the past have typically accomplished their goals, says the Times.

 

But McCarthy "has been uncommonly willing to endure political pain and even humiliation — a trait that was on ample display during his 15-round fight for the speakership in January — while focusing on extracting a few marquee concessions from Mr. Biden that could allow him to claim victory and avert a default he plainly wanted to avoid, even if many of his members did not,” says the Times.

 

His allies gave him credit for taking on the White House and Senate Democrats and emerging with a positive result when most Democrats were expecting him to fail. White House officials and congressional Democrats had privately predicted that McCarthy would be unable to corral his extraordinarily fractious troops, and would therefore have no leverage in fiscal talks, allowing them to force through an increase in the debt ceiling with few, if any, concessions to Republicans, according to the Times.

 

McCarthy’s achievement still may come at a cost, the Times says. Far-right conservative Republicans remain outraged at the agreement he struck with Biden, saying it fell woefully short of what he promised and what Republicans committed to as they pursued the majority last year.

Human rights issues of Pentagon’s use of surrogate forces

U.S. Special Operations forces aren't required to vet for past human rights violations by the foreign troops they arm and train as surrogates, says The New York Times, citing documents it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

And a similar gap exists in another Pentagon surrogate force program for so-called irregular warfare, according to the documents. That program is aimed at disrupting nation-state rivals using operations that fall short of full armed conflict — including sabotage, hacking and information campaigns like propaganda or clandestine efforts to shape morale.

"Proxy forces are an increasingly important part of American foreign policy," the Times says. "Over the past decade, the United States has increasingly relied on supporting or deputizing local partner forces in places like Niger and Somalia, moving away from deploying large numbers of American ground troops as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The disclosures show a need for tighter rules on proxy forces, says Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif. “We need to make sure that we are not training abusive units to become even more lethal and fueling the conflict and violence that we’re aiming to solve,” she says. “And that starts with universal human rights vetting.”

Last year, Jacobs and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., sponsored an amendment to a defense bill to require human rights vetting of surrogate forces that passed the House but not the Senate. 

Jacobs says she plans to introduce a more comprehensive bill to tighten such rules.

A senior Defense Department official says all members of a proxy force already get extensive screening to ensure that they won't attack or spy on American forces. The official says vetting is sufficient to weed out bad actors.

Lt. Col. Cesar Santiago-Santini, a Pentagon spokesman, says in a statement to the Times that the department has found “no verifiable gross violations of human rights” by participants of either proxy force program.

Biden's visit to Ukraine, duel with Putin in speeches

The president’s surprise 23-hour visit to Ukraine on Monday was the first time in modern history that a U.S. leader visited a war zone outside the control of the U.S. military — a feat the White House said carried some risk even though Moscow was given a heads-up, The Associated Press reports.

 

Biden’ appearance in Kyiv’s presidential palace on Monday morning was intended first as a morale boost for Ukrainians during a winter of power outages and a war of attrition, says The New York Times.

And the visit was the first of several direct challenges on this trip to Russian President Putin, who a year ago this week believed the Ukrainian capital would become Russian-controlled territory again in a matter of days, moving Putin closer to his ambition of restoring the empire of Peter the Great.

 

“Putin’s war of conquest is failing,” Biden said from the palace, with his presence there, alongside President Zelensky, intended to symbolize Russia’s failure to take a capital that today brims with life, its restaurants overflowing as warning sirens blare. 

“One year later,” Biden said, “Kyiv stands. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands.”

 

The war in Ukraine is about power and the principle of territorial sovereignty, and whether the Western-designed global order that Americans thought would last for decades will survive new challenges from Russia and China, says the Times.

 

In fact, as Biden arrived in Kyiv, China’s most senior foreign policy official, Wang Yi, arrived in Moscow. American officials say Wang and other Chinese officials want to help Putin confront what they see as an arrogant, hypocritical and declining United States. But China says the relationship has its limits — to the point that President Xi publicly warned Russia against using nuclear weapons.

On Tuesday, Putin and Biden both are delivering speeches vowing to stick with the war until the other retreats. Putin has given his, marking the first anniversary of his invasion that's already led to 200,000 Russian casualties, by British and American estimates, and as many as 60,000 Russians killed.

 

Besides the promise to continue the war and warnings to the West of a global confrontation, Putin sought in his speech to justify the war, saying it was forced on Russia and that he understood the pain of the families of those who'd fallen in battle.

 

The West and would-be NATO member Ukraine reject that narrative and say NATO expansion eastwards, with Finland and Sweden also applying to join, is no justification for what they say is an imperial-style land grab doomed to failure, Reuters says.

 

Putin said: "The people of Ukraine have become the hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western overlords, who have effectively occupied this country in the political, military and economic sense.

 

"They intend to transform a local conflict into a phase of global confrontation. This is exactly how we understand it all and we will react accordingly, because in this case we are talking about the existence of our country.”

 

Putin also said Russia would suspend its participation in the so-called New START Treaty, which was signed by Russia and the United States in 2010. The treaty caps the number of long-range nuclear warheads they can deploy and limits the use of missiles that can carry atomic weapons.

Zelensky’s ‘Dear Americans!’ speech before Congress

I’m not finding much analysis of the Ukraine president’s speech this morning, except this, from The Associated Press, which leads: 

 

"Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dramatic visit to Washington was a moment for the White House to demonstrate to Russia’s Vladimir Putin that the United States would sustain its commitment to the war for, as President Joe Biden put it, 'as long as it takes.’

 

"It also provided the Ukrainian president, dressed in military green, the opportunity in the grand setting of the U.S. Capitol to thank Congress for the billions of dollars that are sustaining his country in the fight.

"'As long as it takes' is powerful rhetoric, but it now collides with a formidable question: How much more patience will a narrowly divided Congress — and the American public — have for a war with no clear end that is battering the global economy?”

 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who's vying to be the next House speaker when Republicans take over in two weeks, has said his party won’t write a “blank check” for Ukraine once it’s in charge.

So I find the tone of Fox News’ article on Zelensky’s speech to be interesting. It’s written by Haris Alic, a politics reporter who "writes extensively for Fox News Digital and FOX Business about the U.S. House of Representatives, its leadership, and the various ideological factions existing among Republicans and Democrats,” according to his Fox News bio. He covered Biden and the 2020 campaign for Breitbart News, his bio says.

 

The beginning of Alic’s article:

 

"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a direct appeal to Republican critics during his Wednesday address to a joint meeting of Congress, telling lawmakers that no country was safe in the face of Russian aggression.

 

"In a speech that won several standing ovations from both sides of the aisle, Zelenskyy predicted the war will hit a turning point next year just as Republicans are set to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"'The struggle will define in what world our children and grandchildren will live,' said Zelenskyy. 'This battle cannot be frozen or postponed, it cannot be ignored hoping that [an] ocean or something else will provide protection.’

"The Ukrainian president said the world is 'too interconnected and interdependent' for the U.S. to 'stand aside and at the same time feel safe when such a battle continues.’

 

"'Your money is not charity,' he said. 'It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.’"

 

Alic says farther down in his article:

 

"Some Republican lawmakers, specifically in the House, have criticized sending more money to Ukraine. They've argued that sending more aid without proper accountability metrics in place or a plan for ending the war is improper.

 

"'I will oppose giving more money to Ukraine while our own southern border remains open to an invasion led by drug cartels,' said Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill.

 

"Zelensky during Wednesday's address challenged GOP lawmakers to think broader in their view of the world," Alic writes.

 

To think broader. 

 

Seems to me Zelensky has reason to believe the 10 hours he spent in the United States was worth his time.

 

Here is the video of Zelensky’s speech, from AP.

 

And here is the text of the speech, from the website of the president of Ukraine.

New York Times’ editorial series on violent extremism in U.S.

On Nov. 3, the Times began a series of editorials on the danger of extremist violence and possible solutions. 

 

“Political violence is as old as the nation itself; right-wing frustrations with democratic outcomes have birthed militia movements throughout American history. Most notably, the Ku Klux Klan has spent over a century and a half, from Reconstruction to the present day, terrorizing Black Americans and others in service of political ends,” the initial editorial says.

 

"There are four interrelated trends that the country needs to address, the impunity of organized paramilitary groups, the presence of extremists in law enforcement and the military, the global spread of extremist ideas and the growing number of GOP politicians who are using the threat of political violence not just to intimidate their opponents on the left but also to wrest control of the party from those Republicans who are committed to democratic norms,” the editorial says.

"Over the coming weeks, relying on extensive reporting and deep analysis, this series plans to explore solutions, such as identifying members of violent paramilitary groups who may work in law enforcement or the military, stemming the money and technology that fuel these movements and describing how the Republican Party can fight its worst, violent fringes,” the editorial says.

 

"There is no federal anti-paramilitary law, though Congress should consider one," the first editorial says. "States, however, do have legal instruments to deal with these extremist groups, even if they rarely show the will to use them. When they do, these laws are effective.”

 

The second editorial, published Nov. 13, says: "One of the most troubling facts about adherents of extremist movements is that veterans, active-duty military personnel and members of law enforcement are overrepresented. One estimate, published in The Times in 2020, found that at least 25 percent of members of extremist paramilitary groups have a military background.

"Of the more than 900 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attacks, 135 had military or law enforcement backgrounds.

"For decades, police departments, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs have known about the problem, yet they have made only halting progress in rooting out extremists in the ranks.

 

"Jan. 6 changed that. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was so alarmed by the events of that day that he ordered all military commands to reinforce existing regulations prohibiting extremist activity and to query service members about their views on the extent of the problem.

 

"But those reforms were more easily ordered than executed. A department inspector general report released this year found that the Pentagon’s sprawling bureaucracy was unable to identify the scope of the problem across the services because it used numerous reporting systems that were not interconnected. Commanders often didn’t have a clear understanding of what was prohibited. As a result, the department 'cannot fully implement policy and procedures to address extremist activity without clarifying the definitions of ‘extremism,’ ‘extremist,’ ‘active advocacy’ and ‘active participation,’ the report concluded.

 

"Experts in the field recommend some basic steps the military should take that could make a difference. Better training, counseling and discussion of the true nature of extremism are vital and must start long before service members retire and need to continue after they do. Better staff training and better funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs are also critical to meeting this challenge, so that members who are struggling can be coaxed down a different path,” the second editorial says.

 

"At least 24 current and former police officers have been charged with crimes in relation to the Jan. 6 attacks, and dozens of others have been identified as part of the crowd at the Capitol,” the editorial says.

 

"Coordinating the efforts of the nation’s roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies has been notoriously difficult. Federal standards or even guidelines about how to deal with extremism — in recruiting officers, disciplining existing ones or even sharing information — would go a long way toward harmonizing law enforcement’s response. But carrying out such changes would require both local attention to detail and the political will to do so. It would also require staffing law enforcement with people committed to the rule of law, rather than rule by force."

Cyber surprises in the first months of war in Ukraine

"The war is the first full-scale battle in which traditional and cyberweapons have been used side by side, and the race is on to explore the never-before-seen dynamic between the two,” says The New York Times. "So far, very little of that dynamic has developed as expected.”

 

Russia conducted more cyberattacks than was realized at the time to bolster its invasion, but more than two-thirds of them failed, paralleling its poor performance on the physical battlefield, according to a report published Wednesday by Microsoft.

 

But the report suggests that the government of Russian President Putin was succeeding more than many expected with its disinformation campaign to establish a narrative of the war favorable to Russia, including making the case that the United States was secretly producing biological weapons inside Ukraine.

 

The report indicates that Ukraine was well prepared to fend off cyberattacks, after enduring them for years. That at least partly was because of a well-established system of warnings from private-sector companies and preparations that included moving much of Ukraine’s most important systems to the cloud, onto servers outside Ukraine, reports the Times.

 

The report offers five conclusions from the war so far:

 

— Defense against a military invasion now requires most countries to disburse and distribute digital operations and data assets across borders and into other countries

 

— Recent advances in cyber threat intelligence and end-point protection have helped Ukraine to withstand a high percentage of destructive Russian cyberattacks

 

— As a coalition of countries has come together to defend Ukraine, Russian intelligence agencies have increased network penetration and espionage activities targeting allied governments outside Ukraine

 

— Russian agencies are conducting global cyber-influence operations to support their war efforts

 

— A coordinated and comprehensive strategy to strengthen defenses against the full range of cyber destructive, espionage, and influence operations is needed

Analysis: Putin shouldn’t be offered a face-saving off-ramp on Ukraine

"Although saying so is considered undiplomatic, the American administration clearly knows that the defeat, sidelining, or removal of Putin is the only outcome that offers any long-term stability in Ukraine and the rest of Europe,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic.

 

“Putin cannot remain in power,” President Biden said in March. In April, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he hoped “to see Russia weakened to the degree it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” 

 

Both of these statements were treated as gaffes or policy mistakes, Applebaum says. 

 

But "In truth, they were half-articulated acknowledgments of an ugly reality that no one wants to confront: Any cease-fire that allows Putin to experience any kind of victory will be inherently unstable, because it will encourage him to try again.

 

"I understand those who fear that, confronted with an impending loss, Putin will seek to use chemical or nuclear weapons; I worried the same at the start of the war,” Applebaum says.

 

"But the retreats from Kyiv and Kharkiv indicate that Putin is not irrational after all. He understands perfectly well that NATO is a defensive alliance, because he has accepted the Swedish and Finnish applications without quibbling. His generals make calculations and weigh costs. They were perfectly capable of understanding that the price of Russia’s early advances was too high. The price of using tactical nuclear weapons would be far higher: They would achieve no military impact but would destroy all of Russia’s remaining relationships with India, China, and the rest of the world. There is no indication right now that the nuclear threats so frequently mentioned by Russian propagandists, going back many years, are real.

 

"Military loss could create a real opening for national self-examination or for a major change, as it so often has done in Russia’s past,” says Applebaum.

 

"Only failure can persuade the Russians themselves to question the sense and purpose of a colonial ideology that has repeatedly impoverished and ruined their own economy and society, as well as those of their neighbors, for decades. Yet another frozen conflict, yet another temporary holding pattern, yet another face-saving compromise will not end the pattern of Russian aggression or bring permanent peace.”

U.N., West bear down on Russia (whose forces are 'surprisingly stoppable')

The U.N. General Assembly on Thursday voted 140 to 5, with 38 abstentions, for a resolution drafted by Ukraine and its allies demanding the protection of civilians, medical personnel, aid workers, journalists, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. It also demands an end to the siege of cities, especially Mariupol.

 

In Brussels, the three NATO, G7 and EU summits Thursday showcased unity against Russia, says Reuters.

 

NATO promised Ukraine new military support and assigned more troops to the alliance's eastern flank, while Britain and the United States stepped up sanctions on Moscow.

NATO leaders agreed to help Ukraine protect itself against any chemical, biological or nuclear attacks, and a U.S. official said allies are working to provide Ukraine with anti-ship missiles.

 

President Biden said at the summits that the United States will admit up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and provide $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to countries affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 

Biden and EU leaders have announced on Friday a new partnership to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian energy, the start of a years-long initiative to further isolate Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

 

Meanwhile, after two decades of modernization and professionalization, Russia's forces continue to show they’re ill-prepared, poorly coordinated and "surprisingly stoppable," says The Associated Press.

Robert Gates, former CIA director and defense secretary, says Russian President Putin “has got to be stunningly disappointed” in his military’s performance.

 

Some Russian public figures have condemned the invasion of Ukraine and left their posts at state-run institutions and companies, which could signal divisions over the war in Russia’s official ranks, says AP. So far, there's no indication that the resignations have reached into Putin’s inner circle.

Biden, Western allies meeting for 3 summits on Ukraine

An emergency NATO summit, gathering of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, and summit of the 27 members of the European Union are being held Thursday in Brussels.

 

Ukrainian President Zelensky, who's expected to address the NATO summit by video, says he wants the alliance to “declare that it will fully assist Ukraine to win this war” by supplying any weapons necessary.

 

President Biden is expected to detail plans for new sanctions against Russia and humanitarian assistance for the region.

 

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a formal determination that Russian troops have committed war crimes in Ukraine.

 

Zelensky is calling on people worldwide to gather in public Thursday to show their support for Ukraine as it marks one month since the Russian invasion.

Poor Ukraine, so far from God and so close to Russia

What we humans do to each other. What it can be like for a country trying to live next to a stronger power. 

 

What’s happening in Ukraine reminds me of the quote I first heard long ago when I was on a congressional visit to Mexico:

 

“Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” After losing the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, Mexico ceded to the United States land that is now Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah.

 

So I’ll echo a tweet from leaders of the European Union: “In these dark hours, our thoughts are with Ukraine and the innocent women, men and children as they face this unprovoked attack and fear for their lives.”

 

After weeks of denying plans to invade, Russian President Putin justified Thursday’s military attack on Ukraine as needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine — a false claim the United States had predicted he would make as a pretext for an invasion.

 

Cyberattacks Wednesday on Ukraine's defense and foreign ministries, the Council of Ministers and Privatbank, the country’s largest commercial bank, were blamed by the United States and Britain on Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

 

Here is live coverage of the invasion, without a paywall, from BBC News.

 

EU officials on Wednesday imposed sanctions on some of Russia's highest ranking officials, the top Russian military leadership, senior bank executives, a news anchor, the head of a global television network and a Russian businessman with links to a mercenary group. 

 

The nearly 600-page list of penalties — including travel bans and asset freezes — was a response to the recognition on Monday of the so-called republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and came with a promise of more sanctions as necessary.

 

President Biden stepped up sanctions as well, a day after blocking two large Russian financial institutions from Western finance and limiting Russia’s access to debt markets. He said the new measure was aimed at a subsidiary of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, which built the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

 

Russia and Ukraine together account for less than 2 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, but their conflict still raises risks for the global economy, says The Associated Press.

 

There’s concern in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that they could be Russia's next target, says a separate AP article. They were ruled by Moscow for most of the past 200 years, first by the Russian Empire, then for the half-century after World War II by the Soviet Union. They became independent again with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and joined NATO in 2004.

 

What do the Russian people think about the invasion?

 

“Many Russians still subscribe to the Kremlin narrative of a Russia forced to fight back against Western powers determined to destroy it,” says Anton Troianovski, Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times. Many older Russians still are smarting from the poverty that followed the fall of the Soviet Union and the lost prestige that accompanied it, he says.

"But for others, especially younger people, a war and the possibility of another downward spiral in relations with the West could mean losing what freedom and opportunity they feel remains in Russia,” Troianovski says.