2.27.22: There's No Going Back from Democracy for Ukrainians

Should the U.S. and Europe have done more to help Ukraine defend themselves before the Putin Regime unlawfully invaded this sovereign country? The answer is, of course, but even amongst Ukrainians along with the rest of the world, it seemed unfathomable that Putin would actually go through with it. One day you're a computer programmer and the next you have a Kalishnikov in your hand is pretty incredible to even get your head around. Even for Putin.

The Russian leader has indeed been on his heels, surprised the unified response of NATO, pressure at the United Nations with 88 countries standing in solidarity against Russian action as the UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield described, and most importantly and not least of which is the resistence of the Ukrainian Army and its civilians. For twenty years, Ukrainians have decided they want democracy for their country and in the end no matter when that comes, they're not going back.

The unfortunate reality of now is that despite the announcement of Russian and Ukrainian delegations meeting tomorrow, those talks which Mr. Todd mislabeled as peace talks, will go no where. Putin, because of his isolation that fmr. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul described, has to go all-in at this point and send troops in for street-to-street fighting in urban centers. Anything less than the goal of folding Ukraine back into a 'soviet' empire is a failure for Putin.

There was debate on sanctions between all the guests feature on the program today, but they've seemed to all miss the point, which is that it's the threat of sanctions to deter malign action. Now, bring on the full sanctions for what they're designed to do, which is punish the Putin regime. As a side note: there has been a lot of talk about SWIFT and kicking Russian banks out of it. SWIFT is a European banking system that allow major banks to communicate and manage transactions worldwide. So kicking out Russian banks from this system along with U.S. banks freezing Russian assets and you're pretty much out of the international banking system.

In the last panel segment, the conversation became a bit testy discussing some in the Republican party being apologists for Putin, such as the fmr. president and notably fmr. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who has presidential aspirations. The American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka felt that she was being ganged up on in her defense of Pompeo's comments, in which he said that he had a lot of respect for Vladimir Putin the very day before the invasion. Ms. Pletka said that his comments shouldn't be taken serious because she knows that Mr. Pompeo doesn't really believe that. She dismissed Andrea Mitchell's rebuttal that Mr. Pompeo's comments are being played on Russian state television and that's dangerous, which it is. Also, Ms. Pletka said she needed to be heard because she was the only Republican on the panel, which again Ms. Mitchell answered that she was neither Republican or Democrat, but a journalism. Ms. Pletka once again poo-poo'ed. 

The problem is Mr. Pompeo has made these statements several times and his words matter. So not to pile on her, but Ms. Pletka once again needs to take the shoe that was once up her butt about being ganged up on and remove it from her mouth. Frankly, there is no space in this column for Putin apologists neither the defense of them.

Just to give you some context on this, some in the news media (or whatever) ask why shouldn't we see Putin's point of view that he doesn't want NATO on his border. Just call bullshit on that. NATO was already on his border - Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia... and Poland (Kalingrad is a carve out part of Russia). This column has many friends in Poland who we communicate with frequently and without going into too much depth, Poles are worried. If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, what makes them think they're not Putin's next direct target for cyber and all the rest?

The isolation of Putin has only begun.

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On another note, President couldn't have made a better choice for his Supreme Court nomination in Judge Kentanji Brown-Jackson. Already on the DC Circuit Court, once a public defender, impeccable credentials, endorsement from the Fraternal Order of Police, not a legislator from the bench. And yes, an African-American woman, which plays into this column's theory that it will be black women who come over time to save our nation domestically. Just another thought.

Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC News; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Jeremy Bash, fmr. Pentagon Chief of Staff

2.20.22: Playing a Bad Hand from a Bad Deal in a Dangerous Game/ Democrats-Take a lesson from SF's Mayor

It's still difficult to imagine that the world is potentionally going to see the largest land war in Europe since WWII, but here we are on the brink of such an event in 2022. NATO and western allies in Europe have gotten it right in releasing intelligence about the Putin Regime's false flag operations, propaganda videos and other means to create the pretext for an invasion. In an age that illustrates that data and information are a weapon, the way to fight it is with more information from other counter sources. As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken accurately noted, every piece of intelligence that the Biden Administration has released, Putin has followed through on.

There's the notion that Mr. Putin is not a rational actor and that perhaps the isolation of the pandemic some how made him irrational that isn't the case at all. Without trying to get into the man's head, perhaps the isolation of the pandemic put in perspective from his point of view the growing isolation of Russia as countries like Ukraine, once under the thumb of Russia, are looking westward aspriring to become more democratic. Speculation on his lucidity also stemmed from his demand that NATO return to its pre-1997 borders, rolling back NATO membership for 14 countries, including Poland and Czech Republic and Hungary - members in that year. Not. Going. To. Happen. However, use the tactic of asking from the most outlandish concession and anything that follows from it could be a success. Unless...

Unless you use force to try and achieve your goals. As fmr. ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor said, Putin is running out of time to reinstate what he rightly believes is Russian sphere of influence over fmr. Soviet Republics. A 'legacy event' is what NBC's Courtney Kube astutely called it and as we wrote in a previous column, upsetting the world order in the way Russia is threatening could open a Pandora's Box of our countries taking the same initiatives. 

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan explained that the west has played a bad hand as well as it can be played right now, but it should be clear that the west was dealt this hand by Putin and the dangerous game he is playing. As Mr. Todd touched the consequences of sanctions and support for Ukraine with Secretary Blinken, America will be succeptible to higher energy and gasoline costs as well as cyber attacks on our infrastructure. Make no mistake on the latter, if the United States imposes sanctions on Russia, Putin will give support and sanctuary to cyber-terrorism. In other words, all bets are off.

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As for this school board brew haha in San Francisco it has to first be said that Mayor London Breed has our vote. She explained the recalled school board members put political agendas over the imperative issues facing San Francico's schools. To this end, Mayor Breed explained that she is going to appoint people who are not using the school board as a political stepping stone and that those individuals are qualified and motivated to improve conditions.

To the mayor's credit, she has also been vocal about San Francisco's District Attorney for not prosecuting (what we'll call here) quality of life crimes such as shoplifting and petty theft. She plainly spoke in a press conference that the district attorney's office need to be "less tolerant of the bullshit that is destroying our city."

The panel tossed around the idea that this school board recall could be a harbinger for backlash against progressives and Democrats. If that is the case then Democrats should take a lesson from Mayor London Breed. I think we can all acknowledge that stupid political agendas abound on the farther left and the farther right alike. Democrats should turn this around and say that given that, we're choosing competency and citizens' best interests over extreme political ideology like Republicans. Use it as a positive... Just a thought.

Panel: Ashley Parker, The Washington Post; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, Courtney Kube, NBC News; Yamiche Alcindor, PBS Newshour

2.6.22: In The Near Term And The Long Term, Time Is Not On Putin's Side

(Sorry about missing last week, back with a vengeance.)

Despite what Vladimir Putin says about security concerns, Russia in no victim in this diplomatic standoff with NATO when you have over 100,000 troops amassed on the Ukrainian border, on two fronts - the Russian and Belarusian borders. 

Putin's main gripe is that under no circumstances should Ukraine ever join NATO, and NATO's response is that they are not going to negotiate their open-door policy of countries wanting to join. (Wanting it and actually getting in are two completely different things.) The open-door policy is meant a right to a nation maintain its sovereignty and freedom for self-determination. 

The reality is that Ukraine could be twenty years off from even being considered for NATO and by that time, they may not even want to be a member. Finland which shares a very long border with Russia and it is not a NATO member, nor is Sweden for that matter. So it's not only that, it's deeper and you have to take Putin at his word when he spouts rhetoric about Ukraine belonging to Russia. 

But why now?

Putin wants to reconstitute some semblance of the former Soviet Union and that can not be done without Ukraine, it's the keystone. At this moment, the conditions are right for an invasion - it's winter so the ground is hard for tanks and historically as Chuck Todd noted, Putin invades when his country or China is hosting the Olympics (Beijing in 2008; Sochii in 2014) because it's when the world's attention is diverted and since it's an instance where countries should put aside their differences in observance, that's the best moment to go on the offense (think The Tet Offensive in Vietnam). 

But also time is running out on Putin's delusion of having Ukraine back into a 'Soviet' fold. Putin has made it so that he'll be in office until 2036, fourteen years from now. If Russia invades Ukraine, you can bet that at least 10 of years are going to be very bloody. 

The advance of the largest ground force gathered and readied since WWII would not only be rebuke of the world order since that time, you'll see other areas in Europe and the near east also possibly erupt in conflict - renewed fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Serbian nationalist in Bosnia. 

And, of course, a blatant disregard for a nation's sovereignty will embolden other countries to do the same, not the least of which China. Why else would President Xi stand by Putin and give his support on Ukraine. As National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said about the 5,000-word joint statement, Ukraine was not mentioned. 

However, one could conclude that part of the non-written agreement was if Putin wanted to advance into Ukraine, it would have to wait until after the Olympics in Beijing, but that only gives Putin about 3 weeks of hard winter on which to capitalize. As worth noting from Mr. Sullivan was that China will undoubtedly take a hit economically with the planned sanctions, which may be all right in the short term, but China's economy at this moment is fragile, which is real estate industry in utter turmoil. 

It is a thin red line.

Speaking of thin lines, Marc Short walked one in his interview today, namely when asked if Joe Biden was legitimately elected president, the ever-loyal former VP Chief of Staff said that Joe Biden is the "duly-elected president." But never once after Mr. Todd took different tacts, Mr. Short never once said the word legitimate in the context of the conversation.

Mr. Short did put himself on the right side of history by cooperating with the January 6th Committee and siding with his former boss that the vice president does not have the right to decertify state election results. His argument that the committee is not bipartisan doesn't hold water even if you don't agree the Speaker Pelosi's right to veto the minorities choices, especially since one of those choices was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) who is actually a person of interest in the investigation.  And that bit about being proud to serve in the Trump Administration with negligible results is a historical stain that doesn't wash out. 

And for the record, we have to include the clip of fmr. Vice President Mike Pence at the Federalist Society rebuking his old boss.

 

Panel: Jeh Johnson, fmr. Secretary of Homeland Security; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report; Matthew Continetti, American Enterprise Institute; Helene Cooper, The New York Times