Biden: Russia Will Invade Ukraine

Joe Biden has gone out on a limb and stated point blank that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine. Although the CIA no doubt has moles high up in the Russian government, it seems unlikely that anyone other than Putin himself really knows what he is going to do. And he, unlike some former U.S. leaders, tends not to blab secrets to friends and enemies alike. So what is Biden up to?

For starters, Biden doesn't want a war in Europe. It puts him on the spot. If Russia, with its superior forces, manages to take over Ukraine in a week or so, the Republicans who are now urging him to stay out of this will instantly switch positions and blame him for "losing Ukraine." If Ukraine manages to hold Russia off for a while, Biden will have to make some tough decisions, like how much weaponry (and what kind) to supply the Ukrainian army. No matter what he does, the Republicans will say it was the wrong call. Also, Biden has promised heavy sanctions if Russian invades and would have to come through or be considered a paper tiger (paper bear?). Some of the heaviest sanctions, such as removing Russia from the SWIFT international banking network, also affect U.S. companies to which Russia owes money and would no longer be able to pay. Also, if Putin responds to the sanctions by cutting off Europe's energy supply in the middle of the winter, Biden would be under enormous pressure from his allies to ship lots of liquified natural gas to Europe to make up for the shortfall, but doing so would put pressure on U.S. supplies and stoke inflation. Donald Trump couldn't even play one-dimensional chess on foreign policy—other than "tariffs, good"—but Biden is being forced to play 3-D chess. And Russians are notoriously good at chess. Of course, Norway is an ally, so maybe the President can see if Magnus Carlsen is available for appointment as Secretary of Sicilian Defense.

In any event, what is Biden up to when he gives away military information like the number of Russian battalions on the border (approx. 120)? Well, an invasion would obviously be easier for Putin if it were a surprise. By announcing military information in public, Biden is telling Putin that the U.S. knows exactly what is going on in detail and there will be no surprises. Knowing that the U.S. is tracking the military situation closely and accurately might make Putin hesitate to actually pull the trigger. Also, Biden has blamed Russia for cyberattacks on Ukrainian banks. This is also a message to Putin that the U.S. is watching a potential cyberwar carefully and might well be willing to get involved. Putting U.S. boots on the ground is out of the question because putting American soldiers in harm's way would get massive blowback in Congress. However, having the lights go out in Moscow followed by a vigorous "denial" that the CIA did it would be much easier to pull off and not cause much of a stir in Congress. Biden wants Putin to think about this.

Unlike Trump, Biden is not going into this alone. He is in constant contact with the leaders of key allies and the NATO leadership. He is also in continuous contact with the leaders of both parties in Congress. He is surely aware that a war between Ukraine and Russia will split the Republican Party, with Trump rooting for Russia and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) rooting for Ukraine. If war comes, the President might as well use it to split the Republicans, thus negating some of the expected blowback.

Biden isn't the only leader predicting an invasion. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "Intelligence suggests Russia intends to launch an invasion that will encircle Ukrainian capital Kyiv." Johnson also warned that a conflict could be bloody and protracted. He also suggested possible sanctions that go beyond anything Biden has said in public, including cutting Russia off from dollars and pounds. Finally he added that an invasion will not only not weaken NATO, it will strengthen it. Johnson is facing is facing criticism at home for partying during the recent COVID-19 lockdown, but showing leadership during an actual war would completely change the focus and he is well aware of that. That doesn't mean he wants a war, just that he is prepared to take a leading role if one erupts. Johnson is also acutely aware that he is not Biden's favorite world leader but that working closely with the U.S. to help Ukraine and punish Russia could go a long way toward improving the situation.

CNN has an interesting analysis of what Putin's endgame might be. One view is that he has a "bunker mentality" and is getting advice from a very small circle of hard-line advisers and not getting much input from people with wider views. In this view Putin might see three possible endgames, as follows:

• Outright Invasion: The goals of an invasion could be to (1) partition Ukraine and take control of the eastern part, possibly absorbing it into Russia over time, (2) regime change, with the installation of a puppet government that would take orders from Moscow, or (3) force Ukraine to sue for peace on Russia's terms.
  
  
• Salami slice Ukraine: Rather than a full-bore invasion, Putin could effectively annex a small strip of land adjacent to Russia. By not engaging in a massive attack, he might avoid the worst sanctions. Then, after he got a small strip, he could go after the next strip. Rinse and repeat. It has worked before. If you remember your world history, you know that on August 4, 1772, there was a country called Poland. On August 6, 1772, it was still there, but smaller. On January 23, 1793, it was still there, but smaller still. On October 24, 1795, there was no more Poland until after World War I. It could be a playbook for Ukraine, except this time Germany and Austria aren't going to help out.
  
  
• Permanent Pressure: Russia could act like war is imminent for months, or maybe even years, on end. Russian troops would stay on the Ukrainian border and conduct an occasional strike into Ukraine. The result might be that the West gets bored and Ukraine gets scared and begins to act like a neutral country, which is not as good as complete annexation, put might be acceptable to Putin in the short run. "Finlandization" actually has its own Wikipedia page. Could "Ukrainization" get one as well?
  

But with Putin, guessing what he has in mind is tough, especially if he is getting limited advice from a small circle of advisers who may be guessing wrong about what Biden might do in each scenario. (V)

Can Biden Recover by 2024?

Things look pretty grim now for Joe Biden. He is polling in the low 40s, inflation is roaring, his Build Back Better bill is currently dead, the voting-rights bills are going nowhere, and chances of Democrats having functional majorities in both chambers of Congress in Jan. 2023 are low. Could he possibly run for reelection in 2024 and win?

Maybe. Ronald Reagan did it, Bill Clinton did it, and Barack Obama did it. All of them had a tough first two years and all of them took heavy losses in their first midterm election, but in the second half of their first term they recovered and won a second term. Ronald Brownstein has written an interesting article on how they pulled it off. Here are those presidents' first-term approval ratings.

In politics, a lot depends more on the trend than on the absolute value of some metric. For example, if unemployment was 10% at the start of the term and drops to 7% at reelection time, that is actually better for an incumbent than if it was 3% at the start and 6% at the election. People often respond more to the direction that things are moving than how they actually are.

If COVID-19 decreases next year due to more vaccinations and simple herd immunity as more people get the disease, that will help Biden. He will be able to say that he inherited a huge COVID-19 problem from Donald Trump and now it is manageable. People won't look at the details. Similar, if the Fed raises interest rates a couple of times this year, as it is promising/threatening to do, and supply-chain issues are resolved, inflation is likely to be down in the summer of 2024. Biden will be able to say: "I licked inflation" and will be able to take credit for it because few people really understand that the president's powers to beat inflation are limited. They just look at what happened and credit/blame the president.

John Anzalone, a long-time Democratic pollster who has seen presidents go up and down in the polls over the years, said: "I think this is very much a case of when it rains, you get wet. Reagan, Clinton, and Obama went through this dynamic and then improved when conditions improved, and there is every reason to believe that would happen with Biden." Of course, Biden will only benefit if conditions do improve.

Some presidents had tough first terms and didn't recover. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush fall in that category. The malaise that affected the country continued through all of Carter's term. There was no uptick in optimism near the end. That did him in. Bush had a 90% approval rating after kicking Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, but then a recession hit, the mood of the country turned gloomy, and Bush lost.

If Republicans capture the House and Senate this year, we could have a situation similar to 1994, when Republicans also captured Congress and made life miserable for Clinton. But that actually worked for him as the Republicans overreached and Clinton was able to blame the country's woes on them. If the Republicans capture Congress this November and then start passing bills to ban all abortions, roll back LGBTQ rights, and dictate what schools may and may not teach, while also shutting the government down over the federal budget, the reaction to them could be swift and powerful. In any event, it is much too early to write Biden off as a failed one-term president. (V)

The Wisconsin Republican Party Is Fighting the Wisconsin Republican Party

Not that long ago, Wisconsin was the center of the Republican Party. Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House, Reince Priebus was chairman of the RNC, and then-governor Scott Walker was the Party's up-and-coming darling. Now the Badger State is front and center again, and not in a good way. The grassroots part of the Party is in open rebellion against the leadership.

State Rep. Timothy Ramthun (R) is running for governor on the platform of decertifying Joe Biden's win there in 2020 and giving the state's 10 electoral votes to Donald Trump in an effort to lead a stampede to get other states to do the same and install Trump in the White House. Needless to say, there is no procedure for undoing an election result once Congress has certified the electoral votes, which it did in the wee hours of Jan. 7, 2021. But Ramthun either doesn't know this or doesn't care and a substantial part of the base is following him.

Ramthun's kickoff event lasted three hours and featured none other than pillow salesman Mike Lindell, who was about as close to Canada as he is allowed to get these days. That gives an idea of where Ramthun is coming from. It is not a place the party leaders want to be.

Biden actually won Wisconsin by 20,682 votes, but the base has become completely untethered from reality and is still fighting the last war. This puts much of the Wisconsin Republican establishment in a bind. They understand that it is more than a year too late to undo the Wisconsin election, but few of them dare say this in public. In particular, Rebecca Kleefisch, a former Miss Teen Wisconsin who used that to launch a career as a TV anchor, and then parlayed that into becoming a former lieutenant governor, and who is the GOP establishment's choice for governor, refuses to say who won Wisconsin in 2020 and is trying to avoid the whole discussion. If Ramthun really puts together a campaign, he could damage Kleefisch and conceivably even win the nomination, thus ensuring that Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) is reelected in a landslide and probably pulling the Democrat running against Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) along with him. This is giving the state party nightmares.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) has allowed vague conspiracy theories to flourish but has now lost control of them as grassroots Republicans are running around with "Toss Vos" signs. He is going around saying that changing the 2020 results is impossible now, but the base is not listening. Other Wisconsin Republicans are walking a tightrope on this, careful not to say anything that might infuriate the base but also careful not to say anything that might brand them as nutcakes with everyone else. Even if 2022 turns out to be a red wave, this craziness could cause the wave to bypass Wisconsin, even if it floods surrounding states. (V)

Trump's Congressional Targets Aren't Dead Meat Yet

In the aftermath of the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021, 10 House Republicans voted to impeach Donald Trump. Trump is now actively trying to destroy each of them. When they give up, as did Reps. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), John Katko (R-NY), and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Trump wins. But the others are fighting Trump and it is by no means clear that he will be able to defeat them.

The highest profile battle is in Wyoming, where Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is certainly not giving up. Cheney outraised Trump's favorite, Harriet Hageman, in Q4 2021—$2.1 million to $443,000—and is sitting on $4.7 million. She can count on raising $10 million, and maybe $20 million from out-of-state Democrats and some Republicans before November. She will crush Hageman in fundraising, and with about $40 per registered voter in Wyoming, Cheney can hit them with virtually unlimited ads, phone calls, door knocks, and anything else she can come up with. Also, in Wyoming, Democrats and independents can vote in the Republican primary. Since Democrats know they have zero chance of electing a Democratic representative, it is likely that many Democrats will skip the Democratic primary and vote for Cheney. In a five-way Republican primary, with Democratic help, Cheney might just get the most votes—and there are no runoffs in Wyoming. If the top candidate gets 30% of the vote, that candidate is the nominee. In other words, Cheney is far from toast. However, the Wyoming state legislature is considering changing the election law to make sure Cheney loses.

Now consider the situation of Rep. Jaime Herra Beutler (R-WA). She is fighting Trump-backed Joe Kent, a political newbie. Kent has not cleared the field. Washington has a jungle primary, with the top two finishers advancing to the general election. A recent poll from Trafalgar, a Republican outfit, has a Democrat first and Beutler and Kent nearly tied for second. If Beutler just edges out Kent for second place, she will likely win the general election in the R+4 district. But if Kent wins, the election will probably lean Democratic. If the Democrat wins the general election, will Trump be pleased that his efforts resulting in turning a red seat blue?

Dan Newhouse (R-WA) also has to run in a top-two primary, but he looks well placed to turn back a Trump endorsee. That would be Loren Culp, who had only $30,000 on hand at the start of the year, despite Trump's endorsement.

Trump is also after Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI) and has endorsed John Gibbs there. But Gibbs raised only $51,000 so far, although he is wealthy and could throw in some of his own money if he wants to. But his money can't get rid of the three other Republicans in the race, nor can it change the law from first-past-the-post to something more favorable for him. Meanwhile, Meijer has $1 million in the bank.

Another Michigan congressman Trump wants to take down is Fred Upton (R). Trump has endorsed state Rep. Steve Carra (R) there. But redistricting by an independent commission threw them both into the same district as Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), who voted against impeachment. Upton hasn't decided if he will run yet. If he does, Republicans who don't like him can vote for Huizenga. If Upton drops out, Trump will have achieved his goal of punishing Upton, but his candidate will surely lose to the incumbent, Huizenga. Either way, Carra has little chance of winning.

In South Carolina, Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) is running and has no fewer than 10 Republican challengers in SC-07. Rice is by far the best known of the candidates. South Carolina does not register voters by party, so Democrats could vote for him. If they do, there would be a runoff between Rice and some Trumpy Republican, but Democrats can also vote in the runoff.

Trump is also trying to take down Rep. David Valadao (R-CA), but that won't be so easy since Valadao has the full support of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), despite Valadao's vote to impeach Trump. If Trump jumps in here, he will be at loggerheads with McCarthy, which might not work out so well since he can ill-afford to alienate McCarthy, who would have real power if he becomes Speaker of the House. In short, Trump is not going to get a clean sweep here. His biggest victories may be in the races where he forced someone into retirement, rather than supporting someone in a primary who might defeat Trump's enemy. (V)

Democratic House Retirements Hit 30-Year High

Speaking of House retirements, so far 30 Democrats and 14 Republicans have announced their retirement after this term in Congress. This is a 30-year high for the Democrats. Not since 1992, when 41 Democrats called it quits because they "knew" George H.W. Bush was going to cruise to a second term easily, have this many Democrats thrown in the towel. We're not going to make any analogies involving rats and ships here, even though the ship of state does appear to be sinking at the moment.

This is only the third time since 1978 that either party has had 30 members quit. The most recent one was in 2018, when 34 House Republicans headed for the exits. They got it right. Republicans lost 41 seats in that election. The 34 saw it coming and the Democrats won the majority.

To make things worse for the Democrats, of the 14 Republicans retiring this year, 11 are in districts that are R+8 or redder. The chances of any Democrat picking up any of these open seats is pretty low. The other three districts ar R+6, R+6, and D+3, respectively. Unless there is an unexpected Democratic wave, only John Katko's D+3 seat is likely to flip.

To make things even worse, many of the retiring Democrats are in swing districts. Fully a dozen are in districts that ranged from R+4 to D+7 in the old maps. (Charlie Cook hasn't produced the new PVIs yet, so this is all we have to go on.) All of these will be competitive. So even if every Democrat running for reelection wins—and incumbents have a very good track record at winning—the Democrats could still easily lose a dozen (open) seats.

One huge unknown here is what happens in Ukraine. If Joe Biden gets Vladimir Putin to back down, his approval rating will soar. If Putin invades and Biden hits him very hard with sanctions, it is also possible Biden comes out of this well, especially if Republicans suddenly start siding with the godless Commies against America and the voters don't like this. Of course, if the invasion goes well and Biden looks helpless, this will not help the Democrats. (V)

North Carolina Has a New Congressional Map

After the North Carolina Supreme Court threw out the badly gerrymandered congressional map, it ordered the legislature to produce a better one. It did. This one is better in the sense that it is not quite as badly gerrymandered as the first one, but it still has seven solidly Republican districts, three solidly Democratic districts, and four swing districts. For a state that is about as close to 50-50 as you can get, this is still a very gerrymandered map. Not surprisingly, it passed the legislature on a party-line vote. Here is the new map.

What the Republicans are going to have to pray for now is that the state Supreme Court does not take a look and then also vote along party lines, as the Democrats have a 4-3 majority there. The Court could easily say "nope" and make its own changes to the map. No doubt the Democrats could speed up the process by providing a map with an equal number of safe districts for each party and the rest competitive. Or the Court could appoint a neutral special master to start from scratch. If you are wondering why Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) didn't veto both maps, the answer is that he can't. State law does not give the governor veto power over maps. And the law was passed a long time ago when the Democrats controlled the legislature and the governor (James G. Martin) was a Republican. Take that, Democrats.

One interesting aspect of the new map is what happened to the district of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), who is in a tight race with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) for the title of most outrageous liar in Congress. After he saw the first map, Cawthorn decided to switch districts because he didn't like what had become of his old district. Members are not required to live in their district, so district shopping is legal. In the new map, his current district is more favorable to his newly adopted district, so he could switch back and run there. The district he said he would run in is now very competitive and not very favorable to a right-wing firebrand like Cawthorn, so he may have no choice. But this map isn't final either, so he may not make a decision until there is a final map. (V)

We Don't Know the SCOTUS Nominee, But We Already Know the Senators' Questions

Senate confirmation hearings for judges and justices tend to be a farce. Senators ask questions to grandstand rather than to get information from the nominee and nominees politely tell the senators that they can't answer because they first need to see the facts of the case in front of them. Then everyone nods and the vote largely goes along party lines.

But a study from a law professor and a political science professor shows that when the nominee is a woman or a minority, the questions are different. And since Joe Biden has promised that Justice Stephen Breyer's successor will be a Black woman, it looks like we have a doubleheader coming up.

To start with, with a white man, there is plenty of pleasant chatter at first. With women and minorities, every minute is used to grill the nominee. With minorities, the senators are keenly interested in the nominee's views on civil rights, criminal justice, affirmative action, and that sort of stuff. In fact, on the average, minority nominees get twice as many questions about those topics than do whites. When a woman is on the hot seat, the senators were very interested in the nominee's views on gender discrimination. With men, the topic wasn't so important. When a Democratic president nominates a woman or minority, it is the Republicans who go to town asking detailed questions about the nominee's judicial philosophy, whereas the Democrats tend to lie low.

This history is certain to be played out for Breyer's successor and the nominee had better be prepared. If the nominee is a judge and has a track record, staff lawyers for the Republicans will go over her record in detail and give the senators lists of questions to ask about rulings she made relating to discrimination, affirmative action, and the like. With Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) both on the Senate Judiciary Committee, there could be fireworks. Of course, the nominee knows all this in advance and may just deflect every question with: "Well, senator, I will carefully examine the Constitution and all the laws you folks in the Senate have passed and apply them to every case." In recent years, being evasive has risen to new heights. The three Trump nominees, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, dodged more questions than any candidates in the past 50 years. The new nominee could try that as well, although if the nominee sees the possibility of getting a Republican vote or two, she could try to say something to placate the senator.

Once the nominee is confirmed, probably by a party-line vote (or close to it because Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) might decide they want another woman on the Supreme Court), only then will history be made. For the first time in the nation's history, white men will not be a majority on the Court. There will be four white men, four women (one of whom is a Latina) and one Black man. We might often see cases in which the four white men plus either a Black man or a white woman or both are on one side and the regular dissenters include a Black woman, a Jewish woman, and a Latina. People might just take notice. (V)

Truth to Appear Today

In this case, "Truth" refers to Donald Trump's new social media platform, not statements that are factually correct, which are not expected on the platform. A report published by Reuters say that the Truth app will go live on Apple's App Store today. Presumably it will also go live on Google's Play Store shortly thereafter.

Truth is billed as an uncensored version of Twitter, on which people can post whatever they want without fear of being censored. We don't see how this can work. While many Trump supporters may flock to it and start posting immediately, it is certain that many Trump haters will also open accounts there and start attacking Trump in the most graphic possible way. Huge fights will break out. Is that what Trump has in mind?

The only way to stop that would be—you guessed it—to censor anti-Trump tirades, making Truth even more censored than Twitter, since the latter censors only a handful of people whereas Truth would have to censor hundreds or thousands of people. Also, it is not clear how the censorship might work. Artificial intelligence simply isn't good enough to recognize anti-Trump screeds, especially if the screeders observe what works and what doesn't and are nimble. If the software is smart enough to reject posts comparing Trump to dog sh*t, posters will start comparing him to dog feces, dog doo, dog turds, dog poop, dog crap, dog dung, The Art of the Deal, and other words for dog output. And why stop at dogs? Why not horse poop, hyena dung, and much more? Hiring an army of people to vet every posting might work, but what happens if Trump haters sign up to join the army and start censoring the "wrong" posts?

Always keep in mind, it is generally about the grift. Trump could make the site only for paying members. That might stop some of the Trump haters from joining since they might be ideologically opposed to putting $5 or $10 a month in his pocket just to attack him, but it would certainly also reduce the number of Trump lovers on the site. Running a site like that requires servers, software, network infrastructure, IT personnel, and more (or paying Amazon or Microsoft to handle all the work) and if the admission price is too high, it could be a commercial flop, costing more to run than it brings in. Of course, if Trump can get stupid investors to pony up millions of dollars to get it off the ground, then he could profit from it even as his investors lose their shirts. Wouldn't be the first time. Stay tuned. (V)

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