Trump, Wars for Profit, and the Injudicious Justice Alito
Plus: Ukraine Regains Momentum
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WILL SALETAN: Trump Only Believes in Wars for Profit
TRADITIONALLY, WHEN THE UNITED STATES goes to war, our president says it’s for democracy, human rights, or some other noble cause. But Donald Trump doesn’t care about such things. Republicans who work in foreign policy—even those who pretend in public that Trump is a good man—know this. That’s why, when they want him to support military intervention abroad, they speak to him in the only language he understands: money.
Sen. Lindsey Graham has been at this game for nearly a decade. In Afghanistan and Syria, Graham used the prospect of exploitable natural resources—lithium in Afghanistan, oil in Syria—to talk Trump into keeping American troops in those countries. Now Graham is repeating the same tactic in Europe. He’s telling Trump that by sending money and weapons to Kyiv, the United States can eventually extract mineral wealth from Ukraine.
MONA CHAREN: The Injudicious Justice Alito
I AM NOT A FAN OF HIDDEN microphone ambushes. It’s sneaky and dishonest. The kind of ambush that journalist and activist Lauren Windsor pulled off at the recent Supreme Court Historical Society dinner was particularly unseemly because she posed as a conservative activist type and attempted to lead the witnesses—Supreme Court justices and spouses—into saying something clickbaity that could be shopped to an ideological ally in the press. Windsor, a progressive, is taking a leaf from James O’Keefe’s playbook.
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CATHY YOUNG: Ukraine Regains Momentum
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A FEW MONTHS MAKE. On February 21, the headlines warned, “War in Ukraine Is Turning in Putin’s Favor After Months of Stalemate.” Last week, they told a different story: “Putin Is Running Out of Time to Achieve Breakthrough in Ukraine.” Bloomberg News, source of both those headlines, reported in the newer piece that, while Russia had made “limited progress” when Ukraine was short on weapons, now that Western aid had started flowing Ukraine was halting the Russian offensive.
And thus the bad news/good news cycle about Ukraine enters another optimistic phase.
JILL LAWRENCE: Joe Biden Won’t Give Up on Hunter or America
WE GET IT, AMERICA. You think Donald Trump is tough and Joe Biden is compassionate, and therefore not tough enough. But you’ve got it exactly backwards. Trump whines so constantly about “what I’ve been through” that he should adopt “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me” as his campaign song.
Don’t mistake Biden’s empathy for weakness. The major challenges he has confronted in his first term have required focus, discipline, and strength—from the death, destruction, and global destabilization of two raging wars to his own son’s prosecution on gun charges and the jury’s guilty verdict Tuesday.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Wednesday! Out here, it’s about to get hot (at least for here!), so if you’re in the #heatdome, I hope you have plans to stay cool: both in real life and online! And if you’re in southern Florida, stay safe!
‘Georgia Is Our Laboratory’: Inside Trump’s Plan to Rig 2024 (Rolling Stone).
‘13 Days’ Part Deux? Russian warships, nuclear submarine enter Havana Harbor under watch of U.S. destroyers (Miami Herald)
Do Less. It’s Good for You. (Time)
I now understand… why Justice Alito threw his wife under the bus:
Lady MacBeth eventually regretted her complicity in ushering forth ugly and violent acts, uttering, “Out, Damn Spot!” while sleepwalking. However, in 2024 America, Martha-Ann Alito has no time for such melodramatic self-reflection or contrition. Instead, she looks forward to proudly flying another hateful flag, fully awake, with eyes wide open, a clear heart, and a German taste for revenge.
The Man Who Couldn’t Stop… Going to College (NYT Magazine)
Right-Wing Media Are in Trouble… The flow of traffic to Donald Trump’s most loyal digital-media boosters isn’t just slowing; it’s utterly collapsing (The Atlantic).
Back in the ancestral home land… Sidney, Ohio’s Chris Gibbs has this powerful testimonial as a former Trump voter for Biden.
Yes, There’s a Trump Presidential Library at the National Archives—and It’s Hiring (Washingtonian).
Brian Steel… is free, pending appeal.
The Fall of the House of Chestnut… Scott Nover in Slate on the loss of America’s greatest athlete.
⌚️My “Indian Luxury Timepiece”… Bulwark+ Founding Member Clarke Smith on his Titan keepsake from his work in India.
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