February 20, 2023
Afternoon Update:
On Presidents' Day, a President Worthy of the Title. David Rothkopf of the Daily Beast: President "Biden joined a great history of American presidents standing up to Russian aggression, and significantly broke from the shameful actions of his predecessor.... Biden, in going to Kyiv, offered the clearest possible reminder of his stance against Russian aggression from the first moments of his presidency. It illustrated that he did not hesitate to support Ukraine when it was imperiled and that his leadership among our allies worldwide has been one of the signature triumphs of his first term in office.... To Vladimir Putin, it was Biden's way of saying, 'I am here in Kyiv and you are not. You not only did not take Kyiv in days as some predicted, but your attack was rebuffed. Your army suffered a humiliating defeat from which it has not recovered.'...
Biden went to Europe to send Putin a message of American and allied strength. Trump went to grovel before Putin. Biden stood up for American values and our allies. Trump said he trusted Putin more than America's own intelligence and law enforcement services. Biden embodied America's strength. Trump illustrated and represented our greatest weakness. A year after Trump embarrassed the country in Helsinki, he compounded the offense by withholding aid from Ukraine in an attempt to extort [Volodymyr] Zelensky into doing political dirty work against Biden to help Trump's reelection efforts.... [And] Biden's trip sent an important reminder to Beijing just how high a priority Ukraine is for the U.S. and the West and presenting the war in the context of Russia's violations of international law will emphasize to the Chinese that directly supporting Russia's attack and serial war crimes would make China an accessory to those crimes." Firewalled.
Mark Wright of the (right-wing) National Review: "President Biden's secret visit to wartime Kyiv is an example of America in its finest tradition. The New York Times reports that after a "trans-Atlantic flight to Poland, Mr. Biden crossed the border by train, traveling for nearly 10 hours to Kyiv as other American officials have in recent months.' This trip took guts.... Make no mistake, there was risk involved in this trip. Traveling to the capital of a nation fighting a shooting war with a great power, the U.S. had no way to choreograph with exactitude the circumstances of his travel or arrival. Neither the U.S. nor Ukraine has total control of the airspace. Neither the U.S. nor Ukraine could guarantee Biden's security on the ground." Firewalled.
Evan Vucci, et al., of the AP: "President Joe Biden's motorcade slipped out of the White House around 3:30 a.m. Sunday.... The president vanished into the darkness on an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports.... Once Biden was secreted aboard the Air Force jet, the call sign 'SAM060,' for Special Air Mission, was used for the plane instead of the usual 'Air Force One.' It took off from Joint Base Andrews at 4:15 a.m. Eastern time.... After a refueling stop in Germany, Biden's aircraft switched off its transponder for the roughly hour-long flight to Rzeszow, Poland, the airport that has served as the gateway for billions of dollars in Western arms and VIP visitors into Ukraine.... He arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. Monday and was greeted by Ambassador Bridget Brink and entered his motorcade for the drive to Mariinsky Palace.... Over the next five hours, the president made multiple stops around town -- ferried about in a black SUV rather than the presidential limousine -- without any announcement to the Ukrainian public that he was there.... A small group of senior officials at the White House and across U.S. national security agencies set about working in secret for months to make it happen, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday. Biden only gave the final sign-off on Friday."
Peter Beaumont & Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The White House notified the Kremlin of Joe Biden's intention to visit Kyiv hours before he departed for Ukraine, as the details began to emerge of how the US president pulled off his high-profile diplomatic coup. Meticulously planned over several months by a tight circle of key advisers, Biden's visit was described as 'unprecedented in modern times' by his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan on the grounds that it was the first time a US president had visited 'the capital of the country at war where the United States military does not control the critical infrastructure.... We did notify the Russians that President Biden will be traveling to Kyiv, Sullivan said. 'We did so some hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes, and because of the sensitive nature of those communications I won't get into how they responded or what the precise nature of our message was....'"
Oh, My Kevin Has His Very Own January 6 Committee. It's Called TuKKKer Carlson. Mike Allen of Axios: "House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News' Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 riot, McCarthy sources tell me. Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.... Carlson has repeatedly questioned official accounts of 1/6, downplaying the insurrection as 'vandalism.'... The process with Carlson started in early February...." MB: For anyone who thought there was a chance My Kevin might grow into his job -- a job that's one of the most important in the country -- get over it.
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Michael Shear & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden made a secret trip to the besieged capital of Ukraine on Monday, arriving after an hourslong train ride from the border of Poland in a demonstration of his administration's resolve in the face of Russia's yearlong invasion of the country. The visit to Kyiv was conducted covertly because of security concerns, with Mr. Biden departing Washington without notice after he and his wife had a rare dinner out at a restaurant on Saturday night. Mr. Biden had already been publicly scheduled to arrive in Warsaw on Tuesday morning for a two-day visit, and officials had repeatedly denied that there were any other plans they could announce about a trip to Ukraine.... Indeed, the White House on Sunday night issued a public schedule for Monday showing the president still in Washington and leaving in the evening for Warsaw, when in fact he was already half a world away.... Mr. Biden arrived in Ukraine's capital at a pivotal moment of the war, both at home and abroad." CNN's report is here. ~~~
~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here. Related links under heading Ukraine, et. al., linked below.
Jonathan Alter in a Substack essay: "... as he enters hospice at age 98, [President Jimmy Carter] has -- by any standard -- won at life. He is the longest-lived American president, the longest married (77 years, and happily), and -- especially if you look at his whole career -- among the most accomplished and productive figures of our era.... Carter was a hugely underrated president -- a political failure but a substantive, visionary success."
John Hudson of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in earthquake-ravaged Turkey on Sunday, announcing $100 million in disaster assistance and offering unreserved solidarity to a NATO ally with an often-strained relationship with Washington.... The top U.S. diplomat took a helicopter tour over parts of devastated southeastern Turkey with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and thanked U.S. Agency for International Development workers, including search-and-rescue specialists, paramedics, construction riggers and emergency managers who have been helping pull people out of collapsed buildings...."
Choo-Choo Ka-choo. Ian Duncan, et al., of the Washington Post: Norfolk Southern railway “presents itself as a backbone of the nation's economy -- a safe and relatively green way to transport freight. At the same time, labor leaders and federal officials say, it aggressively resists proposed regulation by Washington, opposing new safety standards while searching for loopholes through existing rules.... Three months before one of his railroad's trains derailed and burned in Ohio, Norfolk Southern chief executive Alan Shaw" met with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to lobby against a proposed federal rule requiring trains to have two workers to respond to derailments & other emergencies. "The Trump administration abandoned rail safety rules that were pursued during the Obama era. The Biden administration is trying to revive some of them.... At least 20 Norfolk Southern trains that have derailed since 2015 had chemical releases...." ~~~
~~~ "Trump Returns to the Scene of His Crime." Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer: "The lingering health fears over the Feb. 3 wreck of the Norfolk Southern train carrying cancer-causing chemicals and the ensuing images of a toxic mushroom cloud over East Palestine is a crisis that the Former Guy sees as an opportunity to jump-start his so-far-low-energy bid to return to the White House.... If residents of East Palestine -- a modern news desert of downsized or disappeared news sources, which allows misinformation to fester -- truly knew the reality, a delegation of townsfolk would likely greet Trump with Tiki torches and pitchforks bought from the Fuller's hardware store.... Trump acted specifically to sabotage a nascent government effort to protect citizens from the growing threat posed by derailments of outdated, poorly equipped and undermanned freight trains that were increasingly shipping both highly flammable crude oil from the U.S. fracking boom as well as toxic chemicals like the ones that would derail in East Palestine....
"It's beyond hypocritical for Trump to bring his Harold Hill-huckster shtick to East Palestine when residents are still experiencing headaches and breathing foul air from the kind of catastrophe he didn't lift a finger to stop from the Resolute Desk. But also it's a bit baffling why [President] Biden or his Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg -- who seems to be channeling his inner McKinsey & Co. these days -- haven't gone to Ohio.... The current White House needs to hurry up and remember the folks that Trump forgot." Firewalled. See also commentary in yesterday's Comments thread.
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, [Timothy] Heaphy[, the lead investigator on the January 6 committee,] made the case for why the Justice Department should charge Mr. Trump and his allies with crimes and discussed intelligence failures in the lead-up to Jan. 6.... 'There's evidence that the specific intent to disrupt the joint session extends beyond President Trump. There is a cast of characters that includes [John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark]. I think you could look at [Rudolph W.] Giuliani, and Mark Meadows. I think that the Justice Department has to look very closely at whether there was an agreement or conspiracy.'"
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel of the Washington Post: "There are nearly 47,000 people ... who have been in repayment on their federal student loans for at least 40 years, according to data obtained from the Education Department through a Freedom of Information Act request. About 82 percent of them are in default on their loans, meaning they haven't made a voluntary payment in at least 270 days.... While ... borrowers [manage their debts] represent a sliver of the 43.5 million people with federal student debt, their existence is an indictment of policies meant to help people manage their loans. Years of administrative failures and poorly designed programs have denied many borrowers an off-ramp from a perpetual cycle of debt."
The Pandemic, Ctd. Jennifer Valentine-DeVries & Allie Pitchon of the New York Times: "Deaths in state and federal prisons across America rose nearly 50 percent during the first year of the pandemic, and in six states they more than doubled, according to the first comprehensive data on prison fatalities in the era of Covid-19. The tremendous jump in deaths in 2020 was more than twice the increase in the United States overall, and even exceeded estimates of the percentage increase at nursing homes, among the hardest-hit sectors nationwide. In many states, the data showed, high rates continued in 2021. While there was ample evidence that prisons were Covid hot spots, an examination of the data by The New York Times underscored how quickly the virus rampaged through crowded facilities, and how an aging inmate population, a correctional staffing shortage and ill-equipped medical personnel combined to make prisoners especially vulnerable during the worst public health crisis in a century."
Beyond the Beltway
Colorado. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "A Denver city councilman who is paralyzed from the chest down said he felt like a 'circus monkey' trying to climb onto a stage that was not accessible by wheelchair." Councilman Chris Hinds has been using a wheelchair since 2008. "The episode on Monday has since drawn immense criticism from advocates for people with disabilities and from others who have seen a video that captured what happened. It also underscored the barriers that people with disabilities continue to face, even three decades after Congress passed the Americans With Disabilities Act. Mr. Hinds, 47, who was elected in 2019, said organizers eventually decided to move the candidates to the floor in front of the stage and have the debate there, where he could remain in his wheelchair. He had felt obligated to participate, he said, because of an elections law that says if a candidate skips a debate, matching campaign funds from the city are forfeited."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The Guardian's live updates of developments Monday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here.
Robyn Dixon & Catherine Belton of the Washington Post: "President Vladimir Putin likes to portray himself as a new czar like Peter the Great or Ivan III, the 15th-century grand prince known as the 'gatherer of the Russian lands.' But Putin's year-long war in Ukraine has failed so far to secure the lands he aims to seize, and in Russia, there is fear that he is leading his nation into a dark period of strife and stagnation -- or worse. Some in the elite also say the Russian leader now desperately needs a military victory to ensure his own survival.... Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began with hubris and a zeal to reshape the world order. But even as he suffered repeated military defeats -- diminishing his stature globally and staining him with allegations of atrocities being committed by his troops -- Putin has tightened his authoritarian grip at home, using the war to destroy any opposition and to engineer a closed, paranoid society hostile to liberals, hipsters, LGBTQ people, and, especially, Western-style freedom and democracy."
News Lede
Turkey. AP: "A new 6.4 magnitude earthquake on Monday killed three people and injured more than 200 in parts of Turkey laid waste two weeks ago by a massive quake that killed tens of thousands, authorities said. More buildings collapsed, trapping some people, while scores of injuries were recorded in neighboring Syria too. Monday's earthquake was centered in the town of Defne, in Turkey's Hatay province, one the worst-hit regions in the magnitude 7.8 quake that struck on Feb. 6. It was felt in Syria, Jordan, Cyprus, Israel and as far away as Egypt, and followed by a second, magnitude 5.8 temblor. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said ... search and rescue efforts were underway in three collapsed buildings where six people were believed trapped."
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Reader Comments (11)
The article about the totalitarian darkness covering Russia states that “Putin has tightened his authoritarian grip at home, using the war to destroy any opposition and to engineer a closed, paranoid society hostile to liberals, hipsters, LGBTQ people, and, especially, Western-style freedom and democracy.”
Wow. Sounds like Florida.
For that matter, it sounds like all red states. Good job, GQP. We all know how much you guys love Putin. Imitation IS the sincerest form of flattery.
Oops…they forgot drag queens.
And real history.
And libraries.
And rule of law.
And competence.
And responsibility.
And…
@Akhilleus: You're absolutely right. The main difference -- so far! -- is that American dictators don't shoot the libs. But of course they do make sure their guys have guns.
Happy birthday to all the past and present presidents and also me.
Not often that my birthday falls on President's Day, and most of
them weren't even born on Feb 20th.
Not telling how old I am, but I'm catching up with Jimmy Carter.
Trump is going to be so jealous. Here's a picture of a plaque outside
Ukraine's parliament building on the Walk of the Brave honoring
President Biden.
https://twitter.com/igornovikov/status/1627626912989192183/photo/1
Evidently there are no plaques for liars, cowards or the stupid, or
trump's would be front and center.
Happy Birthday to Forest Morris–-let's join the chorus and wish him well and as Carter retreats may Morris spring forward with two feets first!
As for Putin, whose lack of soul makes him a horrid, hateful human being, I recall when he criticized the U.S. for its lack of Christianity. No one asked him to explore that further and Trump, being the Biblical scholar that he pretended to me said–––"Putin is right!" And I'm wondering whether by now the Fat man realizes how Putin jerked his chain ten times over.
Here’s to Forrest, our RC brother in arms! Happy birthday to you sir.
A quick scan of the web shows that you share a birthday with the great, Ansel Adams, Robert Altman, Sidney Poitier, the evil, Roy Cohn, Mitch McConnell, and the infamous, Patty Hearst.
Some are dead, one should be dead, and the last was a bank robber.
You got ‘em all beat, brother.
Crack a bottle of wine and enjoy. Hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere.
My earlier snarky (but true) comment about imitation has since reminded me of something Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote in one of his essays (I think it might have been “Self-Reliance”, but I’m not entirely sure—it’s been a while).
Emerson says that imitation is suicide. What he means is that going along to get along, marching in lockstep with the mob, is the fastest way to lose your own sense of what’s right and wrong, to destroy your ability to think for yourself and come up with your own ideas (yeah, it must have been “Self-Reliance”).
But this is exactly what we see every day in Traitor World. Never mind that there is zero evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. Everyone on one side says Trump won, so he must have won! Kill the Democrats!
This is textbook fascism. Exactly what’s happening all across the country in red states. One guy says “Drag queens! Aieeee!” and he writes legislation outlawing drag shows. Next scene, everyone is writing their own bill to make drag shows illegal.
What’s CRT? I dunno, but DeSantis and TuKKKer say it’s bad! Aieee!
Imitation. It’s suicide.
But it’s all they have.
@Forrest Morris: First, Happy Birthday. Since your birthday falls on Presidents' Day this year, I think you're obligated to go out and buy yourself a new mattress.
Now, as for Trump's not having a plaque on the Walk of the Brave, he does, sort of. A stray dog was walking nearby and pooped the Trump memorial. For those who get there in time, it's hot and steamy. And totally appropriate. Wear boots.
AK: That's the "beauty" of it. You don't even have to define what "IT" is. Just dance around, wave your arms in the air and yell "IT is evil" and write laws to outlaw "IT"
H. B. Forrest,
In addition to the wishes, I like to give you a more tangible present to express my appreciation for all you've given us over the years.
But all you get is the sentiment.
Have a good B. D. dinner.