Tag Archive: Ukraine

In Ukraine, these three little letters mean a lot

Ukraine support rally

While reading this article from the World Bank regarding emerging markets, this sentence caused a major pause:

The invasion of the Ukraine has triggered an initial appreciation of the U.S. dollar against EM currencies ….

The Ukraine”? Haven’t we read and heard repeatedly that we shouldn’t use “the” because that feeds into the Soviet-era position that Ukraine is Russia’s territory, not its own nation? Hopefully the inclusion of “the” in the article was an oversight, and indeed there is a mention of “the war in Ukraine” earlier in the article. But often, articles from large organizations pass through more than one writer or editor, so it’s not clear that everyone at the World Bank is on the same page.

This is something to keep an eye on, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine involves not just military weapons, but weapons of words and propaganda as well.

Photo by Robert T Bell, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/DCaHhz

Anatomy of a Republican conspiracy theory

The Republicans’ positive plan

Nearly everyone knows that inflation is a problem, and that there are various proposals to solve it. However, some Republicans this year have been spouting a conspiracy theory: that the U.S. Federal Reserve is waiting until after the November 2022 midterm elections to raise interest rates, in order to help President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. While this is just the latest in a long line of right wing conspiracy theories about the Fed, this particularly silly theory can be easily debunked a few steps:

–The current Federal Reserve Board Chairman is Republican Jerome Powell, who was appointed by Donald Trump. This fact alone should be enough to destroy the conspiracy theory. Moreover, of the seven Governors on the Fed’s board, three are Republican, which is normal during a Democratic administration. And in addition to Powell, these other Republicans were also appointed by Donald Trump. Given that the Fed Board’s votes to raise interest rates this year typically have been unanimous, one would have to believe the truly ludicrous theory that these Trump appointees are voting to help Biden and the Democrats.

–As indicated above, the Fed has been raising interest rates all year long. The Federal Funds Benchmark rate, which started at .25 percent early this year is now 3-3.25 percent, enough to sharply raise mortgage, auto loan and other rates. So if the plan was to delay rate increases until after the election, the Fed has failed miserably.

Donald Trump impeached for third time

Next stop for Donald Trump?

Those who followed last Tuesday’s fourth hearing held by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol were treated to a stunning play-by-play of Donald Trump‘s criminal behavior in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The Committee impeached Trump’s character in every way.

Most devastating to Trump were the recordings of various telephone calls he, often accompanied by others such as Rudolph Giuliani, made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Arizona Speaker of the House Russell Bowers, pleading with them to entertain false claims of voter fraud, replace electors for Joe Biden with fake electors for Donald Trump, or “find votes” for Trump, all with the intent of overturning Biden’s election victories over Trump in those states. On such calls, Trump also made threats to these officials, such as threats of prosecution, for failing to follow through on Trump’s wishes.

While Raffensperger, Bowers and other state officials stood up to Trump, these calls by Trump were a big mistake, as he failed to insulate himself from criminal liability the way a Mafia don usually does, by letting others do his dirty work. As a result, Donald Trump faces a criminal investigation in Georgia, and members of the January 6 Committee say they have enough evidence to refer a criminal indictment against Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice. At minimum, Trump’s calls to Raffensperger and Bowers were as bad as his July 2019 phone call to Ukraine‘s President Vlodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump demanded that Zelensky investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter to help Trump in his 2020 election efforts, in return for the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine so it could defend itself against Russia. That call to Zelensky led to Trump’s first impeachment.

President Biden goes on the offensive against Putin

President Biden: tough on Russia

It has been approximately 49 days since Russia attacked Ukraine at the direction of Vladimir Putin. In recent days, President Joe Biden has changed his approach to the invasion. Specifically, President Biden’s is taking a more aggressive tack towards Russia. Here are three things that Biden is doing and saying that show his new course of action:

Arnold Schwarzenegger releases stunning video for Russian citizens and soldiers

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Yesterday, Arnold Schwarzenegger took to his social media to release a striking 9-minute video intended for the people of Russia, and the soldiers of the Russian armed forces. The video can be viewed here on Arnold’s Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1504426844199669762

The Atlantic published the transcript of the video here. The premise of Schwarzenegger’s video is that the Russian people are not being told the truth about Vladimir Putin‘s war on Ukraine.

The “expensive gas is the price of freedom” meme is b.s.

Relevant sign once more

Vladimir Putin‘s Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused oil prices to skyrocket. That has in turn caused gasoline prices at the pump to increase sharply. This was entirely predictable. We are having yet another war over oil. Apparently the world has learned little since both Gulf Wars. Indeed, even Japan’s attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor over 80 years ago was largely over oil.

But some folks are saying that “expensive gas is the price of freedom.” This meme can be seen all over social media. For example:

Deploy the Liberal Shock Doctrine against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Solar power, a better alternative to fascist Russian gas

The Shock Doctrine is the idea that, when disasters or wars strike, conservatives try to use the events to push their existing agenda, such as privatization of important government functions, in response. Republicans have foisted such policies in places as far-flung as Iraq and New Orleans. We have argued that, in turn, Democrats should institute their policies, i.e. a Liberal Shock Doctrine, when they are in power and disasters and wars occur. That might include, for example, stronger gun safety laws after the shock of a mass shooting, or the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, including government stimulus payments and other federal aid, which Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden successfully brought about in 2021 after Donald Trump‘s inaction in the face of the COVID pandemic plunged the U.S. into a recession in 2020.

Russia‘s shocking and tragic invasion of Ukraine presents another opportunity for the United States, and countries around the world, to create a liberal version of the Shock Doctrine. First, countries can promote the idea of democracy (which is well-represented by Ukraine) instead of fascist dictatorship, exemplified by Russia and Vladimir Putin. But in addition, there is one specific policy that the U.S. and the world should be pushing right now:

Giuliani raided, internet howls with laughter

Apparently, mockery of Rudolph Giuliani is not new

Federal agents raided former Donald Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani‘s home and office on Wednesday, executing a search warrant and seizing electronic devices. The raid was reportedly in connection with a criminal investigation into Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine (trying to generate false disparaging information on Joe Biden‘s son Hunter) on behalf of Trump’s presidential campaigns. But just as noteworthy as the news itself regarding the Giuliani raid was the explosion of mockery that has taken place on social media as a result. Apparently, the pent-up demand to express schadenfreude and karma regarding Giuliani is massive. Many of these social media reactions recall Giuliani “highlights,” including his melting face, his disastrous blunder renting the parking lot of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Company instead of the Four Seasons Hotel for a press conference (or worse, possibly picking such an irrelevant and pathetic-looking backdrop, located between a sex shop and a crematorium, on purpose), his being caught on film with his pants down in a hotel room with a young woman in the most recent Borat movie, and more. Follow us after the jump for some of the best Twitter reactions, including a couple of our own:

Republicans run distraction playbook on Trump Georgia phone call

Donald Trump busted acting like a Mob boss on the phone

One of the go-to tactics in the Republican playbook is distraction. In particular, when Republicans are caught doing something wrong, they try to distract the media and the public by focusing not on the substance of their wrongdoing, but on who leaked the story of the wrongdoing. We saw that, for example, in 1997, when Republican U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was caught on an intercepted cell phone call coordinating his response to ethics charges with Republican House leaders Richard Armey, John Boehner and others, in violation of Gingrich’s ethics case settlement. The Republican distraction by focusing on the interception of the call rather than improper call itself, was a success in that instance.

On Sunday, something similar happened with Donald Trump. The Washington Post released the recording of a recent telephone call from Trump to Georgia‘s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, on which Trump begs, cajoles and even threatens Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” to change the certified result of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

On impeachment and governing, Democrats show they can walk and chew gum

Impeachment message in timely Christmas colors

By now, many people realize that the impeachment of Donald Trump involves a public relations war. On one side, we have Trump and the Republicans claiming that the Democrats are “obsessed with impeaching” Trump, to the exclusion of all else. So what have the Democrats done effectively to counter that charge? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

First, House Democrats unveiled their Articles of Impeachment against Trump while simultaneously announcing that they had reached an agreement with Trump on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade. This is a reminder by Democrats (and they are sure to remind us further) that, not only can they govern and impeach Trump at the same time, they have passed nearly 400 bills, all of which are sitting idly on Mitch McConnell‘s U.S. Senate desk.