PMC Commentary

It's coming: Putin's September theft of Kherson by "referendum"

Since his forces seized the city of Kherson and its surrounding areas in March, Vladimir Putin has planned to absorb them into what he envisions as Greater Russia. To that end he has introduced Russian state TV to Kherson, issued Russian passports to locals (without which they're unable to access government services), established the ruble as currency, changed Ukrainian school curricula to Russian,  installed pro-Russian citizens in government positions, and crushed dissent by arresting, torturing and executing political leaders considered a threat to absolute Russian control.  

Now Putin is approaching the finish line in pursuit of that goal. A pro-Russian newspaper in the neighboring province of Zaporizhzhia headlined an edition last week as "The referendum will be!" On Russian state television last weekend, a report announced that "everything is being done to ensure that Kherson returns to its historical homeland as soon as possible." The final push is on to incorporate — via illicit referenda — the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and Luhansk and Donetsk in the east. This week Russian-appointed authorities in Kherson declared they are creating "election commissions" in preparation for a referendum to be held, most likely, on 11 September. Tensions in the Kherson region are particularly keen; Ukrainian forces there are now executing a soft counteroffensive and hope to soon amplify it to a major, war-turning thrust.

Today The NY Times outlined the worst of all possible worlds. "Any referendum would be totally illegitimate ... but it would carry ominous consequences. Analysts both in Moscow and Ukraine expect that it would serve as a prelude to Mr. Putin’s officially declaring the conquered area to be Russian territory, protected by Russian nuclear weapons — making future attempts by Kyiv to drive out Russian forces potentially much more costly," wrote the Times. "The prospect of another annexation has affected the military timetable as well, putting pressure on Kyiv to try a risky counteroffensive sooner, rather than waiting for more long-range Western weapons to arrive that would raise the chances of success."

In short, Ukraine lacks a belligerent's preliminary time needed for a meticulously planned offensive. Once Putin declares the Kherson province as Russian territory and thus under the Kremlin's nuclear umbrella, the West will almost certainly run scared, severing its military support of Ukraine in the region. The most optimal time for a magnificently pivotal Ukrainian move will have been lost. Therefore time, as they say, is of the essence.  

Aleksei Chesnakov, a Kremlin political adviser on Ukraine policy, told the quering Times in a written response that "The referendum scenario looks to be realistic and the priority in the absence of signals from Kyiv about readiness for negotiations on a settlement" — a readiness which, you may recall, Moscow has refused. "The legal and political vacuum, of course, needs to be filled."

In a Times interview of late June, Kherson's Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev said Russian propaganda and feelings of Kyiv's abandonment among five or 10 percent of the city's population, mainly pensioners and the poor, are "something [that] is changing in relationships.... This is an irreversible process that will happen in the future" and, he added, "that’s what I’m really worried about. Then it will be almost impossible to restore it." The Times followed up with this: "Days later, his assistant announced he had been abducted by pro-Russian occupying forces. As of Friday, he had not been heard from."

I'll forego my usual fulmination over the West's seeming indifference to Ukraine's plight on the southern front, where it has an excellent opportunity to strike Russia hard with sufficient imported weaponry, which it lacks. I'll simply note that the Ukrainians' guns of August, it seems, will fall tragically short.  

In the South, Ukraine is refighting an American Civil War battle of 1862

The comparison is eerie. Ukrainian forces have largely stagnated on the southern front, even though Russian forces are in a perilous position, just as Union forces stagnated against Confederate forces in 1862.   

In the bloodiest one-day battle of the Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee's forces confronted Gen. George B. McClellan's. The fight in Maryland drew to a standstill. But what happened next prolonged the North's struggle against the invading South for more than another two years.  

Lee huddled his 43,000 troops along a defensive line above Antietam Creek against McClellan's forces of around 50,000, with more on the way. Lee's position was extraordinarily endangered; his back was against the Potomac River, his men were exhausted from marching and the previous day's battle, and his troop casualties were about one-quarter.

With an influx of fresh troops, McClellan outmanned Lee nearly three times over, Yet the Union general failed to pursue Lee as he withdrew into Virginia. President Lincoln begged McClellan to do so, however the general overestimated the size of Lee's forces and claimed that his opponent had another 40,000 troops on its way.

Thus Gen. McClellan permitted Gen. Lee to escape. Antietam was the North's best opportunity to then end that terrible war, which instead dragged on, ultimately killing an estimated 620,000 men. (Lee would again invade the North in 1863, at Gettysburg.) 

Here, obviously, the North represents Ukraine in the southern region of Kherson, a strategically invaluable port city where thousands of Russian soldiers are essentially stranded after Ukrainian strikes on the invader's supply lines. A US Defense Department official acknowledged Ukraine's heretofore success and said Russia's efforts had been a failure on the battlefield and back home, where the Kremlin is once talking of regime change in Kyiv. (The NY Times.)

"While the Russians were working to repair a vital bridge over the Dnipro River further south near the city of Kherson, the Ukrainians said that it remained impassable and that Russian forces based on the western side of the river were largely isolated from resupply and support," reports the Times. 

Using vastly increased heavy armaments from the West, now is the time for Ukraine to strike Russia along the southern front. A successful offensive—exceedingly likely with sufficient supplies—would fundamentally reset the war in Ukraine's favor, radically shorten and perhaps compel Vladimir Putin to hold war-ending talks, as the American South's Gen. Lee was forced to do with the North's Gen. Grant in April 1865.

The Civil War probably would have ended in 1862, if only Union forces had bloodily pounded Antietam's fleeing Confederate forces. In today's setting, Ukraine is eager to bombard Russia in Kherson. An imposed tragedy for Ukraine is what looms instead, one in which Russia will be allowed to escape, similar to the South in 1862—not for want of a nail, but that of a colossal armaments surge from West to East.   

Russia murders 53 Ukrainian POWs

Yet another Russian abomination occurred early yesterday. A shattering explosion annihilated the barracks of a prison camp in the Russian-occupied town of Olenivka in the Donetsk province, killing 53 and wounding 75 captured Ukrainian fighters, reported The Washington Post. (Photo, Reuters.)

The NY Times wrote that "videos posted by Russian war bloggers show twisted metal bunk beds and the charred bodies of their former occupants."

Among the imprisoned Ukrainians at Correctional Colony No. 120 were an estimated 2,500 who held out at the Azovstal Iron and Steel works in the city of Mariupol. The Times described them as "trophies" for the Russian invaders, given the global notoriety of the steel-plant battle in which Russia, with all its firepower, was for weeks unable to dislodge the Ukrainian soldiers.    

Each army blamed the other for the carnage. Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine had bombed the camp using a US-made advanced rocket system, intending to send a warning to Ukrainian troops who might be thinking of surrendering. A Russian war blogger posted a video of the wreckage claiming it was caused by a HIMARS rocket. Curiously, no Russian was killed or even injured in the explosion.

The Ukrainians said the accusation was preposterous, which it is. They countercharged with the more reasonable explanation that the Russians had caused the destruction as a cover-up of the atrocities they had committed at the prison camp. "Russian occupiers are pursuing their criminal goals, accusing Ukraine of committing war crimes, while hiding the torture and shooting of prisoners," said the Ukrainian general staff in a statement.

Well it is to remember that Russia routinely blames its own attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets, such as after the airstrike in April on Kramatorsk's train station, killing 59. Moscow offered no evidence that Ukraine carried out a "false flag" operation to smear Russia, as it claimed. Said a U.S. military official of the Russian accusation of a HIMARS attack on the prison camp, "We have seen no evidence to back these claims whatsoever."

Moreover, Ukraine's intelligence service, the SBU, released an audio recording of two Russia-backed separatist fighters talking about the explosion on their phones. One said he heard no sound of a rocket landing and added that Russian forces had probably blown up the barracks. 

Ukraine’s SBU, military and its human rights ombudsman labeled the attack "an organized murder of Ukrainian prisoners" and asked  the United Nations and the International Red Cross to visit Olenivka to investigate. The Times further reported that "prisoners who have been released from Correctional Colony No. 120 described hellish conditions. Guards provided just enough food for prisoners to survive and meted out regular beatings."

Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's commander of military intelligence, said he believed the attack was carried out by Russian mercenaries, catching the Russian defense ministry off guard and hastening its ludicrous allegations after the fact. 

Whoever the Russian perpetrators of the murderous assault actually were — Putin-supported mercenaries, separatists or regular forces — the Kremlin's defense ministry looks as absurd as ever, charging that Ukraine bears responsibility for the heinous attack which Russian goons so clearly committed.    

"Sickening evil" - a noted European observer describes Russia at "war."

Paul Massaro, a senior policy adviser for the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, tweeted yesterday that the "sickening evil committed by the Russian invaders" should alert the world to Ukraine's desperate need for more weaponry. "No more delays. Help Ukraine end it," he added. One minute earlier Massaro also tweeted that "The barbarity and depravity of the Russian invaders is revolting. Castration, murder, rape, killing children, leveling cities. Unmitigated evil." 

The “sickening evil" referenced in the first tweet by the policy adviser centered on recently released video footage of a Ukrainian prisoner of war being bound and gagged by Russian soldiers—then castrated, then shot dead, and last, dragged by a rope through a city's street. The Kyiv Post reported that "further posts include photos of the body of a Ukrainian soldier with severed hands and his head planted on a fence, the comment says that Ukrainian mothers should not send their sons to war."

The ghastly video shows camouflaged soldiers kicking the tortured soldier in the head as he lay bound on the floor. As the prisoner squirmed and moaned, the Russians used a box cutter to slice off his genitals, then threw them on nearby ground. Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Zelensky, was one local official who confirmed the video's authenticity, and tweeted "the world has to realize" that Russia is "a country of cannibals who enjoy torture and murder." 

"Ukraine Alert," a war news operation, is in possession of the video but refuses to post it "for ethical reasons." Ukrainian member of parliament Inna Sovsun differed with Ukraine Alert and lashed out at Twitter for "bann[ing] my profile today. Because I posted a video where a Russian soldier castrates a Ukrainian POW. @Twitter decided it was too cruel. But this is what happens. And deleting the video won't change that. People should know what #Russia is doing!" Hers is a sensible observation. 

Other prominent voices expressed their outrage, principally to urge the West to swiftly send Ukraine much more of the most effective killing machines. John Spencer, chief of Urban Warfare Studies at Madison Policy Forum and US Army veteran, tweeted "I just watched the video showing Russian soldiers cutting off the genitalia of Ukrainian POWs. How do you unsee that? WTF are we waiting on to halt this evil? Stop incrementally sending weapons, we all know they need- 100 MLRS, all types of rounds, ATACMs"—a US Army Tactical Missile System—"tanks, etc, send it!"

Wrote the aforecited European policy adviser Massaro, "ATACMS" for Ukraine. And modern battle tanks. Give them everything. Everything they need to end this crime against humanity." 

These are merely two among millions of world citizens who are frustrated and angered by Western leaders' sluggish behavior. For instance the Biden administration's most recent announcement of more weapons for Ukraine specified four—four—long-range rocket systems, when the incontestable need is in the dozens.

The US and its European allies claim they're afraid of running low on such weapons for their defense. Among European leaders, the argument might carry some weight. But the US, the globe's largest weapons dealer, is in no immediate need of these weapons. The White House simply objects to sending more of them to Ukraine.

And that, in itself, is a kind of war crime. Ukraine is battling Vladimir Putin's unthinkably vicious armed forces, which also torture and murder Ukrainian prisoners of war. The "barbarity and depravity" of the Russian dictator's sadistic troops, as Paul Massaro noted, as well as their deadly cruelty toward Ukrainian civilians, should be intolerable to all the West's leadership. This (to-date absent) intolerance should also be confirmed by rapid, sizable shipments of heavy weaponry to Ukraine.

For months, this writer and far better-known war commentators have been shouting pleas to national commanders in chief to do more—much, much more for Ukraine. Yet the listeners aren't listening. Aside from pleasant-sounding rhetoric of determined support for Ukraine, they're conspicuously indifferent to the nation's monstrous plight.

This war is winnable; Ukraine is superior to Russia in fighting spirit and warring knowhow. It requires only the West's stepped-up military aid. The consequences of the US and its NATO allies persisting in rhetoric over action will spell a catastrophe for Ukraine—later, tragedy for Europe. Putin is reading the West's passivity, and someday he'll test it further. Western regret for having done so little today will be painfully irrelevant to the European calamities of tomorrow.               

Putin's Russia must be labeled a terrorist state, despite what Biden's State Department says

The US Senate wants Russia officially labeled as a terrorist state, which it is. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants the same, as does, understandably, the Ukrainian parliament and President Volodymyr Zenelnsky, whose nation has suffered Vladimir Putin's most recent, unspeakable war crimes.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, however, is equivocating, with President Biden's support. "For weeks, pressure has mounted on Mr. Blinken to formally declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism," reports The NY Times, which then adds this curious remark: "But despite the emotional appeal, Mr. Blinken is resisting a move that could force him to sanction U.S. allies that do business with Russia and might snuff out the remaining vestiges of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow."

Emotional appeal it may well harbor, but the appeal is more firmly grounded in the searing logic of identifying a wanton killer and reckless imperialist, Russia's dictator.

Wednesday, the Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution virtually begging Mr. Blinken to officially name the Russian government as a sponsor of terrorism in its unconscionable invasion of Ukraine. The resolution also includes Chechnya, Georgia and Syria. 

Asserts the Senate: "Armed forces of the Russian Federation have committed numerous summary executions against innocent civilians and have attempted to cover their atrocities with mass graves across Ukraine,”

But the following day Blinken replied "noncommittally," and in line with White House officials, when asked about the procedural efforts to designate Russia as a massive terrorist cell. The secretary maintained that such a decision depends on existing legal definitions while adding that the issue is moot since Russia is already under sanctions.

That's not the whole of it, though. The State Department's designation would prompt more sanctions on Russia’s economy, as well as penalties on nations that persist in doing business with Moscow. "It would also waive traditional legal barriers that prevent private citizens from suing foreign governments for damages," observes the Times. 

While it's true that a draconian severance of relations between the White House and Kremlin would do injury to talks over the release of wrongly held Americans in Russia, the international acknowledgment of Putin's regime as a terrorist state — perhaps announced subsequent to certain Americans' release — is a must. Putin is still grinning about Western sanctions imposed, since Russia won't feel their full, damaging economic effects for probably years. Whatever else the West can do to make him feel the pain, it should be done. 

Meanwhile, House Democrats have filed a new measure which, if passed by the Senate and signed by Biden into law — an unlikely prosect — "would end-run the State Department," notes the Times.

At least we would have tried.

Putin's "genius," geopolitical energy schemes get blasted as just plain stupid by Fortune magazine

Writing for Fortune magazine, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean at Yale School of Management, and Steven Tian, research director at Yale's Chief Executive Leadership Institute, mockingly, brutally but refreshingly dismember the media's self-appointed, foreign policy connoisseurs. These opening paragraphs provide a taste of what the authors say the faux mavens of Putin's geopolitical strategizing have served up.

"The dramatic coverage and media commentary are filled with fact-free speculation and dark, foreboding images of a savvy, smirking triumphant Vladimir Putin splintering the West. Many of these voices imply that Putin holds the grand puppeteer position on energy issues, with enormous economic leverage over the rest of the world, worsened by weak Western governments that are supposedly asleep at the switch, divided amongst themselves, or reflexively hostile on energy challenges plunging Western nations into Russia-induced recession....

"Sure, it is fun to throw bean bags at the Biden administration’s energy policies–but the alarmist image that business media narratives have relentlessly promoted is not supported by the facts. In fact, quite the opposite is happening under the surface, even if it has been little trumpeted."

Sonnenfeld and Tian cite "genuine energy experts" who have explained the geopolitical stupidity of Putin’s "energy reactive machinations, especially as the Russian economy implodes and Russia’s status as an energy exporter deteriorates significantly." Says energy scholar Daniel Howard Yergin, an economic historian and vice chairman of S&P Global, "In just a few weeks, Putin has destroyed the internationalized economy he has been building for more than 20 years, as well as the reputation Russia has cultivated as a reliable supplier…. What he has done is to undermine and debase Russia’s most important source of economic power.” 

The authors also refer us to Jason Bordoff at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and Meghan O'Sullivan, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America’s Power. Say these scholars succinctly, Russia's entire energy policy has been "self-defeating for Putin economically."

In that vein, the Fortune mag commentators add that Putin is "far more" dependent on European markets than the world is on Putin's energy supply. For example, in 2021 Europe imported 46% of its energy from the Russian dictator, but Russia "exported 83% of its energy to Europe!" The authors also write that as they showed in the online, scholarly journal SSRN, formerly known as the Social Science Research Network, Putin's maladministration of his nation's energy "is just one dimension of a systematic collapse of the Russian economy."

They then resume what I find to be their delightful bashing of certain broadcast and print imposters of foreign policy expertise. "Clearly, there is no economic genius or market savvy" — as daily feeds inform us — "driving Putin's disruptive energy hijinks." As for the West, they observe that it's "far from being passive"; "policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic largely recognize the pressing energy challenges and are taking decisive collective action accordingly."

Peppered throughout their article, the authors offer plentiful, tasty lambastes of the pseudo-chefs: "Unfortunately for Putin, besides the Cassandra-like handwringing of some misguided media commentators, there remains little evidence that his efforts to lever energy as the wedge to divide civil society are paying any concrete dividends." 

In conclusion, Sonnefelfd and Tian offer this exacting swipe: "Despite the riveting doomsday coverage designed for TV audiences and the fact-free cynical skepticism, the facts suggest that when it comes to energy challenges, it is Putin who is running out of gas while the West has been busy refueling elsewhere."

As noted, the authors write "unfortunately for Putin...." Yet also unfortunate is that Sonnenfeld and Tian's article will likely go unread by the all-knowing pretenders. If it is read widely, their biting commentary will also likely be dismissed as eggheaded sour grapes; the scholars and real experts also desire the fame and fortune that stems from being part of major media outlets, the naysayers will say to themselves. And that will be that. Poor, misguided reporting will soldier on.  

The proper, official salute to Republican Congresspeople

Those who persist in calling for amity among congresspersons and remain convinced of American goo-goo government while Republicans hold levers of power in Congress — throwing industrial-sized monkey wrenches at virtually every piece of reasonable legislation — and still refuse to acknowledge Donald Trump's many presidential crimes, are delusional. 

Democrats should not only silently scorn these backward, reactionary non-lawmakers and Trump-abetting scofflaws, they should make their scorn audible and indiscriminately visible. As did Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez at the congressional baseball game last night.

Linda “The ‘T’ Doesn’t Stand for Tee Ball” Sanchez gives the Republican bench a finger as she passes by. pic.twitter.com/KWvSKfbZMh

— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) July 29, 2022

Preferable would have been a bloody, no-gloves, multi-ring boxing match betwixt the wannabe goo-goo-government types and the troglodytic, emotionally arrested arses. But as we all know in this age of the Trumpian miasma, we just can't have nice things.

The stench spreads: More Trump administration text records go missing

Now we learn that text messages from Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are "missing." Not by happenstance but circumstance, the period for which the texts are absent were the days leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection — same as with Secret Service agents' text messages. The Washington Post reports this morning that the messages "were deleted more than a year ago and may never be recovered."

Nor is that the whole pestilence of the story; the stench intensifies and widens.

DHS notified its inspector general in late February that the secretary and deputy secretary's texts went missing in a "reset" of the agency's phones when both left their jobs in January 2021. The department’s undersecretary of management also notified the inspector general that these text messages, as well as those from undersecretary Randolph "Tex" Alles, the former Secret Service director, were no longer accessible because of the phone reset. 

Yet the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, failed to insist that the department's leadership explain why the records were not preserved, nor did he investigate possible ways to recover the data, nor did he notify Congress of the government records' destruction. In December 2021, the Secret Service alerted Cuffari's office of its deletion of thousands of agents and employees' text messages in a similar phone "reset." Only in mid-July did Cuffari notify Congress, "despite multiple congressional committees' pending requests for these records," reports the Post.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee, called this latest revelation "extremely troubling."  

It's also extremely indictable. Aside from obstruction of justice, it seems that DHS and Secret Service officials could be charged with violating 36 CFR § 1230.12. This, from Cornell Law, pertains to 18 U.S.C. 2071:

"(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

"(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

Writes the Post, "Neither Cuccinelli nor Wolf responded to requests for comment. DHS’s Office of Inspector General did not immediately respond to requests for comment."

It should also be noted that Wolf, in disgust, resigned from his job five days after the insurrection. This could have a bearing on his personal responsibility in the text-wipeout scheme. Still, his refusal to comment raises questions about his activities leading up to the insurrection.  

Wait for it ...

This artwork.. 😏 pic.twitter.com/K7kUMYSpDr

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) July 28, 2022

We'll defeat the "pedaphiles and satanists" so we can "people the stars." A reasoned, Alex Jones discourse.

I think his trial and the prospect of imminent financial ruin is getting to Alex. Because, this is just, well, i don’t know what to say … pic.twitter.com/nWfawzgAYj

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) July 29, 2022

A staggering new estimate of Russian casualties in Ukraine

The Biden administration is now "quietly circulating" an intelligence report on the number of Russian casualties in Ukraine, telling Congress that more than 75,00o Russian troops have been killed or wounded, according to The NY Times.

Just yesterday this site related the latest publicized Russian death toll, which of course is different from casualties. "Ukraine's general staff reported this morning that Russia has lost 40,000 troops in only six months of war," I wrote. That was according to The Kyiv Independent.

"British intelligence estimates nearer to 25,000 Russian deaths," I continued, "and the U.S. defense department has put the figure at 15,000."

Though deaths differ from casualties, they do not to a military unit's performance. The Pentagon has said that losing just 10 percent of a military force, whether killed or wounded, renders a unit incapable of executing combat-related tasks. Even casualties affect a unit's morale, however, much like a death.

A lawmaker confirmed yesterday that the new U.S. estimate came from a State Department, Defense Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Intelligence briefing.

Early in the war, Western analysts estimated that the number of Russian troops in Ukraine was as high as 150,000. If the new figure is accurate, then about half of Russia's forces are out of action. 

It had to happen

Kim Jong Un says Korea is on the "brink of war," threatening to "wipe out" South Korean forces

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is rattling his saber again, saying the United States and South Korea are bringing the Korean peninsula to the "brink of war." His hysterical rhetoric was prompted by the two nations' joint military exercises to be held soon — the first in four years — and Donald Trump is no longer around to cancel them. 

At a Wednesday event marking the 69th anniversary of the Korean war's conclusion, Kim threatened to "wipe out" South Korea's military forces with nuclear weapons "in the event of a confrontation," reports Britain's Financial Times.

North Korean state media reported Kim as saying, "Our armed forces are completely prepared to respond to any crisis, and our country’s nuclear war deterrent is also ready to mobilise its absolute power dutifully, exactly and swiftly in accordance with its mission. 

"It is a suicidal act, and absurd and extremely dangerous, to talk about military action against our country when we actually already have the most powerful weapon which you fear the most."

The joint US-South Korean exercises will be held next month. FT adds that traditionally expansive military exercises "were scaled down [in 2018] ahead of a summit between Kim and then-US president Donald Trump." The latter's "love letters" to Kim and his in-person visits provided him with global prestige, precisely what previous U.S. presidents had emphatically avoided.

A South Korean defense ministry spokesperson told reporters that Kim’s speech was "not something new. It’s a situation that has continued constantly, where North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats have increased. We are responding to that." South Korea's president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has promised to "normalise" joint exercises with the US. 

In Kim's Wednesday tirade, he blamed the US for "demonising" North Korea’s "routine" military developments as "provocations" and warned "military gangsters" in South Korea to stop "threatening" the North. Also on Wednesday, Kim’s foreign ministry described the joint US-South Korea exercises as having a "thick gunpowder smell" and called both countries "a horde of belligerents wanting the wretchedness of war." The ministry also said the summer drills might "spread into the second Korean war." 

Not to be outdone, North Korea's state newspaper urged citizens "always to keep in mind the historic philosophy that the nature of the US imperialists and class enemies will never change and you must hate imperialism unconditionally." 

Although Kim's hysterics are rather amusing — tailored as they are merely to convince North Koreans that only his heroic leadership has prevented the US from coercing their nation into imperialistic, capitalistic servitude — the potential for miscalculation in the air, on ground or on sea stemming from such bellicose rhetoric is very real.

A hyperpatriotic North Korean pilot could pull his 50mm trigger on a US cargo plane or a nationalistic sea captain could fire a ballistic missile on a South Korean destroyer.

Larger wars have ignited because of pride and stupidity. And so Kim Jong Un's rhetoric is really not so funny.        

Some things actually do get done in the Senate. Important things.

A beautiful bit of senatorial legerdemain, it was.

Mitch McConnell had vowed to filibuster a massive industrial technology bill as long as Democrats insisted on passing through reconciliation any bill that would benefit average Americans. Fine, silently said Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin. We'll just forget passing any helpful, average-Joe bill and pass the industrial bill. Which they did, 64 to 33. Then they announced only hours later that Manchin had agreed to tax increases on the wealthy to subsidize healthcare and lower Rx costs, plus billions of dollars of spending on climate and energy programs.

As important as the climate and healthcare bill is, the technology bill is also essential. Yesterday the Senate passed the 1,000-page, $280 billion legislation, "aimed at building up America’s manufacturing and technological edge to counter China" — "the most significant government intervention in industrial policy in decades," reports The NY Times. The specifics:

The bill ... provide[s] $52 billion in subsidies and additional tax credits to companies that manufacture chips in the United States. It also would add $200 billion for scientific research, especially into artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing and a variety of other technologies.

The bill calls for pouring $10 billion into the Department of Commerce — which would also dole out the chips subsidies to companies that apply — to create 20 "regional technology hubs" across the country.

The legislation would steer billions to the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation to promote both basic research and research and development into advanced semiconductor manufacturing, as well as work force development programs, in an effort to build a labor pipeline for a slew of emerging industries.

Noted Marketplace.org, which covers business and economic news, in 2018, "China has an explicit policy to be the world’s leader in artificial intelligence, while Israel spends more of its GDP on research and development than any other country. Where does the United States fit into all this?" For answers, Marketplace interviewed Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and co-author of "The global innovation sweepstakes: a quest to win the future." Said Manning:

"After Sputnik, we created NASA, we put money into basic R&D, and we put a big emphasis on channeling students into these areas. We’re not doing that. We haven’t had a leadership that’s mobilizing the public to move in this direction ... and that’s going to require a lot of public and private partnership....

"I think we need to be careful. It’s not like somebody wins absolutely and somebody loses, it’s just they’re going to do better, they’re going to be in a stronger geopolitical position, and that will probably play out in ways we haven’t really thought about yet. If we don’t get wise to these trends that are reshaping our economy and are going to affect the way we work, the way we live and everything else, the future is going to take us by surprise."

The only way that Democrats could get us "to do better ... [and] be in a stronger geopolitical position"? By tricking Republican Mitch McConnell. But we'll take it. 

The Republican Party's greatest white hope: male anxiety about penis size

I don't know how I missed this. From November 2018, "How Donald Trump appeals to men secretly insecure about their manhood." The Washington Post piece was written by social psychologist Eric Knowles and psychology doctoral student Sarah DiMuccio, both at New York University. It's one of those ironic "who'da thunk it?" articles, explaining with social scientific precision that Trump guys are mostly weeny-adolescent adults still agonizing about the length of their reproductive organ — which is also less-than-upright, nonethically speaking. The gist:     

From boasting about the size of his penis on national television to releasing records of his high testosterone levels, President Trump’s rhetoric and behavior exude machismo. His behavior also seems to have struck a chord with some male voters. See, for example, the "Donald Trump: Finally Someone With Balls” T-shirts common at Trump rallies.

But our research suggests that Trump is not necessarily attracting male supporters who are as confidently masculine as the president presents himself to be. Instead, Trump appears to appeal more to men who are secretly insecure about their manhood. We call this the "fragile masculinity hypothesis"....

[Also,] in the more than 390 House elections pitting a Republican candidate against a Democratic candidate, support for the Republican candidate was higher in districts that, based on Google search data, had higher levels of fragile masculinity. However, there was no significant relationship between fragile masculinity and voting in the 2014 or 2016 congressional elections. This suggests that fragile masculinity has now become a stronger predictor of voting behavior.

Really, who would have thought a decade or two ago that the GOP's electoral future would turn on male voters' worries about their penis size? There may have been some correlation at the commencement of George W. Bush's idiotic military adventurism in the Middle East, but public jingoism is rife in such times as the post-9/11 era.

The other funny part of all this is that "fragile" American men are idolizing a man who got shortchanged, so to speak, on the size of his penis. This was unfortunately (for us) revealed in Stormy Daniels' "tell-all book about Trump." She described his thing as "smaller than average" but "not freakishly small." Freakishly small-minded, yes. 

"He knows he has an unusual penis," wrote Daniels. "It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool.... I lay there, annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart.... It may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had."

Oh dear. Have political empires ever before been built on an inaccurately described — that is, Trump's description — penis? Figuratively, sure, the whole macho routine. But not I think literally. And yet millions of organically deprived American men have hinged their aspirational hopes of political virility on dickless Donald.