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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFriday Talking Points -- A Wrinkle In Time
Something rather astonishing happened on Capitol Hill this week. The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent, acting with such blinding speed that some senators weren't even aware of what was happening. Contrast this to the Senate's usual modus operandi, which is for things to move so slowly that a glacier would be seen as zipping along by comparison. Arcane parliamentary procedures are routinely used to gum up the legislative works, which often leads to nothing at all happening -- after spending enormous amounts of time and energy in the attempt.
This Tuesday, however, Senator Marco Rubio offered up a bill just after everyone got back from lunch, and the bill speedily passed when no senator objected to moving it along by unanimous consent. To say this was surprising is an understatement. Especially because the bill is not some arcane piece of legislation that only affects a select few, but instead will permanently shift America's time to Daylight Saving Time while jettisoning standard time altogether. In the near future, we'd all spring forward an hour (as we just did last weekend) one last time and then never change our clocks again. That affects virtually everyone, obviously.
Politico summed up just how stunning this was: "The quick and consequential move happened so fast that several senators said afterward they were unaware of what had just happened." The Washington Post added a few amusing quotes:
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), whose job is to count votes as minority whip, learned the legislation had passed from reporters.
"Whose bill is it?" Thune asked, somewhat incredulously. "It passed?"
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the majority whip, also learned from the media that legislation to make the "spring forward" permanent had passed the chamber.
"Made what permanent?" he asked.
The bill was a bipartisan effort, but had only managed to get 18 co-sponsors, so it wasn't all that widespread a movement. But the tactic worked. So Rubio's Sunshine Protection Act now moves to the House, where (ironically enough) they will most likely soberly debate and examine the pros and cons of making this permanent move (no doubt while considering the alternate possible reform: moving to standard time permanently, so we'd all live all year on "winter time" rather than "summer time" ). Experts have lined up on both sides of this choice, and they've already been heard in one House committee hearing. Sooner or later this debate will spread to the wider public, but it is still astonishing that the Senate moved so fast that even some senators had no idea of what they unanimously approved. Again, to say this was a rare event actually vastly understates how surprising it was.
But while ending biannual clock-changing will affect the whole country, it was in no way the most serious issue addressed in Washington this week, obviously. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's address to Congress was not only serious, but deadly serious. He has been addressing the governments of many Western nations this week (Canada, the U.K., and Germany as well as the U.S.), and he has brilliantly tailored his message for each audience. Speaking to Parliament, Zelenskyy quoted Winston Churchill. He brought up the Berlin Wall when addressing the Germans. And in his short speech to Congress (which, even with a video in the middle, lasted less than 20 minutes), Zelenskyy brought up Mt. Rushmore, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and Martin Luther King Junior. Zelenskyy made his case in both brutal and emotional terms, asking Americans to remember what being attacked from the sky was like in Pearl Harbor and on 9/11, pointing out that this was now Ukraine's reality all the time: "Our country experienced the same every day, right now, at this moment, every night for three weeks now."
Zelenskyy's message was aimed at both Congress and President Joe Biden. He asked for support, including two things that Biden has so far refused to do: institute and enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, or send them Soviet-era fighter planes from NATO countries like Poland. Zelenskyy also pleaded for more sanctions on Russia and for more advanced weapons systems to shoot down Russian warplanes. Biden responded with another $800 million in military aid, which will include anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles as well as plenty of other supplies for Ukraine's valiant fight. Negotiations on specific weapons systems Zelenskyy requested, such as Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, have begun with other countries (who have such systems and are offering them, if the U.S. will "backfill" by providing our own advanced Patriot missiles to replace them).
Biden is constrained by the fact that this is and has to remain a proxy war between NATO and Russia's Vladimir Putin. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and any involvement which could be considered offensive (in the military sense of the word) cannot be allowed, lest it draw the alliance into a much wider conflict -- "World War III," as Biden keeps pointing out. Policing a no-fly zone means American pilots shooting down Russian planes, plain and simple. Even sending MiG-29s from Poland would be seen differently than supplying them with anti-aircraft missiles, in Biden's mind.
Because Biden is showing American leadership to the world, Republicans are annoyed. However, they are not in agreement in their complaints, to put it mildly. Some Republicans are complaining about Biden acting too slowly in providing military equipment to Ukraine, while they somehow complete ignoring the glaring contradiction of Donald Trump doing the same thing as a threat to try to extort Zelenskyy into digging up dirt on Joe Biden during the presidential campaign. That circle can't really be squared, obviously, but that hasn't stopped some in the GOP from trying.
Of course, there also exists a "Putin wing" of the Republican Party, whose basic stance is "whatever Putin tells us it should be." No, seriously. Tucker Carlson, the most influential voice on Fox News, has been so blatantly pro-Putin that Russia's propaganda machine instructed their state media to highlight Carlson clips "as much as possible." He's now being mocked on Twitter as "Tuckyo Rose," which seems about right. Representative Madison Cawthorn is also being shown on Russian television, saying: "Remember that Zelenskyy is a thug. Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil." Both have tried to walk back such outrageous stances to some extent, but the damage has already been done.
Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene has the answer -- stop sending Ukraine weapons because there's just no way they're going to win. No, seriously, that's what she actually said this week:
Talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy! Conservatives are confused, obviously, because their own Dear Leader's position on Ukraine is just as incomprehensible as his position on everything else. Republicans are trying to rewrite history to build Trump up into some macho Rambo-style character whose toughness was so apparent that Putin never would have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president. This is just laughable, as none other than John Bolton pointed out (emphasis in original):
In late February, Bolton appeared on Trump-friendly Newsmax and told a host who was pushing the Trump line that it was "just not accurate to say that Trump's behavior somehow deterred the Russians."
"In almost every case, the sanctions were imposed with Trump complaining about it, saying we were being too hard," Bolton retorted when the host suggested that it was unthinkable that Trump would've handled the situation worse than President Biden has. Bolton added that Trump "barely knew where Ukraine was."
He would add later that Trump only cared about Ukraine insofar as it impacted him politically. (That's a statement that certainly tracks with Trump's attempts to withhold aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to try to get Ukraine to launch a politically expeditious -- for Trump -- investigation of Hunter Biden. Republicans have pointed out that Trump ultimately released the aid, but he only did so when the gambit became untenable.)
. . .
Asked whether we should believe this wouldn't have happened on Trump's watch, Bolton said, "Certainly not." Bolton added that, in a second term unencumbered by future electoral considerations, Trump would've been even more freed up to potentially take the United States out of NATO.
"And so Putin would've gotten what he wanted in Ukraine for a lot lower price than he's paying now," Bolton said.
Then Bolton added, in perhaps his most unvarnished comment to date: "The Leninist phrase is 'useful idiot,' and they haven't forgotten that in Moscow."
In the meantime, the war drags on. Russia has not advanced in any noticeable way, but neither have they retreated from anywhere in Ukraine. Indiscriminate shelling and bombing is killing Ukrainian civilians in multiple cities, and it shows no signs of abating any time soon. President Biden even called Putin a "war criminal" this week, which is pretty obvious when you see all the scenes of destruction he has ordered. The number of refugees streaming out of Ukraine has hit three million and will likely continue to climb.
So far, the U.S. and NATO supply lines into Ukraine continue to provide the Ukrainians with weapons and ammunition. This is crucial for the Ukrainian military's survival. If the Russian troops weren't so bogged down elsewhere in the country, they might be attacking these supply lines to cut off the arms flow to the Ukrainians, but they have been far too busy to do so in any major way, at least for now.
Negotiations continue between Russia and Ukraine, but no breakthroughs have been announced. Progress towards an agreement does seem to be happening, but they started so far apart in their demands that this effort is likely to take quite a while before any cease-fire happens. Until then, more and more people are dying on both sides of the battlefield as the fighting rages on. This is sadly likely to remain the case for the short term, at least.
For now, we'll end this weekly review with two brilliant reactions to the news that Russia will be sanctioning a handful of Democrats (no Republicans made the list, of course). When asked about these sanctions, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki first noted that the Russians had forgotten the "Junior" in Biden's name, so they were actually sanctioning his deceased father, Joseph Robinette Biden (Senior). But then she gave a classic answer which showed how little leverage Russia had in this realm: "None of us are planning tourist trips to Russia and none of us have bank accounts we won't be able to access, so we will forge ahead."
The reaction of Hillary Clinton, who was also mysteriously included on the list even though she holds no current public office, was even funnier:
We have to admit that this week we have more non-Democrats who deserve some positive accolades than Democrats.
First would obviously be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose speech to Congress (and his brutal but highly-effective video) was nothing short of masterful. Zelenskyy has been winning the "war of words" in the West, as he has rallied the free world to his side in the crisis. We wrote of how he has risen to the occasion when greatness was thrust upon him earlier in the week, in fact.
Next up for an award-worthy performance would have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, who put out the best video on the war we have yet seen. The video -- complete with subtitles in Russian -- runs over nine minutes, and it is well worth watching for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
In his message Arnold tells stories from his childhood, including relating how fighting Russians in the Nazi army "broke" his father. He speaks of his own ties to the Russian people and sympathizes with the population there -- clearly not placing blame on ordinary Russians for the war, but instead blaming their leaders. It is a heartfelt and moving performance, and as we said we can't think of anyone else who has taken the time to speak directly to average Russians about what their government is doing in their name and how they are being lied to on a daily basis. interestingly enough, Schwarzenegger is one of the few dozen people that Vladimir Putin actually follows on social media, so maybe he'll even get to see the message. One can only hope.
Marco Rubio deserves some sort of recognition for zipping his Daylight Saving Time bill through the Senate so fast they didn't even know what hit them. Whether you agree with the solution or not, you certainly do have to admire the tactical victory Rubio scored in a legislative body normally known for endless delays and inaction.
In terms of Democrats, though, Joe Biden deserves at least an Honorable Mention for releasing $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine this week. Let's hope those missiles and other weapons systems get to the Ukrainian soldiers as fast as possible.
But it wasn't a week for Democrats to really occupy center stage in politics, so we are going to hand out our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week in total tongue-in-cheek fashion this week.
Because Stacy Abrams of Georgia rose not only to lead this country, but to assume the mantle of President of United Earth. Well, fictionally, but even so, it was pretty impressive. Here's the story:
"I am," Burnham responds. "Lets get to it."
Abrams has long been a Star Trek fan. As Sarah Lyall of the New York Times wrote in March 2019, Abrams has "seen every iteration of Star Trek and can recite with picayune detail the obscure plot points from incidents buried deep in the canon." In her book Lead From The Outside, Abrams uses Star Trek scenes to illustrate how she solves problems. And she told the Times she had stayed up late binge-watching Discovery in the middle of her last bid for Georgia governor, in 2018.
So Abrams happily agreed to play the part when the show's creators approached her in 2021, Michelle Paradise, the show's executive producer, told Variety. Abrams's one condition was that the creators not spoil the show for her and give her only the directions necessary to complete her scene, Paradise said.
"She was very specific about that," Paradise told Variety. "She wanted to be able to just watch it and enjoy when the show finally came out. So, yeah, we avoided all the spoilers."
That's pretty classy -- she would only appear if they didn't spoil the surprises for her. One might call that the mark of a true fan, even.
So with tongue firmly planted in cheek, we hereby award "Madam United Earth President Stacy Abrams" this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. What could be more impressive than "planetary leader," after all?
[Stacy Abrams is a private citizen and we're not really serious about this award anyway, so we decided not to provide her contact information, sorry.]
Let's see, there was Nancy Pelosi reading a three-limerick poem from Bono for Saint Patrick's Day, but it really wasn't Pelosi who was disappointing, it was Bono. Especially since he used, in one line, the phrase "the Ukraine," which is what Russia would prefer everyone call it (to designate it as merely a region, not a country).
Celebrity kidding aside, we do have two (Dis-)Honorable Mention awards to hand out, the first of which goes to Joe Manchin for singlehandedly tanking one of Joe Biden's nominees to the Federal Reserve Board. The nominee had made comments in the past Manchin interpreted as being against fossil fuels, which led to his thumbs-down. All the other Democrats were on board, once again -- it was just Joe who stood in the way.
And a top Maryland Democratic Party official had to step down for a recent email she sent. Here's the story:
Barbara Goldberg Goldman, a prolific donor who was the party's deputy treasurer, resigned on Monday. She also publicly apologized for the comments.
. . .
Her remarks, which surfaced Sunday in a report from Axios, were made in a December email to party insiders about endorsing former Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez in the state's gubernatorial primary. Goldberg Goldman wrote: "Consider this: Three African American males have run statewide for Governor and have lost. Maryland is not a Blue state. It's a purple one. This is a fact we must not ignore."
But our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award goes to Andrew Cuomo. And if his brother Chris were a politician, he'd get one too.
Andrew, after being forced to resign as governor of New York in disgrace (with the threat of impending impeachment hanging over him if he hadn't), has now apparently decided that the voters really want him back. He is considering making a run for his old office against Kathy Hochul, who served under Cuomo as lieutenant governor and then stepped into the main job when Cuomo exited.
We would hope that New York voters are smart enough not to bring the bullying serial-sexual-harasser back to power, but who knows what his chances would be? But to us, even the news that Cuomo is considering another run was disappointing in the extreme.
His brother Chris, who used to host a show on CNN before he was let go in the fallout from his brother's scandal, is now suing the network for $125 million. That's just as disappointing, but at least he's not actually in public service.
We are reminded of the amusingly titled country song: "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?" The return of the brothers Cuomo on the scene is beyond depressing, in fact. Which is why Andrew Cuomo is the winner of this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week.
[Again, Andrew Cuomo is now (thankfully) a private citizen who does not hold office, and our blanket policy is not to provide contact information for such persons.]
Volume 655 (3/18/22)
Today's talking points (with the exception of the final one) could be considered an opening salvo to the midterm campaign. If Democrats are going to have any chance of retaining control of Congress, they've got to do a much better job of drawing clear lines between what their party stands for and what the opposition stands for. This is Politics 101, really. Define yourself, and define your opponent. Fortunately, that's pretty easy to do, these days.
Russian war propaganda
Call it what it is.
"Far too many radical rightwing media personalities and members of the Republican Party have been carrying Vladimir Putin's ideological water in the midst of an unprovoked and brutal invasion of a neighboring country. I find this disgusting, personally. People like Tucker Carlson and Madison Cawthorn are being prominently featured in Russian propaganda beamed to the Russian people, because they are so sympathetic to Putin and his gang of thugs. Marjorie Taylor Greene is telling the Ukrainians to essentially give up and stop fighting because she thinks they are fighting, in her words, 'a war they cannot possibly win.' Senator Dick Durban called out Carlson on the Senate floor, saying: 'There are no excuses. Not acceptable. Mr. Carlson should be ashamed of himself.' I strongly agree with Durbin. There is no excuse for spewing Russian lies and handing them war propaganda victories. I would strongly urge each and every Republican alive today to ask themselves 'WWRRD?' What would former president Ronald Reagan do in this situation? Would he tell the Ukrainians their fight was hopeless? Would he parrot Russian propaganda and lies? Or would he stand with Ukraine and against Russia? I think every single one of them knows the answer to that question."
Speaking of lies...
This needs some major pushback, because the media (so far) has fallen down on their job of calling such falsehoods out (once again).
"Nobody likes high gas prices. But Republican attempts to lay it all at the Democrats' feet have gotten so wildly divorced from reality that it's really time to lay out some basic facts for the American people. First, the Biden administration has not reduced domestic production, as the Republicans constantly claim. According to the New York Times, America 'became a net exporter of petroleum in 2020, the first time since at least 1949. That remained the case in 2021. It became a net exporter of natural gas in 2018 and remains so today, with exports reaching record levels in 2021.' Furthermore, the Biden administration approved 34 percent more oil lease permits in its first year than the Trump administration did. Republicans are claiming Biden is somehow waging some sort of war on energy production, but this is just flat-out not true. So let's talk about what can be done about gas prices, but let's keep to the facts while we do, ok?"
GOP wants to raise taxes on the poor by $1 trillion
One note about these next two items. Republicans will complain that not many of them have come out in support of Rick Scott's 11-point plan, therefore it is unfair to smear all of them with the elements of this plan. This might be a fair and valid point, except for the fact that Republicans routinely do this with Democrats, pretty much all the time. How many Democrats actually supported the Green New Deal? It didn't matter to Republicans, they were happy to smear all Democrats with all sorts of outlandish claims about it. So this would merely be returning the favor.
"Most Republicans are terrified to let the public know what their real agenda is. Not Senator Rick Scott, who is in charge of getting more Republicans elected to the Senate. He's told everyone exactly what the party intends doing if it ever regains power. His plan is chock-full of odious agenda items, but the worst of the worst, hands down, is his plan to raise taxes by a cool [itrillion dollars] on the poorest Americans. Under his plan, taxes would go up for 60 percent of Americans. He doesn't want the wealthy or corporations to pay more, he wants minimum wage workers to pony up a trillion bucks over ten years. You can't make this stuff up, folks. Scott wants everyone to 'have some skin in the game,' which translates into making those who can least afford it pay more taxes. Listen to Republicans when they tell you who they truly are! They've moved on from just cutting taxes on the ultra-wealthy to now actually raising taxes on the poor. That is what Republicans want to do if they get Congress back, and the only way to stop them from doing so is to elect more Democrats instead."
Republicans would end Social Security and Medicare after five years
This is the secondmost-egregiously-stupid idea in Scott's plan (again, there are a whole lot more to choose from, these are just the worst two).
"Republicans also want to pass a law that says that every single federal law on the books would 'sunset' after five years, unless Congress voted to renew them. Sunset means 'sink slowly in the west and disappear,' in case you were confused. The biggest change to most Americans would be to see Social Security disappear, after Republicans refused to renew it the first chance they got. Republicans have hated Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid ever since they were all passed, and they've been trying to gut all three ever since. This would allow them to kill all three off cleanly, in five years' time. Who in their right mind would force Congress to renew every single federal law every five years? If this happened, Congress would be so consumed with renewing everything all the time that it wouldn't have time to do anything else. Which is exactly what Republicans would like to see. This is insanity, plain and simple, and I trust the voters to see right through it. Republicans want to kill Social Security and Medicare, and Democrats will do everything possible to make sure that never happens, period."
Who is on your side?
Draw a strong dichotomy between the parties. This is important.
"The difference between Republicans and Democrats is pretty obvious. The Democratic Party stands for solving problems and getting things done. The Republican Party stands for chaos and division and not getting anything else done at all. Democrats brought back jobs and saved the economy. Republicans refused to help. Democrats had to clean up the mess the Republicans left -- once again -- and are on the side of democracy. Republicans stand with the January 6th insurrectionists who attacked American democracy. Republicans want the country to default on its debt, leaving Democrats the only sane ones who keep us from defaulting, time and time again. Democrats stand for the right of every American to vote while Republicans keep dreaming up new ways to make it harder and harder to cast a ballot. Democrats stand for lowering prices on prescription drugs, while Republicans fight for Big Pharma. Republicans want people to be able to sue teachers and schools and librarians, while Democrats just want to see kids get a decent education that tells them the truth about history. On issue after issue, Democrats come up with solutions while Republicans insist that nothing ever change. One party is interested in getting some things done and helping out average Americans, while the other fights every effort to do so tooth and nail. As I said, the difference between the parties is pretty plain to see."
Republicans fight to divide us
Republicans play this game so well mostly because Democrats always fail to call them on it.
"Look at every issue Republicans are running on in this election. Pretty much every single one has one thing in common -- Republicans want to divide the American public even more. They want to wage endless culture wars by fearmongering to the voters about all sorts of things for one big reason. They just have no answers about anything other than their pet wedge issues. When's the last time you heard a Republican proposal to do anything about any subject that would improve ordinary people's lives? When was the last time a Republican put forth an idea to bring America together? I can't even remember such a time, personally. All they are for is having all Americans at each other's throats all the time, period. Maybe it's not that they don't care about all the problems the country faces (although that is sadly a possibility), but it's just that they have no answers at all about any of it. All they stand for is division. That's it, really."
Worth 1,000 words
Finally, this isn't really a Democratic talking point -- it's not even domestic politics, in fact. But we had to feature it because it is so powerful. It's not even a talking point, it's even simpler -- it's just an image. We were unsure if it was a copyrighted image, so we couldn't post it here, but we think you'll agree it's well worth the trouble of following this link.
"Count me among the philatelists worldwide who are lining up to buy a few copies of the newly-announced Ukrainian stamp showing a brave Ukrainian soldier expressing exactly how he feels about a Russian warship about to attack him. In fact, I hope they sell so many of these stamps to people all over the planet that it funds their entire war effort. Everyone should be eager to contribute to the cause by buying some, as soon as they are publicly available. I don't think I've ever seen such a beautiful wartime sentiment, and I'm sure pretty much everybody will agree."
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
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