Who’s the One Favoring Russia?

Former President Donald Trump (R) has been repeatedly and over the long term caviled for his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him brilliant, an effective leader, more. Even as he was extolling the skills (not the virtues, as the intrinsically mendacious press wants you to believe), though, Trump was busily arming Ukraine with lethal weapons after the prior administration, that of Progressive-Democrat President Barack Obama had withheld lethal weapons, telling the Ukrainians they should be happy to make do with blankets and MREs.

A subset of the Trump-delivered lethal weapons, antitank Javelins, proved decisive in the Ukrainian defeat of the barbarian’s original onslaught out of Belorussia toward Kyiv and out of Russia into Kharkiv and Donetsk Oblasts, ultimately pushing the barbarian back out of Ukraine’s Kyiv Oblast altogether and most of Kharkiv Oblast.

Now we have Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden. He insists that no weapon the US transfers are permitted to be used against Russian territory. As The Wall Street Journal put it in its Thursday editorial,

President Biden’s strategy, even after a cash infusion from Congress, looks like a plan for Ukraine to lose as slowly as possible.

After all, the outcome of Biden’s limits (I haven’t approached Biden’s cynical slow-walking the delivery of those weapons he will permit be transferred to Ukraine) is succinctly described by the WSJ‘s editors.

The President has precluded Ukraine from using American weapons to hit sovereign Russian territory. The practical effect of this is to offer the Russian military a safe haven. The Russians can build up troops, supplies and weapons near Ukraine. Mr. Putin can then deploy scarce defensive systems elsewhere, confident anything inside Russia is safe, courtesy of Mr Biden’s preconditions.

Even as Biden excoriates Putin, trying to show his own bona fides, he has actively created the invader barbarian as a sanctuary nation within which no attacks will be permitted.

Who was the one willing to confront the barbarian, and took concrete steps to do so, and who is the one actively protecting the barbarian, and taking concrete steps to further that protection?

Bringing Back the Blue Slip?

The blue slip process is the procedure wherein one or both Senators of a State from which a judicial nominee hails could block the Senate Judiciary Committee from considering that nominee. The process had been a long-standing courtesy—not a Senate rule—that Committee Chairmen had for decades honored. Then-Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R, IA) began ignoring the blue slips in 2017 when the Progressive-Democrat Senators began abusing the process, using their blue slips to knee-jerk block then-President Donald Trump’s (R) nominees.

Now the current Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D, IL) is talking about reviving the courtesy (possibly even using the current Progressive-Democratic Party majority in the Senate to make the courtesy a Senate Rule).

Some in the Senate are suggesting that Durbin’s words are his tacit expectation that Republicans will regain the majority in the Senate and regain the White House with a newly reelected President Donald Trump.

My view is that Durbin’s words constitute a tempest in a sidewalk puddle. Say the Progressive-Democrats retain the Senate, the White House, or both. The courtesy/rule won’t matter. Reelected Biden’s nominees won’t get consideration in a Republican Senate, reelected Trump’s nominees won’t get consideration in a Progressive-Democrat Senate, and with Progressive-Democratic Party rule in the Senate and the White House, the courtesy/rule would never be considered.

On the other hand, a Republican majority in the Senate—regardless of who sits in the White House—easily can revoke the Senate Rule or simply disregard the courtesy, as Grassley did those years ago. And with Republicans running both the Senate and the White House, the blue slip process would be just as irrelevant as it would be with a Progressive-Democrat Senate and White House.

So, what’s Durbin up to? Maybe he is expecting a Republican Senate majority and/or a Republican White House—and he’s using this venue as one more effort to scare Party supporters around the nation into reelecting Party to the Senate and to the White House.

A 21st Century Mugwump

Monica Tranel is a Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Congress, looking to replace Montana’s Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke. Tranel has bragged about being in the middle on political matters:

…being in the middle is in my DNA. I have no interest in playing party politics. I want to come to the center….

She claims on her Web site,

I’m running for Congress to represent the missing middle—the people who feel invisible, whose voices are not heard, who are not represented in the current political divide.

And she’s proud of her fence-sitting.

She’s also nakedly duplicitous. She’s proud, instead, of her anti-women position regarding biological men in women’s sports. This is the Progressive-Democrat candidate consigning women to invisibility, ignoring their voices, refusing to represent them—contributing, in fine, to the current political divide for her own political profit.

Sort of Firm Talk, Timid Action

Two letter writers in Sunday’s Letters section of The Wall Street Journal responded concretely to the WSJ‘s editorial of the prior Tuesday.

I can’t agree with you that President Biden offered the “right words” when he said, “‘Never again,’ simply translated for me, means never forget” (“How Not to Remember the Holocaust,” Review & Outlook, May 8). While historical memory is important, it is the easy part of “never again.”
The hard part, for President Biden at least, is understanding that “never again” means that Israel and the Jewish people will never again tolerate—and should never have to tolerate—threats to their existence such as the “ring of fire” ignited against Israel by Iran and its proxies.
With his watered-down and tortured definition, Mr. Biden betrays the clear meaning of “never again.” With his denial of critical military support, he betrays Israel and the Jewish people in their hour of need.
Ben Orlanski
Beverly Hills, Calif.

And

Your editorial reminds me of an experience I had roughly 20 years ago at a meeting of the members of the European Union in Berlin. I was a representative of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. The meeting was to establish antisemitism as an evil condemned by the EU members. At the meeting, each country recounted its efforts to establish Holocaust memorials.
When they were finished, Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, asked, “That’s what you are doing for dead Jews. What are you doing for Jews living in your country?” Stunned silence followed.
Karen Venezky
Chicago

What they said. And it particularly applies to Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s current betrayal of Israel.

Tawdry

The campaign to reelect Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden has a Mothers’ Day message:

Happy Mother’s Day. At the Biden campaign, we are asking Americans to do the moms in their lives a favor. Stop Trump.

And

The stakes of this election are high for all Americans, but especially moms across our country who will suffer under a second Trump term.

And irony of ironies,

On Mother’s Day, a reminder: Donald Trump stands only for himself and not mothers across America and their families.

Because Mothers’ Day isn’t about celebrating America’s mothers. It’s about what’s good for a particular son of a mother.