#Security Partnership

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich ::

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 10, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 11, 2024

A key story that got missed yesterday was that the Senate voted 64–19 to allow a bill that includes $95.34 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan to advance a step forward. In terms of domestic politics, this appears to be an attempt by those who controlled the Republican Party before Trump to push back against Trump and the MAGA Republicans. 

MAGA lawmakers had demanded border security measures be added to a national security supplemental bill that provided this international aid, as well as humanitarian aid to Gaza, but to their apparent surprise, a bipartisan group of lawmakers actually hammered out that border piece. Trump immediately demanded an end to the bill and MAGA obliged on Wednesday, forcing the rest of the party to join them in killing the national security supplemental bill. House Republicans then promptly tried to pass a measure that provided funding for Israel alone.

At stake behind this fight is not only control of the Republican Party, but also the role of the U.S. in the world—and, for that matter, its standing. And much of that fight comes down to Ukraine’s attempt to resist Russia’s invasions of 2014 and 2022. 

Russian president Vladimir Putin is intent on dismantling the rules-based international order of norms and values developed after World War II. Under this system, international organizations such as the United Nations provide places to resolve international disputes, prevent territorial wars, and end no-holds-barred slaughter through a series of agreements, including the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. Genocide Convention, and the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war. 

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, deliberate targeting of civilian populations, and war crimes are his way of thumbing his nose at the established order and demanding a different one, in which men like him dominate the globe. 

Trump’s ties to Russia are deep and well documented, including by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was dominated by Republicans when it concluded that Trump’s 2016 campaign team had worked with Russian operatives. In November 2022, in the New York Times Magazine, Jim Rutenberg pulled together testimony given both to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Senate Intelligence Committee, transcripts from the impeachment hearings, and recent memoirs. 

Rutenberg showed that in 2016, Russian operatives had presented to Trump advisor and later campaign manager Paul Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland, where Kremlin-armed, -funded, and -directed ‘separatists’ were waging a two-year-old shadow war that had left nearly 10,000 dead.” 

But they were concerned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) might stand in their way. Formed in 1947 to stand against Soviet expansion and now standing against Russian aggression, NATO is a collective security alliance of 31 states that have agreed to consider an attack on any member to be an attack on all.

In exchange for weakening NATO, undermining the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its attempt to throw off the Russians who had invaded in 2014, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to put their finger on the scales to help Trump win the White House. 

When he was in office, Trump did, in fact, try to weaken NATO—as well as other international organizations like the World Health Organization—and promised he would pull the U.S. out of NATO in a second term, effectively killing it. Rutenberg noted that Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks a lot like an attempt to achieve the plan it suggested in 2016. But because there was a different president in the U.S., that invasion did not yield the results Putin expected. 

President Joe Biden stepped into office more knowledgeable on foreign affairs than any president since Dwight Eisenhower, who took office in 1953. Biden recognized that democracy was on the ropes around the globe as authoritarian leaders set out to dismantle the rules-based international order. He also knew that the greatest strength of the U.S. is its alliances. In the months after he took office, Biden focused on shoring up NATO, with the result that when Russia invaded Ukraine again in February 2022, a NATO coalition held together to support Ukraine.

By 2024, far from falling apart, NATO was stronger than ever with the addition of Finland. Sweden, too, is expected to join shortly. 

But far more than simply shore up the old system, the Biden administration has built on the stability of the rules-based order to make it more democratic, encouraging more peoples, nations, and groups to participate more fully in it. In September 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained to an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that the end of the Cold War made people think that the world would inevitably become more peaceful and stable as countries cooperated and emphasized democracy and human rights. 

But now, Blinken said, that era is over. After decades of relative stability, authoritarian powers have risen to challenge the rules-based international order, throwing away the ideas of national sovereignty and human rights. As wealth becomes more and more concentrated, people are losing faith in that international order as well as in democracy itself. In a world increasingly under pressure from authoritarians who are trying to enrich themselves and stay in power, he said, the administration is trying to defend fair competition, international law, and human rights. 

Historically, though, the U.S. drive to spread democracy has often failed to rise above the old system of colonialism, with the U.S. and other western countries dictating to less prosperous countries. The administration has tried to avoid this trap by advancing a new form of international cooperation that creates partnerships and alignments of interested countries to solve discrete issues. These interest-based alignments, which administration officials refer to as “diplomatic variable geometry,” promise to preserve U.S. global influence and perhaps an international rules-based order but will also mean alliances with nations whose own interests align with those of the U.S. only on certain issues.  

In the past three years, the U.S. has created a new security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS, and held a historic, first-ever trilateral leaders’ summit at Camp David with Japan and the Republic of Korea. It has built new partnerships with nations in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as with Latin American and Caribbean countries, to address issues of immigration; two days ago the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee met for the fourth time in Mexico. This new system includes a wider range of voices at the table—backing the membership of the African Union in the Group of 20 (G20) economic forum, for example—advancing a form of cooperation in which every international problem is addressed by a group of partner nations that have a stake in the outcome. 

At the same time, the U.S. recognizes that wealthier countries need to step up to help poorer countries develop their own economies rather than mine them for resources. Together with G7 partners, the U.S. has committed to deliver $600 billion in new investments to develop infrastructure across the globe—for example, creating a band of development across Africa.

Biden’s is a bold new approach to global affairs, based on national rights to self-determination and working finally to bring an end to colonialism. 

The fight over U.S. aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the other countries with which we have made partnerships is not about saving money—most of the funds for Ukraine are actually spent in the U.S.—or about protecting the U.S. border, as MAGA Republicans demonstrated when they killed the border security bill. It is about whether the globe will move into the 21st century, with all its threats of climate change, disease, and migration, with ways for nations to cooperate, or whether we will be at the mercy of global authoritarians. 

Trump’s 2024 campaign website calls for “fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission,” and in a campaign speech in South Carolina today, he made it clear what that means. Trump has long misrepresented the financial obligations of NATO countries, and today he suggested that the U.S. would not protect other NATO countries that were “delinquent” if they were attacked by Russia. “In fact,” he said, “I would encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[eppysboys]

[handsomelyerin]

enzo vogrinic, wearing a custom-made loewe tuxedo, attends the 38th annual goya awards in valladolid, spain (february 10th, 2024)

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

I want to feel loved without feeling like I'm begging for it..

[cosmicthoughtzalign]

Everytime I see a jupiter nak women w a ketu nak man a part of my soul dies

She should be with someone that understands her passion and gives; rather than a man thats draining and tries to restrict her being. Sun & Jupiter nak men are great for us tbh. I’d actually venture to say Mars, Jupiter, and Sun naks are the best pairings for Jupiter naks regardless of gender.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Don Moynihan at Can We Still Govern?:

Trump has normalized unfounded attacks on lots of people, but public servants in particular. We have seen this at every level of government, whether it be librarians, school teachers, public health or election officials. Whether Trump wins or loses, I worry that this practice will remain a feature of the contemporary American state. Trumpism has fed an era of sustained harassment of public officials even when he was not in power, and for state and local officials that the federal government has no control over.

This is happening while we are seeing an interesting conversation happening about how to revitalize American state capacity. But I don’t see how we can have that conversation while ignoring that more and more American public servants are being asked to live under conditions of terror. Previously, I wrote about the attack on federal employees by Tom Jones and his slime machine, the American Accountability Foundation, funded by the Heritage Foundation and the Conservative Partnership Institute. Jones is conducting opposition research on civil servants with the intent of identifying those that Trump should fire once he returns to office. He has since started releasing the names of “targets”, starting with Department of Homeland Security. “Targets” is not exactly subtle.

A nothingburger case for firing federal officials

The site posts the civil servants name, picture, title and salary. But the actual accusations are weak tea. This is the evidence for firing the “top 10 targets” who we must assume are the worst of the worst, providing the most damning cases:

Worked for American Bar Association, Catholic Charities or other “far left” organizations which help immigrants

Praised Anthony Fauci in a tweet

Worked as an immigration lawyer or public defense attorney

Has credit card debt

Worked for immigration advocacy groups

Said that “homegrown extremism” and “misinformation” were homeland security threats, or served on a disinformation board

Supports DC statehood

Has donated to Democratic politicians in the past - including $10 to Elizabeth Warren in 2019

Donated to LGBTQ supportive groups

Spoke on a diversity panel, spoke on a panel called “The Role of Social Workers in Immigration Legal Services Organizations.”

Was listed on DHS press releases as a point of contact to provide more information about administration policies

Implemented Biden era policies, like setting up virtual screening processes for immigrants, or adding third gender option on citizenship documents

Social media posts critical of Trump and his immigration policies, supportive of immigrants, acknowledging systemic racism

Wrote a law review article critical of the treatment of mentally ill immigrants in detention facilities

Guilt by association: “is on good terms with notorious bureaucrat”

Won an award for excellent performance in her job (I’m not kidding, see below), which means she can't be trusted. Another won an award for helping Afghan and Ukraine refugees resettle in the United States.

So, no actual scandals! The officials are criticized in many cases for simply doing their job, or expressing generic liberal opinions. (If you think I am misrepresenting anything, here is the link to the profiles). Having job-relevant experience is bad, if its suggest any empathy with immigrants. Being good at your job is bad (so much for the claim that Schedule F is there to weed out poor performers). Sharing the same views of homeland security threats that the FBI does: also bad! In no case is there any claim that the actions are illegal, or the statements the employees made were wrong. Without Schedule F, no career official could be fired for these actions. With Schedule F, they are gone.

[...]

Terror and formal power go hand in hand

It is also a categorical error to distinguish between formal powers (in this case, the proposal that Trump use Schedule F to fire the employees) with informal modes of intimidation. When I talk with people studying government, both journalists and researchers, they focus a great deal on the formal authority. But I don’t think MAGAworld sees it in those terms. They see the use of intimidation as central to their goals.

Jones is already well connected with Project 2025, and people who will staff a second Trump administration. He could simply hand them a list of names of the people he thinks should be fired. But the publicity is part of the point. They can’t fire everyone, but they can scare a lot of people into submission. For terror to work, it needs public executions. It needs guillotines. It needs fear. They can weaponize the conservative information ecosystem — from the more respectable media like Fox, to followers who will leave threatening emails and voicemails for people they are told are their enemies — to achieve their full effect.

Jones is not an outlier. Likely Trump appointees have been explicit in threatening career officials. Robert F. Kennedy, the anti-science kook who has said that Trump promised to give him control over health policy, with oversight of HHS, CDC, FDA, NIH “a few others” and the USDA, told FDA officials to “pack their bags.” In the real world, RFK would not be trusted to run a school lunch program. In Trumpworld, he will not just have the ability to impose his whackdoodle ideas on real scientists; he can fire the ones who dare to call him on his bullshit.

[...]

For example, the same people who brought down Harvard President Claudine Gay, and who specialize in accusing Black scholars of plagiarism, recently went after Kamala Harris with the same accusations. The project of surveillance, control and threat includes encouraging students to engage in snitch culture, in the hope of getting their fellow students or faculty into trouble. Charlie Kirk’s operation started with creating a watchlist of “radical professors” before Turning Point became a huge organization fueling campus surveillance. Some states have changed the law to encourage students to record professors to report ideologically suspect comments (they do this in China too). American Accountability Foundation encourages people to send in reports about rogue bureaucrats to its tipline.

Don Moynihan has a solid piece on how Donald Trump seeks to remake the civil services in his fascistic image if he elected again.

[seo-changbinnies]

first day of taking the bar let’s goooo 🫡

[portalapp]

i don't think people realize how mason is deadass set to become a billionaire by his mid 30s.

[farmerstrend]

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[wisdomblissenlightenment]

Stages of Life (18)

Implementing our Life Plan (approx. 33–42 years)

During these years, we want to implement our life plan. Therefore, we concentrate on our professional advancement and our partnership.

Prestige and status are important at this time. The question: “Where am I in social ranking and how can I further improve my reputation?” is on our minds. Our occupation gives us an opportunity to gain prestige and financial security.

[firstoccupier]

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[fandfnews]

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[semanticlp]

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