Will Biden’s proxy war on Russia sink his ’24 re-election?

 Will Biden’s proxy war on Russia sink his ’24 re-election?

Joe Biden has the Democratic presidential nomination sewed up if he seeks re-election. But once he receives it, his stellar record on domestic issues may not be enough to gain re-election.

Why? His ‘all in’ proxy war on Russia, including over $100 billion in military and economic aid to Ukraine, may cost him millions of votes in November next year. Last month, support for weaponizing Ukraine dropped by one-fifth, from 60% to 48%. That shouldn’t surprise as a year of war sees no end in sight, does not connect with everyday problems Americans face, soars the federal debt northward, and carries no direct threat to US national security interests. Americans are trending toward negotiations, not weapons, to end a turf war 5,000 miles from the Homeland.

The 2 leading Republican presidential contenders have seized Biden’s proxy war as an opportunity to weaken Biden’s support. Trump and DeSantis currently account for over 75% of likely Republican voters next year. Both have staked out opposition to continued US aid to fund a seemingly endless war. Doesn’t matter that if Trump were president, he and DeSantis would likely both be promoting the same utterly self-destructive proxy war Biden and the entire Democratic Party are pursuing. Their opposition appears to be solely political, not principled.

Unless pending indictments derail Trump’s campaign, he’s the likely GOP nominee, as DeSantis remains a distant second and appears to be fading nationally with his cockamamie culture war core issue.

With a slim chance Ukraine can survive, much less prevail over Russia, more Americans are losing interest in and support for a lost cause increasing US debt; indeed, worsening America’s decline as a global power and potentially moving the war from proxy to nuclear.

Trump lost to Biden in 2020 by losing just 5 of his 30 victorious states in 2016. With aid likely over $200 billion by then with no upside, those states could easily tilt red giving either Trump or DeSantis the White House with a mandate to pull the plug on our proxy war that should never have been fought and once started, could have been ended early on.

There is strong historical evidence for this. Democrats lost the presidency in 1952 because they couldn’t end the senseless Korean War. Democrats lost again in 1968 over their disastrouis Vietnam War.

Of course, if Biden’s current proxy war goes nuclear, any discussion of war costing them a third election will be moot.

Paul rides again in defense of free speech

 Paul rides again in defense of free speech

Republican Senator Rand Paul broke with his party to prevent rabid nationalist Senator Josh Hawley from achieving unanimous consent to block Tik Tok in America. Hawley's bill the No TikTok on United States Devices Act, would prohibit the app from being downloaded in the US and ban commercial activity with TikTok’s parent company, the China-based ByteDance.

Libertarian Paul pounced proclaiming, “To those who are worried that the Chinese government might somehow now have access to millions of American teenagers’ information, realize that all social media sucks up personal data that people voluntarily provide.”

Paul, a fervent free speech advocate. noted Hawleys' No TikTok bill, if passed, would likely be overturned by the Supreme Court.

"I hope saner minds will reflect on which is more dangerous: videos of teenagers dancing or the precedent of the US government banning speech. For me, it’s an easy answer. I will defend the Bill of Rights against all comers, even, if need be, from members of my own party,”

Tik Tok...time for Sen. Hawley, among the most vocal in Congress pushing confrontation with China, to drop his fervent opposition to all things Chinese.

Brits to Ukraine: Get ready for more cancer and birth defects

 Brits to Ukraine: Get ready for more cancer and birth defects

The UK has a novel way to help Ukraine in their lost cause to retain Crimea and the Donbas from Russia. Get ready for this: depleted uranium shells. These ‘tank killers’ will be provided along with the Brits’ Challenger 2 tanks.

Problem is these tank killers are also Ukrainian people killers. Because these armor piercing shells contain radioactive depleted uranium, their use causes birth defects and cancer. Just ask the Iraqis who are still suffering high levels of both 20 years after their grotesque use by Uncle Sam in Iraq. British deputy defense minister Annabel Goldie poo-pooed the worry about killing civilians saying “Such rounds are highly effective defeating tanks and armored vehicles”. Goldie, however, is not likely to ever visit Ukraine after the war. Wouldn’t be prudent with all that British depleted Uranium lying around.

Not to be outdone by the Brits, four US senators are requesting President Biden send Ukraine cluster bombs, banned by over 100 countries under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. We have 3 million available. They’re not worried about thousands of unexploded bomblets blowing up unsuspecting Ukrainian kids decades down the road. But like with Annabel Goldie, If we do send them, guess those senators won’t be taking their little grandkids for a nature walk in Ukraine after the war. That shiny piece of metal they pick up to inspect may be the last thing they ever do.

With Ukraine nearing collapse, the failure to pursue a negotiated settlement is extending unnecessary death and suffering. Adding depleted uranium and cluster bombs will only make the death and suffering worse.

Chicago Tribune editorial on XI, Putin summit wildly inaccurate, unhelpful

 Chicago Tribune editorial on XI, Putin summit wildly inaccurate, unhelpful

The Trib’s Editorial Board continues to promote the US government’s perpetual proxy war against Russia in Ukraine rather than promote war ending negotiations.

To do that, the editorial ‘Xi has been an apologist for Putin. Will he also be his lethal arms supplier?’ contains distortions of the Russo Ukraine war that defy credulity.

For starters, the Trib claims the war is existential for Ukraine with defeat ensuring its extinction as a sovereign country. False. The war will end in defeat for neither Ukraine nor Russia. It will end in a negotiated settlement that will recognize Crimea remaining part of Russia and the Donbas free from Kyiv violence, either as an independent country or voting to join Russia. Russia wants nothing to do with the 80% of Ukraine that leans West as long as they stop slaughtering the Russian leaning Donbas Ukrainians, and more importantly don’t invite NATO to put troops and nuclear capable weapons on Ukraine’s Russian border.

That leads the Trib to oppose any efforts to negotiate a cease fire by China, or anyone ese for that matter, as long as Russian troops occupy Ukraine territory. Since that will likely never happen, the Trib supports endless billions in weapons to keep the collapsing Ukraine military fighting till Ukraine does collapse. With no American blood to be shed, it’s easy for the Trib to tell Ukraine to keep shedding an ocean of blood to achieve the US goal of a weakened Russia.

What is truly bizarre is the claim that China providing Russia weapons will cross “a red line for Western allies…. and likely mean a raft of U.S.-led sanctions imposed on Beijing". Is the Trib oblivious of the hypocrisy of the largest supplier of weapons to support a proxy war in history, having apoplexy when its main rival even considers doing a pittance of America’s war weaponizing? And has the Trib considered that applying sanctions on China will simply generate a billion Chinese guffaws?

The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board should ditch supporting perpetual proxy war for negotiated peace. It’s the solution to virtually every war in history. The weapons we’re sending are worthless. They are continuing carnage in Ukraine and ensuring the inevitable destruction of the country we’re trying to save.

Sen. Duckworth votes to retain 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)

 Sen. Duckworth votes to retain 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)

My senator Tammy Duckworth joined 85 other senators to defeat repeal of the 2001 AUMF used to attack Afghanistan in the wake of the 911 attacks. Only 9 decent senators voted “No More” to senseless and endless war without Senate approval as required by the Constitution.

After conquering Afghanistan in weeks, presidents Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden have used it in perpetuity to wage senseless attacks, big and small, in at least 20 countries.

The AUMF was kept in place by a compliant Senate that 22 years ago abrogated its war making powers. It’s a perfect blank check for US presidents who don’t want to seek permission from the Senate to bomb imagined bad guys all over the world. And it’s perfect cover for cynical senators, like Duckworth, who don’t want their fingerprints of approval on their president’s latest act of murder and mayhem worldwide. If military action goes wrong these Senators will cry ‘It’s all on the president.’

But in a cynical move to distract the public from retaining its perpetual war card, the Biden administration has approved the Senate moving forward to repeal the 2002 AUMF authorizing our criminal war to depose Saddam Hussein. Since the war ended a decade ago, repealing the 2002 AUMF is meaningless fig leaf on out of control war making.

Senator Duckworth, who parlayed her Iraq war military service to Congress and a possible presidential run, learned nothing from participating in a monstrous criminal war except that promoting war service is good politics.

Duckworth should heed the words of her colleague Rand Paul. He supported repeal of the 2001 AUMF with this principled message: “Today, I offered the US Senate a chance to repeal the 9/11 2001 Authorization for War to reclaim our constitutional power and send a message to the world that we are a nation of peace. Today, we should have risen above symbolism and repealed the 9/11 authorization for war and shown our respect for the Constitution, our fealty to the rule of law, and our sincere desire that peace, not perpetual war, be our legacy,”

Senator Duckworth, are you listening?

A sensible NATO prescription to end Russo Ukraine war

 A sensible NATO prescription to end Russo Ukraine war

No Arms, Talk Only

What’s not going to change? Biden’s murderous war on Syria

 What’s not going to change? Biden’s murderous war on Syria

The US has been dropping bombs, sanctioning and refusing to assist the reconstruction of earthquake shattered, civil war torn Syria for nine years. The US jumped into the 2011 Syrian civil war in September, 2014, with bombs instead of peace proposals. Why? America saw its chance to change out the regime of hated Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who’s aligned with 2 major US enemies, Russia and Iran.

We even gave the greenlight, including weapons and moral support, to Assad opponents, some of whom are anti US extremists. ‘Not to worry’, US officials claimed. ‘These are moderate bad guys we can control’. Right.

Once Assad largely prevailed in the civil war with ally Russia’s help, the US refused to end its quest to oust Assad. We’ve kept 900 troops in northeast Syria to control the oil fields we stole from Syria, effectively keeping a third of Syria from Assad’s control.

US intervention and occupation is a decade long war crime on the Syrian people. Unlike the Russo Ukraine war, it’s almost totally ignored by mainstream media. It did pop up a week ago when unknown fighters attacked a US outpost there, killing a contractor and injuring 5 US soldiers. The Biden administration was outraged, ordering immediate retaliatory attacks against groups thought to be involved. At least 19 were killed which satisfies the required high US kill ratio in such responses. Whoever was killed, guilty or innocent, doesn’t matter. Revenge for attacking our invading army is all that counts.

When asked if the attack on US troops will cause President Biden to re-evaluate his commitment to stay in Syria, spokesman John Kirby replied “Here’s what’s not going to change … the mission and ISIS is not going to change. We have under 1,000 troops in Syria that are going after that network, which is, while greatly diminished, still viable and still critical. So we’re going to stay at that task,”

Since ISIS will always have a few imagined bad guys in Syria, Kirby might have will said, ‘Here’s what’s not going to change. We’re staying in Syria till we achieve our sole mission…changing out the regime of President Assad, the people of Syria be damned.’

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Novel campaign transparency law proposal

Novel campaign transparency law proposal

From my sister Janet Underhill who always has an interesting take on politics:

"Require all legislators to wear patches on their clothing that represent their donors. The size of the patch would be in proportion to the amount of yearly donations. Just like Nascar drivers".