Tag: Biden transition
Stevenson’s army, March 22
Military cooperation with India. Unless they buy Russia air defense.
US-Chinese cooperation on climate, despite Anchorage nastiness.
Limits on US operations in East Africa.
I’ve now read Adam Jentleson’s Kill Switch, a strong attack on the filibuster. Some of you recommended it, and I also urge that. It certainly shows that filibusters mainly stopped good laws and was rooted in white supremacy. But it also shows that overuse of the filibuster coincided with growing partisanship and uncertainties over control of the Senate. Jentleson, who worked for Sen. Harry Reid [D-Nevada], even reports that Reid deliberately started filling the amendment tree before the Republicans did. That action triggered GOP abuse of the filibuster. Both sides to blame. Ruth Marcus wrote a column this weekend supporting the filibuster on progressive grounds.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Competence and reality will win over ineptitude and lies
Today’s news is full of contrasts. The Administration has managed to ensure sufficient vaccines for the entire American population will arrive a couple of months earlier than previously programmed. The Texas Governor is lifting all COVID-19 restrictions, without any scientific basis and in the midst of a modest rise in cases in his state. Neera Tanden is withdrawing her nomination because she offended some Republican senators, who weren’t nearly as offended by Donald Trump’s grossly inappropriate tweets that got him banned from Twitter. The FBI director testified that the January 6 insurrection at The Capitol was domestic terrorism committed by Trump supporters and rightwing extremists, several hundred of whom have now been charged, while some Republicans are continuing to spout the lie that it was the work of leftists associated with the non-existent organization Antifa and maybe Black Lives Matter.
In short, we are living in an America where there are people in good touch with reality who are able to get difficult things done and others who prefer their own fantasies. Damn the consequences, even if that means shutting down the country’s second largest state for a week because it didn’t require electric utilities to prepare for the cold or connect the state’s grid to the rest of the country. Republicans in a way are proving their point: government really can be a menace, but mainly if it is incompetent, capricious, and ignorant. They are accusing and convicting themselves, not President Biden and his still new Administration.
The country is responding well to Biden, whose calm and restrained demeanor and popular proposals for reviving the economy are gaining approval ratings Trump never even came close to. Trump is still thundering, but like a storm that has passed. His speech at CPAC got little reverberation. He will nevertheless be able to keep control of most of the Republican party, as he is amassing a lot of money that can ensure primaries against those who want to turn the party back to its true, and desirable, conservative vocation. Trump will ensure that some of the worst candidates ever nominated win Republican primaries, people who make the QAnon fantasist and racist Marjorie Taylor Greene look reasonable. That’s fine by me: they’ll win some elections in safe Republican districts, but wherever there is serious political competition they will go down to defeat as true conservatives and independents flock to more reasonable Democratic candidates.
The party in the White House usually suffers losses in the mid-term elections. 2022 will therefore be a test of my proposition: Biden stands a good chance of doing better than usual and maintaining control of both the House and Senate, which both have narrow Democratic majorities. That would be the kind of electoral defeat for Trumpism that is needed to end Republican infatuation with racism and flirtation with violent extremism. It will be a fine November when competence and reality again win over ineptitude and lies.
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Stevenson’s army, February 23
– Spencer Ackerman says administration is reviewing drone and counter-terror operations.
– Pew says 1/4 of Democrats and GOP get their news only from partisan news bubbles.
– In week 6, you will play roles seeking policies to offset economic & technological aspects of the rise of China. Axios says the Biden people are doing the same already.
-Brookings author says Trump in effect amended the Constitution in 5 significant ways.
– Newly analyzed archives show that starting around 1907, the Army assigned black Buffalo Soldiers to West Point to teach cadets horsemanship.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, February 22
– State allows NordStream2 to proceed, WSJ reports.
– Iran and IAEA reach inspections deal.
– OMB nominee in trouble.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, February 16
– CNN has a typical day.
– WSJ’s Seib says he’s blending economic and foreign policy.
– WSJ says DOD is going big on robotics.
-CNAS writer has good to-do list for SecDef Austin.
– Erdogan blasts US for support to Kurds.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, February 6
– Bloomberg says Biden administration wants to give economic incentives to Iran without lifting sanctions.
-SecDef Austin announces global review.
– FP deconstructs Biden foreign policy speech.
-Lawfare reviews Biden’s history on war powers.
– NYT reports “muddled intelligence” hindered police response to Capitol attack. See also their reporting on organized groups involved.
Ya gotta love the Senate [as I do]. It takes unanimous consent in order for Senators and staff to use electronic devices in the chamber. Hence this UC, which was adopted: Congressional Budget Resolution–Agreement: A unanimous-consent agreement was reached providing that for the duration of the Senate’s consideration of S. Con. Res. 5, setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2021 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2022 through 2030, the Majority and Republican managers of the concurrent resolution, while seated or standing at the managers’ desks, be permitted to deliver floor remarks, retrieve, review, and edit documents, and send email and other data communications from text displayed on wireless personal digital assistant devices and tablet devices; provided further that the use of calculators be permitted on the floor during consideration of the resolution; and that the staff be permitted to make technical and conforming changes to the resolution, if necessary, consistent with the amendments adopted during Senate consideration, including calculating the associated change in the net interest function, and incorporating the effect of such adopted amendments on the budgetary aggregates for Federal revenues, the amount by which the Federal revenues should be changed, new budget authority, budget outlays, deficits, public debt, and debt held by the public
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