Openly Selling Out America’s Interests

Betraying ourselves and our allies to Russia

On Tuesday we discussed how President Deals hit up his buddy Vlad Putin, offering to buy diesel from Russia and generally get their fuel out on the world market in a bid to lower prices ahead of the U.S. elections. Worse still, in addition to providing Russia with the cash needed to continue their war on Ukraine, Trump threatened to withhold American intelligence from Ukraine if they continue to strike Russian oil refineries.

Trump’s assistance to one of our biggest adversaries has continued this week. Writing in the Financial Times, Henry Foy, Paola Tamma, Christopher Miller, and Amy Mackinnon report:

“The US has proposed that European countries unfreeze some Russian sovereign assets immobilised after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and transfer them to a vehicle overseen by Washington in an attempt to revive peace talks.

“The idea was floated during discussions in Miami last week between Donald Trump’s peace negotiators and officials from Ukraine, France, Germany, the UK, EU and Nato, four people briefed on the matter told the FT.

“The US suggested several possible methods for unfreezing the assets, including for them to be moved into a new special-purpose financial vehicle overseen by Washington, the people said.”

Please move your frozen assets to an account managed by Trump, European nations, we are normal and can be trusted with Russia’s wealth.

European leaders were, unsurprisingly, unenthusiastic about the idea.

Ukraine has thankfully resumed striking Russian oil refineries anyway, as Yuliya Talmazan, Abigail Williams and Dan De Luce report for NBC News. No deals with aspiring dictators abroad can bring Russia cash if their oil products are cut off before they even get out the door. (Read more about this way of conducting war from executive editor Samantha Hancox-Li.)

Meanwhile, Ukraine is facing sabotage from someone at the helm of Starlink. Michael Khan reports for PC Mag:

“Starlink is facing political backlash over a sudden restriction in Ukraine that’s been blocking the country’s military drones from using the satellite internet service to help fight Russia’s ongoing invasion. 

“News of the restriction initially came from Serhii Beskrestnov, an advisor to Ukraine’s President  Volodymyr Zelensky. ‘I confirm that tonight SpaceX has introduced a terminal Starlink speed limit during travel,’  he posted on social media. The restriction was imposed on Starshield, the military and government version of Starlink, that the country has been relying on for wartime communications and military operations, including launching drone strikes.”

Starlink is a SpaceX product, meaning that a likely offender here is Elon Musk. It wouldn’t be the first time, either. Musk, for what it’s worth, denies it. From Khan’s article again:

“Musk is now responding, and indicating the White House ordered the restriction. ‘Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS (President of The United States),’ he wrote in a tweet.”

Now obviously, Musk is an enormous bullshit artist. But it is believable that, as part of their open bartering with Russia, the Trump administration may have been the decisionmakers in this case. 

At any rate, Starlink service for Ukraine has been restored again, for now.

Greenland just happens to be standing in the way

The enemy still gets a vote

Jenny Gross and Lisa Friedman report in the New York Times:

“Iran has ramped up attacks on ships in nearby waters, with about as many attacks in the last week as in all of September, raising the risks for ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz.

“On Wednesday, a container ship, the GFS Pride, sank off the coast of Oman after a strike the day before left it engulfed in flames, according to maritime analysts. Containers were left floating near the attack, according to Pakistan’s National Hydrographic Office, a maritime agency operated by Pakistan’s Navy.

“Another container ship, the GFS Giselle, was hit by ‘unknown projectiles’ while going through the strait on Wednesday, according to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. The crew members of both vessels were safe, the statement said, noting that both ships sailed under the Singapore flag.”

Trump has wanted the Iran war to simply be over for months, but he has already proven they have nothing to lose by continuing to squeeze him and the world, and nothing to gain but making peace. They’ve got agency in this situation and he’s given them plenty of reason to use it.

The political persecution of Representative Ilhan Omar

Kelly O'Donnell, Ryan J. Reilly and Rebecca Shabad report for NBC News:

“Federal agents seized the phone of Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., when they searched her Washington, D.C., home this week as part of a federal investigation into potential immigration-related crimes, and they have sent roughly a dozen subpoenas out in the case, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

“The possible charges cited by federal officials included conspiracy and making false statements in immigration paperwork, one of the people said.

“The search came just three weeks before the midterms, within the window of time when the Justice Department has typically avoided overt actions in criminal cases that could affect an election. And the seizure of the phone of a sitting member of Congress would typically trigger a set of law enforcement protocols meant to ensure investigators aren’t infringing upon the ‘speech or debate’ clause of the U.S. Constitution, which protects members of Congress from being questioned for their legislative acts.”

This is an entirely frivolous ‘investigation,’ and even if it were not there would be no reason for law enforcement to treat it with such priority and urgency. It’s all straightforward political persecution, just authoritarianism 101, suppressing opposition by making leadership a risky proposition. While I believe it will eventually fail, the way that nearly all of these frivolous investigations have, the possibility that it won’t is quite terrifying. And that’s the point. The threat of it, the open harassment in the form of raids on the homes of Democrats, does repressive work, by the people’s government, on behalf of Republicans.

The war on professional competence continues

From Philip Wegmann and Alexandra Bruell in the Wall Street Journal:

“When President Trump announced that Katie Zacharia would serve as the next White House press secretary, he referred to her as an attorney. But she hasn’t passed the bar exam in the U.S.

“Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating from law school at Pepperdine University in 2011, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, but she didn’t pass.”

Only the best and most serious people, as usual.

Not the most significant piece of news, but part of a larger pattern we have noted before:

The War on Professionalism and Professional Competence

Incompetence and sloppiness are the self-conscious ethos of the administration.

Liberal CurrentsAdam Gurri

Around Liberal Currents

• “China According to China,” by contributing editor Guillaume A. W. Attia: The Pax Sinica to which Xi Jinping aspires will be no imperialism-free paradise, but a world made safe for autocracy and domestic terror. 
• “Editor's Notes: What Can Congress Do?” by publisher Adam Gurri: Threading the needle on resistance messaging.
• “The Audience Wrecked the Media, Not the Other Way Around,” a video by publisher Adam Gurri: For over a decade, scholars, journalists, and pundits have debated what exactly caused Trump's rise to power. Today, Liberal Currents publisher Adam Gurri provides the answer.
• “Graft the Likes of Which the World Has Never Seen Before” (Half the Answer #108, with Zach Everson): Donald Trump made more than two billion dollars in the first year of his second term. 
• A reminder that we have produced an audio version of The Reconstruction Papers. You can redeem our subscriber drive deal to get access to audio for all of the essays right now, or you can subscribe on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and elsewhere via RSS feed to get a new essay a day in your feed for the rest of the month.

Reflecting on the crisis

• Reflecting Pool Liner Failed in 85 Places After Flawed Renovation, Inspection Found, by Meg Kelly, Klara Auerbach, and Amy Brittain in the Washington Post
• Senate Dems Say They Will Deploy Congressional Observers to Polls for Closely Contested Senate Races, by Emine Yücel in Talking Points Memo
• Sotomayor, Gorsuch Condemn Immigrant’s Prosecution, Citing ‘Constitutional Absurdity’, by Zach Schonfeld in The Hill
• Over a Year into Occupation, DC Fights to Get Armed National Guard Out of City, by Kate Riga in Talking Points Memo
• Ramaswamy Campaign Ad Accidentally Featured a Sex Offender, by Jim Swift in The Bulwark
• Legally in the US, Hong Kong Citizens Caught in ICE Crackdown, by Phelim Kine and Eric Bazail-Eimil in Politico

Not very on Brand for the BBC