Boosting Ukraine, Terrible Trade Policies, and a Shout-Out to Good Reporting

A potpourri of thoughts...

Hi everyone (including lots of new subscribers). I was hoping to get a column out at the end of last week, but it wasn’t in the cards. So, I figured I’d touch on a few different topics today.

Mike steps up, and not everyone likes it

Well, the Ghost of Ronald Reagan (or maybe just a much-needed dose of reality) shook some sense into House Speaker Mike Johnson. Last Wednesday, to the surprise of just about everyone, the staunch Trump loyalist bucked loud, mounting pressure by the anti-Ukraine wing of his party, and spoke out again, and again, and again, in strong support of our Russia-invaded ally.

Days later, Johnson brought a vote to the House, and a $61 billion Ukraine aid package (with the help of more than a hundred Republicans) was overwhelmingly passed.

Hats off Johnson. Though it should have happened months earlier, he did finally get around to doing the right thing (seemingly even with Trump’s blessing). Of course those who some have called the “GOP Putin caucus” weren’t happy. The deranged backlash Johnson has received from that group (along with online nationalist-types) only further illustrates the shallowness of their opposition to aiding Ukraine in the first place.

Republican Senator Mike Lee called Johnson’s efforts a “Warmonger Wishlist” and parroted the tired (and nonsensical) old trope that legislators are neglecting the U.S. border (and other fill-in-the-blank items) by aiding Ukraine.

Note to Mike: Your Republican colleague in the Senate, James Lankford, negotiated the strongest bipartisan border deal in decades earlier this year, and you guys blocked it because your party’s presumptive presidential nominee wanted to campaign on the issue. Also, the “war monger” is this conflict is Vladimir Putin, not your fellow Americans opposed to Russian aggression.

Kari Lake, Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, echoed Lee’s sentiments and expressed further outrage that some members of the House waved small Ukrainian flags after the bill’s passage.

“I don’t know what country I’m in anymore!” Lake decried.

Note to Kari: You’re in the United States, the same country that dozens of foreign allies proudly waved the American flag in support of, and to express solidarity with, after we were attacked on 9/11.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley cried foul over fresh billions allocated for Ukraine, and complained that his state, Missouri, received nothing in the bill.

Note to Josh: As you well know, Missouri has received $700 million (and counting) in government contracts related to Ukraine appropriations, and approximately 90% of all U.S. taxpayer money allocated for Ukraine has stayed right here, in our own country, to build and replace weaponry.

As for the argument that resistance to Ukraine funding has been rooted in simple fiscal conservatism, I would highly recommend reading Kevin Williamson’s new column on the matter.

Note to Kevin: Well done.

My favorite rebuke, which has been tossed around on cable news and online for about two years now (and was even added as a bill amendment earlier last week by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene), is that those who support funding Ukraine defenses should move to Ukraine and enlist in their military.

Note to anyone who subscribes to this nonsense: Seek help immediately.

Ukraine isn’t asking Americans to fight in this war. No U.S. politician (well, except for Greene) is calling for Americans to fight in this war. Funding Ukraine’s defenses (and survival), and their depletion of Russia’s military might, doesn’t increase the chance of a future U.S. military conflict with Russia. It decreases it. Russia’s failure to achieve its goals in Ukraine would be a gift to America and the rest of the free world — especially those countries living under constant threat of invasion by their neighbors (who are paying very close attention to both the battlefield and Western resolve).

Simply put, letting Russia have its way would invite more war, not deter it.

But… if it’s really that important to some in the U.S. that Russia wins, and it’s not enough to vote against U.S. politicians who support Ukraine’s plight, I suppose such individuals could always take their own advice, move to Russia, and enlist in the Russian military. I’ve heard that kind of thing doesn’t work out so well, though.

No country for free trade

Early in the Biden administration, I wrote a piece on the president’s advancement of the worst policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump. Withdrawing from Afghanistan was the big one, of course, but one that hasn’t been talked about nearly enough is the trade war. By just about every measure, it was a net-loss for America under Trump, yet Biden has left the former president’s trade policies — which are only adding to the inflation problem and causing disproportional harm to poor Americans — largely intact.

For Trump, tariffs are a shiny object in the room. For whatever reason, he got it into his head long ago that trade deficits (that come naturally with free-trade policies) are a threat to America, and amount to other countries “eating our lunch.” As president, against his top economic advisor’s advice in 2018, he imposed punitive tariffs on China and elsewhere, and defended them by falsely declaring that those countries, not Americans, would be paying for them. He still tells that fib today, but the reality is that U.S.-imposed tariffs are a tax on U.S. citizens — specifically U.S. importers.

That may explain why Biden, a longtime tax-and-spend Democrat, likes the policy. As the Tax Foundation recently reported, Biden has collected more tariff-money from U.S. taxpayers than Trump did, and he’s now calling, in his proposed 2024 budget, for tripling steel and aluminum tariffs on China… despite the currents ones not helping the U.S. business sectors they were promised to.

Not to be outdone, Trump is campaigning on a universal 10% tariff projected to raise taxes on Americans by upward of $300 billion a year, which will further inflate consumer prices.

A few years back, I never would have predicted that the leaders of both major political parties would be aggressively working to bring Bernie Sanders’ long-preached trade vision to fruition, but that’s unfortunately where we’re at.

Recognizing some impressive reporting

Last week, chaos ensued outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump is on trial. A mentally-ill man tragically lit himself on fire, and it happened during live shots from multiple news networks. CNN’s Laura Coates was one of the individuals reporting when the incident occurred, and I must say that she handled the terrible situation in very impressive fashion.

She was mid-sentence when she heard a loud commotion and saw people running. Initially believing there was an “active shooter,” she quickly honed in on the horrible event playing out before her eyes. The live shot revealed some of the morbidity of what was happening, but the camera went back to her after the imagery became too graphic. She aggressively reported, step-by-step, exactly what she saw in amazing, almost seamless detail — something I think few in her profession could have pulled off under such abrupt, harrowing circumstances.

So, hats off to Coates. That was some laudable work worth acknowledging.