Why is Vladimir Putin threatening Ukraine? Respect, fear, power at play in Russian leader’s motivations

USA Today

Why is Vladimir Putin threatening Ukraine? Respect, fear, power at play in Russian leader’s motivations

Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY – February 12, 2022

WASHINGTON – Steven Pifer has a vivid recollection of his conversation with Russia’s deputy foreign minister after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

Pointing to his head, the Russian official said he understood that Ukraine was now an independent country. Pointing to his heart, the official said it would take awhile to get used to that reality.

Pifer, who was ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, sees echoes of that sentiment in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats against Ukraine, with one big difference.

“I don’t think Vladimir Putin has ever reconciled himself to that,” Pifer said of the loss of Ukraine, which has sought to align itself with the West since declaring independence from the Soviet Union.

With U.S. officials warning that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent,Putin’s designs on Russia’s neighbor goes beyond nostalgia.

It’s also about bolstering Putin’s standing on the world stage – and inside Russia. It’s about testing the United States and dividing Europe. It’s about protecting Russia’s sphere of influence and staving off perceived security threats.

Putin’s next move is fraught with risk – for himself and for the rest of the world.

The brinkmanship is “probably the most sensitive and dangerous crisis we’ve gone through in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” said Russian expert George Beebe, director of studies at the Center for the National Interest.

Here’s a look at the dynamics motivating Putina former KGB officer who has jailed his opponents and cemented his grip on the Kremlin.

Putin ‘won’t stop’ with Ukraine: Why Americans should care about Russia’s aggression against its neighbor

A woman in Ukrainian national dress welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin with bread and salt in Zaporizhye airport, some 568 kilometers (352 miles) west of Ukraine's capital Kiev, on Oct. 6, 2002. Russia's present demands are based on Putin's purported long sense of grievance and his rejection of Ukraine and Belarus as truly separate, sovereign countries but rather as part of a Russian linguistic and Orthodox motherland.
A woman in Ukrainian national dress welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin with bread and salt in Zaporizhye airport, some 568 kilometers (352 miles) west of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, on Oct. 6, 2002. Russia’s present demands are based on Putin’s purported long sense of grievance and his rejection of Ukraine and Belarus as truly separate, sovereign countries but rather as part of a Russian linguistic and Orthodox motherland.
Boosting Putin’s world stature

President Joe Biden has surmised that Putin seeks to regain the stature Russia lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“He is trying to find his place in the world between China and the West,” Biden said during a Jan. 19 news conference, his most extensive remarks about the standoff.

As the United States increasingly focuses on China as its top rival, Putin is eager to show Russia is still one of the world’s biggest players, experts say.

“The core driver of much of this, the background to this crisis, is that he wants the West to treat Russia as if it were the Soviet Union, that is to say, a great power to be respected and to be feared,” said Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia.

Alexandra Vacroux, executive director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, said that Russians do not feel they’ve been taken seriously since the end of the Cold War and that “enough is enough.”

“They have everybody’s attention now,” she said. “I think they’re not necessarily interested in owning Ukraine, but they are interested in being taken seriously as kind of the big power on the European continent.”

Seth Jones, director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sees the moves on Ukraine as an extension of Russia’s power plays in recent years that have included seizing Crimea, establishing a large footprint in Syria and building a naval base in Sudan.

“There has definitely been an expansion of Russian power and influence in a range of countries,” he said. “They don’t have the economic might of the Chinese or certainly the U.S., but they’re back as a major power.”

Opinion: U.S. can still stop the horror of Putin’s war in Ukraine. But time is running out.

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, arrive to meet at the 'Villa la Grange', on June 16, 2021, in Geneva, Switzerland.
President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, arrive to meet at the ‘Villa la Grange’, on June 16, 2021, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Keeping spheres of influence

Russia has always seen the ring of countries around it, which used to be part of the Soviet Union, as a buffer zone between Russia and countries that might invade, Vacroux said.

“Russia has a history of being invaded and feeling encircled by enemies,” she said. “And so one of the arguments (for Russia’s actions) is that Putin is basically reestablishing a kind of buffer between Russia and its enemies.”

Putin is not trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union, according to George Breslauer, a veteran Russian scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. But he is asserting that independent states in Russia’s neighborhood cannot be turned against Moscow because that poses an unacceptable security threat.

He also wants those buffer countries to be friendly to Russia and Russian businesses interests and to defer to Moscow on major geopolitical decisions, said Pifer, a William Perry fellow at Stanford University.

“After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lost essentially almost all of its sphere of influence,” Jones said. The Baltic states became members of NATO, as did members of the Warsaw Pact collective defense treaty.

Russia has long complained that NATO and the U.S. promised at the end of the Cold War that their security alliance would not extend beyond the borders of the former East Germany, Vacroux said.

“So I think Putin sees this as one of the last things that he hasn’t fixed about the 1990s, which is pushing NATO back from Russia’s border,” she said.

Russia’s demands include blocking Ukraine from joining NATO. Putin also wants to keep NATO missiles from being in striking distance and stop the alliance from deploying forces in former Soviet bloc countries that joined NATO after 1997.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Putin’s top goal is not putting the Soviet Union back together but destroying NATO and the transatlantic alliance.

“I think that’s really important to understand as we decide how to react to his threatened invasion,” Murphy said. “Because if NATO splits up over our response to the threatened invasion, that is a big win for Putin.”

What is NATO? Military alliance in spotlight as Russia tries to forbid Ukraine membership

People rallying in patriotic support of Ukraine hold a 500 meter long ribbon in the colors of the Ukrainian flag outside St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery on Unity Day on January 22, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
People rallying in patriotic support of Ukraine hold a 500 meter long ribbon in the colors of the Ukrainian flag outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery on Unity Day on January 22, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Boosting Putin’s domestic popularity

Russia’s unstable economy means Putin must look elsewhere to remain popular at home, according to M. Steven Fish, an expert on authoritarianism at the University of California, Berkley. Fish notes that Putin’s stock was highest after he annexed Crimea and took over parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Thomas Pickering, who was ambassador to Russia from 1993 to 1996, called Putin’s domestic political calculations a significant factor in his recent actions.

“Much of what he has propounded, either in red lines or charges against the U.S. and the West, is something which can appeal to the nationalism that has always been present in Russia,” Pickering said. “While he goes up and down in public popularity, a certain amount of this activity, on his part, is orchestrated, I think, at critical times for him to reinforce it.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022.
Taking advantage of a ‘weakened’ US

Putin may also be trying to take advantage of Biden’s domestic troubles.

“I think the Russians also have sensed, whether rightly or wrongly, that the U.S. is weak right now after the withdrawal from Afghanistan (and) political polarization in the U.S.,” Jones said. “I think from Putin’s perspective, this is about as good a time as any to make a move in Ukraine.”

Fiona Hill, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, said Putin is trying to give the U.S. “a taste of the same bitter medicine Russia had to swallow in the 1990s” when it was in a weakened position at home and in retreat abroad.

“All Moscow’s moves are directed against Washington,” Hill wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times.

Murphy, however, rejects the idea that Putin’s timing is connected to a calculation that the Biden administration will have difficulty responding. Former President Donald Trump, Murphy said, was always “bending knee” to Putin.

“If Putin was making his decision on when to invade Ukraine based upon the most likely time for a weak response from the U.S. government,” Murphy said, “he would have invaded during the Trump administration.”

What are Joe Biden’s options in Ukraine?: That all depends on Putin’s next move.

Members of Ukraine's volunteer military units  train in a city park in Kyiv on Jan. 22, 2022.
Members of Ukraine’s volunteer military units train in a city park in Kyiv on Jan. 22, 2022.
Putin sees Ukraine as part of Russia

Now to the nostalgia factor.

In Russian, Ukraine is called “Malorossiya” – or “small Russia.”

The history and culture of Russia and Ukraine are “thoroughly intertwined,” according to Pifer.

“This actually goes back 1,000 years,” he said.

Putin elaborated on his often-repeated assertion that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” in a lengthy essay the Kremlin posted in Russian, Ukrainian and English in July.

“I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole,” Putin wrote. “These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context. It is what I have said on numerous occasions and what I firmly believe.”

The fact that Putin made the essay compulsory reading for the Russian military, including the soldiers lining up on Ukraine’s border, means it’s “pretty serious,” said Jones, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“It is designed, in part, not just to influence external audiences,” Jones said, “but also internal ones that may fight and die in Ukraine for the Russian cause.”

Ukraine has been moving further and further away from Russia over the past eight years – much to Putin’s consternation, according to Murphy.

“And everything short of a full-scale invasion that Putin has tried, in order to win back Ukraine to the Russian orbit, hasn’t worked,” the senator said.

Visual explainer: How US and its allies could respond to Russian invasion of Ukraine

People rallying in patriotic support of Ukraine hold a 500 meter long ribbon in the colors of the Ukrainian flag on Unity Day on January 22, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
People rallying in patriotic support of Ukraine hold a 500 meter long ribbon in the colors of the Ukrainian flag on Unity Day on January 22, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Risky strategy

Putin’s moves come with huge risks.

If he sends 100,000 troops into Ukraine, they will need extremely long supply lines that will be hard to support, Vacroux said.

“It’s possible that … it’s not a quick operation and then they’re bogged down in Ukraine, and that’s just going to be a huge mess,” she said. “It’s especially messy if Ukraine gets more than supportive words and defensive weapons from NATO, and from the United States, which is all they’ve gotten so far.”

Biden has threatened severe sanctions intended to seriously damage Russia’s economy should Putin attack. And the U.S. president said he was considering personal sanctions targeting the Russian leader’s own pocketbook as well.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, in terms of sanctions on Russia, I think we’re at about a 3 now,” Pifer said. “So they could ratchet it up.”

And some Russian parents have expressed concerns on social media about their sons being sent to fight, and possibly die, in Ukraine, said Rose Gottemoeller, former deputy secretary general of NATO who is now at Stanford University.

In Ukraine, by contrast, one recent poll showed a third of the country saying they would be willing to take up arms if Russia invaded. So even though Russia has much greater military might, they could take heavier casualties than anticipated.

“I can see Putin’s ideal scenario, but I can also see that it goes badly for him,” Pifer said.

And Putin’s fears about NATO encroachment could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Any invasion of Ukraine would be met with a buildup of NATO forces along the Russian border, Jones said. The Pentagon has announced the deployment of several thousand U.S. troops to Germany, Poland and Romania amid the crisis.

On the other hand, if NATO’s response isn’t forceful and if China helps Russia get around sanctions, Putin may be able to annex at least a large portion of Ukraine.

That, Jones said, would send a very clear message to any country in Eastern Europe or Central Asia “that this is what happens if you even think about joining” NATO.

Maureen Groppe has covered Washington for nearly three decades and is now a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. 

Sen Paul and the repub’s who want to end American Democracy, Belong in Russia

The Courier Journal

‘I hope they clog up cities’: Sen. Rand Paul hopes Canada trucker protest spreads to US

Lucas Aulbach, Louisville Courier Journal – February 11, 2022

Sen. Rand Paul has watched the protests in Canada over coronavirus restrictions shut down several blocks in Ottawa for weeks and bring traffic along key nearby crossings to a halt.

Now, he’s ready to roll out the welcome wagon for the protesters in the U.S.

In an interview Thursday with the Daily Signal, a conservative media site, the U.S. senator from Kentucky said “it’d be great” if the protests spread to Washington, D.C., when asked about his thoughts on the protests and how the nation’s capital would react if they spread south across the border.

“The thing is, it wouldn’t shut the city down because the government workers haven’t come to work in two years anyway, so I don’t know if it’d affect D.C.,” Paul joked. “It’d be nice change. We’d actually have some traffic.”

Just under 25% of office workers in Washington, D.C., were working out of their offices as of September 2021, according to a survey from the DowntownDC Business Improvement District, as more employees opted to work from home amid the pandemic, which has frequently closed schools and upended child care options.

The protests in Canada, referred to as the “Freedom Convoy” by supporters, are set to enter their third consecutive weekend. Led by a group of truck drivers who started in British Columbia and drove to Ottawa, the country’s capital, protesters involved have called for the government to put an end to a mandate approved by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that requires truckers entering the Canada from the U.S. to have been fully vaccinated or face additional quarantining and testing.

The protesters have set up camp in downtown Ottawa, shutting down several city blocks and disrupting day-to-day life in the city’s core, with Mayor Jim Watson at one point calling a state of emergency due to “serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents.” A separate state of emergency was put in place for the entire province of Ontario by Premier Doug Ford on Friday as three border crossings have been closed due to the demonstrations.

Paul, a frequent critic of U.S. COVID policies, told the Daily Signal that the protests were an example of civil disobedience – a “time-honored tradition in our country.”

“I hope the truckers do come to America, and I hope they clog up cities,” Paul said. “We’re seeing a break in the dam now. Several Democratic governors are finally sort of relinquishing. What they’re finding is moms and dads are upset about this, they’re not just Republicans. Everybody is upset about this.”

Paul might just get his wish.

The Super Bowl is set to take place Sunday in Los Angeles, and the Department of Homeland Security warned state and local law enforcement departments Tuesday that protests could potentially begin in California before convoying through the U.S. to make it to the nation’s capital by March 1, the day President Joe Biden is set to give his State of the Union address.

“While there are currently no indications of planned violence, if hundreds of trucks converge in a major metropolitan city, the potential exists to severely disrupt transportation, federal government operations, commercial facilities, and emergency services through gridlock and potential counterprotests,” the memo said, according to USA TODAY.

Paul’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.

Switching From Red Meats to Plants Increases Life Expectancy, Study Finds

Switching From Red Meats to Plants Increases Life Expectancy, Study Finds

Olivia Rosane – February 11, 2022

Vegetables typical of the Mediterranean diet.

Vegetables typically found in the Mediterranean diet. fcafotodigital / E+ / Getty Images

Eating a more plant-based diet isn’t just good for the planet. It could add years to your life as well. 

A new study published in PLOS Medicine on Tuesday found that opting for plants, fish, legumes and whole grains over red meats and processed foods could extend a human lifespan by up to 13 years. 

“A sustained dietary change may give substantial health gains for people of all ages both for optimized and feasible changes,” the study authors wrote. 

Scientists and health experts have long sung the praises of a Mediterranean diet. That’s a diet based on moderate amounts of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, legumes, olive oil, seafood, poultry and dairy. It’s been rated the best diet over all five years in a row by U.S. News and World Report, and one study suggests it may even help protect against the impacts of certain types of air pollution

To compare the impacts of choosing a typical “Western” diet to an “optimized” diet that closely resembles the Mediterranean diet, the Norway-based research team relied on computer models, CNN explained. They calculated what would happen if a man or woman from the U.S. began eating different diets at different points during their lives, according to the study.

A woman who began eating the optimized diet at 20 could extend her lifespan by slightly more than 10 years, while a man who began at the same time could extend his by 13 years, CNN reported. However, there were still benefits to eating healthier later in life. A man who began the optimized diet at 60 could add nearly nine years to his life and a woman, eight. Both men and women could add around 3.5 years to their lives by starting the optimized diet at 80.

The researchers have now turned their findings into a public tool called Food4HealthyLife, that anyone can use to calculate how dietary changes would impact their life expectancy.  

Outside researchers said the findings were not necessarily surprising. 

“The notion that improving diet quality would reduce the risk of chronic disease and premature death is long established, and it only stands to reason that less chronic disease and premature death means more life expectancy,” Dr. David Katz, a nutrition and lifestyle medicine expert who was not involved in the research, told CNN. 

However, some people find the idea of shifting to a mostly plant-based diet intimidating. The researchers also calculated the impacts of a middle option they called a “feasibility approach.” For a woman, adapting a feasibility approach diet from the age of 20 could improve her life expectancy by 6.2 years, while a man making the same change at the same time could add 7.3 years to his life.  

This suggests that eating more plants is always a positive choice, even if you can’t entirely change your diet.

“I think when people hear plant-based diet or they hear a definition they get very intimidated. This does not have to be an all-in thing,” ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton, who was not part of the research, told Good Morning America Wednesday, as Yahoo News reported. “You can make small changes with, let’s say, a meatless Monday or just one meal of every day.”

In addition to the health gains, there are also environmental reasons for opting for plants over red meat. A 2018 study found that shifting to a vegan diet is probably the single biggest thing an individual can do to reduce their contribution to the climate crisis, land use and water use, nutrient pollution and other human activities. 

Canadian Judge Blocks Money For Truckers From U.S. Right-Wing Christian Fundraising Site

HuffPost – Politics

Canadian Judge Blocks Money For Truckers From U.S. Right-Wing Christian Fundraising Site

GiveSendGo claims Canada has no jurisdiction across borders, even as it funds a protest in another country.

By Mary Papenfuss – February 12, 2022

A Canadian judge has issued an injunction blocking money for the anti-vaccine trucker protesters in Ottawa collected by the right-wing U.S. Christian fundraising site GiveSendGo.

The Ontario government petitioned for the order from Canada’s Superior Court of Justice, which was issued Thursday. It prohibits “any and all parties with possession or control over these donations” from distributing the money.

The criminal code allows for such an action against any “offense-related property,” meaning assets collected as part of or supporting illegal activity, according to a spokesperson for Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

GiveSendGo defiantly declared in response to the court order: “Know this! Canada has absolutely ZERO jurisdiction over how we manage our funds here at GiveSendGo.”

GiveSendGo has raised some $9 million for the “Freedom Convoy” and via the site’s “Adopt a Trucker” program. The site also encourages “prayers” for the controversial trucker “warriors” in their third week of protesting against vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 precautions at the U.S.-Canadian border.

GiveSendGo has raised money for several far-right causes, and even for violent organizations, including the extremist Proud Boys, which is classified as a “terrorist” organization in Canada.

Trucker protest leader Chris Barber ominously threatened that the judge’s order would “blow up in their faces” in an interview with The Ottawa Citizen.

“Bring it on … we are not going anywhere,” added Barber, who insisted there’s money coming in from other sources.

The order was part of a multi-pronged attack this week against the truckers who have paralyzed downtown Ottawa and blocked a key bridge into the U.S.

A province-wide state of emergency was declared Wednesday and police on Saturday began enforcing an injunction against the truckers’ blockade of the Ambassador Bridge from Windsor, Ontario into Detroit. The blockade choked off an already challenged supply chain to American automakers. A report estimated that U.S. workers and businesses have already lost some $51 million in damaged commerce and wages due to the action.

By late Saturday blockade trucks on the bridge were gone in the wake of the police action, though protesters on foot remained, The Detroit Free Press reported.

The anti-precautions protest began more than two weeks ago as hundreds of truckers, many driving massive semi-trucks, descended on downtown Ottawa, honking ear-piercing air horns, paralyzing traffic and shutting down stores and offices. They’ve been accused of harassment, even assault, and of ripping masks off the faces of area residents.

Yet the truckers were immediately hailed as heroes by right-wing American lawmakers and others, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Florida’s GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, Elon Musk, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Donald Trump and son Donald Trump Jr. 

GoFundMe earlier this month shut down a site that had raised close to $10 million for the truckers after Ottawa police reached out to the company to complain of illegal activity by the truckers. That’s when GiveSendGo stepped in.

Members of Ontario’s House of Commons this week heard testimony from deputy directors of Canada’s financial intelligence operation revealing that it doesn’t directly track sources of money pouring into crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe or GiveSendGo GlobalNews reported.

Representatives from GoFundMe will reportedly testify before a committee next week about what measures it has taken to prevent being a funding conduit to extremists.

Michael Kempa, an associate criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, views the truckers’ anti-vaccine fight largely as cover for a deeply authoritarian movement funded by American and global interests out to undermine the rule of law and Canada’s government. Canada Unity, one of the organizers of the trucker protest, has called for the dissolution of Canada’s Parliament.

“They’re people interested in undoing the conventional state system, and replacing the Canadian democratic model with something that is much more grassroots authoritarian and far-right conservative,” Kempa told CBC-TV in an interview. “They’re not interested in the … liberal system we have here in Canada.”

Major Canadian trucker associations have disavowed the protesters, saying the vast majority of drivers are vaccinated and are continuing to work.

Trump’s comments should be a warning to us all

Bucks County Courier Times

Guest Opinion: Trump’s comments should be a warning to us all

Dick Newbert – February 12, 2022

“They are being treated so unfairly.” — Donald Trump (Jan. 29, 2022)

As the 2022 midterm elections approach, Donald Trump continues to focus on his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Perpetuating allegations of election fraud, Trump has taken a page from “Mein Kampf’s” rulebook: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong.

Tragically for America, despite a lack of any evidence whatsoever to support his claims and numerous audited recounts reaffirming Joe Biden’s victory, some Republicans continue to blindly believe Trump’s fiction.

Months before the election, the former president began the drumbeat the only way he could lose in 2020 was if there was election fraud. In the wake of his loss, Trump’s efforts to overturn the election have been delegitimized by all of the nation’s intelligence and cybersecurity agencies and even Attorney General Barr, reaching a unanimous conclusion there is no evidence of “systemic or broad-based fraud” that would change the result of the election.

Trump’s rhetoric culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, inflaming hundreds of fanatical supporters, urging them to march on the Capitol. What resulted was a violent assault on the Capitol with the clear intent to influence Congress’ responsible counting of the electoral college’s ballots and on a fundamental institution of our democracy.

While his supporters ran wild throughout the Capitol building, the defeated president relished the mayhem from the security of The White House; despite pleas from leading Republicans and even his daughter to stop the insurrection. Only after several hours did Trump reluctantly speak, concluding his brief remarks with a message to the rioters, “We love you. You’re very special.”

Trump has hinted he might run in 2024 and; “If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly.”

Donald Trump’s willingness to pardon people whose actions were a direct threat to our democracy should scare the pants off of every American, particularly those who have taken an oath to “support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.

Republican Liz Cheney’s admonition must be taken seriously, “He crossed lines no American president has ever crossed before. When a president refuses to tell the mob to stop, when he refuses to defend any of the coordinate branches of government, he cannot be trusted, [is] unfit for future office [and] clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again.”

Dick Newbert lives in Langhorne.

Almost All U.S. Eggs Will Soon Be Cage-Free, Thanks to Public Pressure on Farms

TIME – Business

Almost All U.S. Eggs Will Soon Be Cage-Free, Thanks to Public Pressure on Farms

Scott McFetridge, AP – February 11, 2022

This 2017 photo shows cage-free chickens on a Versova farm in Iowa. The nation’s egg producers are in the midst of a multi-billion-dollar shift to cage-free eggs that is dramatically changing the lives of millions of hens in response to new laws and demands from restaurant chains. Versova via APBY 

DES MOINES, Iowa — Without much fuss and even less public attention, the nation’s egg producers are in the midst of a multibillion-dollar shift to cage-free eggs that is dramatically changing the lives of millions of hens in response to new laws and demands from restaurant chains.

In a decade, the percentage of hens in cage-free housing has soared from 4% in 2010 to 28% in 2020, and that figure is expected to more than double to about 70% in the next four years.

The change marks one of the animal welfare movement’s biggest successes after years of battles with the food industry. The transition has cost billions of dollars for producers who initially resisted calls for more humane treatment of chickens but have since fully embraced the new reality. Pushed by voter initiatives in California and other states as well as pressure from fast food restaurant chains and major grocers, egg producers are freeing chickens from cages and letting them move throughout hen houses.

“What we producers failed to realize early on was that the people funding all the animal rights activist groups, they were our customers. And at the end of the day, we have to listen to our customers,” said Marcus Rust, the CEO of Indiana-based Rose Acre Farms, the nation’s second-largest egg producer.

Josh Balk, vice president for farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States, noted the abruptness of the about face. This is “an entire industry that at one point fought tooth and nail not to make any changes,” he said.

To a great extent, the industry concluded it didn’t have another choice.

Beginning in about 2015, McDonald’s, Burger King and other national restaurant chains as well as dozens of grocers and food manufacturers responded to pressure from animal welfare groups by announcing their commitment to cage-free eggs. That was followed by laws requiring cage-free housing in California and similar rules in at least seven other states — Colorado, MassachusettsMichigan, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

McDonald’s, which buys about 2 billion eggs annually, said it gradually shifted to cage-free after concluding it was desired by customers. Many companies widely promoted their move to cage-free as good for their brand’s image.

Earlier, animal welfare groups, especially the Humane Society, had organized shareholder campaigns, conducted undercover investigations of chicken farms and filed federal complaints. A Gallup poll from 2015 found that nearly two-thirds of Americans thought animals deserved protection from harm and exploitation.

Animal rights groups have made allowing animals room to move a priority in their campaigns but the results have been mixed. The pork industry is fighting to block the California initiative that required more space for breeding pigs and veal calves, and a state judge recently delayed implementation of new rules.

The egg industry also initially sought national standards that would allow cages but ultimately relented, said J. T. Dean, president of Iowa-based Versova, a leading egg producer. Egg companies house about 325 million laying hens, so shifting many out of cages where they couldn’t move and into spaces where they could walk and roost was an expensive proposition, Dean said.

Besides building structures with more space, companies had to figure out how to feed birds that could move about and how to collect their eggs. More workers and more feed were also needed because hens moving around would work up more of an appetite.

The key, said Dean, was getting long-term commitments for guaranteed buyers of eggs at a higher price.

“When you start talking about needing billions of dollars, you have to try every avenue you can,” Dean said.

The exact cost of the switch on egg producers is hard to estimate, in part because some updating of buildings and equipment is done periodically anyway. The cost to people at grocery stores is clearer.

Jayson Lusk, who heads the Agricultural Economics Department at Purdue University, found that after a mandatory shift on Jan. 1 to cage-free in California, the price of a dozen eggs in the state jumped by 72 cents — or 103% — over the average U.S. price, although the gap could shrink as the market adapts.

At Des Moines’ Gateway Market, which specializes in organic and specialty food, shoppers said they think it’s worth paying more for eggs if it improves lives for hens.

“I feel as though I want the chicken to be happy,” said Mary Skinner, of Des Moines. “How would we feel if we were stuck in a cage?”

Gregg Fath, a Des Moines resident who enjoys eating three eggs for breakfast, said he thinks “people are learning to be more aware.”

Looking years into the future, egg company leaders said they think the demand for cheaper eggs from caged hens will remain roughly 25% or more of the market, but Balk at the Humane Society said he expects it to become a tiny percentage of overall sales.

Balk notes that hundreds of national retailers, restaurants, grocers and food manufacturers either have implemented cage-free requirements or plan to do so within a few years.

“This is the future of every state in America,” he said.

A courageous stand for America’s founding principles

Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

EDITORIAL: A courageous stand for America’s founding principles

Anchorage Daily News, Alaska – February 12, 2022

Feb. 13—The inexplicable war on objective reality sank to a new low recently, when the Republican National Committee sought to redefine the assault on the Capitol that took place Jan. 6, 2021, as “legitimate political discourse.” The attempt at doublespeak came as the RNC overwhelmingly voted to censure two U.S. representatives from its own party, Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, for their part in helping a bipartisan panel get to the bottom of what happened that day in Washington, D.C. In a piece of political spin that boggles the mind, the RNC claimed that by helping investigate the events that day, Cheney and Kinzinger are doing work that “has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic.”

To anyone who has taken even a cursory look at the violence perpetrated that day in an effort to overturn the result of a fairly conducted election, the RNC’s statement is absurd. The irresponsible lies and violence-mongering by those seeking to subvert the will of the American people were responsible for a death and many serious injuries among rioters and police alike.

Fortunately, two members of Alaska’s Washington, D.C., delegation have had the decency to stand up to their own party in the name of the continued existence of our republic. “We must not legitimize those actions which resulted in loss of life and we must learn from that horrible event so history does not repeat itself,” wrote Sen. Lisa Murkowski. “As Americans we must acknowledge those tragic events, and we cannot allow a false narrative to be created.”

Rep. Don Young struck a similar note: “I was appalled at the violence and destruction at the Capitol on January 6th,” he wrote on Twitter. “What transpired was criminal, un-American, and cannot be considered legitimate protest.”

Those seeking to defend the RNC’s censure of Cheney and Kinzinger have flaccidly claimed that the “legitimate political discourse” mentioned in the censure resolution referred to those who protested peacefully in Washington D.C., that day. But you can read it yourself: The resolution makes no attempt to distinguish between those who only attended former President Donald Trump’s rally and those who stormed the Capitol, beating police officers, stealing from Congress members’ offices and smearing feces on the walls. More to the point, the Jan. 6 committee isn’t investigating those who abided by the law; its members are trying to determine how and whether the violent attempt at insurrection was organized. Kinzinger and Cheney should be lauded for their part in trying to unravel that issue, not declared persona non grata by their party brass.

After initially declining comment despite repeated requests by the ADN for a statement, Sen. Dan Sullivan offered a later, more muted response to the RNC’s censure resolution, condemning the violence at the Capitol and saying that violence can never be considered legitimate political discourse, but refraining from comment on the party’s action in censuring Cheney and Kinzinger and following up by saying that the important thing is to rein in the Biden administration. Sen. Sullivan should speak out more forcefully, and show the courage of Sen. Murkowski and Rep. Young.

Murkowski and Young, by virtue of their longevity and stature, have earned a reputation for periodically bucking their party on issues like this one. But chalking their stance up simply to their political capital doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a deeper tradition in it, of doing the right thing for Alaska and its people rather than going along to get along. It might serve both of their political fortunes better to be in good with the RNC and its deep-pocketed donors, but who does it serve to undermine the foundation of American democracy?

Even in the depths of partisanship we find ourselves in, there must be some bright lines that can never be crossed — and violently overturning the results of a free and fair election must never be rebranded as legitimate discourse.

CORRECTION: An initial version of this editorial stated Sen. Dan Sullivan had not yet offered comment on the RNC’s resolution; he has done so.

Trump Owes It All to McConnell’s ‘Disgraceful Dereliction of Duty’

Daily Beast

Trump Owes It All to McConnell’s ‘Disgraceful Dereliction of Duty’

Anthony L Fisher – February 11, 2022

Drew Angerer/Getty
Drew Angerer/Getty

One year ago, the U.S. Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump, who just a couple of weeks earlier had been the President of the United States. Three years from now, he could be that again, thanks to the Republicans who knew better but nonetheless let him off the hook.

The vote was 57-43 in favor of convicting Trump for inciting the Capitol riot, which was the citizen militia portion of Trump’s months-long attempted coup that had begun in earnest when he convinced tens of millions of Americans of the bald-faced lie that a massive, multi-state conspiracy of voter fraud had denied him re-election.

Seven Republicans crossed party lines to vote with every Democrat and independent to hold Trump accountable for his high crimes, and to bar him from ever holding office again—but the effort failed by 10 votes, short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict.

Following the verdict, quite a few senators delivered impassioned remarks on the trial, the failed coup, and the damage Trump’s Big Lie continued to inflict on basic democratic norms.

McConnell Unleashes on ‘Shameful’ Trump—Moments After Voting ‘Not Guilty’

I watched most of them (for work, of course), but only one stood out for me at the time and continues to do so today. It was an impassioned, righteously furious, and enthralling speech.

“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.

Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president,” the senator began.

“They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth—because he was angry he’d lost an election. Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty,” the senator continued, laying out just how insane the basic facts about the impeachment really were.

Then the senator made a no–bullshit and succinct case for conviction:

“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”

The senator who delivered this Beltway-meets-Braveheart monologue for the ages was a Republican. And not just any Republican—it was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the boss of the congressional GOP.

This was the speech McConnell gave explaining why he voted to acquit Trump, thus leaving the person “practically and morally responsible” for Jan. 6 unpunished, and free to serve as president again.

The TL;DR version is an interpretation (disputed by about as many who support it) which holds that the Senate has no authority to convict a private citizen. If Trump were still president, the argument goes, Mitch would have voted to convict.

Knowing McConnell’s shameless ability to go back on his word and serve the interests of the Republican Party above all else, it’s hard to believe he would have done so unless there was zero chance that he’d be the deciding vote (and probably not even then).

Trump’s acquittal provided McConnell the cover to have his words lambasting Trump and his crimes entered into the congressional record, for posterity. For history.

But in the here and now—one year later—Trump is still the de facto favorite (and there isn’t a close second) for the 2024 GOP nomination.

Worse, the Republican Party on Feb. 4 of this year censured GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their heretical insistence that Jan. 6 was a high crime that deserves a proper investigation, embodied by their participation in the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

The two members of Congress were contributing to the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” said the Republican Party.

And though the GOP quickly clarified that it was not referring to the actual Capitol rioters, but the other very fine people who believe lies the president told them (and which the rest of the GOP leadership was too cowardly to forcefully repudiate.)

The weasel-wording aside, let’s be clear about what the Republicans have done here: they legitimized belief in the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and they tacitly provided cover for those angry enough about the Big Lie to storm the Capitol.

I don’t care if you think Cheney and Kinzinger are self-interested hacks or how much you hate their politics. In this case, they’re doing the right thing.

Mitch McConnell Says He’ll Support Trump in 2024 After Blaming Him for Capitol Riot

Any Republican who would describe the baseless denial of election results and shattering the norm of “peaceful transfer of power” as “legitimate discourse” can no longer credibly claim to value American democracy more than the consolidation of political resources, and, perhaps, “owning the libs.”

Trump’s political career could have been permanently ended a year ago if McConnell and nine other Republicans had voted their consciences to convict.

They could have rebirthed their party, if only they had shown a modicum of principle, and remained steadfast against the ire of MAGA dead-enders.

Instead, the GOP is now the party of permanent Trump. They’ve codified the Big Lie, an attempted coup, and the Jan. 6 riot as part of the “legitimate political discourse.”

And it looks like McConnell has at least some regrets.

He recently took a rare swing at his own party—rebuking the RNC for its censure of Cheney and Kinzinger, and calling the Capitol riot an insurrection committed by a “mob” that used “fear and violence” to intimidate Congress after being “fed lies” by “the president and other powerful people.” But he still doesn’t support the Jan. 6 Commission, making his latest stab at bravery only half-courageous.

McConnell’s post-impeachment speech was a sermon fit for a prosecuting attorney’s closing remarks to the jury. But his words are meaningless, because he kept Trump’s political fortunes alive, and left the former president’s crimes against America unpunished.

Judge publicly refutes RNC claim that Capitol riot was ‘legitimate political discourse’ while sentencing rioter

Insider

Judge publicly refutes RNC claim that Capitol riot was ‘legitimate political discourse’ while sentencing rioter

Mia Jankowicz – February 11, 2022

Capitol police use tear gas on Trump mob on January 6
Police use tear gas around Capitol building where pro-Trump supporters riot and breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021.Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
  • A judge took aim at the RNC’s resolution calling the Capitol riot ‘legitimate political discourse.’
  • Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson refuted this during the sentencing of a Jan. 6 rioter, per ABC News.
  • “It is not justified to descend on the nation’s Capitol … and disrupt the electoral process,” she said.

A federal judge rebuked the Republican National Committee (RNC) during sentencing remarks for a January 6 rioter on Thursday, saying that the 2021 assault on the Capitol was “not ‘legitimate political discourse.'”

That phrase was lifted verbatim from a Republican National Committee document released on February 4 as the party censured Republican reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger over various grievances, including their contribution to the ongoing investigation into the Capitol riot.

“Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” the document said.

D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson directly quoted that three word phrase during her sentencing of rioter Mark Leffingwell, but vehemently disagreed with it.

Per ABC News, Berman Jackson said: “It is not ‘legitimate political discourse,’ and it is not justified to descend on the nation’s Capitol at the direction of a disappointed candidate and disrupt the electoral process.”

“Cancelling out the votes of other people with a show of force is the opposite of what America stands for,” she added, ABC said.

According to court documents seen by Insider, Leffingwell, a resident of Seattle, pleaded guilty in October to charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding an officer.

On Thursday he was sentenced to six months in prison, two years of supervised probation, and community service on his release, the Seattle Times reported. He was also fined $2,000.

The complaint said he entered the Capitol on January 6 and tried to push past a police officer. When the officer barred him, Leffingwell punched the officer twice, in the head and the chest. He also punched a second officer. He later apologized, one officer noted.

The original RNC document using the phrase “legitimate political discourse” drew widespread criticism after its release last Friday, with Democrats and some Republicans criticizing the phrasing and sentiment of the statement.

“The GOP officially supports violent criminal assaults on police, and on our democracy,” Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said.

Soon after its release, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel issued a statement saying the wording referred to people engaged in peaceful protest elsewhere, and not the violent rioters at the Capitol. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also made a similar assertion.

Other GOP figures, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Mitt Romney distanced themselves from the comment.

Romney said it “could not have been a more inappropriate message.”

Letters to the Editor: ‘Done’ with COVID? Thank God our grandparents weren’t ‘done’ with World War II

Los Angeles Times

Letters to the Editor: ‘Done’ with COVID? Thank God our grandparents weren’t ‘done’ with World War II

February 11, 2022

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 05: Bill Maher Performs During New York Comedy Festival at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on November 5, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images)
Bill Maher performs during a comedy festival at Madison Square Garden in New York in 2016. (Getty Images)

To the editor: Thanks to Michael Hiltzik for his insightful and well-researched column on comments made by comedian and talk show host Bill Maher minimizing the current severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Indeed, while we all are experiencing frustration and fatigue from pandemic-related restrictions, listening to the flippant attitude of pundits like Bari Weiss on Maher’s show doesn’t help to unify us in meeting this national and global challenge.

Perhaps Weiss should take a page from our ancestors, whom I’m sure, after years of sacrifice, might have felt “done” with World War II and other world crises. Many in past generations came together to face hardship with persistent determination and selfless courage.

In contrast, Weiss presents a disturbing caricature of millennial self-centeredness that is so often the target of Maher’s ridicule.

Susan Dunn, Valley Glen

..

To the editor: Hiltzik completely misses the point of Maher’s position on government COVID-19 measures. Maher fully understands the carnage this virus has and continues to wreak. He just points out that it’s almost entirely among the unvaccinated.

If you’re fully vaccinated and do not have the well-known risk factors, such as serious asthma or obesity, then your chances of hospitalization are very small, and your chances of dying are miniscule.

If you’re not fully vaccinated, then you’ve ignored every warning from every expert. You are no longer my responsibility. Let the rest of us go back to our lives.

I agree with Maher in that we should target our response to the disease. As a small business owner, I’m ready to accommodate employees who cannot be protected by vaccination. As a citizen, I support plenty of equipment, pay and time off for healthcare workers. But as a parent, I’m fed up with my vaccinated child not being able to fully experience school and friends.

Government should keep vaccinations free. It should keep shouting good advice. But for those of us who have taken the advice, leave us alone.

Joel Karafin, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: As a longtime fan of Maher, I’m in lock step with Hiltzik with regard to Maher’s strange reaction to the pandemic.

Normally rational and fact-based, Maher has become rather hysterical in his oversimplification and dismissal of anyone choosing to still wear masks. I tend to believe his rant is schtick rather than a disavowal of science.

Yes Mr. Maher, we’re sick to death of this COVID-19 buzz kill, but masks do prevent viral transmission. Period.

Greg Hilfman, Topanga

..

To the editor: How is “done with COVID” different from “done with traffic lights”? It has been a long time since anyone died at Wilshire and Sepulveda, so because the traffic lights have worked so well we can take them out.

Keith Price, Los Angeles