Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: War and peace

[Brexiter]

We begin this morning with Tom Hill of the War on the Rocks blog writing about the monumental difficulties of attaining a negotiated settlement in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Negotiations to end this war, however, are not only a matter for the Russian and Ukrainian negotiators at Antalya, the Pripyat River, and elsewhere. External parties were part of the war’s structural and proximate causes. The war’s course, and how it ends, will have substantial consequences for many states other than Ukraine and Russia, including strategic interests related to national security and nuclear deterrence. The stability of any deal to end the war will also be shaped by external support, pressures, and guarantees — or lack thereof. One way or another, external states will be involved, and in significant ways, in attempts to negotiate an end to this war. [...]

This article is an attempt to chart some of the hypothetical options for securing a de-escalation, through a discussion of four of the core issues of the conflict: Russian military withdrawal, Crimea, the Donbas, and Ukraine’s independence and foreign policy identity. These options are not a prediction of what kind of war-termination deal will transpire, nor are they a proposal of what the parties should or should not accept. Instead, this is an exercise to illuminate the scale of the challenge for negotiators and to highlight the serious preparations (both in terms of policymaking and in terms of public expectations) that these negotiations will require.

As this analysis demonstrates, the incentives against Russia implementing key components of a peace agreement are significant. Tough trade-offs and external support will be needed for a sustainable peace agreement — including preparation of a clear and coordinated Western offer to Russia on sanctions relief in return for Russia’s acceptance and implementation of Ukraine’s most important demands.

Michael D. Shear of The New York Times reports that President Biden plans to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower oil prices that have skyrocketed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mr. Biden could announce the plan to tap the reserve as soon as Thursday, said the official, who requested anonymity because the plan was not ready to be announced Wednesday night. The idea would be to combat rising prices at the pump.

The president’s public schedule, which was released Wednesday night, said he would deliver remarks Thursday afternoon on the administration’s “actions to reduce the impact of Putin’s price hike on energy prices and lower gas prices at the pump for American families,” a reference to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. [...]

If fully enacted, the president’s plan would release 180 million barrels from the reserve, which is intended to help the United States weather spikes in demand or drops in supply. About 550 million barrels are in the reserve, which has a reported total capacity of about 714 million barrels.

Bashar Deeb writes for POLITICO Europe writes about European double standards when it comes to refugees.

Indeed, bad actors like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko have sought to blackmail the European Union with threats of allowing migrants to freely cross over from their countries. But what the response to Ukraine shows is that it’s not migrants who are being weaponized; it’s the EU’s own xenophobia. After all, no one can blackmail you with unarmed colored people unless you are scared of them. Only a Europe that is so fearful of its far right that it ends up adopting its racist agenda can be held hostage by people looking for a better life, a safe environment in which to raise their families.

And it’s not just those fleeing violence who suffer when the EU raises its drawbridges. It’s the EU’s own interests as well. When Europe waves in Ukrainians while leaving others floating at sea on engineless life rafts, or executes brutal pushbacks that leave people robbed and stripped naked at its land borders, it is directly supplying the Kremlin and its other enemies with propaganda.[...]

Some Western commentators have added fuel to that fire, with journalists describing Ukrainians as civilized Europeans with white skin and blue eyes, unaccustomed to the horrors of war. Commentary like that adds nothing to the story, but it does dehumanize the displacement experiences of black and brown people.

When I heard these comments, as a Syrian, I could not help but feel insulted, but because of my work, I can see where the problem lies.

Laura Bronner of FiveThirtyEight writes that, yes, Europe is more tolerant of Ukrainian refugees...for now.

In fact, that trajectory is not uncommon in humanitarian crises: Support for refugees can start relatively high in the immediate aftermath of a disaster to only crater as news cycles change, anecdotal accounts of difficulties emerge and sympathies move on. It’s one reason why support for Ukrainian refugees may ultimately prove to be short-lived, too.

There is one point in the scientific literature on public opinion toward asylum seekers that is quite clear, however: Not all refugees are welcome.legal distinctions between refugees and asylum seekers in some places, the terms are often used interchangeably. In a huge, 18,000-person, 15-country European survey, political scientists Kirk Bansak, Jens Hainmueller and Dominik Hangartner found a number of characteristics ranging from refugees’ religion to their ability to speak the language that made people less — or more — willing to accept them.

In particular, Bansak, Hainmueller and Hangartner found that people were 11 percentage points less likely to say they would accept a Muslim refugee than a Christian one. They also found people were less willing to accept men seeking asylum than women. How “deserving” people thought refugees were also played a role, with refugees seeking asylum for economic opportunity being far less accepted than victims of political, religious or ethnic persecution. Victims of torture were also more likely to be accepted, as were asylum seekers without inconsistencies in their stories…

Yes, a lot of the racism and ethnic resentment that led to Brexit was directed at the migration of Eastern Europeans to the UK, for example. The idea that some European countries may get tired of Ukrainian migrants at some point in the future is not as far-fetched as it might seem now.

Heather Cox Richardson begins her latest post at her Letters From an American blog writing about the hiring of Mike Mulvaney by CBS News as introduction of the need of the political media to take Republican batsh*t seriously because of the enormous stakes.

Here’s what’s at stake: On the one hand, Biden is trying to rebuild the old liberal consensus that used to be shared by people of both parties, instituted by Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt to protect workers from the overreach of their employers and expanded under Republican Dwight Eisenhower to protect civil rights. To this, Biden has focused on those previously marginalized and has added a focus on women and children.

Biden’s new budget, released earlier this week, calls for investment in U.S. families, communities, and infrastructure, the same principles on which the economy has boomed for the past year. The budget also promotes fiscal responsibility by rolling back Trump’s tax cuts on the very wealthy. Biden’s signature yesterday on the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, making lynching a federal hate crime in the United States, is the culmination of more than 100 years of work.

Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are defending democracy against authoritarianism, working to bring together allies around the globe to resist the aggression of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

On the other hand, the Republican Party is working to get rid of the New Deal government. While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted to face the midterms without a platform, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who chairs the committee responsible for electing Republican senators, has produced an “11-point plan to rescue America.” It dramatically raises taxes on people who earn less than $100,000, and ends Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.

With Maine Senator Susan Collins’ “concerns” over the nomination of Judge Ketjani Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court having subsided (at least for the time being), Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post writes that attention has turned to the ever-so thoughtful and contemplative deliberation to be made by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Her vote is being closely watched not only in D.C., where Democrats are eager to put a bipartisan stamp on Jackson’s likely confirmation, but also back home in Alaska, where Murkowski is standing for reelection this year under a newfangled election process in which traditional party primaries have been replaced with an all-comers runoff system that lets voters rank their preferred choices in the four-candidate general election.[...]

Although she backed the vast majority of President Donald Trump’s policy initiatives and nominees, she was among a small number of congressional Republicans who frustrated and ultimately foiled the GOP’s attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Under Biden, she has voted to confirm all of his Cabinet nominees, save for Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, as well as more than 50 of his judicial nominees — a record of cross-aisle comity matched only by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). [...}


Now all eyes are firmly on Murkowski. Collins on Wednesday announced she would back Jackson, saying the judge possessed “the experience, qualifications and integrity” necessary to serve. Graham, meanwhile, has strongly indicated he is likely to oppose Jackson’s ascension to the high court and questioned her aggressively about her sentencing record and other matters during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings last week.

Study: When white Americans heard about COVID hitting people of color harder, a lot of them mentally peaced out. This is ugly. https://t.co/AZnRJPQdMS pic.twitter.com/MHGDIlCWv8

— Matt Pearce ? (@mattdpearce) March 30, 2022

That much has been obvious ever since the data showing the racial disparities was announced and, in response, The Damn Fool called for the churches to be filled on Easter Sunday 2020. NIce to have the data to back it up.

Thomas Edsall of The New York Times writes about both the gender and partisan gaps over whether the United States has become “too soft and feminine.”

Deckman and Cassese found a large gender gap: “56 percent of men agreed that the United States has grown too soft and feminine, compared to only 34 percent of women.”

But the overall gender gap paled in comparison with the gap between Democratic men and Republican men. Some 41 percent of Democratic men without college degrees agreed that American society had become too soft and feminine compared with 80 percent of Republican men without degrees, a 39-point difference. Among those with college degrees, the spread grew to 64 points: Democratic men at 9 percent, Republican men at 73 percent.

The gap between Democratic and Republican women was very large but less pronounced: 28 percent of Democratic women without degrees agreed that the country had become too soft and feminine compared with 57 percent of non-college Republican women, while 4 percent of Democratic women with degrees agreed, compared with 57 percent of college-educated Republican women.

Russell K. Robinson writes for the San Francisco Chronicle that “Hollywood still has a gay problem.”

With her win for Best Supporting Actress, Afro-Latina Ariana DeBose became the first openly queer woman of color to nab one of the film industry’s most coveted awards in an acting category. But if you think her win, and other pro-LGBTQ speeches during the show, mean Hollywood has fundamentally changed, you’re wrong.

Hollywood still has a gay problem.

For decades, heterosexual and cisgender actors have built or capped their careers by playing LGBTQ characters to great acclaim. Think Tom Hanks bravely agreeing to play a gay man dying of AIDS in “Philadelphia” or Sean Penn subverting his macho reputation as a gay political trailblazer in “Milk.” This career strategy continues to pay off. Benedict Cumberbatch’s two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, including this year for “The Power of the Dog,” were for playing a gay man. Two of Penélope Cruz’s four Academy Award nominations, for her work in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and this year’s nomination for “Parallel Mothers,” were for playing queer women.

But the career boost does not work in reverse. Openly LGBTQ actors generally do not win acclaim for playing heterosexual, cisgender characters. No one is praising DeBose for “acting straight.” Indeed, DeBose is unusual because openly LGBTQ actors are generally not cast in Oscar caliber movies as queer or straight characters.

Finally, today, Jeffrey Barg, The Grammarian writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer that..well, the definition of a “woman’ is a little complicated.

“Can you provide a definition for the word woman?”

Until recently, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn would never have dreamed of asking such a question in a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, as she did last week of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. But in 2022, Blackburn properly deduced that she could score a few right-wing culture-warrior points by leaning into GOP anxieties over gender and shifting popular perceptions of it.

Jackson’s response — “No, I can’t. … Not in this context. I’m not a biologist” — sent many Republicans into predictable fits of apoplexy. [...]


By definition, I’m a definitions guy. Dictionaries are invaluable tools in our inexorable quest to be as precise and concise as possible. But as I’ve written previously, dictionaries are an ideal place to start your search and a terrible place to stop.

The definition of woman, which Blackburn faux-pretended was the easiest question she could ask, is a case in point.

Everyone have a great day!