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      Republicans flout mask requirement in US House chamber

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      Republicans in Congress are rebelling against the mask requirement on the House chamber, which remains in place due to Covid-19 safety concerns from Democrats, who hold the majority.During votes on Tuesday, several Republican lawmakers refused to wear masks as they stood in the chamber and encouraged other members to join them.Lawmakers who refuse to wear a face covering are subject to a fine of $500 for the first offense and subsequent offenses can result in a $2,500 fine. In practice, however, the House sergeant-at-arms gives a warning for the first offense.The seven lawmakers who received warnings include Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Chip Roy of Texas, Bob Good of Virginia, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Mary Miller of Illinois, according to the Associated Press.Greene, a Republican extremist, posted a photo of herself with three other Republicans on the House floor without masks. The Georgia lawmaker tweeted: “End the oppression!” along with: “#FreeYourFace.”Massie also tweeted a card casting a “No” vote, along with a caption estimating that 10 Republicans were going maskless on the floor on Tuesday.The Republican stunt comes after the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Thursday that she would continue requiring masks to be worn on the floor of the chamber. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said earlier that day that fully vaccinated people can stop wearing masks in almost all settings, including indoors.When asked why she kept the mask rule for the chamber, Pelosi told Bloomberg that it’s not known how many lawmakers and their staff are vaccinated.Democratic lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have a 100% vaccination rate against Covid-19, according to answers from a CNN survey of Capitol Hill published on Friday. However, for Republicans, the numbers are less clear.In total, it is estimated that at least 44% of House members are vaccinated and at least 92% of senators are. More

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      Fauci: Americans will probably need vaccine booster ‘within a year or so’

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      Dr Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that Americans will probably need a Covid-19 booster shot “within a year or so” as Americans continue to receive vaccinations across the country.The booster may be needed because the durability of protection against the virus is “generally not lifelong”, the chief medical adviser to the president told Axios during a virtual event.On Tuesday, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr Peter Marks, also said Covid-19 booster shots, similar to the flu shot, could be needed for fully vaccinated people within a year.Vaccine makers have shown so far that their shots offer strong protection for at least six months, and US health agencies are tracking the impact of new variants on Covid-19 vaccine development.During the interview, Fauci also clarified the new federal guidance on mask-wearing, stating that Americans were “misinterpreting” the announcement.“I think people are misinterpreting, thinking that this is a removal of a mask mandate for everyone. It’s not,” Fauci told Axios’s Mike Allen. “It’s an assurance to those who are vaccinated that they can feel safe, be they outdoors or indoors.”According to Fauci, the mandate “did not explicitly say that unvaccinated people should abandon their masks”.The mask guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last Thursday said fully vaccinated people did not need to wear a mask indoors or outdoors with the exception of healthcare settings, homeless shelters, prison and jails and on public transportation.While some are feeling a sense of freedom after 15 months of face coverings, others have met the guidance with confusion and skepticism. The agency’s announcement prompted major retailers, including Walmart and Starbucks, to lift mask mandates, and some states, including California, will keep their mask orders in place for another month.At least 37% of Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after they receive a second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. More

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      in World Politics

      Media: How Debunked Stories Continue to Thrive

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      On May 6, The Daily Devil’s Dictionary dared to express surprise at the latest example of Russia-related fearmongering by the respectable corporate media. When Christopher Miller, who had recently risen to fame as acting defense secretary in the waning months of Donald Trump’s presidency, claimed to have unearthed an “act of war” attributable to Russia, the media jumped on the occasion. Miller was referring to the dormant “Havana Syndrome” dossier and accusing Russia of conducting direct-energy attacks against Americans in various places across the globe.

      Not wishing to miss the festivities, two prominent media outlets — CNN and Politico — immediately crashed the party. They quoted Miller’s warnings and mobilized their journalistic talents to promote a story capable of striking fear in anyone with an American passport. Curiously, The New York Times, always eager to accuse Russia of anything suspicious that takes place anywhere on earth, missed the scoop. It took them another week to get around to covering it, possibly because they were hard at work on another debunked story that they deemed worthy of resuscitating, concerning the reported Russian offer of bounty for killing US personnel in Afghanistan. Or possibly because they didn’t want to give credence to a Trump official.

      America Is Confused Over What It Means to Be Exceptional

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      The bounty story was their big scoop a year ago. In its coverage at the time, The Times claimed to reveal “a stunning intelligence assessment” intended to prove, as always, that Trump was covering up for his best friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since then, even the intelligence community and the Biden administration have walked it back, but not The New York Times. Perhaps they believe it’s the best way to defend their honor.

      On May 10, four days after the publication of our article and two days before The Times decided to raise the alarm again, Foreign Policy published an article by Cheryl Rofer with the title, “Claims of Microwave Attacks Are Scientifically Implausible.” Apparently, no one at The Times had time to consult this article before publishing their account on May 12. Even Homeland Security News Wire publicly called the thesis into question on May 11.

      Foreign Policy describes Rofer as a writer specialized in scientific and political commentary who had spent 35 years as a chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In other words, she is not a journalist dabbling in science but a scientist now active in journalism. After sifting through the testimony, Rofer came to the evidence-based conclusion that the technology the intelligence agencies speculate may be behind the “attacks” probably does not exist. In her own words: “The evidence for microwave effects of the type categorized as Havana syndrome is exceedingly weak.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Exceedingly weak:

      For some media, highly probable, on condition that the evidence cited may possibly be construed as pointing to Russia. In all other cases: not to be taken seriously.

      Contextual Note

      To be fair, Rofer offers no definitive proof that the technology does not or cannot exist. She explains why she reached her conclusion: “No proponent of the idea has outlined how the weapon would actually work. No evidence has been offered that such a weapon has been developed by any nation. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and no evidence has been offered to support the existence of this mystery weapon.”

      Every journalist would be wise to follow the example of her reasoning. It doesn’t exclude the most extreme hypotheses, but points in the direction of others that are far more probable. “It’s possible,” she writes, “that the symptoms of all the sufferers of Havana syndrome share a single, as yet unknown, cause; it’s also possible that multiple real health problems have been amalgamated into a single syndrome.” This assertion contains two important truths. It reminds readers that, until there is proof of the technology at play, the cause remains “unknown.” It also points to the fact that many of the health problems we all encounter — particularly concerning perception and mental functions — may be attributable to multiple causes.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Miller based his belief in Russia’s “act of war” on a 2020 report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine commissioned by the State Department. According to Kyle Mizokami, writing in Popular Mechanics, the State Department’s assessment cited the fact that there “was significant research in Russia/USSR into the effects of pulsed radio frequencies.” There has also been significant research on witchcraft and psychedelic drugs, but that doesn’t mean Russia has weaponized witchcraft. The CIA, on the other hand, does have a history of weaponizing psychedelic drugs. The tendency to assume that research points to the existence of an operational weapon reflects the kind of tendentious reasoning psychologists call paranoia. Would this be the first time that the State Department has allowed paranoid speculation to pollute its scientific endeavors?

      In the guise of proof, the assessment offers this statement, as explained by Mizokami: “This could have resulted in the development of a portable, nonlethal, covert weapon designed to exploit something called the Frey Effect.” This sentence alone tells us we are in the presence not of science, but propaganda. The auxiliary verb “could have” gives the game away. Evoking a remote possibility to suggest a “probable” sinister outcome is standard procedure in all propaganda (and paranoia). Adding the detail of the “Frey Effect” makes it sound like serious research. Preceding it with the qualification “something called” further reveals that we are in a world of deliberate rhetorical imprecision.

      Mizokami has read Rofer’s article. He first presents the State Department’s circumstantial case and then provides an explanation of the Frey effect, noting that “there’s considerable debate over whether the Frey effect actually exists.” He concludes by aligning with Rofer’s scientific skepticism: “We may never know who’s behind the attacks, and what kind of weapon is being used.” A philosopher skilled at analyzing the logic of the English language would push it even further. We may never know whether there were “attacks,” in the sense of external aggressions. If there were no attacks, there was no weapon.

      Humankind, in the age of electronic communications, lives under a permanent barrage of microwaves, electronic signals and frequencies that may, for all we know, combine in various ways to produce diverse effects on particular people. The State Department seems to believe only Americans are targeted. That is why it suspects the Russians (and sometimes the Chinese). But other people elsewhere may be experiencing the same symptoms. Only Americans would report this to the State Department. Most scientists and logicians would want to take wider statistics into account before jumping to a conclusion.

      Historical Note

      This is pretty obviously a handy piece of fake news that establishment news outlets have now taken on a five-year-long joyride. But why? First and foremost, the story is readable and attracts eyeballs. It combines James Bond-style intrigue, next generation technology and science. It’s also fodder for Trump-haters and fits snugly into the new Cold War mentality that so much of the media now depends on to keep the public’s fear alive.

      The New York Times’ manner of stating the case offers an interesting technical explanation of why such a flaky story continues to work even after being largely discredited. Here is how it creates false perspective: “Though some Pentagon officials believe Russia’s military intelligence agency, the G.R.U., is most likely behind the case of the 2-year-old, and evidence has emerged that points to Russia in other cases, the intelligence agencies have not concluded any cause or whether a foreign power is involved.” The journalists here populate two-thirds of the sentence with opinion supporting the accusation and the last third with a negatively formulated admission that doubt may exist.

      The rest of the article offers a plethora of anecdotes about who thinks what, who has met with whom and other details, all of it serving to remind readers how troubling the issue is and how concerned they need to be. It concludes with an appeal formulated by a politician: “We really need to fully understand where this is coming from, what the targeting methods are and what we can do to stop them.”

      In other words, readers can expect a host of new articles on the question, perhaps lasting another five years. It’s a serial thriller.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      China labels Nancy Pelosi ‘full of lies’ after call for Winter Olympics boycott

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      China has labelled the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, “full of lies and disinformation” after her calls for a diplomatic boycott of next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics on human rights grounds.“Some US individuals’ remarks are full of lies and disinformation,” a foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said on Wednesday. “US politicians should stop using the Olympic movement to play despicable political games” or using “the so-called human rights issue as a pretext to smear and slander China”, he added.Zhao hit out at the US’s human rights record, citing “the continuing spread of xenophobia, white supremacy and discrimination against people of African and Asian descent and Islamophobia”.On Tuesday Pelosi criticised China’s human rights record and urged global leaders not to attend the Winter Olympics scheduled to be held in Beijing in February.“What I propose – and join those who are proposing – is a diplomatic boycott,” Pelosi said at a bipartisan congressional hearing, adding that leading countries should “withhold their attendance at the Olympics”.“Let’s not honour the Chinese government by having heads of state go to China,” she added. “For heads of state to go to China in light of a genocide that is ongoing – while you’re sitting there in your seat – really begs the question: what moral authority do you have to speak again about human rights any place in the world?”Joe Biden’s administration has called China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority “genocide”, a charge Beijing has vehemently denied. The US president has said his administration hopes to develop a joint approach with allies on participation in Beijing’s Olympics.US legislators have been increasingly critical of China’s human rights record of late, and talk of shunning the Beijing Winter Olympics has been growing among some US allies and human rights activists since last year.The Massachusetts Democratic representative Jim McGovern has proposed relocating the Winter Olympics. “If we can postpone an Olympics by a year for a pandemic, we can surely postpone the Olympics for a year for a genocide … This would give the IOC time to relocate to a country whose government is not committing atrocities.”The Republican congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey said corporate sponsors should be called to testify before Congress and be “held to account … big business wants to make lots of money, and it doesn’t seem to matter what cruelty – even genocide – that the host nation commits.”In Britain, several MPs have joined the calls for a boycott. However, a separate online petition in February calling for the UK parliament to debate a motion that would lead to a boycott from Team GB was rejected.Washington led a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In retaliation, the Soviet bloc snubbed the 1984 Los Angeles summer Games.The recent calls for a boycott are reminiscent of the international response to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But Sarah Hirshland, the chief executive of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said past Olympic boycotts had failed to achieve their political ends.She said her organisation was concerned about the “oppression of the Uyghur population” but barring US athletes from the Games was “certainly not the answer”. More

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      The US Is Complicit in the Atrocities Israel Commits

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      American media usually report on Israeli military assaults in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Gaza as if the US is an innocent, neutral party to the conflict. In fact, a majority of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

      But US media and politicians betray their own lack of neutrality by blaming Palestinians for nearly all the violence and framing flagrantly disproportionate, indiscriminate and, therefore, illegal Israeli attacks as a justifiable response to Palestinian actions. The classic formulation from US officials and commentators is that “Israel has the right to defend itself.” For these same officials, Palestinians do not have the right to defend themselves even as the Israelis massacre hundreds of civilians, destroy thousands of homes and seize ever more Palestinian land.

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      The disparity in casualties in Israeli assaults on Gaza speaks for itself. At the time of writing, the current Israeli bombing of Gaza has killed at least 213 people, including 61 children and 35 women. Rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas militants have killed 12 people in Israel, including two children. 

      In recent years, Gaza has seen numerous deadly conflicts. In the 2008-09 war, 1,417 Palestinians were killed while nine Israelis died. In 2014, 2,251 Palestinians (including 1,462 civilians) and 72 Israelis (one Thai and six Israeli civilians) were killed. US-built F-16s dropped at least 5,000 bombs and missiles on Gaza, and Israeli tanks and artillery fired 49,500 shells — mostly massive six-inch shells from American-made M-109 howitzers. In 2018, in response to largely peaceful “March of Return” protests at the Israel–Gaza border, Israeli soldiers killed 183 Palestinians with live ammunition and wounded over 6,100. This included 122 Palestinians who required amputations, 21 paralyzed by spinal cord injuries and nine who suffered permanent loss of vision.

      Embed from Getty Images

      As with the Saudi-led war on Yemen and other serious foreign policy problems, biased and distorted news coverage by US media leaves many Americans not knowing what to think. Many simply give up trying to sort out the rights and wrongs of what is happening and instead blame both sides. They then focus their attention closer to home, where the problems of society impact them more directly and are easier to understand and do something about.

      So, how should Americans respond to horrific images of bleeding, dying children and homes reduced to rubble in Gaza? The tragic relevance of this crisis for Americans is that, behind the fog of war, propaganda and biased media coverage, the US bears an overwhelming share of responsibility for the carnage taking place in Palestine. US policy has perpetuated the crisis and atrocities of the Israeli occupation by unconditionally supporting Israel in three ways: militarily, diplomatically and politically. 

      Militarily

      On the military front, since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, the US has provided $146 billion in foreign aid, nearly all of it military-related. It currently provides $3.8 billion per year in military aid to Israel. In addition, the United States is the largest seller of weapons to Israel. Its military arsenal now includes 362 US-built F-16 warplanes and 100 other US military aircraft, as well as a growing fleet of the new F-35s; at least 45 Apache attack helicopters; M-109 howitzers; and M270 rocket-launchers. At this very moment, Israel is using many of these US-supplied weapons in its devastating bombardment of Gaza.

      The US alliance with Israel also involves joint military exercises and joint production of Arrow missiles and other weapons systems. The American and Israeli militaries have collaborated on drone technologies tested by the Israelis in Gaza. In 2004, the United States called on Israeli forces with experience in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to give tactical training to American special operations forces as they confronted popular resistance to the hostile US military occupation of Iraq. 

      The US Army also maintains a $1.8-billion stockpile of weapons at six locations in Israel, pre-positioned for use in future US military strikes in the Middle East. During the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2014, even as Congress suspended some weapons deliveries to Israel, the US approved handing over stocks of 120mm mortar shells and 40mm grenade launcher ammunition from the US stockpile for Israel to use against Palestinians in Gaza.

      Diplomatically

      Diplomatically, the United States has exercised its veto in the UN Security Council 82 times —  45 of those have been to shield Israel from criticism or accountability for war crimes or human rights violations. In every single case, the US has been the lone vote against the resolution, although a few other countries have occasionally abstained. It is only the United States’ privileged position as a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, and its willingness to abuse that privilege to shield its ally Israel, that gives it this unique power to stymie international efforts to hold the Israeli government accountable for its actions under international law. 

      The result of this unconditional US diplomatic shielding of Israel has been to encourage increasingly barbaric Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. With the United States blocking any accountability in the Security Council, Israel has seized ever more Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, uprooted more and more Palestinians from their homes, and responded to the resistance of largely unarmed people with ever-increasing violence, detentions and restrictions on day-to-day life. 

      Politically

      On the political front, despite most Americans supporting neutrality in the conflict, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other pro-Israel lobbying groups have exercised an extraordinary role in bribing and intimidating US politicians to provide unconditional support for Israel. The roles of campaign contributors and lobbyists in the corrupt American political system make the United States uniquely vulnerable to this kind of influence peddling and intimidation. This is the case whether it is by monopolistic corporations and industry groups like the military-industrial complex and Big Pharma, or well-funded interest groups like the National Rifle Association, AIPAC and, in recent years, lobbyists for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

      Embed from Getty Images

      On April 22, just weeks before this latest assault on Gaza, the overwhelming majority of congresspeople, 330 out of 435, signed a letter to the chair and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee opposing any reduction or conditioning of US monies to Israel. The letter represented a show of force from AIPAC and a repudiation of calls from some progressives in the Democratic Party to condition or otherwise restrict aid to Israel. 

      President Joe Biden, who has a long history of supporting Israeli crimes, responded to the latest massacre by insisting on Israel’s “right to defend itself” and inanely hoping that “this will be closing down sooner than later.” His ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, also shamefully blocked a call for a ceasefire at the Security Council. 

      Congressional Action

      The silence from Biden and most of the US representatives in Congress at the massacre of civilians and mass destruction of Gaza is unconscionable. The independent voices speaking out forcefully for Palestinians, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, show us what real democracy looks like, as do the massive protests that have filled streets all over the country.

      US policy must be reversed to reflect international law and the shifting American public opinion in favor of Palestinian rights. Every member of Congress must be pushed to sign a bill introduced by Representative Betty McCollum over Israeli actions. The bill insists that US funds to Israel are not used “to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.” Congress must also be pressured to quickly enforce the Arms Export Control Act and the Leahy laws to stop supplying any more US weapons to Israel until it stops using them to attack and kill civilians.

      The United States has played a vital and instrumental role in the decades-long catastrophe that has engulfed the people of Palestine. American leaders and politicians must now confront their country’s and, in many cases, their own personal complicity in this conflict. They must act urgently and decisively to reverse US policy to support full human rights for all Palestinians.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Trump DoJ subpoenaed Twitter over Devin Nunes parody account

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      The Trump administration subpoenaed Twitter for information related to a parody account that criticized Devin Nunes, a close ally to the former president, according to federal court records released on Monday.Investigating messages related to the parody Twitter account @NunesAlt, which poses as the California representative’s mother, the Department of Justice (DoJ) sought to identify the user behind the account, according to a motion to quash the subpoena.“It appears to Twitter that the subpoena may be related to Congressman Devin Nunes’s repeated efforts to unmask individuals behind parody accounts critical of him,” the document states.In 2019, Nunes filed a $250m lawsuit that accused the media giant of defamation while profiting from abusive behavior and language. The lawsuit also sued @NunesAlt and another parody account posing as the representative’s cow, @DevinCow.Last summer, a judge ruled that the representative could not sue Twitter, citing section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects sites from liability for what users may post.Twitter has not complied with the demand to share the identities. A lawyer for the site said last summer it had no intention of doing so.In the DoJ investigation, a gag order prohibiting Twitter from talking about the subpoena was issued along with the document.According to the motion to quash the subpoena, Twitter asked the justice department for an explanation regarding the criminal investigation. The government said messages by the parody account were a possible violation of a federal statute that makes it a felony to use interstate communications to threaten to injure someone – but did not point to any tweet that made a threat.A Twitter account holder would typically be notified of any legal request – such as subpoenas, court orders or other legal documents – regarding their account, according to Twitter’s rules and policies. However, in this case, prosecutors got a court order in November to keep the subpoena secret, citing a fear that its disclosure could harm the investigation.On Tuesday, a Twitter spokesperson said the company was “committed to protecting the freedom of expression for those who use our service. We have a strong track record and take seriously the trust placed in us to work to protect the private information of the people on Twitter.”The user behind @NunesAlt wrote that the release of the court records was “the closest thing I’m gonna get to a Mother’s Day card”.He or she also quoted Eric Garcia, a Democrat running against Nunes in California, who referred to Nunes’s prominent opposition to the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.“So,” Garcia wrote, “the person who claims secret courts and organizations and trying to destroy our country tried to use a secret grand jury subpoena to find the identity of @NunesAlt. How many other times did Devin use the DoJ to try and attack private citizens?”A GoFundMe campaign has been created by the user behind @DevinCow to pay for the costs related to the congressman’s lawsuit against both parody accounts.“These parodies are anonymous on Twitter, however, they are real people behind these accounts who have retained attorneys to respond and fight these allegations in court,” reads the fundraiser description.By Tuesday, the fundraiser had raised more than $146,000.Nunes has filed several defamation lawsuits, including one against the political journalist Ryan Lizza and Hearst, which owns Esquire, over a 2018 article about his family farm. The lawmaker also filed a $435m libel suit against CNN over a report about his contacts with a Ukrainian prosecutor. More

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      Biden Changes the Russia Equation

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      The Biden administration is posing some stark choices for its European allies. It is not only challenging them to stand more firmly against the Kremlin, but is expanding America’s expectations of what democracy should be inside their own countries. President Joe Biden’s tough position on Russia, especially the sanctions announced on April 15, risks further exacerbating the split within NATO countries over how tough to be on the Kremlin. The administration also risks blowback from Central and East European (CEE) states over its strong support for liberal democratic standards that not all of them endorse.

      The Image of Russia

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      For all the contempt that many Europeans held for Donald Trump, his policies toward Russia were easier for some of them to live with. Hard-line NATO nations drew comfort from his continuation of sanctions against Moscow, sale of lethal arms to Ukraine and fierce opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Trump questioned Article 5 of the NATO charter, but Russian President Vladimir Putin never had the stomach to put Trump’s jumbled position on the issue to the test. Meanwhile, Europeans eager to accommodate Russia were encouraged by Trump’s attempts to forge a personal relationship with Putin and his enduring belief that the Kremlin could somehow become an ally.

      Trump was also a convenient president for those in CEE nations with conservative social values and an unsteady commitment to the rule of law. Trump’s attitude toward their countries was simply transactional; his interest was in what America could gain from their relationship. How they were governed held little interest for him.

      Bows and Wrist-Slaps

      Biden has changed the equation dramatically. Some might have expected him to set aside everything that Moscow did during the Trump presidency and focus on the future. Instead, Biden did the opposite. On April 15, he expelled Russian diplomats and imposed significant new sanctions for Russia’s actions during Trump’s time in office, leaving space for a whole new set of possible actions in case of further provocations from Moscow. Some observers found the measures Biden announced to be wrist-slaps.

      Embed from Getty Images

      But in many respects, the measures were significant and pointed clearly to future possibilities, ranging from new financial actions to the criminal prosecution of senior Russian regime figures. Officials also intimated that the US might already be retaliating on the cyber front.

      Biden has made the appropriate bows to potential cooperation with Moscow and offered Putin a summit in the coming months in a third country. But overall, the tone of his message to Russia has been hostile, including calling Putin a “killer.” Putin’s claim to legitimacy, at home and abroad, is built on the idea that he is a respected statesman and even something of an intellectual rather than the boss of a dictatorship backed by organized crime. (While most Russian reports on Biden’s comments translated “killer” as “ubiytsa,” the usual word for “murderer,” some media chose the imported word “killer,” which in Russian means a mob hitman.) 

      With Biden taking a more uncompromising attitude to the Kremlin, the question now is whether Western responses to Russian provocations will become much more unified and move well beyond diplomatic statements and scattered financial sanctions. Is a point approaching where US pressure — plus Russia’s threats to Ukraine, its torture of Alexei Navalny, its cyberattacks against the West and its murder of opponents abroad — might finally lead the allies to slash the scale of business deals with Moscow, choke off the flow of illicit Russian money and impose tighter restrictions on visas to the EU? Even if sanctions don’t work, they say something about the values that the country imposing them stands for.

      In CEE countries, substantial numbers of citizens still believe Russia poses little threat to their nations. But the drumbeat of provocations from Moscow, including espionage and even sabotage inside CEE countries, will have its effect. Even though Visegrad nations lack a united policy on Ukraine — mainly because of Hungary — they all backed Czechia’s expulsion of Russian diplomatic staff over the explosion of an arms depot in 2014. Will allied nations now respond to Czechia’s call for them to expel Russian diplomats from their countries, too, to show solidarity?

      Human Rights Challenge

      Meanwhile, the new US administration has thrown down a human rights challenge not only to authoritarian regimes, but to some of its CEE allies. Biden’s team has made clear that America once again cares very much about democratic rights in other countries. When directed at Russia, this message has the dual advantage of reflecting American values while also pressuring Putin, who, judging by his repression of even tiny protests, seems to genuinely believe a “color revolution” is around the corner.

      Yet the policy may well make some allies uncomfortable. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a speech on March 30, declared that in America’s view, there is no “hierarchy of rights” in a democracy. He not only vigorously and specifically defended abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, but essentially put them on the same level as freedom of speech and religion. In so doing, he lined up with forces in the EU that are pressing some CEE countries not only to strengthen basic democratic institutions, but to also adopt liberal social values. The US position creates a new opening for pro-Russian and populist politicians who have been claiming for years that the West is intent on undermining the “morals” of former members of the Soviet bloc.

      Virtuous as the US position may be, it is unclear how far the administration will go with it. Blinken, an experienced diplomat, knows that idealism often must bow to political realities. As his predecessor Mike Pompeo put it, “Our commitment to inalienable rights doesn’t mean we have the capacity to tackle all human rights violations everywhere and at all times.” Even if the administration recognizes no hierarchy of rights, it certainly has a hierarchy of interests. At the top of that hierarchy may well be the geopolitical imperative of keeping CEE nations out of Russia’s orbit.

      If the US runs into too-strong opposition over its human rights agenda, it could focus more on campaigning against corruption. That cause has wide public support. It is also effective against many anti-democratic forces, including pro-Russian actors who thrive on murky financial deals. This could de-escalate conflict over liberal social values while still encouraging activities that undermine Kremlin influence in the CEE region.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of GLOBSEC.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Rudy Giuliani’s son Andrew announces run for New York governor

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      Andrew Giuliani, the son of the embattled Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has announced he will run for New York governor in 2022.The 35-year-old, who served as a special assistant in Trump’s White House and is a former contributor to the hard rightwing Newsmax television channel, made the announcement on Tuesday, declaring: “I’m a politician out of the womb.”If successful in the Republican primary, Giuliani would take on Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic incumbent who has refused to step down despite a number of women accusing him of sexual misconduct.The election would represent a clash of New York political dynasties – Giuliani’s father, Rudy Giuliani, served as New York City’s mayor from 1994 to 2001, and Cuomo’s father, Mario Cuomo, was governor of New York from 1983 to 1994.“Giuliani v Cuomo. Holy smokes. Its Muhammad Ali v Joe Frazier. We can sell tickets at Madison Square Garden,” Giuliani told the New York Post.He added: “It would be one of the epic showdowns in the state’s history.”The campaign website for Giuliani offers no policy information, but the Post reported that he will be “pro-business, pro-police, pro-school choice”.The budding politician has little in the way of political, or even career experience. He became a golf pro in 2016, and appears to have pursued the sport with little success for several years.Aside from playing golf, Giuliani’s website lists his experience as being limited to three internships and a stint volunteering on Trump’s 2016 campaign.Despite this thin résumé Giuliani served as a special assistant to Trump during the latter’s presidency, although his duties appear to have been vague and ill-defined. In 2019 the Atlantic quoted a senior White House official who said Giuliani “doesn’t really try to be involved in anything”, adding: “He’s just having a nice time.”Giuliani did have at least one recurring role, the Atlantic reported: as a frequent golf partner to Trump.Giuliani may have the name recognition in the Republican primary, but to challenge Cuomo he would first have to defeat Lee Zeldin, a congressman from Long Island, and Rob Astorino, a former county executive of Westchester county, just north of New York City.Zeldin, like Giuliani, is an enthusiastic Trump supporter who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, giving him some hope of an endorsement from Trump. Astorino, meanwhile, has the experience in the race. He ran against Cuomo in 2014, losing by 14 points. More