Turkey blocks passage of British minehunter ships destined for Ukraine
Dmytro Basmat – January 2, 2024
Two British minehunter ships destined for Ukraine will not be able to travel through Turkish waters, President Erdogan’s Directorate of Communications announced on Jan. 2, citing an international pact.
“Our pertinent allies have been duly apprised that the mine-hunting ships donated to Ukraine by the United Kingdom will not be allowed to pass through the Turkish Straits to the Black Sea as long as the war continues,” a statement from the President’s communications office read.
Referring to an international convention which governs maritime traffic in the region, the Turkish government emphasized that Russian and Ukrainian warships are prohibited from entering Turkish Straits due to the ongoing war.
As per the Montreux Convention, warships from non-belligerent nations are allowed passage through the straits during wartime. However, the convention also states that Ankara retains the ultimate authority over the passage of all warships, if Turkey perceives a risk of being involved in the conflict.
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense revealedits plan to donate Sandown class vessels from Britain’s Royal Navy last month, amid the ongoing disbursement of sea mines in the Black Sea. The donated minehunter ships were intended to clear sea mines for the safe passage of larger ships, as well as “help save lives at sea and open up vital export routes.”
The Netherlands has also previously pledged two Alkmaar class minehunter ships to Ukraine to arrive in the Black Sea by 2025. It is now unclear if the intended donation will reach Ukraine.
Hundreds of mines have been spread throughout the Black Sea since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. On several occasions, civilian ships or navy ships belonging to countries not party to the war struck sea mines.
‘A formulaic game’: former officials say Trump’s attacks threaten rule of law
Peter Stone in Washington DC – January 1, 2024
Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP
As Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials slated for 2024, including two tied to his drives to overturn his 2020 election loss, his attacks on prosecutors are increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian in style and threaten the rule of law, say former justice department officials.
The former US president’s vitriolic attacks on a special counsel and two state prosecutors as well as some judges claim in part that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” since he’s seeking the presidency again, and that “presidential immunity” protects Trump for his multiple actions to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
But ex-officials and other experts say Trump’s campaign and social media bashing of the four sets of criminal charges – echoed in ways by his lawyers’ court briefs – are actually a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and very tenuous legal claims, laced with Trump’s narcissism and authoritarian impulses aimed at delaying his trials or quashing the charges.
Much of Trump’s animus is aimed at the special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged him with four felony counts for election subversion, and 40 felony counts for mishandling classified documents when his presidency ended.
Trump’s chief goal in attacking Smith, whom he’s labelled a “deranged lunatic”, and other prosecutors and judges is to delay his trials well into 2024, or until after the election, when Trump could pardon himself if he wins, experts say.
Similarly, Trump has targeted the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, who has brought a racketeering case in Georgia against Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn Biden’s win there, branding her a “rabid partisan”.
Right before Christmas, Trump’s lawyers asked an appeals court in Washington to throw out Smith’s four-count subversion indictment, arguing that his actions occurred while he was in office and merited presidential immunity, and Trump in a Truth Social post on Christmas Eve blasted Smith for “election interference”.
In an 82-page brief rebutting Trump’s lawyers on December 30, Smith and his legal team wrote that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in 2020 “threaten to undermine democracy,” and stressed Trump’s sweeping immunity claims for all his actions while in office “threatens to license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office.”
Former justice department officials say Trump’s rhetoric and tactics to tar prosecutors and judges are diversionary moves to distract from the serious charges he faces – especially for trying to subvert the 2020 election.
Delay is his major strategic objective in all these cases … Trump’s constitutional objections to the trial-related issues are all frivolous
Former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb
“Claiming the federal criminal cases or the Georgia Rico action are election interference, and railing constantly about the character of the prosecutors, judges and others, is just a formulaic game to Trump,” Ty Cobb, a White House counsel during the Trump years and a former DoJ official, said.
“Delay is his major strategic objective in all these cases. These criminal cases were started because of Trump’s criminal acts and his refusal to allow the peaceful transfer of government for the first time in US history. Trump’s constitutional objections to the trial-related issues are all frivolous including his claim of presidential immunity and double jeopardy.”
Cobb added that Trump’s “everyone is bad but me and I am the victim” rants, lies and frivolous imperious motions and appeals are just his “authoritarianism in service of his narcissism”.
Other ex-officials offer equally harsh assessments of Trump’s defenses.
“The reality is that Trump has clearly done a series of illegal things and the system is holding him to account for things that he’s done,” said the former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer, who served during the George HW Bush administration. “He’s telling more lies to mischaracterize prosecutions that we should be thankful for.”
Yet Trump keeps escalating his high-voltage rhetoric and revealing his authoritarian tendencies. Trump even bragged that Russian president Vladimir Putin in December echoed Trump’s charges of political persecution and election interference to bolster his claims.
“Even Vladimir Putin … says that Biden’s – and this is a quote – ‘politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy’,” Trump told a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire.
For good measure, Trump complimented two other foreign authoritarian leaders, calling Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, “highly respected” and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un “very nice”.
In November Trump sparked fire for slamming his opponents on the left as “vermin”, a term that echoed Adolf Hitler’s language, and the ex-president has more than once pledged in authoritarian style to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.
Likewise, critics have voiced alarm at Trump’s vow of “retribution” against some powerful foes in both parties if he’s re-elected, including ex-attorney general Bill Barr. That pledge fits with Trump painting himself a victim of a vendetta by “deep state” forces at the justice department, the FBI and other agencies Trump and his allies want to rein in while expanding his executive authority, if he’s the Republican nominee and wins the presidency again.
Critics say Trump’s attacks on the prosecutions are increasingly conspiratorial.
“Of course, it’s true that Trump is the undisputed master of election interference, so he certainly knows the field,” Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, a leading Trump critic in the House, said.
“It’s hard to think of a greater case of election interference than what Trump did in 2020 and 2021. His claim of election interference is meant to give him a kind of political immunity from the consequences of his criminal actions.
“He’s basically inviting the public to believe that the legal system’s response to his stealing government documents or trying to overthrow an election are illegal attempts to interfere with his political career.”
Raskin noted there was some Trump-style logic to citing Putin in his defense.
“We know Putin is Trump’s hero and effective cult master,” the congressman said. “So it makes sense that Trump would try to elevate him as a kind of moral arbiter. Trump would love a world where Vladimir Putin would decide the integrity of elections and prosecutions. Wouldn’t that be nice for the autocrats?”
Trump’s modus operandi to stave off his trials is emblematic of how he has operated in the past, say some ex-prosecutors.
“Trump has a habit of picking up allegations made against him and, like a kid in the playground, accusing the critics of doing the same thing”, such as crying “electoral interference”, said the Columbia law professor and former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman.
Richman stressed that “I wouldn’t assume Trump is trying to mimic other authoritarians. He just shares their values, or the lack of them.”
Other scholars see Trump’s desperate defenses and incendiary attacks on the legal system as part of his DNA.
Trump feels entirely emboldened by his supporters. He’s been given license by the Republican party to go as far as he wants
Congressman Jamie Raskin
“The Trump team is looking to cobble together a defense for the indefensible,” said Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. “Trump has long been looking for and finding ways to protect himself whenever he crosses legal lines. This is who he is.”
Naftali suggested: “Trump announced his second re-election bid much earlier than is traditional for major candidates. A likely reason why he announced so early – and then hardly campaigned for a long time – was to pre-empt any indictments so that he could later denounce them as ‘election interference’ and perhaps undermine any future trials. This is a man who lies and creates a reality most favorable to him.”
More broadly, Raskin views Trump’s attacks on the legal system as hallmarks of fascist rulers.
“Fascism is all about the destruction of the rule of law in the service of a dictator. It’s important for Trump to continue to attack our essential legal institutions. He’s also gotten to the point of dehumanizing his opponents by using words like ‘vermin’. Violence permeates his rhetoric,” he said.
“Trump feels entirely emboldened by his supporters. He’s been given license by the Republican party to go as far as he wants.”
Almost four years have passed since Covid-19 struck. In America, the pandemic killed well over a million people and left millions more with lingering health problems. Much of normal life came to a halt, partly because of official lockdowns but largely because fear of infection kept people home.
The big question in the years that followed was whether America would ever fully recover from that shock. In 2023 we got the answer: yes. Our economy and society have, in fact, healed remarkably well. The big remaining question is when, if ever, the public will be ready to accept the good news.
In the short run, of course, the pandemic had severe economic and social effects, in many ways wider and deeper than almost anyone expected. Employment fell by 25 million in a matter of weeks. Huge government aid limited families’ financial hardship, but maintaining Americans’ purchasing power in the face of a disrupted economy meant that demand often exceeded supply, and the result was overstretched supply chains and a burst of inflation.
At the same time, the pandemic reduced social interactions and left many people feeling isolated. The psychological toll is hard to measure, but the weakening of social ties contributed to a range of negative trends, including a surge in violent crime.
It was easy to imagine that the pandemic experience would leave long-term scars — that long Covid and early retirements would leave us with a permanently reduced labor force, that getting inflation down would require years of high unemployment, that the crime surge heralded a sustained breakdown in public order.
But none of that happened.
You may have heard about the good economic news. Labor force participation — the share of adults in today’s work force — is actually slightly higher than the Congressional Budget Office predicted before the pandemic. Measures of underlying inflation have fallen more or less back to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target even though unemployment is near a 50-year low. Adjusted for inflation, most workers’ wages have gone up.
For some reason I’ve heard less about the crime news, but it’s also remarkably good. F.B.I. data shows that violent crime has subsided: It’s already back to 2019 levels and appears to be falling further. Homicides probably aren’t quite back to 2019 levels, but they’re plummeting.
None of this undoes the Covid death toll or the serious learning loss suffered by millions of students. But overall both our economy and our society are in far better shape at this point than most people would have predicted in the early days of the pandemic — or than most Americans are willing to admit.
For if America’s resilience in the face of the pandemic shock has been remarkable, so has the pessimism of the public.
By now, anyone who writes about the economic situation has become accustomed to mail and social media posts (which often begin, “You moron”) insisting that the official statistics on low unemployment and inflation are misleading if not outright lies. No, the Consumer Price Index doesn’t ignore food and energy, although some analytical measures do; no, grocery prices aren’t still soaring.
Rather than get into more arguments with people desperate to find some justification for negative economic sentiment, I find it most useful to point out that whatever American consumers say about the state of the economy, they are spending as if their finances are in pretty good shape. Most recently, holiday sales appear to have been quite good.
What about crime? This is an area in which public perceptions have long been notoriously at odds with reality, with people telling pollsters that crime is rising even when it’s falling rapidly. Right now, according to Gallup, 63 percent of Americans say that crime is an “extremely” or a “very” serious problem for the United States — but only 17 percent say it’s that severe a problem where they live.
And Americans aren’t acting as if they’re terrified about crime. As I’ve written before, major downtowns have seen weekend foot traffic — roughly speaking, the number of people visiting the city for fun rather than work — recover to prepandemic levels, which isn’t what you’d expect if Americans were fleeing violent urban hellscapes.
So whatever Americans may say to pollsters, they’re behaving as if they live in a prosperous, fairly safe (by historical standards) country — the country portrayed by official statistics, although not by opinion polls. (Disclaimer: Yes, we have vast inequality and social injustice. But this is no more true now than it was in earlier years, when Americans were far more optimistic.)
The big question, of course, is whether grim narratives will prevail over relatively sunny reality in the 2024 election. There are hints in survey data that the good economic news is starting to break through, but I don’t know of any comparable hints on crime.
In any case, what you need to know is that America responded remarkably well to the economic and social challenges of a deadly pandemic. By most measures, we’re a nation on the mend. Let’s hope we don’t lose our democracy before people realize that.
Will the Economy Help or Hurt Biden ’24? Krugman and Coy Dig Into Data.
Paul Krugman and Peter Coy – December 31, 2023
Credit…Photo illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times
Mr. Krugman is an Opinion columnist. Mr. Coy is an Opinion newsletter writer.Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Peter Coy: Paul, I think the economy is going to be a huge problem for President Biden in 2024. Voters are unhappy about the state of the economy, even though, by most measures, it’s doing great. Imagine how much unhappier they’ll be if things get worse heading into the election — which I, for one, think is quite likely to be the case.
Paul Krugman: I’m not sure about the politics. We can get into that later. But first, can we acknowledge just how good the current state of the economy is?
Peter: Absolutely. Unemployment is close to its lowest point since the 1960s, and inflation has come way down. That’s the big story of 2023. But 2024 is a whole ’nother thing. I think there will be two big stories in 2024. One, whether the good news continues and, two, how voters will react to whatever the economy looks like around election time.
Paul: Right now many analysts, including some who were very pessimistic about inflation last year, are declaring that the soft landing has arrived. Over the past six months, the core personal consumption expenditures deflator — a mouthful, but that’s what the Federal Reserve targets — rose at an annual rate of 1.9 percent, slightly below the Fed’s 2 percent target. Unemployment is 3.7 percent. The eagle has landed.
Peter: I question whether we’ve stuck the soft landing. I do agree that right at this moment, things look really good. While everyone talks about the cost of living going up, pay is up lately, too. Lael Brainard, Biden’s national economic adviser, points out that inflation-adjusted wages for production and nonsupervisory workers are higher now than they were before the Covid pandemic.
So let’s talk about why voters aren’t feeling it. Is it just because Biden is a bad salesman?
Paul: Lots of us have been worrying about the disconnect between good numbers and bad vibes. I may have been one of the first people to more or less sound the alarm that something strange was happening — in January 2022! But we’re all more or less making this up as we go along.
The most informative stuff I’ve seen recently is from Briefing Book, a blog run by former White House staff members. They’ve tried to put numbers to two effects that may be dragging consumer sentiment down.
One effect is partisanship. People in both parties tend to be more negative when the other party controls the presidency, but the Briefing Book folks find that the effect is much stronger for Republicans. So part of the reason consumer sentiment is poor is that Republicans talk as if we’re in a depression when a Democrat is president, never mind reality.
Peter: That is so true. And I think the effect is even stronger now than it used to be because we’re more polarized.
Paul: The other effect affecting consumer sentiment is that while economists tend to focus on relatively recent inflation, people tend to compare prices with what they were some time in the past. The Briefing Book estimates suggest that it takes something like two years or more for lower inflation to show up in improved consumer sentiment.
This is one reason the economy may be better for Democrats than many think. If inflation really has been defeated, many people haven’t noticed it yet — but they may think differently a little over 10 months from now, even if the fundamentals are no better than they are currently.
I might add that the latest numbers on consumer sentiment from several surveys have shown surprising improvement. Not enough to eliminate the gap between the sentiment and what you might have expected from the macroeconomic numbers, but some movement in a positive direction.
Peter: That makes sense. Ten months from now, people may finally be getting over the trauma of high inflation. On the other hand, and I admit I’m not an economist, I’m still worried we could have a recession in 2024. Manufacturing is soft. The big interest rate increases by the Fed since March 2022 are hitting the economy with a lag. The extra savings from the pandemic have been depleted. The day after Christmas, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said the share of Americans in financial distress over credit cards and auto loans is back to where it was in the depths of the recession of 2007-9.
Plus, I’d say the labor market is weaker than it looked from the November jobs report. (For example, temp-agency employment shrank, which is an early warning of weak demand for labor.)
Paul: Glad you brought up small business confidence — I wrote about that the other week. Hard indicators like hiring plans are pretty strong. Soft indicators like what businesses say about future conditions are terrible. So small businesses are, in effect, saying, “I’m doing OK and expanding, but the economy is terrible” — just like consumers.
I’m not at all sure when the Fed will start cutting, although it’s almost certain that it eventually will, but markets are already effectively pricing in substantial cuts — and that’s what matters for the real economy. As I write this, the 10-year real interest rate is 1.69 percent, down from 2.46 percent around six weeks prior. Still high compared with prepandemic levels, but financial conditions have loosened a lot.
Could there be a recession already baked in? Sure. But I’m less convinced than I was even a month ago.
Peter: The big drop in interest rates can be read two ways. The positive spin is that it’ll be good for economic growth, eventually. That’s how the stock market is interpreting it. The negative spin is that the bond market is expecting a slowdown next year that will pull rates down. Also, what if the economy slows down a lot but the Fed doesn’t want to cut rates sharply because Fed officials are afraid of being accused by Donald Trump of trying to help Biden?
Paul: I guess I think better of the Fed than that. And always worth remembering that the interest rates that matter for the economy tend to be driven by expectations of future Fed policy: The Fed hasn’t cut yet, but mortgage rates are already down substantially.
Peter: Yes.
Paul: OK, about the election. The big mystery is why people are so down on the economy despite what look like very good numbers. At least part of that is that people look not at short-term inflation but at prices compared with what they used to be some time ago — but people’s memories don’t stretch back indefinitely. As I said, the guys at Briefing Book estimate that the most recent year’s inflation rate is only about half of what consumers look at, with a lot of weight on earlier inflation. But here’s the thing: Inflation has come way down, and this will gradually filter into long-term averages. Right now the average inflation rate over the past 2 years was 5 percent, still very high; but if future inflation runs at the 2.4 percent the Fed is now projecting, which I think is a bit high, by next November the two-year average will be down to 2.7 percent. So if the economy stays where it is now, consumers will probably start to feel better about inflation.
Peter: Except that perceptions of inflation are filtered through politics. Food and gasoline are more expensive for Trump supporters than Biden supporters, if you believe what people tell pollsters. That’s not going to change between now and November.
The Obama-Biden ticket beat the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008 because voters blamed Republicans for the 2007-9 recession. Obama-Biden had a narrower win in 2012 against Romney-Ryan, and I think one factor was the so-called jobless recovery from that recession. That’s why Biden is supersensitive about who gets credit and blame for turns in the economy.
For the record, Trump might be president right now if it hadn’t been for the Covid pandemic, which sent the unemployment rate to 14.7 percent in April 2020. The economy was doing quite well before that happened. A lot of Republicans are nostalgic for Trumponomics, although I think the economy prospered more in spite of him than because of him. Thoughts?
Paul: Most of the time, presidents have far less effect on the economy than people imagine. Big stimulus packages like Barack Obama’s in 2009 and Biden’s in 2021 can matter. But aside from pandemic relief, which was bipartisan, nothing Trump did had more than marginal effects. His 2017 tax cut didn’t have much visible effect on investment; his tariffs probably on net cost a few hundred thousand jobs, but in an economy as big as America’s, nobody noticed.
Peter: Just speculating, but I wonder if when people say they trust Trump more than Biden on the economy, they’re feeling vibes more than parsing statistics. You know, “We need a tough guy in the White House!”
Paul: People definitely aren’t parsing statistics. Only pathetic nerds like us do that. And while Trump wasn’t actually a tough economic leader, he literally did play one on TV.
But we don’t really know if that matters or whether people are still reacting to the shock of inflation and high interest rates, which they hadn’t seen in a long time. Again, the best case for Biden pulling this out is that voters get over that shock, with both inflation and interest rates rapidly declining.
Oh, and falling interest rates mean higher bond prices and often translate into higher stock prices, too — which has also been happening lately.
Peter: True, Paul. But cold comfort for people who don’t own stocks and bonds. Or who do own stocks and bonds in their retirement plans but don’t think of themselves as part of the capitalist class. To win in November, Biden and his team are going to need to be perceived as doing something for the working class and the middle class. That’s why you see the White House talking about eliminating junk fees and capping insulin prices.
Paul: For what it’s worth, I think a lot of people judge the economy in part by the stock market, even if they don’t have a personal stake. That’s why Trump boasted about it so much and has lately been trying to say that Biden’s strong stock market is somehow a bad thing.
Finally, there are some indications that Democrats in particular are feeling better about the Biden economy. The Michigan survey tracks sentiment by partisanship. The numbers are noisy, but over the past few months Democratic sentiment has been slightly more positive than in the months just before the pandemic struck.
Peter: Paul, how important do you think the economy will be to voters compared with other issues, such as Trump’s fitness for office, Biden’s age, abortion access, et cetera? I mean, if it’s not important, why are we even having this conversation?
Paul: The economy surely matters less than it did when Republicans and Democrats lived in more or less the same intellectual universe — everyone agreed that the economy was bad in 1980 or 2008; now, Dems are fairly positive, while Republicans claim to believe that we’re in a severe downturn. But there are still voters on the margin and weak Democratic supporters who will turn out if they have a sense that things are improving.
Peter: Democratic strategists think the election might come down to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, assuming that Biden holds Michigan and New Hampshire and loses Arizona and Georgia. Any thoughts about the economic outlook for Pennsylvania and Wisconsin?
Paul: No strong sense about either state. But one little-noticed fact about the current economy is how uniform conditions are. In 2008, so-called sand states that had big housing bubbles were doing much worse than states that didn’t; now unemployment is low almost everywhere.
Of course, all political bets are off if we have a recession. But there’s a reasonable case that the economy will be much less of a drag on Democrats by November, as the reality of a soft landing sinks in.
Oh, and my subjective sense is that for whatever reason, media coverage of the economy has turned much more positive lately. I have to think this matters, otherwise, what are we even doing? And until recently, media reports tended to emphasize the downsides; “Great jobs numbers, and here’s why that’s bad for Biden” has become a sort of running joke among people I follow. These days, however, we’re starting to see reports acknowledging that we’ve had an almost miraculous combination of strong employment and falling inflation.
Peter: Paul, what economic indicators will you be paying the most attention to in the next few months with regard to the election? I’ll nominate inflation and unemployment, although those are kind of obvious.
Paul: Unemployment, for sure. On inflation, I’ll be watching longer-term measures: Will inflation be low enough to bring down two- or three-year averages? And especially highly visible stuff, like groceries. Thanksgiving dinner was actually cheaper in 2023 than in 2022. Will grocery prices be subdued enough to reduce the amount of complaining?
Oh, and I’ll be looking at consumer sentiment, which as we’ve seen can be pretty disconnected from the economy but will matter for the election.
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un promises launch of new spy satellites in 2024
Stuti Mishra – December 31, 2023
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the country’s first military reconnaissance satellite and gave the green light for its next action plan, Pyongyang’s state media said on Wednesday, adding that the satellite is “ready for loading” on a rocket.
The North Korean leader announced on Saturday that the “grave situation requires us to accelerate works to acquire overwhelming war response capabilities and thorough and perfect military readiness to suppress any types of provocations by the enemies at a stroke”.
“Because of reckless moves by the enemies to invade us, it is a fait accompli that a war can break out at any time on the Korean peninsula,” he said.
Unveiling his bold vision for 2024, Mr Kim said he plans to introduce cutting-edge unmanned combat equipment such as armed drones and powerful electronic warfare devices along with bolstering the country’s nuclear capabilities.
He criticised the United States and its allies for unprecedented actions, pushing the Korean Peninsula to the verge of nuclear conflict.
Mr Kim directed the launch of three additional military spy satellites in 2024, building upon the success of the country’s first reconnaissance satellite launched in November.
His assertion to expand North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal comes despite international pressure. In his speech, he ordered the acceleration of nuclear weapons production and development, signalling a continued focus on modernising the country’s nuclear capabilities.
“Based on the experience of successfully launching and operating the first reconnaissance satellite in 2023, the task of launching three additional reconnaissance satellites in 2024 was declared to vigorously promote the development of space science and technology,” the statement published by KCNA read.
Since last year, Mr Kim’s military has test-fired more than 100 ballistic missiles, many of them nuclear-capable weapons, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that prohibits North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.
South Korea’s spy agency raised alert last week that North Korea can launch military provocations and cyberattacks ahead of South Korean parliamentary elections in April and the US presidential election in November.
“Pyongyang might be waiting out the US presidential election to see what its provocations can buy it with the next administration,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
The North Korean leader also announced that North Korea will no longer seek reunification with South Korea. He said inter-Korean relations had become “a relationship between two hostile countries and two belligerents at war”.
“It’s time for us to acknowledge the reality and clarify our relationship with the South,” Mr Kim added.
North Korea’s Kim says armed conflict becoming reality because of US – KCNA
Jack Kim – December 31, 2023
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with commanders of the Korean People’s ArmyNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends the 2024 New Year’s Grand Performance at the May 1st Stadium in Pyongyang
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told the country’s military commanders the most powerful means must be mobilized to destroy the United States and South Korea if they choose military confrontation, state media reported on Monday.
Kim said the danger of an armed confrontation on the Korean peninsula is fast becoming a reality because of hostile maneuvers by the enemies including the United States, requiring the country to “sharpen the treasured sword” to protect itself.
“If the enemy opt for military confrontation … our army should deal a deadly blow to thoroughly annihilate them by mobilizing all the toughest means and potentialities without moment’s hesitation,” KCNA news agency quoted Kim as saying.
Kim made the comments as he hosted senior military leaders on Sunday at the ruling Workers’ Party (WPK) headquarters to congratulate them on the accomplishments made in 2023, the state news agency said.
North Korea in 2023 tested its largest ballistic missiles and launched its first military reconnaissance satellite, which Kim has called major advances in modernizing the country’s military.
The call to upgrade the country’s military readiness follows the pledge made at the conclusion of a five-day WPK meeting that ended on Saturday to boost its nuclear arsenal, build military drones and launch three new spy satellites in 2024.
The escalation of rhetoric from Kim comes as the United States increased drills with South Korea in the past year, deploying more strategic military assets, including a nuclear missile submarine, aircraft carriers and large bombers.
It also comes ahead of a year that will see pivotal elections in both South Korea and the United States, which Pyongyang likely sees as an opportunity to increase its leverage by stepping up a campaign of military pressure.
On Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged to accelerate work to complete a missile defence system and a system using U.S. extended deterrence to “fundamentally deter any North Korean nuclear and missile threat.”
Extended deterrence refers to the strategy of using U.S. military assets including nuclear weapons to deter and, in the event of an attack against an ally, respond.
In separate reports, KCNA said Kim hosted a reception for senior members of the ruling party and attended a late night “grand art performance” celebrating the new year at the May Day stadium in Pyongyang, where senior party members, soldiers and members of the diplomatic corps were present.
The show featured ice skaters, acrobats and choirs, and fireworks lit up the sky at midnight, as the venue filled “with great happiness and boundless excitement of seeing in the New Year with the benevolent father of the great socialist family.”
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Diane Craft, Lisa Shumaker and Kim Coghill)
Ron DeSantis keeps talking about blowing up The Bahamas
Kenneth Niemeyer – December 31, 2023
Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis addresses attendees during a campaign event in Rochester, New Hampshire.AP Photo/Charles Krupa
Ron DeSantis keeps saying the US would “flatten” The Bahamas if it attacked Fort Lauderdale.
DeSantis’ comments on the campaign trail were a comparison to the Israel-Hamas war.
The US Embassy in Nassau said the US has a “strong mutual security relationship” with The Bahamas.
Ron DeSantis keeps saying it would be easy to blow up The Bahamas, prompting the US Embassy in Nassau to clarify that his comments do not reflect official policy.
DeSantis, a 2024 presidential candidate, took a campaign trip to New Hampshire on Saturday, where he has trailed in the polls behind Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, and former President Donald Trump, WMUR, a local ABC affiliate, reported.
The Florida governor once again said during the stop that the US would “flatten” The Bahamas if anyone were to ever fire missiles from there into his state, not that there is any indication that anyone would do that, Florida Politics reported.
“If someone was firing missiles from The Bahamas into, like, Fort Lauderdale, we would never accept that. We would flatten. Anything that happened, it would be done like literally within 12 hours, it would be done,” DeSantis said during a speech to supporters, according to Florida Politics.
DeSantis’ office did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider on Sunday.
He has made this claim a talking point in several of his campaign stops since early November, comparing the war between Israel and Hamas to his hypothetical situation, The Miami Times reported.
On November 13, the US Embassy in Nassau told The Nassau Guardian that it “regrets” DeSantis’ comments may have portrayed “anything other than a close relationship” between The Bahamas and the United States.
“The Bahamas and the United States enjoy an enduring and unique partnership,” the embassy said in a statement.
“The USS Leyte Gulf, a US Navy cruiser currently in the Nassau Harbor, illustrates our strong mutual security relationship,” the statement continued. “We have been allies and friends for 50 years and are looking forward to the next 50.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Sarah Matthews appeared on ABC’s This Week on Sunday in an interview with Jonathan Karl to caution America about the dangers a second Trump presidency could bring. In retaliation, Trump took to his personal social media network, posting screenshots of old tweets and excerpts from articles and interviews where Griffin and Matthews were defending or praising him. While Trump seems to be framing these comments and posts as some sort of “gotcha,” many — but not all — were from before Jan. 6 and before Trump claimed the election was stolen.
During the interview, Griffin, who resigned from her position as White House communications director in early Dec. 2020, issued a stark warning about the dangers Trump could pose if he wins the 2024 election. “Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” she said. Griffin, who now co-hosts The View, went on to say that Trump went to “historic and unconstitutional lengths” to “steal a democratic election” so he could remain in power.
EXCLUSIVE: Three women who served in former Pres. Trump's White House sat down with @JonKarl to discuss their experiences speaking out against Trump and the impact they say his reelection could have on democracy. https://t.co/iMX9XSt7WIpic.twitter.com/311XWJSp7n
“I’m very concerned about what the term would actually look like,” Griffin said.
“We don’t need to speculate what a second Trump term would like because we already saw it play out,” added Matthews, who served as a White House deputy press secretary and Trump campaign spokesperson until she resigned on Jan. 6, 2021.
“To this day, he still doubles down on the fact that he thinks that the election was stolen and fraudulent,” Matthews continued. She also noted that Trump has become “increasingly erratic” as he threatens to circumvent the Constitution and abuse his power to punish his enemies.
“Our singular focus needs to be, if he is the nominee, on making sure that he is not elected the president again next November,” said Hutchinson, who served as an assistant to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. After her bombshell testimony to the Jan. 6 committee aired, Hutchinson said she went into hiding due to threats against her.
The women said they are determined to ensure that Trump does not become president again. “I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life, but I think that in this next election, I would put policy aside and choose democracy,” said Matthews.
Hutchinson also commented on Trump’s claim that he will act as a “dictator” if he has a second term: “The fact that he feels that he needs to lean into being a dictator alone shows that he is a weak and feeble man.”
The majority of Americans today are anxious; they believe their democracy is under threat.
In fact, democracies deteriorate easily. As was feared since the times of Greek philosopher Plato, they may suddenly succumb to mob rule. The people will think they have an inalienable right to manifest their opinions – which means to state out loud whatever passes through their minds. They will act accordingly, often violently. They will make questionable decisions.
Democracies may pave the way to tyrants. Self-serving leaders will appear. They will seek to rewrite national history by purging it of complexity and inconvenient truths. They will capitalize on the widespread frustration and profit from the chaotic situation.
So, one way democracies degenerate is because of cunning leaders. But democracies crumble also because of the people themselves. As an intellectual historian, I can assure you that the specter of an ignorant populace holding sway has kept many philosophers, writers and politicians awake.
The American founders were at the forefront in the battle against popular ignorance. They even concocted a plan for a national public university.
The men known as America’s Founding Fathers, likewise, were very sensitive to this issue. For them, not all voters were created equal. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton trusted the people – “the people” being, for them, white property-owning males, of course. But only if and when they had a sufficient level of literacy.
Thomas Jefferson was the most democratic-minded of the group. His vision of the new American nation entailed “a government by its citizens, in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority.”
He once gauged himself against George Washington: “The only point on which he and I ever differed in opinion,” Jefferson wrote, “was, that I had more confidence than he had in the natural integrity and discretion of the people.”
The paradox was that, for Jefferson himself, the “natural integrity” of the people needed to be cultivated: “Their minds must be improved to a certain degree.” So, while the people are potentially the “safe depositories” for a democratic nation, in reality they have to go through a training process.
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people,” he kept repeating. It was an axiom in his mind “that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction.”
Education had direct implications for democracy: “Wherever the people are well-informed,” wrote Jefferson, “they can be trusted with their own government.”
A national university
In 1787, Benjamin Rush, the Philadelphia doctor and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, published an “Address to the People of the United States.”
One of his main topics was the establishment of a “federal university” in which “every thing connected with government, such as history – the law of nature and nations – the civil law – the municipal laws of our country – and the principles of commerce – would be taught by competent professors.” Rush saw this plan as essential, should an experiment in democracy be attempted.
In 1796, President George Washington gave his Eighth Annual Message to the Senate and the House of Representatives at Congress Hall in Philadelphia, seen here. He wanted to alert Congress to the ‘desirableness’ of ‘a national university.’ Montes-Bradley/iStock / Getty Images Plus
George Washington stressed the same idea. At the end of his second term as president, in December 1796, Washington delivered his Eighth Annual Message to the Senate and the House of Representatives. He wished to awaken Congress to the “desirableness” of “a national university and also a military academy” whose wings would span over as many citizens as possible.
In his message, Washington embraced bold positions: “The more homogeneous our citizens can be made,” he claimed, “the greater will be our prospect of permanent union.”
Democracy’s ‘safe depositories’
A national university homogenizing the American people would likely be ill-received today anyway. We live in an age of race, gender and sexual awareness. Ours is an era of multiculturalism, the sacrosanct acknowledgment and celebration of difference.
But Washington’s idea that the goal of public education was to make citizens somewhat more “homogeneous” is worth reconsidering.
Were President Washington alive today, I believe he would provide his recipe for the people to remain the “safe depositories” of democracy. He would insist on giving them better training in history, as both Rush and Jefferson also advised. And he would especially press for teaching deeper, more encompassing political values.
He would say that schools and universities must teach the people that in their political values they should go beyond separate identities and what makes them different.
He would trust that, armed with such a common understanding, they would foster a “permanent union” and thus save democracy.
What the framers said about the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause: Analysis
Steven Portnoy – December 29, 2023
The intent of the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause is central to the debate over whether former President Donald Trump’s name should be stricken from GOP primary ballots now that the issue has landed at the steps of the Supreme Court.
Judges and officials across many states around the country are now grappling with language that was written a year after the end of the Civil War. The words “insurrection” and “rebellion” had certain meanings to those who had them added to the Constitution, and a key question for arbiters now is whether the language drafted a century-and-a-half ago should be applied to Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot.
As it originally passed the House, the 14th Amendment’s third section was not nearly as broad as the version now being invoked to strike Trump’s name from the ballot. It was narrowly crafted to apply only to those who willingly took part in the Civil War, and it was only meant to deprive former confederates of their right to cast ballots in federal elections. It also had an expiration date.
PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump greets the crowd at a campaign rally, Dec. 16, 2023, in Durham, N.H. (Reba Saldanha/AP)
“Sec. 3. Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice President of the United States,” the original, House-passed version read, according to congressional records of the era.
The Senate spent several days debating the House-passed amendment in the spring of 1866. While the birthright citizenship provisions in Section 1 earned a lot of time in debate, Section 3 was also the subject of an intense back-and-forth on the floor. The transcripts can be read in the Congressional Globe, a forerunner to the Congressional Record.
Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, who led the Republicans in debate, insisted that it wouldn’t be enough to deprive the former confederates of their right to vote in federal elections — he wanted them banished from government service altogether.
“I should prefer a clause prohibiting all persons who have participated in the rebellion, and who were over twenty-five years of age at the breaking out of the rebellion, from all participation in offices, either Federal or State, throughout the United States,” Howard said on the Senate floor on May 23, 1866. “I think such a provision would be a benefit to the nation.”
After about a week of discussions with colleagues, Howard offered the Sec. 3 language that was ultimately ratified. Howard’s revision removed specific references to “the” rebellion and added an important qualifier: those who were to be excluded from government service would have to have violated prior oaths to defend the constitution by having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against [it] or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Senators rejected various attempts to re-insert the word “voluntarily,” or to restrict the exclusion to those who violated their oaths during the time they were still serving in office.
There was a great deal of concern voiced in debate that Howard’s exclusion clause might leave the South ungovernable, with so many confederates poised to be disqualified from serving, even in state posts. Opponents expressed fear that the provision might alienate Union-loyal supporters in state legislatures. Nevertheless, the version Howard introduced made it through the entire ratification process and became effective on July 9, 1868.
In 2024, the originalists on the Supreme Court will likely seek to determine whether the ratifiers could have had it in mind 158 years ago that Sec. 3 might not only be applied to the “late insurrection,” as the House-passed version originally had it, but also to any other rebellion that might later take place.
But originalists might take note of what Sen. Peter Van Winkle of West Virginia said as he sought to have the threshold for congressional amnesty in Howard’s version lowered to a simple majority, rather than two-thirds.
PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump greets the crowd at a campaign rally, Dec. 16, 2023, in Durham, N.H. (Reba Saldanha/AP)
“This is to go into our Constitution and to stand to govern future insurrection as well as the present; and I should like to have that point definitely understood,” Van Winkle said at the time.
It’s also worth noting that there was just a single reference in the Senate debate to the fact that the president and vice president were not explicitly mentioned in Howard’s draft as “officer(s) of the United States,” the way members of Congress and state officials had been itemized in the text. Would the disqualification clause of the amendment not cover the top posts in the executive branch?
“Why did you omit to exclude them?” asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Reverdy Johnson.
Maine’s Lot Morrill jumped in to clarify.
“Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,'” Morrill said, ending the discussion on that point.
Earlier this week, the Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to answer whether the office of the president is covered by the amendment. Colorado district judge Sarah Wallace ruled last month that it is not. The Colorado Supreme Court overturned her finding last week and a majority of Colorado’s seven justices wrote that the former president “engaged in insurrection.”
Trump is facing more than a dozen tests over his ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment in various state and federal courts, with challenges or appeals pending in about 15 states.
Michigan, Minnesota and California have kept Trump on their ballots despite efforts to disqualify him.
In a statement Thursday following the decision by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruling Trump would not appear on the Republican 2024 ballot, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said they would “quickly file a legal objection in state court.”
He added that Bellows was a “hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election.”
Trump is expected to appeal the decision to disqualify him from the Colorado ballot to the Supreme Court.
“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight …. We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits,” Cheung said in a statement, in part, after the ruling.
