Trump Again Celebrates Putin In Mar-A-Lago Speech

Trump Again Celebrates Putin In Mar-A-Lago Speech

The New York Times reports:

Only hours before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, former President Donald J. Trump again praised the cunning of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia while lashing out at the intellect of President Biden.

“I mean he’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin to donors and Republican lawmakers at Mar-a-Lago, his private club, on Wednesday. “I’d say that’s pretty smart.”

The kind words a former president gave a foreign adversary locked in a geopolitical showdown with the United States — and committing the most egregious act of aggression in Europe since World War II — would be virtually unprecedented, except that Mr. Trump himself had praised Mr. Putin only a day earlier, saying his aggression was “genius” and “very savvy.”

Read the full article.

A day after Donald Trump called President Vladimir Putin's aggression toward Ukraine "genius" — and hours before the invasion began — Trump again praised the cunning of the Russian leader while lashing out at President Biden. https://t.co/5CPStpH2Rs
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 24, 2022

NEW: Donald Trump AGAIN repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin from a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser tonight — attended by #NCSen candidate @TedBuddNC, #NVSen candidate @AdamLaxalt, and #GASen candidate @HerschelWalker. pic.twitter.com/TPptW6czHM
— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) February 24, 2022

Sanctions 2.0

Eight years ago, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the U.S. and its allies harshly condemned the invasion and imposed economic sanctions on Russia.

It barely seemed to matter.

Russia still controls Crimea. Russia’s economy, after going through a recession, soon started growing again. President Vladimir Putin remains firmly in control of his government — and has now begun another invasion, this time of eastern Ukraine.

In response, President Biden yesterday announced a new set of sanctions, imposed in tandem with Britain and the European Union. Putin’s aggression, Biden said, is “a flagrant violation of international law, and it demands a firm response from the international community.” Biden also signaled that more sanctions may follow.

The obvious question is whether these sanctions will be any more effective than the earlier ones. Today’s newsletter lays out the possibilities.

The 2014 sanctions against Russia did have some effect — arguably more than many people have realized. They made it harder for Russian banks to obtain foreign loans and restricted Western companies from working with Russian oil companies, among other steps.

By the summer of 2014, Russia’s economy was shrinking, and it continued shrinking for two years. The value of the ruble plunged on global markets, increasing the price of many goods for companies and consumers. Russian businesses had a harder time raising money for new projects.

These economic problems seem to have softened Putin’s domestic support. His approval rating among Russians initially surged after the Crimea invasion — to around 80 percent — before falling. It has hovered between 60 percent and 65 percent for much of the past two years, according to the Levada Center. Last year, opposition groups held some of the largest protests of Putin’s nearly two decades in power.

The sanctions might even have been painful enough to have deterred Putin from invading eastern Ukraine in 2014, which he seemed to be planning, as Anders Aslund and Maria Snegovaya have argued in an Atlantic Council report.

“In 2014, when Putin invaded Ukraine the first time and annexed Crimea, the West acted too slowly and timidly initially,” Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, told me yesterday.

One reason is that the 2014 sanctions were the product of negotiations with European countries that wanted to be more cautious than the U.S. The sanctions were also intentionally narrow, designed to hurt sectors of the economy with close ties to Putin’s regime while minimizing the effect on most Russians and on the global economy.

The reality is that for sanctions to have big political repercussions, they often need to be harsh. “‘Smart’ or ‘targeted’ sanctions won’t work,” Edward Fishman and Chris Miller, two international-relations experts, recently wrote in Politico. “To really impose pain on Russia, the U.S. and Europe will have to bear some burden, too — although, fortunately, there are ways to minimize the fallout for Western economies.”

Biden acknowledged as much in his remarks at the White House yesterday. “Defending freedom will have costs, for us as well and here at home,” he said. “We need to be honest about that.” He added that he would take steps intended to minimize the increase in gas prices.

This is the approach that the U.S. took toward Iran more than a decade ago. It imposed tough sanctions, despite their likely effect on world oil markets and the damage to Iranians’ living standards. Those sanctions helped push Iran’s regime to negotiate over its nuclear program.

In Russia’s case, a more aggressive set of sanctions would start with a refusal to buy its oil — by far Russia’s biggest revenue source — perhaps phased in to mitigate the price increases on global markets. It could also involve restricting exports to Russia, like automobile parts and computers, or forbidding other banks from working with Russian banks.

More to come?

Which path are Biden and the E.U. choosing?

For now, they have imposed sanctions that Biden said went beyond the 2014 sanctions while still falling well short of what the U.S. and Europe could impose. The measures include blocking Russia’s government from borrowing money in Western financial markets and cutting off two large Russian banks from the U.S. financial system.

(My colleague Edward Wong has more details here. And Peter Coy of Times Opinion has written that isolating banks can be an effective tool.)

In the short term, those sanctions will almost certainly not cause Putin to stop menacing Ukraine. “Russia right now is sitting on quite a pile of extra cash,” Melissa Eddy, a Times correspondent in Berlin, told my colleague Claire Moses. “They have a war chest.”

But there are two big uncertainties: whether the sanctions hurt Russia’s economy once that war chest is drawn down; and whether the U.S. and Europe will impose tougher sanctions if Putin continues his war.

“The U.S. and the E.U. have worked hard over eight weeks to pull together what would be a serious, painful, massive package of sanctions that is designed to hurt,” Steven Erlanger, The Times’s chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, told us. They have not yet enacted all of those potential sanctions. But yesterday’s announcement, Steven added, “gives them room to hit Putin harder if he does more.”

Biden vowed yesterday to follow that strategy: “If Russia goes further with this invasion,” he said, “we stand prepared to go further.”

I want to thank Nan for the information above. This is from the New York Times. I hope it displays correctly it was a beast to get into the page. I did notice something I want to emphasize in the map. The area under control of the separatists is not the same as the area that Putin declared independent. The separatists actually controlled far less territory than Putin annexed. But it is not really important as Putin is now attacking the capital city Kyiv. He is trying to scare the Ukrainian government into surrendering. If not he will do it the hard way. At this point he is not going to leave without getting what he wants. There has already been Ukrainian deaths, but there will be a lot more.

Trump White House compiled opposition research report on Clarence Thomas’ wife: report

https://www.rawstory.com/ginni-thomas-opposition-research/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The Trump administration created an opposition research file on Ginni Thomas, the far-right activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

In a bombshell report published by The New York Times, reporters Danny Hakim and Jo Becker detail the power Ginni Thomas has within the conservative movement.

“This article draws on hours of recordings and internal documents from groups affiliated with the Thomases; dozens of interviews with the Thomases’ classmates, friends, colleagues and critics, as well as more than a dozen Trump White House aides and supporters and some of Justice Thomas’s former clerks; and an archive of Council for National Policy videos and internal documents provided by an academic researcher in Australia, Brent Allpress,” the newspaper reported. “The reporting uncovered new details on the Thomases’ ascent: how Trump courted Justice Thomas; how Ginni Thomas used that courtship to gain access to the Oval Office, where her insistent policy and personnel suggestions so aggravated aides that one called her a “wrecking ball” while others put together an opposition-research-style report on her that was obtained by The Times; and the extent to which Justice Thomas flouted judicial-ethics guidance by participating in events hosted by conservative organizations with matters before the court.”

The newspaper reported on a Jan. 25, 2019 meeting with Trump.

WATCH: CNN catches Trump-loving Florida group red-handed pushing voter fraud misinformation

“It was the craziest meeting I’ve ever been to,” said a Trump aide.

“It was an event with no precedent, and some of the details of what transpired soon leaked: the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice lobbying a president when several cases involving transgender rights were making their way through the federal courts,” the newspaper reported. “Before the meeting, Trump’s aides assembled the research document outlining concerns with Ginni Thomas and some of her preferred job candidates, the contents of which they shared with the president.”

The opposition research document noted that Ginni Thomas ally Crystal Clanton had been forced out of Turning Point USA for reportedly texting “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like [expletive] them all. … I hate blacks. End of story.”

Thomas reportedly pushed for positions for Dan Bongino and former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke.

“In the White House, she was out of bounds many times,” one of Trump’s senior aides said. “It was always: ‘We need more MAGA people in government. We’re trying to get these résumés through, and we’re being blocked.’ I appreciated her energy, but a lot of these people couldn’t pass background checks.”

Read the full report.

Rick Scott’s ‘Plan to Rescue America’ includes promise to name border wall after Trump

https://thehill.com/homenews/595338-rick-scotts-plan-to-save-america-includes-promise-to-name-border-wall-after-trump

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has crafted an 11-point plan laying out what the agenda should be for Republicans and conservatives if they retake control of Congress this year and the White House in 2024.

Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released what he called a plan to “rescue America,” which includes a promise to finish a wall along the Southwest border with Mexico and name is after former President Trump.

“Nations have borders. We should give that a try. President Trump’s plan to build a wall was right. We welcome those who want to join us in building the American dream, immigrants who want to be Americans, not change America,” a slide deck featuring the plan reads. “We are a stronger nation because we are a nation of immigrants; but immigration without assimilation makes us weaker. Politicians from both parties talk big about border security and do nothing. We are done with that.”

The plan also calls on Republican leaders to “strip all federal funding from ‘sanctuary cities’ and prosecute any elected officials who flout our immigration laws.”

Scott has been working with other party leaders to craft the Republican message ahead of this year’s mid-term elections and has met with Trump at least once since the former president left office.

Trump’s endorsements of Republican primary candidates in races in several states is widely seen as pivotal as he ponders his own political future.

“I want to be an additive, I want us all to row the boats in the same direction,” Scott said of Trump during an interview last March. “My goal is to tell the [former] president what I’m doing. I’ve talked to him, and he tells me he wants to be helpful to me. He’s committed to Republicans taking back a majority in the U.S. Senate.”

Scott’s plan was widely praised by Republican allies and mocked by Democrats on Twitter.

“Raise taxes on half of Americans, including seniors and working families,” White House Rapid Response Director Mike Gwin said in a tweet. “Literally nothing on how to lower prices for working families.”

“Joe Biden and Democrats have made life more expensive and less safe for families across America,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Ronna McDaniel in a statement. “Republicans like Senator Rick Scott have real solutions to put us back on track. From lowering costs and creating jobs, to supporting police and securing the border, Republicans are offering a clear plan to protect and reinvigorate the America we know and love.”

Please notice what the Republican party is focused on. First pleasing tRump. Second racism and bigotry of the base. Again putting the burden of the cost of the country on the lower incomes and giving the higher incomes a pass. Nothing addressing the current problems of the country.

Biden: Sanctions To Target Russian Elites, Banks, Debt

Biden: Sanctions To Target Russian Elites, Banks, Debt

The Washington Post reports:

President Biden announced new sanctions on Russia on Tuesday after its moves against Ukraine, saying the actions amounted to a “flagrant violation of international law.”

In imposing economic penalties on Russia, the United States joins European allies in responding to Russia’s deployment of troops into two pro-Russian separatist regions of eastern Ukraine. Biden called Russia’s actions the “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Biden said a “first tranche” of U.S. sanctions against Russia would target two financial institutions, Russian sovereign debt and Russian elites and their family members.

The New York Times reports:

Mr. Biden said the United States is imposing “full blocking” on two large Russian financial institutions and “comprehensive sanctions” on Russian debt.

“That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western finance,” he said. “It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either.”

He also said that the United States would impose sanctions on Russian elites and their families, an effort to ensure that those closest to Mr. Putin do not escape financial pain that is expected to hit hard for average Russian citizens.

I am impressed. These are not small steps or weak words. Biden stood strong and firm and warned the country that defending democracy is going to come at a cost and it is going to hurt in some ways. I don’t think Russia / Putin expected this. I don’t think he thought the gas pipeline was threatened. These sanction will hurt the oligarchs which will threaten Putin’s hold on the country.

Says Joe Biden risks war with Russia because Vladimir Putin doesn’t “believe in transgender rights.”

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/21/jd-vance/jd-vance-says-transgender-rights-drives-looming-co/

Senatorial candidate JD Vance speaks at a rally in Mason, Ohio. (AP)

JD Vance says transgender rights drives looming conflict in Ukraine

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance said the State Department’s focus on transgender rights is inflaming the conflict with Russia in Ukraine.

Russia has placed as many as 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders.

Russia has said Ukraine’s ties to NATO are a key threat to Russia’s national security.

As the prospect of a ground war hangs over Ukraine, Ohio Senate hopeful JD Vance said he doesn’t “really care what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other.”

Speaking to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Vance, a Marine veteran, said there’s no reason for U.S. military intervention.

“We didn’t not serve in the Marine Corps to go and fight Vladimir Putin because he didn’t believe in transgender rights,” Vance said Feb. 19. “Which is what the U.S. State Department is saying is a major problem with Russia.”

Vance went on to say he is “sick of Joe Biden focusing” on Ukraine at the expense of dealing with problems on the border with Mexico.

Whatever the troubles on America’s southern border, Russia’s transgender policies are not affecting the current tensions in Ukraine.

The U.S. and its NATO allies estimate that since last spring, Russia has moved as many as 150,000 troops within striking distance of Ukraine’s borders.

“That is by any means, by any estimate, a massive number of forces,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Feb. 16. “We also know that the Russians have capabilities when it comes to electronic warfare, when it comes to aerial capabilities, any number of tactics they could employ, whether on their own or together as part of a broader onslaught.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said a Russian attack could come at any moment, if Russia wanted.

“They have enough troops and enough capabilities to launch a full fledged invasion of Ukraine with very little or no warning time,” Stoltenberg said Feb. 17. “That is what makes the situation so dangerous.”

President Joe Biden has said the warnings of war are aimed at forestalling it.

“We’re calling out Russia’s plans loudly and repeatedly, not because we want a conflict, but because we’re doing everything in our power to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine and prevent them from moving,” Biden said Feb. 18.

Europe hasn’t seen sustained warfare on its turf since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and that didn’t involve the prospect of Russian forces driving combat operations. With Ukraine, the potential scale of a military conflict is orders of magnitude bigger.