Our So-Called Foreign Policy: U.S. Ukraine Policy Dangerously Flunks the Logic Test

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alliances, deterrence, Nancy Pelosi, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine War, vital interests, Vladimir Putin

There must be some kind of psychic connection between my good buddy Ace (so nicknamed because he’s actually flown in U.S. Air Force fighters), and Nancy Pelosi.

Just the other day, he made what I thought was the genuine genius point that the most important question surrounding U.S. policy toward Ukraine is one that’s never, ever, been asked: If Ukraine has indeed become a vital interest of the United States (a category into which, as I’ve repeatedly stated, e.g. here, it was never placed even during the depths of the Cold War), why wasn’t it admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) long ago? Even stranger, why the continuing NATO cold feet of so many U.S. leaders who are so fond of claiming the vital importance of ensuring Ukraine’s success?

And hot on the heels of Ace’s questions, the House Speaker on Friday declined to endorse Ukraine’s request not just for inclusion in the decades-old Atlantic alliance, but for “accelerated accession” that would speed up a process that’s normally pretty complicated in normal times.

Yes, that’s the same Speaker Pelosi who had previously sounded pretty adamant about the need to stand with Ukraine “until the fight is done” because its fight for freedom ”is a fight for everyone.”

But as pointed out in the same news report that quoted Pelosi’s more temperate later remarks, even though these are anything but normal times in Europe, there’s no shortage of reasonable-sounding reasons for continuing caution. Specifically:

“The West fears that Ukraine’s immediate entry into NATO — which requires the unanimous approval of all 30 member-nations — would put the U.S. and Russia at war due to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine as well as its forced annexations announced Friday.”

I wrote “reasonable-sounding, ”however, very deliberately. Because if you give the matter even a little serious thought (as Ace has), it becomes clear that such rationales make no sense at all.

In the first place, even though Ukraine remains outside NATO, the Western aid that’s helped Kyiv’s forces resist Russia so effectively has created a powder keg situation in Ukraine’s neighborhood (by stationing large numbers of U.S. troops right next door) that could all too easily ignite war between the two aforementioned nuclear superpowers anyway.

It’s true that the decision of the United States and Ukraine’s other allies to combine these deployments with hemming and hawing on NATO membership has so far produced a favorable outcome: Moscow’s been frustrated without nuclear weapons being used, much less a world-wide conflagration resulting.

At the same time, this needle-threading act could fail at any minute – which surely explains President Biden’s oft-stated declarations from the get-go that U.S. troops will not be sent into combat in Ukraine. He’s obviously determined minimize that dreadful possibility.

But all this prudence becomes completely inexplicable – at least if you value coherent thought – upon remembering what the word “vital” means in this instance. It’s describing an objective so important (Ukraine’s survival in its current form) that failure to achieve it would (at least at some point down the line) end America’s very existence, either as a physical entity or as an independent country. Even those who aren’t literalists presumably fear that failure to protect a vital interest will leave the United States only the most nightmarish shell of its present self.

To their credit, U.S. leaders who spearheaded the creation of the nation’s major alliances and supported their maintenance have put the country’s money where its mouth is. They have not only promised to use nuclear weapons against nuclear-armed adversaries to protect alliance members whose security is seen as vital. As I’ve often explained (e.g., here), they’ve deployed U.S. forces in “tripwire” configurations aimed at practically forcing Washington to push the fatal buttons and risk America’s nuclear destruction if non-nuclear defenses crumble.

Those policies have aimed above all to deter aggression, and despite the apocalyptic dangers they’ve raised, have been eminently sensible because a thoroughly respectable case ca be made, based on specific, concrete considerations, for the paramount importance of these allies.

For example, it is wholly plausible that the subjugation by hostile powers of places like Germany and Japan and Taiwan could produce intolerable consequences for the United States. In particular, each of those countries possesses technological and industrial prowess and assets that a country like China or Russia could harness to exercise control over the main dimensions of American life.

The point is not whether you or I personally agree or not. Rather, it’s that such fears are anything but crazy.

By contrast, there’s nothing specific and concrete that Ukraine boasts that I can think of – or, more revealingly, that any of its supposed champions have brought up – that Russia could use to achieve anything like the above results.

And this observation leads directly to the second logically loony flaw in America’s Ukraine policy – the one identified by Ace: If in the minds of U.S. leaders Ukraine actually was so all-fired important to begin with, or became so at some point before the Russian invasion (which the President has just declared must be resisted “unwaveringly”), why wasn’t it admitted to NATO right then and there, complete with the nuclear defense guarantee?

Not that any such move would have guaranteed that Russia would have kept hands off. But given that dictator Vladimir Putin hasn’t yet attacked any NATO members in Ukraine’s immediate vicinity or anywhere else, and that Mr. Biden’s vow throughout the entire crisis that the alliance will defend “every inch” of its members’ territory, surely is one reason why, wouldn’t admitting Ukraine before Moscow moved been a no-brainer?

Instead, the United States and the West have danced around this question for more than thirty years – and counting – practically from the moment Ukraine declared its independence from the collapsing Soviet Union in August, 1991. What’s been the problem during this entire period?

I mean, the place is supposed to be vital! In other such instances, that’s why the United States has even contemplated using nuclear weapons at all. And yet so far, Mr. Biden’s clear bottom line, even during the invasion’s early days, when his own administration assumed Zelensky’s government to be doomed, has been that U.S. forces will stay out as long as the combat stays inside Ukraine. In other words, he’s wavered. And almost inevitably, this position has sent Putin the message that Washington and the West ultimately don’t view that country as worth accepting the risk of national suicide.

So thanks to Ace, it must by now be evident that the United States has long believed that it could secure a vital interest with half measures (never a good habit to fall into) or that America should expose itself to an existential threat on behalf of an interest that’s short of vital.

And the folks who believe in either position are supposed to be the post-Trump adults in the room? And will be in charge of Ukraine strategy and the rest of American foreign policy for at least two more years?

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Following Up: Podcast Now On-Line of National Radio Interview on Pelosi Taiwan Visit and U.S. Stagflation Prospects

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Asia-Pacific, China, decoupling, Following Up, geopolitics, Indo-Pacific, inflation, manufacturing, Market Wrap with Moe Ansari, Nancy Pelosi, national security, Pelosi, recession, sanctions, semiconductors, stagflation, Taiwan, tech, Trade, trade deficit

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my interview last night on the nationally syndicated “Market Wrap with Moe Ansari.” Click here for a timely conversation on two headline issues:  how U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan could hit U.S.-China economic relations and America’s access to Taiwan’s world-class semiconductor manufacturing prowess; and why what’s in store for the U.S. economy could be even worse than the recession that’s now widely forecast.

And keep on checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: America Still Has a Big Gen. Milley/China Problem

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Biden, Bob Woodward, China, Dan Sullivan, Donald Trump, House Armed Services Committee, Im-Politic, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, Nancy Pelosi, Peril, Rick Scott, Robert Costa, Senate Armed Services Committee, Vicky Hartzler, Washington Post

Mark Milley must be one of the luckiest folks in America. The rest of us, not so much. Because more than two weeks after the news broke of a new book claiming that this top U.S. Army General promised his Chinese counterpart advance warning of an American attack, and despite two days of sworn Congressional testimony on the subject, Milley has still not expressly denied the charge. In fact, he’s further muddied these crucial waters. Consequently, someone who might have committed treason and at the very least may suffer from horrendous judgment remains the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and therefore President Biden’s chief military adviser.

To recap, the book (Peril), by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame) and Robert Costa, contended that last October 30, Milley telephoned People’s Liberation Army General Li Zuocheng, chief of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission, to reassure him that, contrary to China’s alleged fears, “the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay.”

Milley then supposedly continued with this stunner: “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

If you don’t think this qualifies as at least the contemplation of treason, you need a Trump Derangement Syndrome check. Further, as I explained in September 16’s post, if the Woodward-Costa reporting is accurate, Milley’s call could have placed the United States in the gravest danger – to the point of prompting a preemptive Chinese attack (conventional or nuclear) on U.S. military forces Beijing deemed especially threatening, or even on the American homeland itself.

Woodward and Costa stand by their reporting. And as I noted, nothing could have been easier for Milley to deny specifically and categorically saying any such thing. Since he failed, however, I felt pretty confident that his scheduled appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee (which was followed by a next-day session with the House Armed Services Committee) would finally set the record straight.

Unfortunately, both sets of lawmakers let Milley off the hook. (Here are the C-SPAN transcripts of the Senate and House sessions.)  The China calls came up at both hearings, but Milley’s most specific responses kept significantly contradicting each other. At the Senate hearing, Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska, noted to Milley that “You’re quoted as telling the top Chinese Communit military commander quote ‘if we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time.’ Is that true?”

Replied Milley: “Let me tell you what I actually said. What I said, if there’s going to be a war, if it there’s going to be an attack, there’s going to be a lot of calls and tension ahead of time.”

Sullivan then interjected: “Your testimony was you were certain President Trump would not attack. That’s your testimony this morning.”

Milley responded: “That is true. I was communicating to my Chinese counterpart instructions, by the way, to deescalate the situation, and I told him, we are not going to attack. President Trump has no intent to attack. I told him that repeatedly. I told him if therre was going to be an attack, there would be plenty of communications. I said I will probably call you. We’re not going to attack you. Just settle down. It’s not going to happen. And I did it twice in October and January.”

Sullivan interrupted again: “You’re giving a heads up to the Chinese Communist Party –

Milley replied, “I didn’t give them a heads up because we’re not going to attack. I was being faithful to the intent. I was being faithful to his [Trump’s] intent, Senator.”

Shortly thereafter, a similar exchange took place between Milley and Florida Republican Rick Scott. Here’s how it went:

Scott: (after Milley stated that, “I don’t even know what [Woodward and Costa have] written”:

“So this conversation about whether you would give prior notice to the military Communist China that America is not going to attack. So it is your testimony you will no ever give a heads up to the Communist Chinese military if the President of the United States. It doesn’t matter who the President is, that you are reporting to, is ready to attack?”

Milley: “Of course I wouldn’t.”

Scott: “You don’t feel like you did that, you said that at all.”

Milley: “No. The context we, we’re talking about, Senator, there was a significant degree of intelligence and I think I put the unclassified version in that timeline. It is not insignificant. Not like one reporter two. It is an entire bod of intelligence that led us to believe that the Chinese were misinterpreting our actions and misinterpreting what was happening inside our own country politically and they were assessing a situation that was leading to escalation, possible incident, and it would have been quite dangerous. So Secretary [of Defense Mark] Esper and I met and we met with other members of the team, and we developed an engagement plan to enure that we engaged at various levels, Secretary Esper, and he asked me to do that so I did that. I made a call and the theme was to de-escalate to lower tensions. I believe that is a faithful and loyal execution of my Constitutional responsibilities and I believe that was faithfully executing the intent of the President of the United States at the time because I knew with certainty President Trump was not going to attack the Chinese just out of the blue. It wasn’t going to happen. And if things did happen, there would be periods of tension, calls going back and forth.”

The problems with these Milley answers are:

First, they’re an awfully roundabout way of saying something on the order of “During my October 30 phone conversation with General Li, I never promised him I’d give him a heads up of any kind on an impending U.S. attack.”

Second, Milley’s claim that he hadn’t read the Woodward-Costa book – or even the relevant excerpts – simply strains credulity, especially since his original prepared remarks to both Senate and House panels make clear he knew the subject would come up. In fact, this business about him being unfamiliar with the exact Woodward-Costa claim could well be a legal device to avoid a lying to Congress charge if the book does turn out to be accurate.

Third, his responses are largely conditional on his insistence that he didn’t believe any Trump attack on China was being planned. This position flatly contradicts another contention made by Woodward and Costa. Of course, the authors could well be wrong.

At the same time, there’s tension between Milley’s remarks on this issue and his admission that right after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi phoned him to express major concerns that Trump was crazy enough to make such a reckless decision, the General says he “convened a short meeting in my office with key members of my staff to refresh all of us on the procedures, which we practiced daily at the action officer level.”

If he didn’t harbor any fears of a lunatic President, though, why take this step? Moreover, did he think his own “key” staff members were significantly less up to speed on such life-and-death protocols as the “action officers” who practiced them every day?

And finally, Milley’s insistence that “of course he wouldn’t” ever “give a heads up” to China about an impending attack clashes with his statement to Sullivan that he told General Li “repeatedly, I told him if there was going to be an attack, there would be plenty of communications. I said I will probably call you.” Unless the purpose of the call was to deceive the Chinese and convince them to let down their guard?

Milley had another chance to end the controversy the following day at the House hearing. Missouri Republican Vicky Hartzler asked him point blank, “Did you or did you not ask – tell [General Li] that if we were going to attack, you would let him know?”

Milley’s response: “As part of that conversation, I said, ‘General Lee [sic] there’s not going to be a war. There’s not going to be an attack between great powers, and if it was, the tensions would build up, there would be calls going back and forth between senior officials. Hell, I’ll call you. But we’re not going to attack you. Trust me. We’re not going to attack you. These are two great powers and I am doing my best to transmit the President’s intent, President Trump’s intent, to make sure the incident doesn’t escalate.”

Clear as a bell, right? And difficult to reconcile with his statement the previous day that he told Li that “if there was going to be an attack,” he would “probably call.” (Unless, again, to throw him and his country off the track – a possibility Milley never mentioned?)

As I’ve maintained all along, Milley is innocent until proven guilty. But the General has now had two weeks and several chances to explain himself clearly, and dropped the ball every time. The kind of questions his remarks still raise can’t be left unanswered, whether President Biden has “great confidence” in him or not.

In fact, just as easy as it would be for Milley to forthrightly challenge legitimately lingering doubts would be for Mr. Biden to dispel them completely. There’s surely a verbatim recording of the October 30 call in the government’s national security apparatus. All the President needs to do is order its full de-classification and release.

Following Up: The Democrats’ Trump/Ukraine/Impeachment Hypocrisy is Now Complete

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Adam Schiff, Alexander Vindman, Biden, Bill Taylor, Bob Mendendez, Democrats, Donald Trump, Eric Swalwell, Fiona Hill, Following Up, foreign policy, globalists, impeachment, Jeanne Shaheen, Mainstream Media, Marie Yovanovitch, Nancy Pelosi, national security, natural gas, Nordstream 2, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

As known by RealityChek regulars, I’ve devoted two posts lately (here and here, and here) to the puzzling matter of President Biden’s policies toward the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline. The reason: For months during the last half of the Trump administration, any number of leading Democrats and globalist U.S. diplomats and other officials had justified the first effort to impeach the former President largely because he allegedly threatened key U.S. national security interests by hinging American military aid to Ukraine to its government’s cooperation in investigating charges against Mr. Biden (then a likely Democratic presidential candidate and therefore political rival) and his family.

Indeed, the first Article of Impeachment expressly stated that Trump “compromised” and “injured” national security for precisely this reason.

Mr. Biden never explicitly accused Trump of comprising American security by weakening ties to a supposedly crucial ally. But he certainly insinuated comission of this “high crime or misdemeanor” by charging that Trump “betrayed this nation.”

So I believed it was worth spotlighting that the Biden administration had for months been moving toward a decision that would both unquestionably endanger Ukraine and enrich Vladimir Putin’s Russia – whose apparent designs on Ukraine have prompted the United States (including the Trump administration) to provide it with various kinds of weapons and other military supplies to begin with. That decision: nixing significant sanctions on companies building the pipeline, which would transport Russian natural gas directly to Europe, in the process bypassing the previous transit route through Ukraine and enabling Russia to avoid the need to pay literally billions of dollars’ worth of tolls to its neighbor. And yesterday, the Biden administration made the move official.

For the record, I don’t consider Ukraine a vital or even important ally of the United States (for reasons explained, e.g., here). But Americans were told consistently during the first Trump impeachment hearings and actual proceedings that it was, making at least ironic a Democratic administration’s pursuit of a policy bound to enrich the country threatening Ukraine – and at Ukraine’s expense.

And at least as interesting, during the period that Mr. Biden has made his Nordstream intention clear, and since the final decision was announced, it’s become clear that most of the Democratic and diplomatic voices that touted Ukraine’s centraility to America’s own safety didn’t believe their own claims either. And ditto for the Mainstream Media news organizations that breathlessly reported and even endorsed them.

How do I know this? Because none of Trump’s main accusers along these lines seems to have had anything to day about Mr. Biden’s unmistakably anti-Ukraine decision. And my charge is easily verifiable. Just Google “Nordstream” and any of the following names: Alexander Vindman, Marie Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill, Bill Taylor, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell. In various roles, these folks were leading the charge to dump Trump because of his Ukraine record and the related claim that he was a ” Manchurian” candidate and then President who won the presidency by accepting Putin’s help during the campaign in return for doing the Russian dictator’s bidding.

And do you know what these Google searches come up with? Not a peep of protest about Mr. Biden’s Nordstream decision. Incidentally, some of these figures have been commenting some on Ukraine-related issues. Vindman, for example, co-authored a Washington Post op-ed piece in March urging the West as a whole to toughen its stance against Russia’s “blatant violations of human rights and unrestrained repression of opponents both at home and abroad.” He urged Germany “in particular [to] reconsider its business ties to Moscow — specifically the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline which is nearing completion” and the United States and the United Kingdom to strengthen existing Nordstream sanctions. But nothing about Biden indifference to the matter even though it was already becoming apparent – and certainly nothing since.

Three weeks later, after the President imposed sanctions on Russia for cyberattacks and election meddling, Schiff – the lead House impeachment manager in 2019 – noted that “While appropriate, sanctions alone will not be enough to deter Russia’s misbehavior. We must strengthen our own cyber defenses, take further action to condemn Russia’s human rights abuses, and, working in concert with our Allies and partners in Europe, deter further Russian military aggression.” But he said nothing about Nordstream at all.

At least as important, I can’t find a single instance of a Mainstream Media journalist even seeking the Nordstream views of either figure, or of their other impeachment-period Ukraine-philes.  

Some Democrats have condemned the Mr. Biden’s Nordstream decision – notably, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. But although both voted to remove Trump from office in part because his Ukraine actions jeopardized national security (see here and here), neither mentioned taking any punitive measures against Mr. Biden even though in the long run his Nordstream decision could undermine Ukraine’s independence far more than Trump’s brief suspension of the arms aid.     

It’s true that the Ukraine national security charge wasn’t the only accusation leveled against Trump in 2019. He was also impeached for violating the law in holding up the military assistance Congress approved for the country.  But as pointed out in this post, nothing in the statute in question regards such presidential actions as impeachable. Certainly they’re far from the first course of action. Instead, the law specifically instructs Congressional plaintiffs to bring a lawsuit in a U.S. District Court.

As for the claim that Trump abused the power of the Presidency by launching an official investigation of a political opponent for purely political reasons, the revelations since of Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine during his father’s vice presidency show how premature – to put it kindly – that conclusion was.   

Aa a result, given the outsized role played by the Ukraine charge’s substance, the indifference shown this year to that country’s fate by Trump’s 2019 prosecutors strengthens the case that the first impeachment pretty thoroughly abused power itself.  The one silver lining (and it’s not negligible):  At least the Democrats and other Never Trumper globalists aren’t beating the Ukraine war drums for now.

Im-Politic: My (Hopefully Wrong) Election Prediction

Tags

battleground states, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, election 2016, election 2020, Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, masks, Nancy Pelosi, political ads, polls, shy Trump vote, suburban women, suburbs, Trump, Wuhan virus

One big reason I’m not a betting person is that I hate a major difference between what I want to happen and what I think will happen. And that’s exactly the case with this year’s presidential election. In other words, although as I explained in a recent post and then amplified in a recent magazine article, I voted for President Trump (and by no means reluctantly), I’m convinced that his time in the White House is just about up.

Not that I’m certain of this outcome. To repeat a conclusion I’ve made to friends, family, and others in various circumstances, I completely accept the idea that the race has tightened substantially in Mr. Trump’s favor in recent months, and especially in toto in the six most discussed swing or battleground states (Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). But today, as throughout the fall campaign, I’d rather be in Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s shoes.

In fact, I’m sticking with this position even though I’ve become somewhat more impressed with claims of a “shy Trump vote” – i.e., the notion that many Trump voters reached by pollsters don’t reveal their true preferences for various reasons or, similarly, that the same pollsters simply aren’t reaching a significant number of Trump supporters. My main reason? In an era of spreading Cancel Culture at the workplace and elsewhere, it’s entirely plausible that many Trump supporters fear expressing their actual preferences to strangers.

But to me, the most telling poll results stem precisely from those six battlegrounds, however increasingly close the race may be. And that’s because, even though the President carried them all in 2016 (generally by slim margins), and even though he’s the incumbent, they’re now thought to be up for grabs at all. In other words, even though Mr. Trump is now a known quantity (or because he’s a known quantity), and has had nearly a full term of presidential abilities to extend favors to these states, they’re still a heavy lift for him.

I sense, moreover, as just suggested, that his troubles in these “flyover America” regions stem from a political malady that he’s never been able to overcome – and perhaps has never wanted to overcome or dispel: Trump Fatigue Syndrome. I fully accept his insistence (and that of many supporters) that his tweets and other verbal brickbats have built and maintained a large and intensely loyal base (indeed, big enough to elect him President once). I also agree that his combative instincts have enabled him to survive ruthless opponents who, astoundingly, have even filled his own administration and other levels of the federal bureaucracy since his inauguration.

At the same time, it’s hardly a stretch to suppose that even a significant slice of Trump-world is anxious for a return of some semblance of normality to American politics, and that four more years of the President are sure to mean four more years of (partly needless) tumult. Most revealingly, even the President seems to accept this analysis. Why else would he be pleading (only half-jokingly) for the suburban women supposedly most offended by his style to “like him,” and defensively making that argument that his roughness has been the key to his survival? (I can’t find a link, but heard it when listening to one of his rally speeches yesterday.)

And what’s especially frustrating for a Trump supporter like myself: He could have been just as forceful and cutting a champion of his “forgotten Americans” constituencies, and just as much of a scornful scourge of the elites, with a just a little more subtlety and a little more selectivity in his targets.

Some appreciation of nuance, in fact, would have been particularly helpful in dealing with the CCP Virus. In between the kind of fear-mongering and consequent shutdown enthusiasm dominating press coverage and the rhetoric of Never Trumpers across the political spectrum, and the pollyannish optimism and mockery of modest mitigation measures like even limited mask wearing that was too often expressed by the President, could always be found a vast store of effective and actually constructive messaging strategies.

Collectively, they have represented a test of the kind of leadership deserving of political support, and have amounted to acknowledging squarely the difficulties of formulating effective pandemic policies and vigorously supporting targeted counter-measures while staving off the panic that Mr. Trump has (rightly) stated he wanted to prevent. Just as important: The President could have conveyed to the public the admittedly inconvenient but bedrock truth that forces of nature like highly contagious viruses can long resist the powers even of today’s technologically advanced societies. But this was a test that Mr. Trump flunked.

Speaking of forces of nature, the weather across the country today isn’t likely to help reelect the President, either. It looks to be bright and sunny nearly everywhere, with moderate temperatures. Those conditions figure to translate, all else equal, into high turnout, which tends to favor Democrats (even given the astronomical levels of early in-person and mail-in and ballot box voting).

Mr. Trump also faces an opponent who hasn’t been nearly as easy a mark for him as was Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden’s lack of hard edges unmistakably helps here. But so, too, has his performance in the two presidential debates. As I’ve argued, they’ve belied Trumpist charges of mental and physical frailty. Even better for the former Vice President – he’s also held up more than well enough on the campaign trail. Sure, he’s given himself plenty of rest. But Biden’s increased pace of activity in the last two weeks or so should be enough to fend off a critical mass of doubts among undecided voters about his capacity to serve.

In addition, the Democratic nominee has clearly benefited from the Mainstream Media’s decision to suppress news about the possibly whopping corruption of the entire Biden family. However outrageous I or anyone else considers this cover-up, it’s had the undeniable effect of keeping from huge swathes of the electorate weeks worth of just about the worst news any political candidate could fear.

The Trump campaign might have partly filled this gap, and offset other vulnerabilities, with better advertising. But throughout this election year, most of the Trump ads I’ve seen have been as professional and reassuring as those cable spots for Chia Pets or Sham-Wow – complete with hucksterish voice-overs. Moreover, where on earth are high impact graphics like clips of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi childishly ripping up copies of the President’s last State of the Union address? The videos recently aired at Trump rallies highlighting Biden’s dangerously clueless statements and policy record on China have been very effective. But boy, are they coming late in the day.

Also possibly revealing on the ad front – I see a lot of anti-Trump and pro-Biden ads on conservative-friendly and even transparently pro-Trump shows on Fox News. That’s clearly a sign of playing offense. According to this report, however, the Trump campaign hasn’t taken the fight to hostile territory like CNN and MSNBC to nearly this extent.

I’m not by any means arguing that “It’s over” for President Trump – much less than it has been for weeks. I’m convinced that he’ll be helped by an enthusiasm gap. I take seriously the reports of strong new voter registrations by Republicans, particularly in the key states, along with the evidence that minorities aren’t turning out for Democrats in places like south Florida. Nor, as mentioned earlier, is my faith in the polls remotely complete. But toting up the President’s relative strengths and weaknesses still places him in my underdog category. And unless Election 2016 repeats itself almost exactly, that ‘s no place for a winning political candidate to be.

Making News: New Magazine Article on China’s (Massive) Election Interference Now On-Line…& More!

Tags

Adam Schiff, China, Democrats, election 2020, Mainstream Media, Making News, Nancy Pelosi, Phase One, Russia, The American Conservative, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, trade war

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my latest freelance article – a piece in this AM’s issue of The American Conservative explaining why China’s interference with American politics is much more wide-ranging and successful than Russia’s, despite claims to the contrary by Democrats and by Never Trumpers in the Mainstream Media and elsewhere.  Click on this link to read.

Sharp-eyed RealityChek readers will see that the article closely resembles August 13’s post.  I don’t like recycling material, as the practice is known, but in this case, The American Conservative saw that piece and asked to run a version.  I was happy to comply because, as sharp-eyed readers also will notice, I was able to add new material that’s surfaced in the last two weeks.

Also, I’m slated to return tonight to John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show tonight on the latest developments in the U.S.-China trade conflict.  Since during the CCP Virus era, these segments are pre-recorded, I don’t know when exactly the interview will air.  But you can listen to John’s show every night on-line here. Moreover, as usual, if you can’t tune in, I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as one’s available.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: The Stimulus Bill Math Just Got Incredibly Fuzzy

Tags

arithmetic, CCP Virus, CNBC.com, coronavirus, COVID 19, division, Im-Politic, math, multiplication, Nancy Pelosi, recession, stimulus package, Trump, Wuhan virus

I never dreamed that RealityChek would ever function as a math tutor, but a post yesterday on CNBC.com indicates that it’s an option I should consider. Because unless my own knowledge of numbers is even less impressive than I’ve always supposed, it looks like this major news organization, or the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or both, could really use those services.

Here’s the passage that sent my head reeling. It deals with the negotiations between Congress’ Democrats and the Trump administration about the latest legislation intended to offer Americans aid during this deep CCP Virus-induced economic downturn:

“Democratic leaders and the Trump administration have not restarted relief talks since they collapsed earlier this month. Pelosi has put forward a more than $3 trillion rescue package, but Republicans have proposed a roughly $1 trillion plan.

“The sides have failed to find common ground.

“‘We have to try to come to that agreement now,’ Pelosi told Politico on Tuesday. She said Democrats are ‘willing to cut our bill in half to meet the needs right now.’”

“Her spokesman Drew Hammill clarified to CNBC that she was reiterating her previous stance. She has said she would start discussions again if Republicans doubled their roughly $1 trillion relief offer.”

In case you’re still wondering about the problem I’ve detected, let’s take it step-by step:

>The House Democrats approved more than $3 trillion in stimulus spending.

>The administration and Republicans in Congress want $1 trillion.

>The House Democrats have offered to settle for half of their original $3 trillion proposal, which would be $1.5 trillion

>But Pelosi says she won’t resume negotiations until the Republicans double their offer.

>Which would result in the Republicans coming back to the talks supporting $2 trillion.

>Which is $500 billion more than what the House Democrats say they’re willing to accept.

I don’t doubt that Pelosi and her office have razor-sharp political skills, and I rely on CNBC for lots of economic and especially financial news. I also know that the differences between the two parties on the stimulus package involve more than just the totals to be spent. But unless I’ve completely forgotten simple division and multiplication, regardless of what anyone thinks about the merits of this debate, it’s tough to figure out what the Democrats are trying to accomplish here, and why no one working for the Speaker or at CNBC caught a blooper that should be obvious to a third grader.

So I’d be happy to share my knowledge of elementary school arithmetic with anyone at the Speaker’s office or with the network. And because I’m well aware how smart lots of you RealityChek readers are, I’d be happy to find out whether and how I might have messed up myself.

Im-Politic: Why China’s U.S. Election Interference is a Very Big Deal

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battleground states, Center for Strategic and International Studies, China, Chinese Americans, collusion, Democrats, election 2020, elections, entertainment, Freedom House, Hollywood, Hoover Institution, Im-Politic, Mike Pence, multinational companies, Nancy Pelosi, National Basketball Association, NBA, Robert Draper, Robert O'Brien, social media, The New York Times Magazine, think tanks, Trump, Trump-Russia, Wall Street

It’s baaaaaaack! The Russia collusion thing, I mean. Only this time, with an important difference.

On top of charges that Moscow is monkeying around with November’s U.S. elections to ensure a Trump victory, and that the President and his aides are doing nothing to fend of this threat to the integrity of the nation’s politics, Democrats and their supporters are now dismissing claims administration about Chinese meddling as alarmism at best and diversionary at worst.

In the words of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, commenting on recent testimony from U.S. intelligence officials spotlighting both countries’ efforts, to “give some equivalence” of China and Russia on interference efforts “doesn’t really tell the story. 

She continued, “The Chinese, they said, prefer [presumptive Democratic nominee Joe] Biden — we don’t know that, but that’s what they’re saying, but they’re not really getting involved in the presidential election.” ,

The Mainstream Media, as is so often the case, echoed this Democratic talking point. According to The New York Times‘ Robert Draper (author most recently of a long piece in the paper’s magazine section on Mr. Trump’s supposed refusal to approve anti-Russia interference measures or take seriously such findings by the intelligence community ), China “is really not able to affect the integrity of our electoral system the way Russia can….”

And I use the term “Democratic talking point” for two main reasons. First, the Chinese unquestionably have recently gotten into the explicit election meddling game – though with some distinctive Chinese characteristics. Second, and much more important, China for decades has been massively influencing American politics more broadly in ways Russia can’t even dream about – mainly because so many major national American institutions have become so beholden to the Chinese government for so long thanks to the decades-long pre-Trump policy of promoting closer bilateral ties.

As for the narrower, more direct kind of election corrupting, you don’t need to take the word of President Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien that “China, like Russia and Iran, have engaged in cyberattacks and fishing and that sort of thing with respect to our election infrastructure and with respect to websites.”

Nor do you have to take the word of Vice President Mike Pence, who in 2018 cited a national intelligence assessment that found that China “ is targeting U.S. state and local governments and officials to exploit any divisions between federal and local levels on policy. It’s using wedge issues, like trade tariffs, to advance Beijing’s political influence.”

You can ignore Pence’s contention that that same year, a document circulated by Beijing stated that China must [quoting directly] “strike accurately and carefully, splitting apart different domestic groups” in the United States.

You can even write off China’s decision at the height of that fall’s Congressional election campaigns to take out a “four-page supplement in the Sunday Des Moines [Iowa] Register” that clearly was “intended to undermine farm-country support for President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war….”

Much harder to ignore, though: the claim made last year by a major Hoover Institution study that

“In American federal and state politics, China seeks to identify and cultivate rising politicians. Like many other countries, Chinese entities employ prominent lobbying and public relations firms and cooperate with influential civil society groups. These activities complement China’s long-standing support of visits to China by members of Congress and their staffs. In some rare instances Beijing has used private citizens and companies to exploit loopholes in US regulations that prohibit direct foreign contributions to elections.”

Don’t forget, moreover, findings that Chinese trolls are increasingly active on major social media platforms. According to a report from the research institute Freedom House:

“[C]hinese state-affiliated trolls are…apparently operating on [Twitter] in large numbers. In the hours and days after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of Hong Kong protesters in October 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported, nearly 170,000 tweets were directed at Morey by users who seemed to be based in China as part of a coordinated intimidation campaign. Meanwhile, there have been multiple suspected efforts by pro-Beijing trolls to manipulate the ranking of content on popular sources of information outside China, including Google’s search engine Reddit,and YouTube.”

The Hoover report also came up with especially disturbing findings about Beijing’s efforts to influence the views (and therefore the votes) of Chinese Americans, including exploiting the potential hostage status of their relatives in China. According to the Hoover researchers:

“Among the Chinese American community, China has long sought to influence—even silence—voices critical of the PRC or supportive of Taiwan by dispatching personnel to the United States to pressure these individuals and while also pressuring their relatives in China. Beijing also views Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that presumes them to retain not only an interest in the welfare of China but also a loosely defined cultural, and even political, allegiance to the so-called Motherland.

In addition:

“In the American media, China has all but eliminated the plethora of independent Chinese-language media outlets that once served Chinese American communities. It has co-opted existing Chineselanguage outlets and established its own new outlets.”

Operations aimed at Chinese Americans are anything but trivial politically. As of 2018, they represented nearly 2.6 million eligible U.S. voters, and they belonged to an Asian-American super-category thats been the fastest growing racial and ethnic population of eligible voters in the country.

Most live in heavily Democratic states, like California, New York, and Massachusetts, but significant concentrations are also found in the battleground states where the many of the 2016 presidential election margins were razor thin, of which look up for grabs this year, like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

As for the second, broader and indirect, Chinese meddling in American politics, recall these developments, many of which have been documented on RealityChek:

>U.S.-owned multinational companies, which have long profited at the expense of the domestic economy by offshoring production and jobs to China, have just as long carried Beijing’s water in American politics through their massive contributions to U.S. political campaigns. The same goes for Wall Street, which hasn’t sent many U.S. operations overseas, but which has long hungered for permission to do more business in the Chinese market.

>These same big businesses continually and surreptitiously inject their views into American political debates by heavily financing leading think tanks – which garb their special interest agendas in the raiment of objective scholarship. By the way, at least one of these think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has taken Chinese government money, too.

>Hollywood and the rest of the U.S. entertainment industry has become so determined to brown nose China in search of profits that it’s made nearly routine rewriting and censoring material deemed offensive to China. And in case you haven’t noticed, show biz figures haven’t exactly been reluctant to weigh in on U.S. political issues lately. And yes, that includes the stars of the National Basketball Association, who have taken a leading role in what’s become known as the Black Lives Matter movement, but who have remained conspicuously silent about the lives of inhabitants of the vast China market that’s one of their biggest and most promising cash cows.

However indirect this Chinese involvement in American politics is, its effects clearly dwarf total Russian efforts – and by orders of magnitude. Nor is there any reason to believe that Moscow is closing the gap. In fact, China’s advantage here is so great that it makes a case for a useful rule-of-thumb:  Whenever you find out about someone complaining about Russia’s election interference but brushing off China’s, you can be sure that they’re not really angry about interference as such. They’re just angry about interference they don’t like.`      

Im-Politic: Trends that are Trump’s Reelection Friends?

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Adam Schiff, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, economy, election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Gallup, Im-Politic, independents, Jobs, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Trump, Tulsi Gabbard

Don’t look now, but Gallup has just given President Trump two major end-of-the-year gifts in two separate sets of poll results it’s just published. Gift Number One: Mr. Trump this year moved into a tie with his White House predecessor, Barack Obama, as the man most admired by Americans. Gift Number Two: The state of the U.S. Economy, widely viewed as one of the most important determinants of Americans’ votes for President, has faded notably in their minds as a top national concern.

Impeachment, and the nonstop political coverage of Mr. Trump’s alleged wrongdoing, surely have been America’s leading political stories this year. But all the same, the President and Obama jointly headed the list of the country’s most admired man. Better yet for Trump-ers:  The survey was conducted in early December, so respondents had lots of time to digest the impeachment drama. And the possible icing on the cake – the tie was produced by a one percentage point reduction in the Obama score from 2018 (when he won this contest – and for the twelfth time!) and a five percentage point rise in the Trump score.

Further, although trend data isn’t available, Mr. Trump was named most admired by 10 percent of independents. That figure trailed the Obama total (12 percent), but not by much. And the former President won’t be on any ballots this year. 

The results for some of the President’s other major opponents and critics are bound to cheer him, too. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who’s helped spearhead the impeachment drive, increased his score from 2018 – but only by less than one percent to one percent. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also rose in the poll – but only from one percent to two percent.

As for the group of Democratic contenders for Mr. Trump’s job, the best performers in this survey were Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Hawaii House Member Tulsi Gabbard, and California Senator Kamala Harris (who recently dropped out). Yet they all garnered only one percent of Americans’ votes. Nonetheless, all did better than former Vice President Joe Biden, whose backers for this title declined from one percent in 2018 to less than one percent this year.

As for the economy, since the global financial crisis produced the Great Recession starting at the end of 2007, it’s been rated as “the most important problem in the U.S.” in Gallup surveys seven times (the last coming in 2016). In addition, “jobs” was mentioned among the top four most important problems nine times. (I find it odd that the two are presented separately by Gallup as well.)

But since the Trump inaugural, the economy has vanished from the ranks of the top four national problems, and the only appearance made by jobs was in 2017 (when it came in fourth).

Even if polling was more of a science than an art, none of these results would guarantee President Trump’s reelection. One potential trouble spot: During each of his years in office so far, “government” has topped Americans’ lists of the country’s most important problems. The Gallup results indicate that respondents assign about equal blame for Washington dysfunction to Mr. Trump and the Republicans in Congress on the one hand, and to the Democrats in Congress on the other. But during the Trump administration, the percentages prioritizing this concern have risen overall from previous levels – and markedly.

The big takeaway for me is that if the President turns and keeps his focus to at least a reasonable extent on substantive issues like the economy, and shoots off fewer dumbbell and wholly unnecessary tweets and remarks (here’s a prime recent example), and if no new misconduct-related bombshells emerge, he’ll calm the nerves of the independents he needs to win back from their 2018 defection to the Democrats, in particular relieve their Trump Exhaustion Syndrome, and win reelection pretty handily. The big fly in this ointment, of course, is that the above prescription so far has never been followed by Mr. Trump.

Im-Politic: An Impeachment Red Herring from House Judiciary

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Constitution, Democrats, executive privilege, House Judiciary Committee, Im-Politic, impeachment, Jerrold Nadler, Mueller Report, Nancy Pelosi, Robert Mueller, Special Counsel, Trump

You know the Shakespearian expression, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”? A wonderful way of describing someone who makes an argument that’s so over-the-top that it undercuts credibility?

I couldn’t help but think of it while reading the new report from the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic staff on “Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment.”

I’m not talking about the substantive credibility of the case for President Trump’s impeachment (and/or removal from office). Instead, I’m talking about the case’s political credibility. Because this new study makes nothing so clear as the belief of the Committee’s majority Democratic members that they haven’t yet convinced enough of the American people that their efforts to oust the President are justified. And no doubt this conclusion applies to numerous others in the party’s House majority and in the Senate.

No one can have any legitimate issue with the Committee releasing such a report. As Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York notes, the full committee staffs put out similar studies in connection with the 1974 impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, and those against President Bill Clinton in 1998. (One important difference: Unlike the previous reports, this new study was the product only of one party’s staff.) And scholarship has of course advanced since then.

But in the process of “Addressing Fallacies About Impeachment,” the Democratic staff created some itself – that impeachment proponents are maintaining that impeachment “is not part of democratic constitutional governance”; that because a presidential election is coming up, a chief executive “is entitled to persist in office after committing ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors’”; and that such a President’s voters consider themselves “entitled to expect that their preferred candidate will do so.”

These arguments are transparently fallacious because none of the President’s backers has questioned the legitimacy of impeachment per se, and none believes that, whatever the political calendar, any office holder deserves to keep on serving after committing impeachable offenses.

To use an obvious but instructive example, just ask yourself: If Mr. Trump had committed a crime in public view – e.g., stood “in the middle of Fifth Avenue and [shot] somebody,” as he once suggested during his campaign, in a (typically) hyperbolic efofrt to describe his popularity with his base – does anyone seriously think that even the staunchest Trump-er would respond (if there were no extenuating circumstances, like self-defense) “Nope, nothing impeachable here. Let’s just let him serve out his term.)

(Interestingly, outside the impeachment context, the President’s lawyers have argued that Mr. Trump, or any President, couldn’t be criminally indicted for such an act while in office, but that’s a separate issue from impeachment.)

What Trump supporters are saying is that, after literally years of investigations – by Congress and by a Special Counsel (Robert Mueller) whose integrity no Trump opponent questioned – no conclusive evidence of impeachable transgressions has emerged. And that given the approach of a new election that would give the public a chance to decide the President’s fitness for office (an opportunity that was not available for second-term Presidents Nixon and Clinton), the best course for the country’s sake is moving on from the current proceedings. In other words, they’re making a political and policy argument, not a Constitutional argument.

For example, the Mueller report specifically concluded that “the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election” and, more controversially, regarding obstruction of justice allegations:

“[I]f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

As numerous impeachment backers have pointed out, in his post-report press conference, Mueller did note, in the course of explaining the substantive and Constitutional obstacles to accusing a sitting President of criminal behavior, that “the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting President of wrongdoing.” And of course that was a reference to impeachment.

But neither Mueller nor his report has stated that Mr. Trump actually has committed an impeachable defense, or explicitly said that enough evidence exists to warrant an impeachment inquiry. The Special Counsel simply observed that, if Congress has enough further problems with the President’s actions, it has a Constitutionally permitted avenue for pursuing these concerns.

It’s true that Congress has not yet had the chance to question under oath current and former administration officials who might be able to provide first-hand evidence of impeachable Presidential wrongdoing, and that the initial obstacle has been Mr. Trump’s refusal to permit them to testify.

That opposition could well stem from the President’s fear of what these figures might say. But it could also stem from legitimate concerns about executive privilege – a President’s recognized right, originating in the separation of powers created by the Constitution, to keep under wraps, including from Congress, internal deliberations of his or her administration.

This privilege is by no means absolute, and such Executive-Legislative branch disputes can be refereed by the courts. But Congress’ Democrats have declined to go this route either to compel such testimony, or free up impeachment-relevant records. In this regard, therefore, they so far have no one to blame for the absence of a “smoking gun” but themselves.

So why are the Judiciary Democrats serving up this red herring? I’m not a mind-reader, but Congress’ Democratic leaders acknowledge that they’re following the polls, and they show plain as day that, since late October, public support for impeachment and removal has fallen steadily – to the point where it’s clearly under 50 percent and still shrinking. And some evidence shows that the numbers are worse for the Democrats on this issue in key presidential election battleground states and Congressional districts crucial to their continued control of the House.

I’m not questioning whether House Judiciary Democrats, or any other Trump opponents, sincerely believe that the President has committed impeachable offenses, or whether they view the evidence as clearcut and even overwhelming. But the new Judiciary report’s baseless charge Trump supporters would oppose impeachment under any circumstances is strong evidence that, in this ultimately political debate, they’re far from making the political case.