The Lizard People Look Toward 2024

I'm starting to see signs that the lizard people are losing patience. As I noted yesterday, the YouTube psychologist Dr Todd Grande, who with his audience sees himself as at least a step up from Dr Phil, has come out and said, "It's hard to imagine how [Biden] is fit to be president under these circumstances." I've been of the position that individual gaffes, ranging just last week from "Where's Jackie?" to the latest instance of Dr Jill giving him orders in public as he wanders around the stage, don't necessarily indicate a medical condition, but whatever they are, they've become a problem.

Thus people like Bill Maher are starting to float tentative strategies:

The liberal comedian and host of the eponymous Real Time With Bill Maher told his audience Friday night that although he considered President Joe Biden’s place on the Democratic ticket for the president in 2024 to be a done deal, he could “see” dumping Vice President Kamala Harris. The audience erupted in applause, showing that even the Left doesn’t think she has what it takes.

Maher is a comic, not a political strategist, but he's a comic with an edge, and he's at least got some clue of what's happening. He goes on,

“What I could see is replacing the vice president,” Maher said. “Because she’s just not very popular anywhere. And it didn’t seem to work out. And, I don’t know, that’s been done before on a ticket….”

“I just think she’s a bad politician, I think she’s a very bright person, but I don’t know—I can see them doing that because a lot of the problem with ‘Biden being old’ is—oh, if he dies, then you’re going to get this person.”

So, what are the alternatives? Former Clinton confidant Dick Morris thinks Hillary may be an option:

Democrats plan to “dump” President Biden and call on Hillary Clinton to run for a third time in 2024 out of fear that a more radical left-wing candidate could end up on the ticket, veteran political consultant Dick Morris said in a new interview.

. . . “Once Biden pulls out, the polling will show that the Democrats are leaning toward some crazy radical like Gavin Newson, Bernie Sanders. Maybe even AOC herself,” Morris opined.

“That’s going to drive the Democratic Party leaders to go to Hillary and say, ‘Hey look. Please run again. We need you to save us from the crazy left,” he continued. “Otherwise we’ll have Sanders as our candidate. We’ll lose Congress by a ton. And we’ll get wiped out in the presidential race.'”

Well, received opinion has it that the lizard people (Morris's "Democratic Party leaders") chose Biden as the most viable foil to Sanders in 2020 for just that reason, with Kamala as vice president as a credible but reliably feckless consolation prize for the left. That formula worked in 2020, but it was understood from the start, I think, that it wouldn't work even in 2022, much less 2024. But of course, just as Biden, Pelosi, and Sanders are all well past their sell-by dates, so is Hillary. My guess is even Dick Morris understands this. As well try to convince Al Gore to run again.

Over the past week, it dawned on me that Antony Blinken, Secretary of State and the generational public face of the Blinken fortune, is a lizard person, i.e., someone who is actually running things. It's plain that the globalist elites support President Zelensky, and his policy proposals are typically adopted within weeks of his initial announcements. He wants EU membership for Ukraine, there's some pro forma dither, but several weeks later, it's under way. He wants secondhand Migs, there's pro forma dither, but a few weeks later, it happens. Now he wants NATO membership -- as happened with the Migs, Jake Sullivan leads the pro forma dither:

Ukraine’s announcement has not met with much enthusiasm in Washington: In response to Kyiv's fast-track application for NATO membership, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. President's National Security Advisor, said that it was “not the right time” for Ukraine’s admission to the alliance. He said he believes the best way to help Ukraine is to provide practical assistance “on the ground.”

It'll take a few weeks, but it's going to happen. Now, I don't disagree with this. Frankly, I think if the lizard people could promote Zelensky to US president, they'd do it, and that would probably be a good idea -- certainly better than Biden.

But here's the rub. I've reflected on Trump's remark, which he's repeated several times, that Putin's invasion of Ukraine "never would have happened" if he'd been president in 2021. That's because the precipitating event for Putin's invasion was Biden's sudden exit from Afghanistan and its inevitable echoes of the US retreat from Saigon. Trump would almost certainly have maintained a balance of power with Putin that would have tacitly continued to grant him Crimea and the Donbas, but nothing more. Putin saw Biden's weakness as an opening to invade the rest of Ukraine.

From the point of view of Blinken and the global elites that he certainly represents, this was a fortunate fall. Completely unplanned and a surprise even to Western intelligence, the ability of Ukraine's third-rate army to fight the Russians to a standstill in the early days and weeks proved the weakness of Russia as a geopolitical power. This has been an opportunity too good to miss, and the elites are going to do everything they can to open Russia fully to Western capital and take the territory away from Putin and the oligarchs.

Thus we have Henry Kissinger, the Antony Blinken of prior generations, remarkably changing his mind on just this issue.

During an interview with him on German channel ZDF, and in response to one of the questions, Kissinger said: “giving up Ukrainian territory should not be one of the conditions we can accept”.

On May 23, two months before the above statement, and while attending the Davos conference, Kissinger said: “Ukraine should give up part of its territory to Russia to help end the invasion”. So, what happened and why did was there a shift from one extreme to the other?

The link, to the organ of the Syrian Marxist-Lenninst People's Will Party, offers an insight into the Ukraine war from that perspective, viz, that it represents a failed attempt to make an overall deal with Putin:

At the time, we essentially said that the man [Kissinger] is proposing with his words a deal to the Russians, in the name of the global elite, the purpose of which was to lure Russia with some of Ukraine’s territory, with a reasonable position within the current world system. However, that was with one main condition: Russia stops its joint war with China, not on Ukraine, but on the global financial system.

Kissinger, in this view, had maintained his posiion on the deal for several months after it had become clear, with Putin's invasion of Ukraine, that the deal had fallen through. Trump had also supported this deal and appears to have felt that Putin was on board with it. Biden, by his disorganized retreat from Afghanistan, caused Putin to miscalculate, and the whole idea of a balance of power on which the putative deal was made went out the window. Since then, the key strategist has been Volodymyr Zelensky, who is de facto running NATO and indeed the US State and Defense Departments.

I'm not joking, either. This is the outcome of the total surprise that Russia's military collapse represents -- nobody else in any Western diplomatic, military, or intelligence establishment anticipated anything like this, and Zelensky has proposed the only workable strategy. There are simply Old Testament echoes here.

I would say that this is the state of affairs that is going to drive the strategy, as yet inchoate, of the lizard people going forward for 2024. They will likely either need to find a Democrat hawk on Russia and Ukraine who can distance himself from a woke platform in his party to get elected, or they will need to find a Republican who can make Kissinger's move, which I would say is a better bet.

Dr Todd Grande On Biden

I often follow the popular YouTube psychologist Dr Todd Grande, in part because he gives insightful presentations on well-known criminal cases. Like many professionals in various fields who make regular YouTube commentaries, though, I suspect he makes more money from YouTube than from his day job, and I take that into account. Nevertheless, beyond his often entertaining analysis of con artists and celebrities, he's also given several discussions about Joe Biden and his leadership qualifications. The most recent, linked above, is from yesterday, in which, after enumerating a list of gaffes Biden has made since assuming the presidency, he concludes, "It's hard to imagine how he is fit to be president under these circumstances."

At about 5:30, he explains,

In my opinion, the age of a president does not matter as much as the condition that they are in. I've seen people in their 90s that are sharp as a tack, and I've seen people in their 30s who were frequently confused. There is definitely such a thing as highway miles versus city miles when it comes to human lifestyles. Certain experiences will age people prematurely and dramatically, like alcohol and drug consumption, spending time in prison, and watching the Kardashians. Again, I don't think that age is a big deal, which means we have to look specifically at Joe Biden's condition to answer the question. There are three main concerns with somebody serving as president as they grow older. The first is mortality -- that is, will they continue to live? The second is physical performance -- like, can they keep up with all the activity? And the third is mental acuity -- are they cognitively able to do the job? . . . This is the one that is of concern to many people. I'm not aware of anything majorly wrong with Joe Biden. Some people have talked about dementia, but there's not a lot of evidence to support that conclusion. Joe appears to have some reasoning and memory limitations that are consistent with his age. Of all the Joe Biden mistakes, the ones that are the most worrisome involve his aggressiveness with reporters and how he is easily confused. It's clear that his performance in the areas of reasoning and memory are [sic] impaired. It's hard to imagine how he is fit to be president under these circumstances.

On August 28, 2021, he posted the episode below, "Is Joe Biden a Failed President?"

In it, he focuses on character and leadership issues, rather than questions of cognitive ability, which I actually think are closer to the mark. At about 1:30:

I don't think it's the withdrawal of military forces is what is making people so upset with Joe Biden, rather, it's really about how he handled the withdrawal. The strategy of having people running to the airport in danger of losing their lives did not seem to be well thought out. This brings me to the question, was Joe Biden demonstrating leadership? There are a few items that speak to leadership that I will review here. One, in spite of taking ownership of the problem, Biden has blamed just about everyone else. He said his advisers did not warn him of the situation, when in fact they did, although it may be true that there was some disagreement among the advisers; Biden blamed the president of Afghanistan for fleeing; Biden portrayed the Afghan security forces as incompetent' one could argue that he implied they were cowards; Biden seemed more fascinated with blaming tghe people of Afghanistan than helping them. He abandoned people who had helped the United States' he basically is telling them "tough luck". A key part of leadership is accepting responsibility. It is the only way to instill confidence. Biden simply can't view himself as the problem. He believes no one has the right to doubt his superior leadership qualities.

At about 7:30, he concludes,

With all these factors in mind, what are my thoughts on Joe Biden's leadership ability? I can appreciate that Joe Biden has trouble adjusting to being president. He doesn't like questions from reporters, probably because he doesn't have good answers, he doesn't like being held accountable; foreign and domestic policy are more complicated than he originally imagined. Even still, he promoted himself as a leader. Unfortunately, the evidence doesn't support his assertion. . . . I think the reality is simply that Joe Biden is the person who is in charge. That's different than being the leader.

It does seem as though episodes of Biden's on-stage confusion are becoming more frequent. Yesterday, for instance, as reported by Nick Arama at the Red State blog

During an event at the White House on Friday for Rosh Hoshanah, . . . I . . . found it intriguing that they are putting a mark on the floor for him to know where to stand. You can see him looking for it on the ground . . . . after Joe Biden finished his remarks, he seemed confused and delayed leaving the stage. Jill looked testy when he asked her something, and she said, “No.” Then reporters began shouting questions and Biden seemed to point at something. That’s when Jill looked worried — perhaps not wanting him to answer any questions– and started pushing him off the stage. You could also see both Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff looking like they didn’t know what to do with Joe. Emhoff pointed off stage for Joe to know which way to go.

We’ve seen how much he seems to be deteriorating. But you know it’s getting worse when the handlers like Jill seem to be fraying at the edges now as well. She doesn’t look at all happy in her position. Even Kamala and her husband looked uneasy here. Everyone knows there’s an issue. Imagine how wearying it must be to wonder, “What will Joe do next?” and how they might have to head it off. But they’re the ones who put us all in this position of having someone in this condition in office.

Dr Grande seems to be of the opinion that Biden doesn't have serious cognitive issues, but on a day-to-day basis, his public appearances are becoming hard to manage. I would think this is partly a question of character -- he simply doesn't like being told what to say, where to stand, or where to go -- and partly an issue of bad habits carried into old age, but not a question of full dementia.

But I can't disagree with Dr Grande that maybe this isn't what we want right now. I would slightly disagree with him on the point that he's in charge, but not a leader. I'd say it's more likely he's neither. My guess is there's a good angel whispering in one ear -- Secretary Blinken -- and some bad angels whispering in the other, including Speaker Pelosi. But I'm inclined to invoke Stein's Law: That which cannot continue must stop.

Looking More Closely At Blinken

I've become more interested in Antony Blinken over the past several months, since he appears to be an independent policy actor within the Biden administration. In early March, less than two weeks after Putin invaded Ukraine, the White House and the Pentagon publicly contradicted Blinken over a plan to send secondhand Polish Migs to Ukraine:

But the proposal isn’t as simple as it seems and apparently caught US diplomats off guard when Poland announced the plan Tuesday. Previously, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had indicated that Poland sending jets to Ukraine would get “the green light” from the Biden administration, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, also supported the plan in an appearance on ABC’s This Week last Sunday.

However, the report said, "Biden administration concerns about escalating US involvement in the conflict appear to have stalled the deal." According to Politico,

[S]keptics inside the Biden administration pushed back on the idea of green-lighting the transfer of Poland’s MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine, and President Joe Biden sided with those skeptics, three U.S. officials said.

But by mid-April, Ukraine was nevertheless receiving "Mig parts" of unspecified provenance, while at the same time, the March fiasco with the White House fostering public internecine disagreements on Ukraine policy hasn't been repeated.

US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby, without wanting to go into details about the type of aircraft supplied to Ukraine or their operational status, commented as follows; "They have more fighter aircraft at their disposal today than they did two weeks ago. Without going into details about what other countries are supplying, I would say they have received additional aircraft and spare parts to augment their fleet," he then added.

My sixth sense tells me somebody got spanked, and Blinken emerged the eventual winner. Why? Let's to to Wikipedia. The first observation to make is that the Blinken family has been a member of the US upper class for generations. Consider Antony's father, Donald Blinken (1925-2022):

Blinken was born on November 11, 1925, in Yonkers, New York, the son of Maurice Blinken and his wife, Ethel (Horowitz). His father and mother were of Jewish descent and his father was originally from Kyiv (now the capital of Ukraine). His grandfather was author Meir Blinken. Blinken had two brothers, Alan and Robert.

The brothers grew up both in New York City and Yonkers. They attended the Horace Mann School. Blinken graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University in 1948, after serving in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II in 1944.

Although Jewish, considering Donald's father was able to send his sons to an exclusive prep school -- a clearer class marker than even an Ivy degree -- and then send Donald to Harvard at a time when Harvard still had a Jewish quota, it seems plain that the Blinkens were "Episcopalian Jews", who had been admitted to New York society since at least the turn of the 20th century. Wikipedia doesn't go into the source of the family's wealth or standing, but it certainly seems to have given Donald a head start:

Blinken met Mark Rothko in 1956 and became an art collector. He was president of the Mark Rothko Foundation from 1976 to 1989. In 1984, the foundation distributed 1,000 art pieces to museums, including to the National Gallery of Art.

In 1966, Blinken co-founded E. M. Warburg Pincus & Company, an investment bank in New York. He served as a director for Warburg Pincus, and served as chairman of the board of directors. From 1970 to 1976, Blinken was president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He was appointed to the board of trustees for the State University of New York by Governor Hugh Carey in September 1976 and was appointed the board's chairman in 1978. The board clashed with Governor Mario Cuomo as Cuomo wanted the board to cut spending. Blinken announced his resignation from the board in October 1989, which took effect with the confirmation of his successor in 1990.

During the presidency of Jimmy Carter, Blinken served on a special nomination panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1994, President Bill Clinton nominated Blinken to be the United States Ambassador to Hungary. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and served in the role until 1997. From 2000 to 2004, Blinken was the secretary-general of the World Federation of United Nations Associations.

We may assume that his nomination as Ambassador to Hungary was on the same basis as other ambassadorships to major countries, typically awarded to highly wealthy and influential political donors. In fact, his brother Alan Blinken , a Harvard alum as well, was also Ambassador to Belgium during the Clinton administration. While Donald was not a career diplomat, he nevertheless was in a position to further his son Antony's career:

Antony John Blinken (born April 16, 1962) is an American government official and diplomat serving as the 71st United States secretary of state since January 26, 2021. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under President Barack Obama.

During the Clinton administration, Blinken served in the State Department and in senior positions on the National Security Council from 1994 to 2001. He was a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2001 to 2002. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for Joe Biden's 2008 presidential campaign, before advising the Obama–Biden presidential transition.

From 2009 to 2013, Blinken served as deputy assistant to the president and national security advisor to the vice president. During his tenure in the Obama administration, he helped craft U.S. policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm.

There can be little question that the Blinken family is a locus of power in US political and financial circles and has been, apparently since at least the 1930s. In the period after 2017 and before 2020, he

co-founded WestExec Advisors, a political strategy advising firm, with Michèle Flournoy, Sergio Aguirre, and Nitin Chadda. WestExec's clients have included Google's Jigsaw, Israeli artificial-intelligence company Windward, surveillance drone manufacturer Shield AI, which signed a $7.2 million contract with the Air Force, and "Fortune 100 types". According to Foreign Policy, the firm's clientele includes "the defense industry, private equity firms, and hedge funds". Blinken received almost $1.2 million in compensation from WestExec.

In an interview with The Intercept, Flournoy described WestExec's role as facilitating relationships between Silicon Valley firms and the Department of Defense and law enforcement; Flournoy and others compared WestExec to Kissinger Associates.

But also,

Blinken, as well as other Biden transition team members Michele Flournoy, former Pentagon advisor, and Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, are partners of private equity firm Pine Island Capital Partners, a strategic partner of WestExec. Pine Island's chairman is John Thain, the final chairman of Merrill Lynch before its sale to Bank of America. Blinken went on leave from Pine Island in August 2020 to join the Biden campaign as a senior foreign policy advisor. He said he would divest himself of his equity stake in Pine Island if confirmed for a position in the Biden administration.

My preliminary estimate is that if anyone is in a position to spank Joe Biden, it's Antony Blinken. Blinken in fact strikes me as someone who may well determine Biden's eventual fate.

Biden, Trump, And Blinken

There was a big news pseudo-event yesterday when President Brandon, in yet another gaffe, asked during a speech at a White House conference, “Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?” He was referring to the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), who passed away this past August in an auto accident. The explanation appears to be that apparently, his notes (or the teleprompter) told him to make sure to honor the late representative, but weren't specific enough. Thus

In fact, Biden’s teleprompter was cueing him to speak about Walorski specifically because she is deceased. The man in possession of our nuclear football did not know the woman he was calling out for is dead, did not know he was supposed to be honoring her memory – because she is dead – and likely did not know what was supposed to happen after that moment.

Apparently, a memorial video was supposed to play, but the White House aides shut down the President and never played the video in a desperate attempt to erase his doddering cluelessness.

But as I've been saying all along, Biden isn't really "doddering", which is "moving in a feeble or unsteady way, especially because of old age". He's been this way all his life, and Barack Obama's handlers were acutely aware of this. The bottom line is that he is, and always has been, both dumb and lazy, but consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect, he doesn't think he needs to be told anything. So if his notes tell him be sure to mention Rep Walorski, he knows exactly what to do. Period.

This is nothing new, as even the conservative blogs now point out. The question for me is why his highest-ranking handlers -- Susan Rice in this case -- are constantly in reactive mode. He makes another gaffe, and yet again Rice, Ron Klain, or Ms Jean-Pierre has to clean things up.

But there's a dog that isn't barking. The one guy who never seems to have to run out with a mop and bucket is Sec Blinken, and that seems to be because somehow a basic ground rule has been set up that says Biden is not to make freelance utterances about Ukraine. This may have something to do with former Pentagon spokesman John Kirby's move to the White House press office, and there may also be an understanding that his handlers are simply not to allow any situation where the president is even able to make any but the most rigorously circumscribed remarks on the conflict.

Certainly this is not how the White House operates day to day, and I'm still really curious how this has come about. All I can say for now is that Sec Blinken has been rising in my estimation. But this brings up another problem, Donald Trump.

In a remarkable turn of events, former President Donald J. Trump offered to “head up [a] group” of peace negotiators between Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday morning, cautioning that the United States must act prudently in the wake of the suspected sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

. . . Only Trump is demanding that the war end through negotiations.

“The Russia/Ukraine catastrophe should NEVER have happened, and would definitely not have happened if I were President,” Trump added on his Truth Social platform. “Do not make matters worse with the pipeline blowup. Be strategic, be smart (brilliant!), get a negotiated deal done NOW. Both sides need and want it. The entire World is at stake. I will head up group???”

The biggest obstacle to any sort of negotiations over Ukraine for now is President Zelensky.

There will be no peace talks between Ukraine and Russia as long as Vladimir Putin remains Russian leader, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday night.

. . . Zelenskyy said Russia’s attempts to annex new Ukrainian territories were a “Crimea scenario,” referring to the Moscow-initiated referendum on the peninsula joining Russia in 2014, which has never been recognized by Kyiv or its Western backers.

“Russia’s implementation of the so-called Crimean scenario and another attempt to annex Ukrainian territory will mean that there is nothing to talk about with this President of Russia,” he said.

. . . According to Zelenskyy, the West should meet Putin’s escalation with defense, financial and sanctions support for Ukraine.

As an amateur strategist, I don't think it's difficult to conclude that Putin, or any likely successor, will simply negotiate in bad faith, use whatever cease-fire or partial withdrawal is achieved in negotiations as an opportunity to rearm, and resume his effort to occupy the whole of Ukraine at the first opportunity. For now, Sec Blinken is the one with a clear understanding of the situation, and on this issue, Trump has got it wrong.

I'm hoping Trump can clarify what his objectives would be if he had the opportunity to negotiate, but for now, the best case is Biden has been kept from interfering in Ukraine, Trump is out of power, and Blinken is in charge where it matters.

Parsing The Right's Case Against Aiding Ukraine

Recently I ran across two essays that outline what I take to be the right-wing case against aiding Ukraine. I have some suspicion that neither is completely ingenuous, but I'll take their points at face value. The first is by Michael Walsh, 'Not Worth the Bones of a Single Grenadier' at a site called The Pipeline, which seems to carry National Review types like John O'Sullivan. He begins with an argument we'll see again:

Bismarck was right about the Balkans, but he might as well have been speaking of the Ukraine, a troubled land (its name means "borderland"), oft-conquered, rarely independent, generally restive, and almost always miserable. Like the Kurds, the Ukrainians are for reasons of geography basically a people without a country. . .

But the same might be said about half of Europe; Poland wasn't a country at all throughout the 19th century; Belgium didn't emerge until 1830 and has been twice invaded since then by Germany, which itself didn't exist before 1871. Czechoslovakia became independent in 1918, was partitioned by Germany in 1938, reemerged in 1945, but split into two separate states in 1993. Does Walsh propose some sort of exemption for Ukraine from the ongoing process of European national development? Does he think there might be a way to declare a timeout for Ukraine from history?

The Ukraine won its independence after the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. As part of the deal, the Ukrainians were persuaded/coerced by Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, among other signatories to the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, to surrender the nuclear weapons stationed on their soil. The key point for Russia was that the Ukraine, as a buffer state between itself and the West, should never be allowed to threaten the Russian homeland. . . . The idea was that Russia wouldn't threaten its former Warsaw Pact states and in return NATO wouldn't edge up to Russia's borders.

That may be, but a search in the text for the number "2014" brings no hits before the comments. But according to Wikipedia,

In February 2014, Russian forces seized or blockaded various airports and other strategic sites throughout Crimea. The troops were attached to the Russian Black Sea Fleet stationed in Crimea, which placed Russia in violation of the Budapest Memorandum. . . . After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and US stated that Russian involvement was a breach of its Budapest Memorandum obligations to Ukraine and in violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

For some reason, omitting Putin's 2014 breach, Welsh claims it's the West's fault:

The West, of course, welshed on the deal, and has gradually been impressing other satellite countries near Russia's western border into the service of a now-explicitly anti-Russian (as opposed to anti-Soviet, as it was formerly). North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, more recently, the military powerhouses of Montenegro and North Macedonia. More are likely on their way, including Finland and Sweden, historically both enemies of Russia.

But isn't it the case that Putin's 2014 invasion of Crimea, and now his invasion of the rest of Ukraine, has made all these countries nervous not about the old Soviet Union, but about contemporary Russia? This in fact is the substance of Walsh's argument -- the rest of his essay is a general denunciation of Biden in thoroughly predictable terms:

The biggest cheerleaders for the Ukraine in the current war have turned out to be, surprise, Joe Biden and his always-wrong, America Last foreign policy establishment, headed by secretary of state Anthony Blinken, a retread from both the Clinton and Obama administrations. Biden and his noxious family have long used the Ukraine—the most corrupt country in Europe—as their personal piggybank and money laundromat, and in the recent past he has openly boasted about his ability to legally blackmail Ukrainian officials into doing his bidding. His word as a Biden!

The mention of Blinken, though, is worth pursuing, which I'll do in a moment. But let's move to the second essay from the right-wing perspective, Putin’s Last Laugh by Rod Dreher at The American Conservative. After reviewing European doomsday predictions about the economic consequences of the war, Dreher sums up:

[W]hen Western leaders responded to Putin's invasion with an open attempt to destroy the Russian economy -- I quoted some of the statements by EU figures here yesterday -- what did they think Russia would do? It's incredible that seemingly intelligent people in the West live under the illusion that because Russia's invasion of Ukraine is illegal and immoral, that Russia should sit back and allow the West to destroy its economy without retaliating.

As far as I can tell, what he's saying is that although Russia broke every norm from the UN Charter to the Budapest Memorandum, Western leaders should have been aware that a guy who would do that would also turn off the gas piepelines. Or something like that. So what's his point, exactly? That because Putin would retaliate, the West should do nothing? He goes on,

So, how can we be surprised that Russia is using its energy weapon against the West? Again: we in the West have been waging economic war on Russia since the invasion (as well as sending Ukraine weapons and intelligence). You may think that waging economic war was and is the right thing to do morally, but you surely cannot be such a hypocrite as to say that Russia has no right to do what it's doing to the West now -- and you surely cannot be such a fool as to believe that this was not inevitable.

So he acknowledges Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a violation of international norms and intenational law, BUT:

To be clear: none of this excuses Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The loathing of Putin and Russia over this invasion, though, made it impossible for very many people in positions of leadership to think clearly about what was at stake in this conflict.

And that's essentially the end of his argument. He cites the example of an Irish cafe that may need to close if its electricity bill skyrockets. Well and good. Does this mean the West should not have imposed economic sanctions on Russia? He basically says Putin is despicable, but we shouldn't let this cloud our judgment. So what is his policy prescription? I will even grant him the possibility that sanctions, as in cases like Cuba or Iran, often don't have much effect, but Dreher must be aware that the US and NATO are doing much more than boycotting caviar -- they're sending tens of billions in direct military aid.

The military aid is having direct effect, forcing Putin to call up reserves to the point of potentially destabilizing his regime. If Dreher is against economic boycotts, is he also against military aid? Oddly, he isn't clear about this at all. So what should the West do? He actually has no prescription other than to suggest anything it does that actually has enough effect to make Putin retaliate is a bad idea. But hasn't there been a consensus since Hitler and the Sudeten crisis that appeasing dictators is a a bad idea, and avoiding small sacrifices in the short run means making much bigger ones later?

Walsh brings up Anthony Blinken as the enabler of current policies on Ukraine that date back to the Clinton administration. Indeed, Anthony Blinken's father, who passed away only this past week, was apparently a key figure:

Donald Mayer Blinken (November 11, 1925 – September 22, 2022) was an American businessman and diplomat. He served as the United States Ambassador to Hungary from 1994 to 1997. His son, Antony Blinken, is the current Secretary of State to United States President Joe Biden. . . . His father and mother were of Jewish descent and his father was originally from Kyiv (now the capital of Ukraine). His grandfather was author Meir Blinken.

I've been wondering where current US Ukraine policy originated, and this may be a partial answer. My developing view is that the Blinken family represents an unaccustomed strain of at least partial competence in the current administration, and it is somehow consistent with the George Kennan-Averell Harriman policies of an earlier generation. The right-wing objections to it amount to appeasement.

I've also been wondering who's powerful enough behind the scenes to prevail on Biden not to interfere in Ukraine, and conversely, to say only what he's told to say about policy. The Blinkens may be at least a lead.

Russia's Problem Is A Problem For Orthodoxy

I've noted here now and then that there's a schism within the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox denomination, arising from the dissolution of the Soviet Union but recently exacerbated by the Russo-Ukraine War. The Wikipedia entry on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) says,

Prior to May 2022, the Primate of the UOC-MP was the most senior permanent member of the ROC's Holy Synod and thus had a say in its decision-making in respect of the rest of the ROC throughout the world. On May 27, 2022, the UOC declared its independence from the Moscow Patriarchate due to Patriarch Kirill's support of the invasion of Ukraine. Before its decision for full independence, more than 400 parishes had left the Moscow Patriarchate as a consequence of the invasion.

Most recently Patriarch Kirill has tied the Orthodox faith directly to fighting in Ukraine:

While celebrating the Divine Liturgy on Wednesday at the Zachatyevsky Monastery, which is traditionally considered the oldest convent in Moscow (a historically dubious claim), the Patriarch begins his sermon by recalling, not the birth of the Holy Mother, but the birth of the Fatherland at the Battle of Kulikovo.

. . . He declares that while retreat might be possible from worldly things, it’s impossible to retreat “from faith,” a powerful line, now a standard in his sermons, which draws an equivalency between Russian aggression in Ukraine and defending and living the Orthodox faith.

He then goes on to once again erase Ukraine from the historical map, saying that the people ought to pray that “Holy Russia would be reunited.” As he’s made clear before, Ukraine is not, to his mind, an independent nation, but a rogue territory within Russia. And keeping Ukraine as part of Russia is a sacred obligation. It’s also apparently what victory looks like for the Virgin Mary (she does get a shout out at the end).

Reading about individual parishes leaving a denomination reminds me of the "continuing Anglican" and related movements to leave the US Episcopal Church, and it's simply a bad sign, since it means an inevitable loss of prestige for the denomination as a whole, both the parent body and its contentious children. In the case of Russia, it ties the denomination to an unpopular war. During the Viet Nam war, most Christian denominations or people claiming to represent them were publicly against US policy, which on one hand protected the denominations from loss of face when the war went badly.

On the other hand, both the government and the denominations were also protected by the US constitutional ban on establishment of religion, so that no denomination of any stripe was forced to defend the government. The problem for Russian Orthodoxy is that it has been an agency of the Russian state in one form or another since 1721 under Peter the Great. In many ways, the Russian Orthodox Church's history in the 18th century echoed the history of the Church of England, with the government seizing monastic lands and influencing church governance.

Catherine even made sure that the salaries of all ranks of the clergy were paid by the state instead of the Church, resulting in the clergy effectively becoming employees of the state.

Even after 1917, while the communist government seized church valuables and for a time executed priests, religion was never fully abolished, and by the time of the 1941 German invasion, Stalin came to see the church as a convenient ally in the war. Thus Russian Orthodoxy has been tied to the state and specific state policies, including war, ever since the establishment of modern Russia. It's recognized that both Patriarch Kirill and his predecessor were KGB agents during the Soviet period:

Forbes reported on February 20, 2009 that, "Kirill, who was the Metropolitan of Smolensk, succeeds Alexei II who died in December after 18 years as head of the Russian Church. According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies."

The difficulty for Russian Orthodoxy is that even through the disruptions of the 20th century, the denomination has continued as an agent of the Russian state, and the patriarch at this point is still a convenient puppet of the Russian autarch. It doesn't help that Russian Orthodox clergy have been not just state employees, but KGB agents, which compromises both their motives and their standing as ministers to the faithful.

In his recent sermon, Kirill tied Russian Orthodoxy to a founding event of the Russian state, the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). The problem for Russia generally is that its impending loss in Ukraine is bringing to mind other key historical events like the First (1410) and Second (1914) Battle of Tannenberg, which have also been cited as turning points in Russian history, and with them, Russian Orthodoxy.

This is also a problem at the core of Western right-wing support for Russia in the war, since many such supporters favor Putin for promoting conservative values in Russia, as opposed to Western countries that support Ukraine, when those governments also pursue policies that undermine sexual morality. The difficulty will increasingly be that Putin will lose prestige as events continue to develop, while at the same time evidence emerges of Russian policies that are nearly as destructive in Ukraine as either Hitler's or Stalin's.

While I was an Episcopalian, and since then as well, I noticed an incresing trend among their clergy especially to affect Orthodox forms -- for instance, to refer to the Virgin Mary as the Theotokos -- in an effort to borrow Orthodox prestige as the prestige of Anglicanism faded. I don't think that strategy will last much longer.

Trump's Latest On Ukraine

Via the UK Daily Mail -- there's not much on this in the US.

Former President Trump said he hopes is 'wrong' about the possibility of World War III because the U.S. is being run by 'stupid people' at a rally in Wilmington, N.C. on Friday.

'I was right about Ukraine. I was right about what, Taiwan and I'm hoping I'm not going to be right about World War Three, because we have stupid people dealing,' the former president said, as he predicted the U.S. would lose a conflict to Russia.

. . . 'Putin mentioned the N word,' Trump told the crowd. 'You know what the N word is? It's-- no, no, no, it's the nuclear word. You mentioned the N word yesterday. The nuclear were not supposed to be mentioned,' Trump continued, as he claimed the Russian invasion 'never would've happened' under his presidency.

As far as I can tell, Trump's remarks in Wilmington mainly covered US domestic politics and focused on endorsements of his favored list of North Carolina candidates -- the mentions of Ukraine and nukes were offhand and non specific. However, I've got to question what's up with two of his implications.

The first is that the US would "lose a conflict with Russia" as reported. At the moment, the Russo-Ukraine War is a proxy conflict with Russia in all but name, and the takeaways for now include:

• Ukraine fought Russia to a standstill within days of its initial invasion even without US weapons.
• Once largely obsolete second-hand weapons from former Warsaw Pact countries began to be supplied, Ukraine scored battlefield victories.
• US intelligence did provide a major advantage to Ukraine.
• Russia never achieved air superiority at any point in the invasion and has kept its strategic bombers well away from the area.
• Putin's recent mobilization suggests the invasion has drained its armed forces of trained manpower, and Russia will need to recruit and train new forces even to continue the Ukraine conflict, much less prosecute a wider war.

These circumstances reinforce the observations I've seen that had Russia invaded Poland rather then Ukraine, the result would likely have been immediate rout rather than a stalemate. So I've got to conclude that Russia simply doesn't have the capability to prosecute a major conflct even in a wider European theater -- it's being defeated in detail in Ukraine alone without any direct confrontation with any NATO power. So I simply have to conclude Trump is wrong on that assumption about World War III, at least if he means any sort of conventional war.

If instead he means Putin could push the doomsday button and just try to vaporize major cities without otherwise sending military forces abroad, I'm just not sure how that would work. Given how poorly the Russian weapons systems we've seen have performed, I'm not sure how his missiles would do much better, but even the short-term result of any such exchange would likely be the end of the Russian state.

Trump's next position is that the US is being run by "stupid people". In cases like Secs Mayorkas, Buttigieg, and Grantholm, and Attorney General Garland, I have no disagreement. The puzzles are Secs Blinken and Austin. It almost seems as though they've been able to work out some sort of deal with Biden's handlers whereby in exchange for promoting wokeness in military training and general diplomacy, they've received some type of firm carveout in Ukraine policy, whereby on on hand, Biden promises not to interfere, and on the other, as in his UN speech, he says exactly what he's told to say with no wandering off script.

At this point, as I've said here now and then, US Ukraine policy is achieving positive results in a remarkably cost-effective manner. This is, however, given the circumstances the US and NATO were handed as of late last year, that Putin made a reckless and destructive decision to invade Ukraine, followed through on it, and is currently doubling down to the point that a negotiated outcome short of complete Russian withdrawal to pre-2014 borders is unlikely.

What would Trump have done differently to avoid this? But whatever he might have done, how would Russia not invading Ukraine have led to a better outcome for the world, if the current more likely result of the war will be the disintegration of Russia as a geopolitical force? What are Trump's plans for this outcome now, if any?