How many social media platforms do these wingnuts need? They have Gab, Gettr, Telegram, Truth Social and probably others I don’t know about and now they are taking over twitter. I guess it’s unsurprising, but it’s also sort of sad…
Twitter famous: “High-profile Republican members of Congress gained tens of thousands of Twitter followers in the first few weeks of Elon Musk’s reign over the social media network, while their Democratic counterparts experienced a decline,” according to an analysis by our colleagues Gerrit De Vynck, Jeremy B. Merrill and Luis Melgar.
“Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) all lost about 100,000 Twitter followers in the first three weeks of Musk’s ownership of Twitter, while Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio) gained more than 300,000 each. … On average, Republicans gained 8,000 followers and Democrats lost 4,000.”
“The pattern suggests that tens of thousands of liberals may be leaving the site, while conservatives are joining or becoming more active, shifting the demographics of the site under Musk’s ownership. The changes are in line with a trend that began in April, when Musk announced his intention to buy the company.”
You can already feel the change:
Here’s what Elon Musk’s own twitter feed looks like:
Some of Trump’s best friends are white supremacists.
Leave it to Donald Trump to turn what was shaping up to be an unusually mellow Thanksgiving weekend into yet another paroxysm of monstrous racism. Reports started circulating last week that rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West), a noted antisemite, and well-known white supremacist Nick Fuentes had been seen together at the Palm Beach airport, supposedly headed for Trump’s residential beach club-slash-classified document repository for some kind of meeting. It was soon confirmed that the duo had dinner with Trump and chewed the fat extensively over their future political careers.
This set off yet another of those Trump brouhahas in which decent people are appalled, the press calls every Republican on their contact list to get comment (which usually fails) and Trump puts out a series of absurd statements both defending himself and attempting to distance himself from the controversy. Everyone wonders WTBTSTBTCB — Will this be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? — and it never is.
I suppose that moment may come some day. There may be a red line that finally breaks Trump’s hold on the 35% of the Republican Party that believes he is their Joan of Arc. But I very much doubt that, as outrageous as it is, this incident will be that moment. After all, Trump having dinner with such people is nothing new.
For instance, consider that Donald Trump has had dinner innumerable times, traveled the world and spoken virtually every day with a well-known white supremacist named Stephen Miller. He is one of the ex-president’s closest advisers even today. Trump has dined with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who is proudly bigoted in just about every way possible, and has spent plenty of time with Fox News celebrity Tucker Carlson, the nation’s greatest proponent of the virulently racist “great replacement” theory. Who knows how many others of this ilk are joining him for meals on a regular basis?
As far as the antisemitism is concerned, Trump has his own throwback style. Back in the day, when he was failing miserably in the casino business, he was heard to say, “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” During the 2016 campaign, he told a group of Jewish donors that they probably wouldn’t support him because he couldn’t be bought: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. Isn’t it crazy?” As president he was often heard to say, after getting off the phone with Jewish leaders, that they “are only in it for themselves” and “stick together.”
This happened just last month:
Former US president warns US Jews to get their “act together,” be more like Israelis, and appreciate him more pic.twitter.com/taRYa53d74
So, no, Trump’s antisemitism isn’t quite as elaborate or as hostile as Ye’s railing against the alleged global Jewish conspiracy. But it is antisemitism nonetheless.
As for Fuentes, a truly odious character reviled by all who aren’t completely down the neo-Nazi rabbit hole, he is hardly someone Trump would turn away. In fact, it’s likely that if Trump didn’t know who Fuentes was when he showed up with Ye, the Secret Service would have informed him. Of course he knew who he was having dinner with that night, and it was perfectly fine with him. In Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s book “Peril,” the authors recount a heated conversation between Trump and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, in the wake of the monstrous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, after Ryan called white supremacy “repulsive.” Trump was fit to be tied and accused him of not being “in the foxhole” with him. Ryan replied that Trump had an obligation not to claim moral equivalency between white supremacists and those who protest against them, as Trump had done with his famous “very fine people on both sides” comment. Trump exploded at Ryan: “These people love me. These are my people. I can’t backstab the people who support me.”
Nick Fuentes was with the “Jews will not replace us” marchers at that rally. He was also at the Jan. 6 insurrection. He is one of Donald Trump’s people. In fact, at the dinner, Trump reportedly turned to Ye and said, “I really like this guy. He gets me.” Of course he does. They are fellow travelers. Trump sees Ye, a famous and wealthy Black celebrity, as someone worth cultivating, and sees Fuentes as a leader of his base. Their attitudes don’t offend him; he very likely agrees with them. More important than that, he believes they are useful to him.
After Charlottesville, Paul Ryan told Trump he had a moral responsibility to renounce white supremacy. Trump exploded: “These people love me. These are my people. I can’t backstab the people who support me.”
All of this has been well known for years. Trump’s racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, etc., have been on display for decades and continued unabated during his presidency and beyond. In that light, I honestly don’t see how the ritual demands for Republicans to disavow him are worth bothering with. Sure, a few will timidly peek their heads up over the wall and say that Trump shouldn’t have done whatever abominable thing he just did. The press will chase down some others who will say they hadn’t heard about it, and it will all pass over until the next time we go through the same cycle all over again.
What we should realize is that unless Trump does something that actually offends his base, they will stick with him — and white supremacists and antisemites are a large part of that base too. I think it’s pretty clear by now that Trump’s flock doesn’t mind all kinds of racists and extremists breaking bread with their Dear Leader. They’re fine with that. Trump knows that and so does the Republican establishment. Many of them don’t much like it, but after all this time they clearly don’t have the courage to confront it or the integrity to walk away.
So let’s just abandon the pretense that the Republicans will ever really do anything about Donald Trump’s increasingly snuggly relationships with white supremacists and antisemites and far-right zealots and extremists of all kinds. Let’s just assume that for all practical intents and purposes, they’re on board.
"[Trump aides] were giving him drafts of language, you know, really making it easy for trump to denounce Nick Fuentes, and he just could not bring himself to do it."
Vice presidents are unreliable when you want to overturn a democratic election, Republicans found on Jan. 6, 2021. Mike Pence would not violate his oath to placate Donald Trump’s desire to subvert democracy and declare the 2020 loser the winner.
Another means must be found. North Carolina Republicans think they have one: the independent state legislature doctrine. They argue that state legislatures have the power to pick presidents when they feel like it, and damn the will of voters.
The Raleigh News & Observer reviews the case, Moore v. Harper, that the Roberts Supreme Court will hear on Dec. 7. It could be another Dec. 7 that lives in infamy. Tim Moore is Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives.
“This is the single-most important case on American democracy, and for American democracy, in the nation’s history,” said Michael Luttig, a former federal appellate judge. Luttig advised Pence to rebuff Trump’s Jan. 6 demand that, as president of the Senate, he send slates of electors back to the states:
If the people of a state vote for a presidential candidate who doesn’t belong to the same political party that controls the state legislature, would courts also be powerless to stop lawmakers from giving their Electoral College votes to their own party’s candidate, instead?
Not everyone agrees that it would — and skeptics include both supporters and opponents of the theory.
“Moore v. Harper is about who has the constitutional authority to draw federal election maps and has nothing to do with presidential electors,” said Lauren Horsch, a spokeswoman for top Republican Sen. Phil Berger.
“This case is extremely dangerous to American democracy, but it would not remove all checks on state legislatures,” Helen White, an attorney for the voting rights group Protect Democracy, told The N&O this summer, when the court first agreed to hear the case. “This would not give anyone ‘license to coup.’”
Luttig, however, said it’s exactly how Trump intended to stay in office despite losing the 2020 election.
For Republicans, the Constitution is more of a guideline than a rule, as Dr. Peter Venkman might say.
Should the court rule in Tim Moore’s favor, the courts will have no check on state legislatures’ modifications to any rules regarding the conduct of federal elections in the states.
Several election law experts with national profiles, like Rick Pildes and Derek Muller, have written that even if the Supreme Court embraces the most extreme version of what North Carolina lawmakers are asking for, it wouldn’t give state legislators the ability to directly overturn a presidential election.
Pildes, however, has written that with a win, state legislators could feel newly empowered to try more complicated attempts at overturning presidential results in their states. That could include pushing sham audits, he said, “with the legislature then finding that the ‘true’ electors the people supposedly chose were ones the legislature would then certify.”
Rick Hasen, a legal scholar who runs the influential Election Law Blog, wrote on Twitter that state legislators would not have the power to overturn presidential election results, under a true academic reading of the case.But that might not matter, he said, if enough people in power decide to pretend otherwise.
A large swath of the country for nearly two years now has pretended Trump won the 2020 election.
Good luck prosecuting Tump and his insurrectionist allies in Congress
Eliot Ness in 1933.
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s tenure in the Department of Justice would never be anything but rocky. Faced with presiding over investigations on multiple fronts into a former president, the appointment of a special counsel, Jack Smith. to oversee them has taken little heat off Garland. Those who believe equal justice cannot touch the powerful will remain doubtful.
Face it, even a conviction of Donald Trump on any charge will not allay those fears any more than Trump’s loss in 2020 was the end of his story. Trump will pull out all the stops to delay prosecution and appeal any conviction.
Glenn Thrush sees Smith appointment as a signal that the cautious Garland’s “willingness to operate outside his comfort zone — within the confines of the rule book — in response to the extraordinary circumstance he now finds himself in.” The department has tried to “counter Mr. Trump’s claims that they are engaged in a partisan witch hunt intended to destroy him.”
Mr. Garland appears to view Mr. Smith as more of an internal decision maker than a public buffer: The attorney general intends to follow the letter of the statute, and will most likely accept Mr. Smith’s findings unless his conclusions are “inappropriate or unwarranted” under the department’s precedents, a person familiar with his thinking said.
Smith has been outside the country since 2018 prosecuting war crimes in The Hague. This gives the appearance that the registered independent brings an outsider’s perspective to both the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago documents cases. In theory, anyway, if not in right-wing media.
The documents case appears to be proceeding more quickly than the Jan. 6 investigation. Public filings and interactions between law enforcement officials and defense lawyers indicate that a lot of work remains, and law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation emphasized that the department was unlikely to sign off on charges unless it was convinced that it would prevail in court.
Evidence made public points to a case based on a section of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to mishandle closely held national defense information — and a potential obstruction of justice charge stemming from the former president’s refusal to comply with the subpoena in May.
“The obstruction charge looks more and more to be the most compellingcharge for the government to bring,” said David H. Laufman, the former chief of the counterintelligence unit of the Justice Department, which is leading the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
One of the biggest questions Mr. Smith is likely to face is whether prosecutors would consider bringing only an obstruction case without addressing the underlying possibility of an Espionage Act violation. Some prosecutors see that as the most straightforward path to a prosecution. Mr. Garland’s announcement of a special counsel referred to obstruction three times.
Elliot Ness brought down gangster Al Capone with multiple tax evasion charges. That might have been unsatisfying given Capone’s violent history, but it got him off the street. Smith may have to take a similar approach. And Garland? It’s lose-lose anyway this goes down.
The lesson in the last chapter of Rachel Maddow’s “Ultra” is that cases involving powerful people may just beyond the capacity of the Department to prosecute. John Rogge, the prosecutor in the 20th century’s largest sedition case — against a fascist plot by Nazi collaborators to overthrow the U.S. government — found the tools at his disposal in adequate to fend off the political ones wielded by implicated members of Congress:
Maddow: “We had reached the point where our legal remedies were inadequate.”
What John Rogge saw, what he had been up-close to in his prosecutions, was an entrenched ultra-right movement in this country, opposed to democracy, which saw violence as a legitimate means of achieving political aims. One that had support not only among some parts of the far-right media, but also among elected political leaders on the right.
He saw alongside that a criminal justice system that was simply unable to deal with that threat.
What do you do as a country when you are faced with that?
When you are up against those kinds of forces, trying to tear apart the very thing that makes you the country you are? How do you push back against it?
The DOJ eventually backed down on that WWII-era case. In the end it was the voters who held politicians involved accountable. But only because they had been exposed in the papers. Sunlight being the best disinfectant.
Smith “will make recommendations on whether to prosecute and could produce a report, which the attorney general may make public.” May.
The Truman administration buried John Rogge’s report rather than further roil official Washington and implicate the powerful.
Manage your expectations regarding Trump and his congressional allies. There are no guarantees.
We have boosters and Paxlovid, but we also have holidays and variants. My @NPR @hereandnow @hereandnowrobin interview on why it’s so important for you to get your bivalent booster. I do a deep dive in this 10-11 minute interview https://t.co/e12m1F7Bmj
Don’t sleep on this. Yes, you may just get a mild case if you get it. But you also might get a bad one and you could get Long COVID too. The new studies show that your chances of getting in the first place, having a bad case if you do get it and getting long COVID are substantially reduced if you get the shot. Why not do it?
.@elonmusk is the wealthiest person in the world and owns Twitter, one of the most powerful communications platforms in the world
He is also ATROCIOUSLY UNINFORMED
Musk says that "freedom of speech is a bedrock of a strong democracy and must take precedence," and, as a result, he would support Ron DeSantis for president in 2024.
There is no current elected official that is more hostile to freedom of speech than Ron DeSantis.
Full stop.
For example, DeSantis championed the "Stop WOKE Act" which prohibits certain conversations about race at pubic universities AND private businesses
A Florida judge struck down the law quoting 1984 and calling it "positively dystopian"
“If Florida truly believes we live in a post-racial society, then let it make its case,” the judge wrote. “But it cannot win the argument by muzzling its opponents.”
Of all possible candidates, THIS is the person that Musk asserts values freedom of speech.
In the wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, DeSantis championed an anti-protest bill that said if you participated in a protest where 3 or more OTHER PEOPLE engaged in unlawful activity, you could be charged with a crime.
That law was also struck down by a federal judge.
The federal judge said that DeSantis' anti-protest law "could effectively criminalize the protected speech of hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding Floridians… This violates the First Amendment.”
More famously, DeSantis championed the "Don't Say Gay" law which prohibits K-3 teachers from acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ people.
Such discussions are banned in all grades if someone deems them not "age-appropriate"
If Musk wants to support DeSantis that is his right.
But it is not evidence that Musk values freedom of speech.
It’s evidence that he doesn’t care about it or hasn’t bothered to think about it
Musk is spending all his time on twitter reading his far right extremist followers’ tweets and just like the rest of them making the assumption that this represents a majority. He’s uninformed because he’s gone completely down the rabbit hole and he likes it there.
He’s obviously a bright person but is completely out of his depth when it comes to politics. He is literally no better than the average juvenile shit poster.
This story floored me. First of all, I can’t believe that they actually came up with a wrestling villain called the Progressive Liberal — and that people really, truly hate him with a passion. I think this story says everything about the culture of right wing politics.
Back in the late 1980s, when Beau James started pro wrestling, the crowds came for a show between good and evil, to see a story about heroes and villains, to enjoy the bouts and then go home.
James enjoyed being the hero but it was nothing compared to playing the bad guy.
“They introduced me and the people booed me for almost two straight minutes. … It’s a high. … And I’ve been there in the same situation where they love me – I don’t think it compares to the high of the hatred.”
Wrestlers build a persona with a backstory so the audience feels the stakes are high when they get punched in the face. While they often take themes from news and pop culture, they’re not usually overtly political. But the 2016 presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton sparked an idea between James and wrestler Dan Harnsberger.
Together they developed “The Progressive Liberal” Dan Richards, often the bad guy at the matches in the Republican-voting mining towns of Appalachia and some southern states. The Liberal would get a hearing and even some cheers as crowds watch the staged violence at a night of pro wrestling.
Over the past five years, however, that atmosphere has turned far darker, James and Harnsberger said this month.
After this month’s midterm elections brought defeat for many Trump-backed candidates, even some election deniers conceded their races. It suggested at least some were ready to move past Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 loss and the mob of supporters he incited who violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
But in the mountain towns of Appalachia, that rhetoric has had a lasting effect, Harnsberger said, even among fans who know wrestling is entertainment.
“The crowd has taken on a more violent approach towards me,” said Harnsberger, who plays the Progressive Liberal in the ring. “I had rocks thrown at me. A lady pulled out a lighter, tried to light my trunks on fire while they are on me. And had someone else pull out a switchblade.”
Trump flags and Hillary trunks
A pro wrester lives or dies by the involvement of the crowd, which is more important even than the skills of those inside the ring.
So when he saw forests of Trump flags across West Virginia during the 2016 presidential election, James wondered how he could tap in to that passion – known as “heat” in wrestling parlance.
“My God,” he remembers saying to a buddy. “If we had a guy that was the anti-Trump, and we could send him to the ring in these towns, how much heat would we get?”
They tried wearing a Hillary Clinton flag in the ring, and got a very strong reaction. The next weekend, James ran into Harnsberger for the first time in a while. They’d wrestled together years earlier. Separately, Harnsberger had been testing how his politics would play.
The two came together to create and promote the Progressive Liberal. James helped Harnsberger sharpen his opinions into lines that would rile up the crowd, and how to pace them – like when to say, “We’re coming for your guns.”
And things went well. They entertained. One time a fan flashed a 9mm handgun on his hip and told Harnsberger to come take it, James said. Occasionally Harnsberger would have half the crowd on his side, like at a match in the Arkansas Ozarks.
When a sports website noticed Harnsberger’s gimmick in 2017, a wave of reporters, including me, came to see how his Hillary trunks were playing in the counties that showed the most support for Trump.
“The heat you want is the heat where people are upset at what you stand for … and they want to see you get your ass kicked,” Harnsberger said.
That’s when crowds get invested and will watch you win or lose and come back the next time.
‘Let’s get him’
In 2022, the Hillary trunks have been replaced by a pair saying, “Riding with Biden.”
The Progressive Liberal is still the bad guy, but Harnsberger and James said the audiences have changed.
“The last five years, it’s just got out of hand,” James said. People have become more frustrated, more divided, he said. And the Progressive Liberal offers an outlet for that built-up energy.
“So, now here’s this guy in our town, saying this stuff that we see on television that we don’t agree with. We can’t get those people [on TV], we can’t get the politicians. Let’s get him,” James said, describing the attitude.
“Dan gets to go and unleash what he believes, what he feels, his frustrations to an audience that he’s upset [and] that they get to give it right back to him because he’s the closest thing to what they’re mad at, that they can actually interact with,” he said.
And while most politicians aren’t coming to these little towns, the Progressive Liberal does. “You can cuss him. You can boo him, you can slap him, or try. You can throw something at him. He’s right there,” James said.
Harnsberger is a liberal and James a conservative. They don’t agree much on politics and don’t talk about it outside the ring, except to work on their act.
“We’re complete opposites,” James said. “I’m a gun-owning, tobacco-chewing, Bible-believing mountain person; Dan is not. But Dan and I can get along. And if we have arguments, we have a luxury that most people don’t have – we know somewhere in the next few days, we’ll be in the ring together so we can just punch the other one in the back of the head.”
But that’s stagecraft. And that’s not what’s been happening with the audience.
Turning ugly, and fast
James lays down some rules to try to keep the crowd from turning ugly – there’s no criticism or banter about the Bible or the opioid crisis in these towns.
But on a recent night in Stickleyville, Virginia, where Trump’s share of the vote rose from an already overwhelming 78% in 2016 to 84% in 2020, it did turn ugly, and fast.
As Harnsberger tried to engage with the people who’d paid to watch, he was drowned out by boos.
A lot of that was expected. A man in the audience, Alex Adkins, told CNN the Progressive Liberal’s opinions would not go down well: “Everybody wants to punch him in the face!”
And a man with a Trump flag who didn’t want to give his name said he wanted to see Harnsberger beaten up. “We love wrestling, first of all,” he said as to why he was there. “But to come and show the liberal like, hey, we know what we stand for. Yeah, and definitely not the left side.”
When some in the audience told their neighbors to let Harnsberger speak, it boiled over. Punches were thrown. Someone was hit with a chair.
“It got beyond the point of heat to it’s dangerous,” James said, explaining why they cut the bout short.
More fights broke out and the brawling spilled into the parking lot.
As James and Harnsberger sat backstage, waiting for it to be quiet enough to allow them to leave safely, they both agreed they could have handled the situation better.
But neither said they created the problem.
“I think if I had never existed they would feel the same thing,” Harnsberger said. “But I have a unique ability to bring that reaction out of them when I’m in front of them since I am here.”
American politics has been very much like professional wrestling since 2015. But this is something else. How in the world did people in these small backwater towns get so deep into politics that it became simultaneously entertainment and deadly serious to them?
Remarkable how similar these photos look to World War I images: the raked landscape, shattered trees, life in trenches. If you look close you can see more modern gear but even that doesn't look particularly different. https://t.co/4xCsMHO8nM
Snow fell in Kyiv and temperatures hovered around freezing on Sunday as millions in and around the Ukrainian capital struggled with disruptions to electricity supply and central heating caused by waves of Russian air strikes.
The cold weather is gradually pushing up the energy needs of consumers even as repair workers race to fix wrecked power facilities, grid operator Ukrenergo said.
Electricity producers are still unable to resume full power supply after Russia’s missile attacks on Wednesday and have no choice but conserve energy by imposing blackouts, it said.
“The consumption restriction regime is still in place due to a capacity deficit, which currently stands at around 20%,” Ukrenergo said on Telegram.
Moscow has targeted vital infrastructure in recent weeks through waves of air strikes that have sparked widespread power outages and killed civilians. Fresh strikes last Wednesday caused the worst damage so far in the nine-month conflict, leaving millions of people with no light, water or heat even as temperatures fell below the freezing point.
David Arakhamiya, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, predicted Russia would carry out new infrastructure attacks this coming week and said the week could be “really difficult.”
Zelenskyy said on Saturday evening that there were restrictions on the use of electricity in 14 out of Ukraine’s 27 regions. The restrictions affect more than 100,000 customers in each of the regions, he said. Affected regions included the capital Kyiv and the surrounding region.
“If consumption increases in the evening, the number of outages may increase,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address, reiterating an appeal to citizens to save power.
Aaaaand:
In a preview of the intra-party battle ahead, far-right House Republicans, led by MAGA firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, vowed Thursday to fight against Ukraine aid.
She said, at a news conference with other members, that she’d introduced an effort to force a vote on a resolution requiring the Biden administration to provide all documents related to the security assistance that has already been appropriated to Ukraine.
The long-shot bid does not have buy-in from members of the Republican leadership, though they were given a heads-up about the news conference.
The far-right members also seized on House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s previous promise of no more “blank checks” to Ukraine, even though McCarthy later clarified he just wants to ensure greater oversight of any federal dollars.
“Is Ukraine now the 51st state of the United States of America and what position does Zelensky have in our government?” Greene said, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I will not vote for one more dollar to Ukraine,” added Rep. Matt Gaetz.
While the anti-Ukraine wing of the party only represents a fraction of the GOP, this group could have leverage in a razor-thin majority.
This is why Joe Biden has proposed 37 billion more in funding for Ukraine to be passed in the lame duck session:
A coalition of more than a dozen powerful conservative groups is pressing lawmakers to delay consideration of any additional aid to Ukraine until the new Congress is sworn in next year, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: It’s an early indication of the pressure Republicans are expected to face from some of their most influential grassroots allies to use a House majority as a bulwark against the flow of American aid money to Ukraine.
Driving the news: In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) obtained by Axios, the conservative groups urged the House leaders “not to rush through another large assistance package for Ukraine during the lame-duck session.”
“Any new aid package to Ukraine should be thoroughly debated, examined, and voted on in the 118th Congress,” they wrote.
The organizations represented in the letter include Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, Conservative Partnership Institute, America First Policy Institute and several groups within the Koch network.
The big picture: The letter specifically targets a potential aid package in the lame-duck session but represents the broader and growing opposition to Ukraine aid embodied by the “America First” foreign policy sentiment promoted by the conservative grassroots.
It argues that sending more aid “disregards the fiscal constraints facing this country,” that other NATO allies aren’t contributing their fair share and that the Biden administration hasn’t set clear enough end goals for the war.
“We understand the desire to help the people of Ukraine. They are the victims of a brutal and immoral Russian invasion,” it says. “However, do not negate the responsibility of the United States Congress to place American interests first and foremost when shaping U.S. foreign policy.”
The backdrop: Republicans in Congress have been souring on the idea of approving more aid to Ukraine, raising the specter of stinginess from GOP leadership despite ongoing support from many members of the conference, Axios reported last month.
The erosion in support from lawmakers correlates with a growing sentiment against aid among Republican voters in opinion polls.
In contrast with his Senate counterpart, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has suggested that Ukraine wouldn’t get a “blank check” if his party controlled the House.
Yes, but: The results of last Tuesday’s midterms were a blow to candidates who are solidly in the isolationist wing of the party.
Many House candidates who voiced opposition to Ukraine aid, such as John Gibbs of Michigan, Karoline Leavitt of New Hampshire and J.R. Majewski of Ohio, lost their races after underperforming more establishment Republicans.
It wasn’t a total loss, however: two senators who have been firm supporters of Ukraine aid, Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), are set to be replaced by Republicans who have expressed fargreater skepticism.
What they’re saying: Incoming House Republicans who spoke with Axios expressed a diverse array of opinions on Ukraine funding.
“I don’t think there’s any problem with raising questions about oversight or accountability or whether or not the Biden administration has a plan,” said Mike Lawler of New York, “But I think we need to continue to support Ukraine.”
Zach Nunn of Iowa said in an interview: “One of the greatest national security threats to the United States is what’s happening at our Southern border. … So before you start asking for more money, show up for work, do your job.”
“Personally, I don’t think that we should be funding Ukraine,” said Cory Mills of Florida.
There is a very large and powerful braindead faction in the US House and they are going to have Kevin McCarthy by the throat for the next two years. They could easily use this as a cudgel and he is weak enough (and his daddy Trump hates Ukraine enough) that they could easily hold up funding and the coalition could fall apart. They must secure the funding to get Ukraine through this horrible winter in the lame duck.
“The greatest danger in American politics is not recognizing that there are great dangers. The same people in 2015 and 2016 were confidently asserting Donald Trump could never, ever under any circumstances win the Republican nomination, and there were never any circumstances where Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton… I know that the Republicans who right now are acting very bold and the donors who are acting very frisky – as Trump starts winning primaries, they will bend the knee, they will break, they will fall, they will all come back into line.”
— Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, quoted by The Guardian.
Six and a half years after voting to leave the European Union, three years after the formal departure, two years after signing a post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels and one month after installing its fourth prime minister since the 2016 referendum, Britain is caught in — what else? — another debate over Brexit.
Brexit may be in the history books, but “Bregret,” as the British newspapers have called it, is back in the air.
The cause of the remorse is clear: Britain’s economic crisis, which is the gravest in a generation and worse than those of its European neighbors. Not all — or even most — of the problems are because of Brexit, but Britain’s vexed trade relationship with the rest of Europe indisputably plays a role. That makes it a ripe target for an anxious public casting about for something to blame.
The latest eruption of this never-ending drama began last week with an opinion poll that showed support for Brexit had fallen to its lowest level yet. Only 32 percent of those surveyed in the poll, by the firm YouGov, said that they thought leaving the European Union was a good idea; 56 percent said it was a mistake.
The Brexit second-guessing grew louder this week, after The Sunday Times of London published a report that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was considering pursuing a closer arrangement with the European Union, modeled on that of Switzerland. The Swiss have access to the single market and fewer border checks, in return for paying into the bloc’s coffers and accepting some of its rules.
Mr. Sunak quickly shot down the report, which was attributed to “senior government sources.”
“Under my leadership,” Mr. Sunak told business executives on Monday, “the United Kingdom will not pursue any relationship with Europe that relies on alignment with E.U. laws.”
“I voted for Brexit, I believe in Brexit,” Mr. Sunak added. “I know that Brexit can deliver, and is already delivering, enormous benefits and opportunities for the country.”
But the prime minister’s denial is no more likely to settle the issue than did the vow of one of his predecessors, Boris Johnson, to “get Brexit done” or the insistence of another former prime minister, Theresa May, that “Brexit means Brexit.” Both of those leaders spent much of their time in 10 Downing Street fighting battles related to the split with the bloc. Mrs. May lost her job because of it.
While nobody is predicting that Britain will seek to rejoin the European Union, political analysts said that the Sunday Times report, on top of the dismal economic data and growing popular sentiment against Brexit, would open a fresh chapter in Britain’s search for a new relationship with the rest of Europe. Where that would lead, they cautioned, was impossible to predict.
