November 21, 2024

Thursday, November 21, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

Happy birthday, Mr. President.

Wednesday, November 21, 2024. Joe Biden is 82.

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Joe’s unfinished business.

Biden’s Unfinished Business on Ukraine. Michael McFaul, United States Ambassador, 2012-2014.

The outgoing president still has the chance to shape his legacy on the Russia-Ukraine war.

Biden’s Unfinished Business on Ukraine - by Michael McFaul

The outgoing president still has the chance to shape his legacy on the Russia-Ukraine war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the United States of America in December 2022. Source: President of Ukraine.

When historians write books on President Biden and his administration, Biden’s response to Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 will be the most significant chapter in the foreign policy section. We already know how that chapter starts. What we don’t know is how it ends. President Biden still has several weeks to make pivotal decisions that would enhance Ukraine’s capacity to defend its territory, better prepare Ukraine for post-war reconstruction, and thereby shape his legacy on foreign policy legacy more favorably.

First, President Biden and his administration must transfer all allocated funds and weapons to the government of Ukraine, approved in April 2024’s aid package, before January 20, 2025. The efforts to achieve this goal are underway. In his remarks to the press at NATO headquarters, Secretary Blinken affirmed President Biden’s commitment to push every dollar at his disposal out the door between now and January 20th. Biden must use all his presidential powers to ensure the goal is achieved.

Second, President Biden must immediately lift all restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American weapons against military targets in Russia. This policy change is long overdue. Article 5 of the United Nations Charter gives Ukraine the right to self-defense. We must retire the strange logic that Russia can attack Ukraine from anywhere within Russia, but Ukraine cannot strike back. Fears of escalation, including Russia’s use of tactical nuclear weapons, prompted concerns about lifting the ban. However, the probability of such an escalation—which, in my view, was always low—is now even lower given Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election. There is absolutely no way Putin is going to use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine just weeks before Trump’s return to office. Therefore, there is no downside to lifting this constraint today.

Third, President Biden must transfer all assets of the Russian Central Bank currently held in American banks to the government of Ukraine or an international foundation committed to Ukrainian reconstruction. These funds amount to some $300 billion, of which the most significant share has been seized by the Europeans. These funds should be transferred as soon as possible to help finance the Ukrainian government and reconstruction. Considering that Russia’s unprovoked war has inflicted hundreds of billions of dollars of damage on the Ukrainian economy, it’s only just that the international community should impose some of these costs on the Russian state itself. How could any president or prime minister ever give these funds back to Putin? Seizing assets of the Russian state after Putin invaded and annexed Ukraine also sets a positive, deterrent precedent to other world leaders thinking about using military force to annex territory. And we should not want criminals to do their banking in the democratic world. While the sum (estimates range from $8 billion to $39 billion) confiscated by the United States is just a fraction of the total currently frozen by the West, A Biden decision now will make it easier for Europeans to follow suit. For the details, read here.

Fourth, President Biden must tighten sanctions on Russia’s energy industry. The most straightforward and most effective step would be to sanction every ship currently operating in Russia’s shadow tanker fleet. Biden should also sanction more of Russia’s energy companies and banks, including Rosatom and Gazprombank. Biden should also work with his counterparts in the G-7 to ratchet down the price cap on Russian oil exports from $60 per barrel to $50. For more detailed recommendations on new energy sanctions, read Working Group Paper #21: The Path Forward on Energy Sanctions (November 15, 2024).

Fifth, Biden should finally declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. For why Russia qualifies and how this could be done, read Working Group Paper #5: The Case for Designating the Russian Federation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (September 28, 2022). How can Cuba be on this list but not Russia? This makes no sense. Moreover, in taking this action now, Biden would be doing Trump a favor. Trump could use lifting this designation as a chit to play in negotiating a deal to end the war in Ukraine.

There are many more actions I wish President Biden had taken to help Ukrainians repel the Russian invasion of their country earlier. But let’s leave that discussion to the historians. Today, Biden still has the chance to shape history. These five steps can help Ukraine immensely if achieved before January 20, 2025. (Michael McFaul, McFaul’s World, Substack).

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Pathetic but true.

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Ongoing resistance, sometimes from unexpected places.

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Penzey’s - a company with a purpose.

A premier spice company with multiple locations nationwide speaks up. Hear them.

From their website -

We are trying to make the world a better place. And with your help there are days where we actually seem to be doing that. Our goal now is to have more of those days.

Part of all this works because as a Spice business we are a reminder that sometimes the community we are a part of is not just our own backyard. Sometimes our community really is the entire planet and everyone on it. Our Spices come from all across this planet, our Seasonings are inspired by all regions. We’ve traveled the world for you and can tell you its kindness and decency know no borders.

Here is another link on their website.

About Republicans

As we’ve now said on our first-ever About Us page on our website, there’s something unique about humankind’s relationship with spices that time and again have caused spices to be a driving force for change. We live in a time calling out for change and for solutions to the very real problems our country and our planet face. There’s two very different futures ahead for us totally dependent on whether we solve these problems or not. With so much at stake we feel obligated to use the unique position spices hold in our lives to try to help promote the solutions to these problems as best we can.

Watching the slow decline of the Republican Party over the last half century, and the steep decline/bottom falling out over the last decade, it can be easy to see the nonsense that has overtaken the party as pretty much random. Once you start seriously looking at the problems America and the world face and who and what are standing in the way of solving those problems, it quickly becomes clear there is nothing random to what the Republicans are promoting.

The Republican departure from conservative values and embrace of what, from a distance, looks a whole lot like insanity didn’t happen by chance. All of it has been intelligently crafted with the goal of preserving the position of those who profit from the inhumanity that is at the very roots of pretty much every problem we are facing. From the environment, to racism/discrimination, to health, to saving our democracy at home and growing it abroad, half the time Republicans are intentionally blocking the solution to the problems we face. The other half of the time they are the problem we face.

The truth of our time is we’ve arrived at the point where there’s no way to respect the nonsense the Republican Party is promoting and have any hope of overcoming the problems we as a nation and we as a planet face. Given the choice between saving America and planet Earth or saving the feelings of Republican voters, we are choosing to side with saving our country and our world. I’m sorry it’s come to this.

And no, there is no HATE!!! in any of this. There is a whole lot of propaganda at the heart of much of how Republican voters have been steered away from conservative values to what they now seem all too happy to vote for. The thing to remember about propaganda is that it doesn’t just misinform, it also works to make people immune from the truth by convincing them any facts that counter their propaganda are nothing more than HATE!!! But we really have no hate for Republican voters. None at all.

I actually like and respect most of you guys. Sure, there are a growing number that are there for the racism, but I still believe the majority of you have good hearts that want to help and do the right thing. I know you to be trustworthy, and honest, and funny, and caring, and good souls. The problem isn’t what you are, the problem is what you are now voting to support. You guys have been turned around.

Remember when your distrust of big city types, and your deep rooted beliefs in paying your debts, respecting your marriage, raising kids willing to serve, honoring your word, and going to church every week had you voting for Donald Trump over Joe Biden all because Biden’s son had a computer? Or how you couldn’t vote for Hillary because she was over-prepared and used emails? I know that to you your actions seem rational and in keeping with your values, but when it comes to voting you are now consistently voting in people who are the exact opposite of you and the values you hold dear.

What does any of this mean? Going forward we would still be glad to have you as customers, but we’re done pretending the Republican Party’s embrace of cruelty, racism, Covid lies, climate change denial, and threats to democracy are anything other than the risks they legitimately are. If you need us to pretend you are not creating the hurt you are creating in order for you to continue to be our customer, I’m sad to say you might be happier elsewhere.

If on the other hand you still want the best spices and don’t need us to respect what you now vote for to be our customer, Hooray! We are happy to have you here, but know that we will, on a regular basis, try to wake you up from this dream that has you believing there is anything conservative left at all to what the Republican Party has become. We can and will work without Republicans to solve the problems we face, but it sure would be nice to get back to a time where Republicans were equal defenders of equality, the environment, and democracy. We look forward to that day.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for being here,

Bill

Need spices for the holidays ahead? You may want to consider Penzeys.

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Misogyny lives in America.

Less than a month ago, gender bias reared its ugly, ugly head once again in our elections. We watched a highly capable woman lose the Presidency to a cruel and criminal imbecile, the same imbecile who in 2016 defeated another highly capable woman who had sought the Presidency.

Why did this happen? Why did Hillary lose? Why did Kamala lose? or did Trump win? There are multitude of answers - the cost of living, and multitudes of blames - and much disagreement over the why. With regard to Kamala’s loss, gender is only occasionally mentioned as possible cause but more as a way to blame the candidate than as proof of a failing of America.

The fault, my dear Kamala, is not in our stars, But in our country.

Do you remember when there were no women’s room at all in the House or Senate, though there were women elected to each?

From January 2015 Politico.

The Secret History of Women in the Senate - POLITICO Magazine

Kay Hagan just wanted to swim. It was late 2008, and the Democrat was newly arrived on Capitol Hill as North Carolina’s junior senator-elect. But Hagan was told that the Senate pool was males-only. Why? Because some of the male senators liked to swim naked.

It took an intervention by Senator Chuck Schumer, head of the Rules Committee, to put a stop to the practice, but even then “it was a fight,” remembers pollster Celinda Lake, who heard about the incident when the pool revolt was the talk among Washington women.

The pool wasn’t the only Senate facility apparently stuck in the Dark Ages.

The restroom closest to the Senate floor that was set aside for women senators had only two stalls. By 2013, with 20 women in the Senate, restroom traffic jams were commonplace, forcing some of the female senators to traipse to a first-floor restroom far from the chamber. Two additional stalls, an extra sink and more storage space were added in the fall of 2013, after several female senators raised the issue publicly.

The great potty controversy received news coverage in both the Washington Post and the New York Times, where the female senators were reduced to raving perkily about their new facilities. “We’re even going to have a window,” New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor and foreign policy specialist, was quoted as enthusing.

Yet some indignities have nothing to do with a lack of accommodations.

Debbie Stabenow, a veteran lawmaker, recalls meeting with a senior agricultural lobbyist several years ago, when she was chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee and shepherding the massive farm bill.

As they were talking in her office, the lobbyist, an older man, reached over and patted her hand. “I know it’s going to be tough,” he assured her, “but you’ll do the best you can.”

“My blood pressure went up about 20 points,” Stabenow remembers, tension rising even now, long after the farm bill made it through to passage.

To read the whole Politico article from 2015, click here.

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The backstory about gender bias of a decade ago 👆 remains the front story now. Did you hear J.D. Vance talk about childless cat-ladies? Did you hear Pete Hegseth, President-elect Trump’s pick for defense secretary, say that women shouldn’t be in combat roles? Did you hear Trump’s White nationalist and Holocaust denier friend Nick Fuentes last Tuesday night saying, “Your body, my choice. Forever”? Or listen to that echo across the social media land since Trump’s election?

Republican Congresswoman's Nancy Mace’s anti-trans bathroom bill aimed at Sarah McBride, Congresswoman from Delaware, the first Transgender member of the House, is the latest extension of the misogyny which made the 76 women of the House trek out of chambers and buck the female tourists in Statuary Hall until July 2011.

Women in the Senate got their tiny bathroom off the floor of the Senate in 1993, but too often we see that each step forward is just that… just one step.

Class Act.👇

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Your Daily Reminder

Trump is a convicted felon.

On May 30th, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts by the unanimous vote of 12 ordinary citizens.

The Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th and September 18th. He will now be sentenced on November 26.

In a decision issued November 12th, Judge Merchan granted the stay until Nov. 19. He gave the prosecution until then to file an outline of appropriate next steps.

Tuesday was the day!

Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday rebuffed President-elect Donald J. Trump’s request to dismiss his criminal conviction in the wake of his electoral victory, signaling instead their willingness to freeze the case while he holds office.

In a letter to the judge overseeing the case, prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office emphasized that a jury had already convicted Mr. Trump of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal. Prosecutors and judges are often loath to unravel a jury’s verdict.

But acknowledging the unprecedented nature of the case — Mr. Trump would be the first felon to serve as president — the prosecutors raised the prospect of a four-year freeze so that he will not be sentenced for his crimes until he is out of office.

The judge, Juan M. Merchan, will decide in the coming weeks whether to freeze the case or dismiss it outright, a momentous ruling that will shape the outcome of the only one of Mr. Trump’s four criminal cases that made it to trial.

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Jose Andres. Nov. 9. Longer tables, not higher walls.

Hello people. It’s been a tough week for so many of us. I can’t imagine how everyone is feeling…I just know how I am feeling, as an immigrant, a father of three daughters, a business owner, a food first responder.

I just wanted to send a quick note today to you all to remind myself, and hopefully all of us, why we’re here. A meal is never just a plate of food. It has the power to change the world, to bring people together, to tell the story of who we are and where we’re going.

That’s why I started talking about longer tables when some people want to build higher walls. We need to talk to each other, to enjoy our differences, to celebrate our diversity…not to push people away because they look or sound different. This is not a fight between people. I’ve been in many places across America and genuinely there are good people everywhere who just want to provide for their families…and I’m always happy to talk to them, to learn from them, to work with them.

Every day we should be thinking about how to make room at the table—pulling up as many chairs as are needed so everyone has a seat.

Why do I believe in the power of food to change the world—even during a week like this one? Because I’ve seen it happen in so many places.

When you see it only in movies, you learn to expect the worst of people in times of disaster. Instead, what I’ve seen in war zones and floods, wildfires and food deserts, is the exact opposite. When people are in need, their neighbors will step up. When a disaster happens, you will see communities coming together. You truly can see the best of people. In emergencies it’s never blue or red…it’s people helping people. All you need to do is to start cooking, one plate at a time. A hot meal tells them someone, somewhere, cares.

Food is the beginning of a better life. It’s a plate of hope.

So people…I know it’s been a difficult week, and we have challenging times ahead. But I’m glad we have each other, this community.

Let’s not forget to be always looking beyond the horizon, at what could be if we keep believing, keep pushing, stay together, not fall apart. (Substack).

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Smile.