****
1. President Zelensky must be really tired; politicians, like people, make mistakes when they are tired.
2. The talk of nuclear conflict has really escalated in the last 72 hours. The New York Times has a strong look at what that could mean:
It’s unclear how Mr. Biden would respond to the use of a nuclear weapon by Mr. Putin. Nuclear war plans are one of Washington’s most deeply held secrets. Experts say that the war-fighting plans in general go from warning shots to single strikes to multiple retaliations and that the hardest question is whether there are reliable ways to prevent a conflict from escalating.
3. The members of Team Biden-Harris-Klain-Pelosi-Schumer remain far more scattered in their legislative strategy and unity than they were in 2021 because of (1) the war; (2) the tensions over the midterms; (3) the failure to figure out how publicly and privately hands-on the White House (and, more specifically, the president) should be; and (4) the inability of the party to coalesce around either a policy agenda or a sequenced path forward.
4. Who is driving U.S. policy towards Russia – the executive or legislative branch? That is still unclear.
5. Read all the op-eds and news pieces about “what does Putin want?” and you know a sum total of nothing pertinent.
6. This Wall Street Journal story about America’s military strategy is one of the only essential reading pieces floating to the surface now, and, as good as it is, it only scratches that surface on the budgetary and political impacts of what appears to be an inexorable move towards higher defense spending:
Since 2018, the Pentagon’s strategy has defined China and Russia as primary concerns and North Korea, Iran and violent extremism as secondary threats. That “two-plus-three” approach—two chief adversaries with three secondary ones—was expected to be supplanted by a “one-plus-four” strategy, which put China first and placed Russia among the lesser threats.
Despite the heightened focus on Moscow, a new U.S. defense strategy, which was due to be released earlier this year, had been held up as the Russia crisis brewed. Policy makers all but finished the document late last year and tweaked the language slightly after the invasion, officials said. But they didn’t do a wholesale rewrite of the document, and when it is released in the coming months, the strategy will still assign Russia a secondary priority behind China, according to the Pentagon official.
7. The nomination of and confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are very important, and/but this is headed to 51-50 or 51-49 or 52-48, so we are watching a drama without much drama.
8. Until we know how strong the Republican nominees for Senate in Ohio, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, and Pennsylvania are going to be in the general election, we can’t possibly say who will control the Senate after the midterms.
9. It is hard to imagine any political adviser to Joe Biden reading this Wall Street Journal story about possibly lifting sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and thinking a new nuclear deal with that terrorist nation is a good idea.
10. Check the private polling and so far it appears that “It’s Putin’s fault” is not taking hold with sufficient numbers of the American people to hold back a sizable Red wave.
****
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