What the NYT has done is not surprising at all. They are still proud of the Pulitzer they received for their Holodomor denial (very willful and deliberate) as it was happening in real time (and thus potentially could have been mitigated - if, say, public outrage had led to the end of US assistance with Soviet industrialization).
For the NYT, truth and decency are casualties incurred to maintain access. WaPo is really no better. The fact NYT continue the pro Russian talking points should anger us all.
Thank you. Their coverage reads as if they have already decided that Putin will win a decisive victory. Well, that’s one excuse for not supporting Ukraine
That's still not an excuse. Just weakening Putin can be a sufficient reason for supporting Ukraine. Even if he were to win a decisive victory, the extent of his losses in the process could determine his future actions. Even a mere delay in his victory could be valuable.
Phillips, we all need to understand that the orange child has no plan. None. Nada. Zip. The only thing trump understands is his own self interest and trying to hide his own insecurities. Putin and Russia have something…many somethings on the man. They are playing his insecurities and his need for constant attention to their advantage. In that sense, he looks and acts like a Russian agent because they have him pegged. I wish everybody else would see it for what it is. Trump loves the attention he gets each time he twitches or makes some incoherent announcement. And you are correct, he had to green light the cut off in aid, otherwise he would have taken vengeance on Hegseth and Colby.
In the end for orange Donny, it is all about “TV ratings” and feeding his bottomless ego to deflect from things that could seriously hurt him (Epstein files anybody??)
That makes what happens every night in Ukraine extra infuriating…people are dying to soothe the fragile ego of an increasingly demented and cruel man who views it all like a TV show.
I think that applies to almost everything but Putin--he does seem to have a plan (or at least expectation) there--to work with VP. Shifting him from that will be very hard.
I read a paragraph of the New York Times story and almost gagged: "Last year, Ukraine turned a corner of Russia into a battlefield. It is now a place of desolation and death.' What indeed has happened to the New York Times? Shocking.
This is all driven - sending the reporter, publishing the article without any counter narrative by editorial judgement about "balance". It's been clear for some time now - sanewashing Trump etc. - that the NYT editors are strongly committed to "the view from nowhere", which means every article is untethered to any overall context, or even to truth.
You're right about the NYT's editors. It's why Paul Krugman says he retired from the NYT; they were suddenly insisting on changes. He had written for the NYT for 25 years and the editors would only quibble about minor things, nothing material, but in the past couple of years they had actually tried to change basic premises. He just got fed up with fighting them.
Is that sanctions bill actually a good idea? It still leaves all decisions to Trump and gives him even more authority on tariffs. If fully implemented, it would either ignite another global trade war or remove huge amounts of Russian oil from the market, and the resulting price shock might well trigger a global recession, which in turn might decrease public support for increasing defense spending and aiding Ukraine in some Western countries. What's really urgent right now is sanctions targeted at recently developed Russian ways of bypassing existing sanctions, especially on sales of electronics and other equipment. And when it comes to China, I would rather pressure it on sales of industrial machinery, drone parts etc. to Russia rather than on their purchases of Russian oil.
If it has to be this bill, it needs two improvements. 1) Do not leave anything up to Trump but impose 500% tariffs immediately - 2) however only on countries that pay more than, say, $45 per barrel for Russian oil rather than for ANY purchases. Then oil would still be on the market, but Russia would get only a few dollars per barrel profit, and other countries would actually be eager to comply since low price will save them a lot of money.
Clearly, Russians are now ramping up the pressure off the battlefield by striking civilian targets in cities which are a very long way from the front line. “Pure sadism” was how one journalist from the Kyiv Independent characterised the strike on Chernivitsi last week, making the sinister Pesskof’s habitual line that “Russia only targets military installations” sound even more cynical and unreal.
On the battlefield, there seems, once again, to be very little movement, as Russian casualties mount.
Is it possible that the narrative of Ukraine being “doomed” is now cautiously being revised in Washington and elsewhere and that Trump, by announcing that he will make a “major statement” on Russia and deliver more weapons is simply hedging his bets, so that when Ukraine looks seriously like it might be winning on the battlefield and that Putin’s reign looks threatened, Trump can say that he has always supported Ukraine?
I have little hope that this narrative will be revised in the administration--at least while Ukrainian cities are getting pummelled (thanks partly to Trump)
“…so that…Trump can say that he has always supported Ukraine?”
Trump has since a very long time always been saying whatever he wants to say, taking into account what he thinks will make him look good in the eyes of the audience that he cares about, but not taking into account such aspects as what might be the truth of the matter.
I don’t think that he sees any need to plan ahead and take any actions so that he can say certain things — he’d rather just live in the moment, and tomorrow he’ll still simply say what he feels like saying then.
Yes, that really is out of character to some degree, so that I assign some degree of plausibility to the speculation that Trump might somehow be on Putin’s payroll as an agent of influence or the like.
Yes, agreed, Trump can say anything and get away with it. However, his closest aides (Vance, Rubio, Leavit) are held to higher standards of consistency. I am guessing that their current advice may be to hedge his bets so that, if need be, they can argue either way.
It takes some doing to show Biden's (i.e. Sullivan's) milquetoast support of Ukraine as strong and principled yet the Trump team has accomplished it. Bravo...I guess?
The underpinning logic behind the Trump hope clingers is that Trump cares about his image & legacy and therefore will not allow Russia to defeat Ukraine. It make sense but is nevertheless wrong.
Trump's core mantra for 3+ years has been, "Putin would never have invaded had I been president." Most non-MAGA folks dismiss and forget the assertion as implausible demagoguery from the child emperor. But Trump believes that the only humans on earth that matter - his voters and Republican office holders - will fall in line behind this excuse. Trump is fully comfortable with Putin crushing Ukraine. Trump will declare himself a peacemaker in blessing whatever negotiations finalize the war.
BTW, I think Eliot Cohen might have stepped in it again in the last Shield of the Republic podcast. He suggested that Ann Applebaum and Philips are being too gloomy in suggesting that Trump has switched sides and is supporting Russia. You can watch his nuanced take.
I'm curious about the reasons for recent escalation of drone/missile attacks on Ukranian cities; is this what Russia would always have done, had they has the stockpiles, or is it a last-ditch effort to break Ukraine before the Russian economy collapses in the short term?
Quantify "far more". Russian ballistic missile production is up from 2022, but it's... not actually very fast.
When I look at the mathematics of war production, Russia is *cooked*. Putin's cannibalized the ENTIRE civilian economy for war production, including things which he needs to recapitalize because they're needed to support the war (like the railways and food production). And their production rate for almost everything is lower than Ukraine's.
Russia's leaning ENTIRELY on North Korean imports to run the war. Now, North Korea has a big stockpile, but it has to be paid for, and it has to go through a very narrow and long logistical bottleneck.
“but the fact is that the US under Trump has made the mass Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities far more bloody and destructive than they should be because he has been so stingy on air defense”
I still think that the ways to deal with attacks that use missiles and all other kinds of flying explosives against ordinary civilian targets (i.e. targets that are not of particularly high strategic value) are (1) deterrence [which has not yet been seriously attempted in regard to Russia’s imperialistic ideas concerning Ukraine] and (2) destroying as many as possible as early as possible. Blowing up missile factories, trucks or trains transporting them, depots, and launch systems etc are good ways to reduce Ukraine’s torment precisely because the cost for Russia to replace what is destroyed is greater than the cost of destroying it.
For balance of cost reasons, Patriots and the like should IMO be used only for defending what is of particularly high strategic value.
Agree entirely that it would have been incredibly useful to attack the launch capabilities (etc). But Trump was never going to support that--however he might have supported defensive weapons
The criticism of Biden was mostly fair at the time but I still am puzzled as to why progressive critics of Biden thought that bringing him down after the debate would help to get someone better elected.
Because he literally could not debate--and it would get progressively worse. Biden should have never tried to run, imho, but thats not spilt milk under the bridge
Progressives were more upset about dumping Biden than centrists. Centrists led the effort to get Biden to withdraw.
All the polling data suggested that Harris was far stronger. Most analysts conclude that Biden was doomed, and the election results don't change that assessment.
Really? How will we ever know? I think Harris put up a great campaign. If she'd had longer to prepare and hone her message she would have done better. I voted for her. The problem is that this was a pivotal political moment, and my gut feeling is Democrats were wrong to give away the two advantages of incumbency and name recognition. They seemed disloyal to independents. Hardly anybody watched the debates. They're always spun out of recognition afterwards. I remember GW wearing a wire to his for God's sake. Republicans would have voted for the elderly golfer if he turned up to vote in his diaper and so probably should we, given what's at stake.
Incumbancy is still an advantage for congressional races but has become an albatross for the presidency. It's widely acknowledged that Harris was burdened by being an incumbent who was too close to Biden. She didn't separate herself. Biden himself was cooked.
The polls shot up after Harris was nominated. Keep in mind it was an election world wide where leaders were thrown out due to backlash from the pandemic.
Reminder, the pandemic's still happening. World leaders just lied and pretended it was over. The pandemic's still happening. If you want to live, wear an N95, P100, or similar respirator mask.
No wonder world leaders were ousted. This is the most catastrophic mishandling of an epidemic in 100 years, and it was a worldwide mishandling. More world leaders will be ousted because they are STILL not bothering to do a god-damn thing to stop the ONGOING pandemic.
What if any are the effects of the Russian terrorism campaign on Ukraine’s morale? (What is Russia trying to achieve with those attacks? How plausible is it for that strategy to succeed?)
Since the NYT has such a distinguished record of reporting and supporting the Israeli genocide of Palestine, it should not surprise us when they support the Russian genocide of Ukraine.
My negative comments in regard to Biden’s sometimes hesitance in timely responses to Ukraine’s requests on your previous newsletter was entirely based on your own assessments at the time. I in no way meant to say that Biden was less supportive of Ukraine than Trump. Sorry if I somehow implied this. Sometimes I just get so frustrated and upset.
Biden's management of the war was disastrous and he shoulders much of the blame for the state we are at. This statement sits with the truth that Biden tried to help Ukraine achieve and maintain a stalemate.
A stalemate in the ground war. And a situation worse than a stalemate in regard to the Russian terrorism campaign against civilian targets because of the Biden administration’s refusal to empower Ukraine for strikes against Russian military production, logistics, and launch systems within Russia.
Huh? There was nothing unfair about how Phillips O’Brien criticized Biden, and he was always outspoken (and unfortunately correct) in predicting that Trump would be far worse.
Phillips is great. He explained so much so accurately when there was so much misinformation in 2022. I subscribe to his substack and listen to his podcast. I don't think he was so accurate in his analysis of how things would turn out if Biden lost the support of his own party. As I recall, he wanted to run another primary to find a candidate, not preferring Harris. That would have given whoever was chosen even less time to campaign. If all people were as smart and honorable as Phillips, that might have worked but Democrats seem to have punished Harris for being VP due to Gaza and were unwilling to back her because she's black, female and not from Philadelphia. We lost this ourselves. Just my ten cents.
Harris was asked what she would do differently from Biden and said "nothing", a FATAL political mistake. This caused people who had given up on federal electoral politics to continue to give up on it.
I was not criticizing Phillips at all! I have completely agreed with him throughout the war. I also agreed with him that Ukraine’s military ability to respond at the time Russia invaded was hugely underestimated. Hence, after following him on Twitter I immediately signed up for his newsletter at the outset.
Very strange article from the NYT reporter. She doesn't seem to realise that the reality she's been fed by the Akhmat forces are essentially a Potemkin village. She tries to be objective, but she's actually part of Russian war propaganda. The interviews with locals, the bodies she saw, and especially the story about the pipeline. Russians trying to sell it like it was a succesful Trojan horse operation. Somebody should inform the NYT they're in a Schrödinger's dilemma, where there's a Dad's army pipeline that is both a success and failure at the same time.
What the NYT has done is not surprising at all. They are still proud of the Pulitzer they received for their Holodomor denial (very willful and deliberate) as it was happening in real time (and thus potentially could have been mitigated - if, say, public outrage had led to the end of US assistance with Soviet industrialization).
I suppose it is not that surprising--just seems so cackhanded
For the NYT, truth and decency are casualties incurred to maintain access. WaPo is really no better. The fact NYT continue the pro Russian talking points should anger us all.
https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/truth-and-news
Thank you. Their coverage reads as if they have already decided that Putin will win a decisive victory. Well, that’s one excuse for not supporting Ukraine
That's still not an excuse. Just weakening Putin can be a sufficient reason for supporting Ukraine. Even if he were to win a decisive victory, the extent of his losses in the process could determine his future actions. Even a mere delay in his victory could be valuable.
Phillips, we all need to understand that the orange child has no plan. None. Nada. Zip. The only thing trump understands is his own self interest and trying to hide his own insecurities. Putin and Russia have something…many somethings on the man. They are playing his insecurities and his need for constant attention to their advantage. In that sense, he looks and acts like a Russian agent because they have him pegged. I wish everybody else would see it for what it is. Trump loves the attention he gets each time he twitches or makes some incoherent announcement. And you are correct, he had to green light the cut off in aid, otherwise he would have taken vengeance on Hegseth and Colby.
In the end for orange Donny, it is all about “TV ratings” and feeding his bottomless ego to deflect from things that could seriously hurt him (Epstein files anybody??)
That makes what happens every night in Ukraine extra infuriating…people are dying to soothe the fragile ego of an increasingly demented and cruel man who views it all like a TV show.
I think that applies to almost everything but Putin--he does seem to have a plan (or at least expectation) there--to work with VP. Shifting him from that will be very hard.
The question, “What is the plan exactly?” Occam’s Razor tells me “the plan” is all about what Orange Donny gets out of it.
Yep. I think Putin stopped paying Trump and Trump is reacting.
I wish that were the case. That would only deepen the “Daddy complex” Orange Donny has and make him seek more approval, not less!
I read a paragraph of the New York Times story and almost gagged: "Last year, Ukraine turned a corner of Russia into a battlefield. It is now a place of desolation and death.' What indeed has happened to the New York Times? Shocking.
I cant understand it Rosemary
I canceled both subscriptions to NYT and WaPo. I keep up with the Associated Press now.
I'm just about ready to cancel my subscription to the NYT. I don't know why I haven't done it already. It's like deciding to cancel your landline.
I cancelled my subscription already 2 years ago, because of their highly biased and untrue reporting about Ukraine and Russia. Never looked back.
I'm old enough to have cancelled due to Judith Miller.
This is all driven - sending the reporter, publishing the article without any counter narrative by editorial judgement about "balance". It's been clear for some time now - sanewashing Trump etc. - that the NYT editors are strongly committed to "the view from nowhere", which means every article is untethered to any overall context, or even to truth.
You're right about the NYT's editors. It's why Paul Krugman says he retired from the NYT; they were suddenly insisting on changes. He had written for the NYT for 25 years and the editors would only quibble about minor things, nothing material, but in the past couple of years they had actually tried to change basic premises. He just got fed up with fighting them.
"balance" is a thing of the past.
Is that sanctions bill actually a good idea? It still leaves all decisions to Trump and gives him even more authority on tariffs. If fully implemented, it would either ignite another global trade war or remove huge amounts of Russian oil from the market, and the resulting price shock might well trigger a global recession, which in turn might decrease public support for increasing defense spending and aiding Ukraine in some Western countries. What's really urgent right now is sanctions targeted at recently developed Russian ways of bypassing existing sanctions, especially on sales of electronics and other equipment. And when it comes to China, I would rather pressure it on sales of industrial machinery, drone parts etc. to Russia rather than on their purchases of Russian oil.
If it has to be this bill, it needs two improvements. 1) Do not leave anything up to Trump but impose 500% tariffs immediately - 2) however only on countries that pay more than, say, $45 per barrel for Russian oil rather than for ANY purchases. Then oil would still be on the market, but Russia would get only a few dollars per barrel profit, and other countries would actually be eager to comply since low price will save them a lot of money.
It would be good if implemented---but as you say, that will almost certainly be in Trump's hands, so it probably will not happen
Thanks for this sobering and realistic update.
Clearly, Russians are now ramping up the pressure off the battlefield by striking civilian targets in cities which are a very long way from the front line. “Pure sadism” was how one journalist from the Kyiv Independent characterised the strike on Chernivitsi last week, making the sinister Pesskof’s habitual line that “Russia only targets military installations” sound even more cynical and unreal.
On the battlefield, there seems, once again, to be very little movement, as Russian casualties mount.
Is it possible that the narrative of Ukraine being “doomed” is now cautiously being revised in Washington and elsewhere and that Trump, by announcing that he will make a “major statement” on Russia and deliver more weapons is simply hedging his bets, so that when Ukraine looks seriously like it might be winning on the battlefield and that Putin’s reign looks threatened, Trump can say that he has always supported Ukraine?
I have little hope that this narrative will be revised in the administration--at least while Ukrainian cities are getting pummelled (thanks partly to Trump)
“…so that…Trump can say that he has always supported Ukraine?”
Trump has since a very long time always been saying whatever he wants to say, taking into account what he thinks will make him look good in the eyes of the audience that he cares about, but not taking into account such aspects as what might be the truth of the matter.
I don’t think that he sees any need to plan ahead and take any actions so that he can say certain things — he’d rather just live in the moment, and tomorrow he’ll still simply say what he feels like saying then.
Agree--with the same proviso I put in another comment. He seems to want to work with Putin if at all possible
Yes, that really is out of character to some degree, so that I assign some degree of plausibility to the speculation that Trump might somehow be on Putin’s payroll as an agent of influence or the like.
Yes, agreed, Trump can say anything and get away with it. However, his closest aides (Vance, Rubio, Leavit) are held to higher standards of consistency. I am guessing that their current advice may be to hedge his bets so that, if need be, they can argue either way.
It takes some doing to show Biden's (i.e. Sullivan's) milquetoast support of Ukraine as strong and principled yet the Trump team has accomplished it. Bravo...I guess?
Bravo in the most depressing way possible
As Phillips showed, it wasn’t milquetoast support. It was substantial and much needed support.
Milquetoast support was when Germany sent helmets to Ukraine.
You could say S Korea’s support is feeble and wimpy too.
The underpinning logic behind the Trump hope clingers is that Trump cares about his image & legacy and therefore will not allow Russia to defeat Ukraine. It make sense but is nevertheless wrong.
Trump's core mantra for 3+ years has been, "Putin would never have invaded had I been president." Most non-MAGA folks dismiss and forget the assertion as implausible demagoguery from the child emperor. But Trump believes that the only humans on earth that matter - his voters and Republican office holders - will fall in line behind this excuse. Trump is fully comfortable with Putin crushing Ukraine. Trump will declare himself a peacemaker in blessing whatever negotiations finalize the war.
The key line--with which I agree--is that Trump is comfortable with Putin crushing Ukraine
BTW, I think Eliot Cohen might have stepped in it again in the last Shield of the Republic podcast. He suggested that Ann Applebaum and Philips are being too gloomy in suggesting that Trump has switched sides and is supporting Russia. You can watch his nuanced take.
In the Trump era, never bet against the cynics.
Yep--Eliot is definitely more hopeful about Trump than I. We will see.....
It is hard to fall into deep despair, which probably is contributing to
Eliot Cohen’s current attempts at optimism.
I'm curious about the reasons for recent escalation of drone/missile attacks on Ukranian cities; is this what Russia would always have done, had they has the stockpiles, or is it a last-ditch effort to break Ukraine before the Russian economy collapses in the short term?
The Russians are producing far more and the Ukrainians are running out of some anti air capabilities. Its the mathematics of war production in action.
So I guess we can expect this level of onslaught to continue until something breaks Russia, either economically or militarily.
Or Ukraine can hit the production facilities of Russia.
Quantify "far more". Russian ballistic missile production is up from 2022, but it's... not actually very fast.
When I look at the mathematics of war production, Russia is *cooked*. Putin's cannibalized the ENTIRE civilian economy for war production, including things which he needs to recapitalize because they're needed to support the war (like the railways and food production). And their production rate for almost everything is lower than Ukraine's.
Russia's leaning ENTIRELY on North Korean imports to run the war. Now, North Korea has a big stockpile, but it has to be paid for, and it has to go through a very narrow and long logistical bottleneck.
“but the fact is that the US under Trump has made the mass Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities far more bloody and destructive than they should be because he has been so stingy on air defense”
I still think that the ways to deal with attacks that use missiles and all other kinds of flying explosives against ordinary civilian targets (i.e. targets that are not of particularly high strategic value) are (1) deterrence [which has not yet been seriously attempted in regard to Russia’s imperialistic ideas concerning Ukraine] and (2) destroying as many as possible as early as possible. Blowing up missile factories, trucks or trains transporting them, depots, and launch systems etc are good ways to reduce Ukraine’s torment precisely because the cost for Russia to replace what is destroyed is greater than the cost of destroying it.
For balance of cost reasons, Patriots and the like should IMO be used only for defending what is of particularly high strategic value.
Agree entirely that it would have been incredibly useful to attack the launch capabilities (etc). But Trump was never going to support that--however he might have supported defensive weapons
The criticism of Biden was mostly fair at the time but I still am puzzled as to why progressive critics of Biden thought that bringing him down after the debate would help to get someone better elected.
Because he literally could not debate--and it would get progressively worse. Biden should have never tried to run, imho, but thats not spilt milk under the bridge
Progressives were more upset about dumping Biden than centrists. Centrists led the effort to get Biden to withdraw.
All the polling data suggested that Harris was far stronger. Most analysts conclude that Biden was doomed, and the election results don't change that assessment.
Really? How will we ever know? I think Harris put up a great campaign. If she'd had longer to prepare and hone her message she would have done better. I voted for her. The problem is that this was a pivotal political moment, and my gut feeling is Democrats were wrong to give away the two advantages of incumbency and name recognition. They seemed disloyal to independents. Hardly anybody watched the debates. They're always spun out of recognition afterwards. I remember GW wearing a wire to his for God's sake. Republicans would have voted for the elderly golfer if he turned up to vote in his diaper and so probably should we, given what's at stake.
Incumbancy is still an advantage for congressional races but has become an albatross for the presidency. It's widely acknowledged that Harris was burdened by being an incumbent who was too close to Biden. She didn't separate herself. Biden himself was cooked.
The polls shot up after Harris was nominated. Keep in mind it was an election world wide where leaders were thrown out due to backlash from the pandemic.
Reminder, the pandemic's still happening. World leaders just lied and pretended it was over. The pandemic's still happening. If you want to live, wear an N95, P100, or similar respirator mask.
No wonder world leaders were ousted. This is the most catastrophic mishandling of an epidemic in 100 years, and it was a worldwide mishandling. More world leaders will be ousted because they are STILL not bothering to do a god-damn thing to stop the ONGOING pandemic.
One would hope.
What if any are the effects of the Russian terrorism campaign on Ukraine’s morale? (What is Russia trying to achieve with those attacks? How plausible is it for that strategy to succeed?)
Ukrainians are damn tired--so far they still believe they need to fight to live. However life in the cities is much more stressful
Bombing of cities has always increased the morale of the people being bombed. Zero exceptions, historically.
Since the NYT has such a distinguished record of reporting and supporting the Israeli genocide of Palestine, it should not surprise us when they support the Russian genocide of Ukraine.
Finally, you're being fair to Biden - at least six months too late!
I believe Ive always been fair. He was better than Trump by a long way--but he made major mistakes as well. I have not changed (or hidden) my opinion
My negative comments in regard to Biden’s sometimes hesitance in timely responses to Ukraine’s requests on your previous newsletter was entirely based on your own assessments at the time. I in no way meant to say that Biden was less supportive of Ukraine than Trump. Sorry if I somehow implied this. Sometimes I just get so frustrated and upset.
I think your criticism of Biden could have been supportive criticism, but it came across to me as relentless fault-finding.
Biden's management of the war was disastrous and he shoulders much of the blame for the state we are at. This statement sits with the truth that Biden tried to help Ukraine achieve and maintain a stalemate.
A stalemate in the ground war. And a situation worse than a stalemate in regard to the Russian terrorism campaign against civilian targets because of the Biden administration’s refusal to empower Ukraine for strikes against Russian military production, logistics, and launch systems within Russia.
The “escalation management” was disastrous, but the aid provided was very substantial.
Precisely.
That was my point.
Huh? There was nothing unfair about how Phillips O’Brien criticized Biden, and he was always outspoken (and unfortunately correct) in predicting that Trump would be far worse.
Phillips is great. He explained so much so accurately when there was so much misinformation in 2022. I subscribe to his substack and listen to his podcast. I don't think he was so accurate in his analysis of how things would turn out if Biden lost the support of his own party. As I recall, he wanted to run another primary to find a candidate, not preferring Harris. That would have given whoever was chosen even less time to campaign. If all people were as smart and honorable as Phillips, that might have worked but Democrats seem to have punished Harris for being VP due to Gaza and were unwilling to back her because she's black, female and not from Philadelphia. We lost this ourselves. Just my ten cents.
Thats very kind David
Can't wait for the next podcast
Harris was asked what she would do differently from Biden and said "nothing", a FATAL political mistake. This caused people who had given up on federal electoral politics to continue to give up on it.
I tried to be clear about my criticisms and praise.
I was not criticizing Phillips at all! I have completely agreed with him throughout the war. I also agreed with him that Ukraine’s military ability to respond at the time Russia invaded was hugely underestimated. Hence, after following him on Twitter I immediately signed up for his newsletter at the outset.
My recollection is that Phillips mostly analyzed Biden in isolation from the election, which I felt was a mistake.
Typical NY Times. Imagine the same reporter writing daily about German and Japanese woman and children dying in the US strategic air campaign.
Very strange article from the NYT reporter. She doesn't seem to realise that the reality she's been fed by the Akhmat forces are essentially a Potemkin village. She tries to be objective, but she's actually part of Russian war propaganda. The interviews with locals, the bodies she saw, and especially the story about the pipeline. Russians trying to sell it like it was a succesful Trojan horse operation. Somebody should inform the NYT they're in a Schrödinger's dilemma, where there's a Dad's army pipeline that is both a success and failure at the same time.