Ron Filipkowski on Today's Uncovered Ron Filipkowski May 28 On today’s show, we led off talking about Trump’s reprehensible pardons this week of reality TV couple Todd and Julie Chrisley, Sheriff Scott Jenkins, and Paul Walczak - and what each of them did to get the pardons. We also went over Trump’s statements and social media posts over the past few days where he said the quiet part out loud on Vladimir Putin. I talked about Trump and Stephen Miller’s war on higher education, and how Harvard has become the front in that battle. We also talked about Jake Tapper’s book tour, his apology to Lara Trump, and how Jim Jordan is about to weaponize it with hearings where Biden staffers have been subpoenaed. Of course, we had to talk about ex-swimmer/current culture warrior Riley Gaines and her gripe on Fox about Kermit the Frog giving the commencement speech at Maryland. And contrasted that with the “trophy wife” comments Trump made at West Point. I also talked about how Trump and Pete Hegseth’s bumbling incompetence has given Canada tremendous negotiating leverage on tariffs. Lots of other stuff but those we the bigger topics. Link to the show is here. If you missed yesterday’s Today in Politics Bulletin you can find it here. Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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There's a reason Trump cozies up to Putin. Putin helped Trump win his first term, and now Trump owes him. It was never about 'America First', it's always been about satisfying the dictator he's indebted to. The Lincoln Project is a leading pro-democracy organization in the United States — dedicated to the preservation, protection, and defense of democracy. Our fight against Trumpism is only beginning. We must combat these forces everywhere and at all times — our democracy depends on it. Don’t forget to like, share, and follow The Lincoln Project on social media below! DONATE TO THE LINCOLN PROJECT https://action.lincolnproject.us/donate JOIN OUR MAILING LIST https://action.lincolnproject.us/join FOLLOW LINCOLN PROJECT TWITTER: https://bit.ly/3zwZFva INSTAGRAM: https://bit.ly/31yyrHR FACEBOOK: https://bit.ly/3zCBHhT REDDIT: https://bit.ly/39PLnxi TIKTOK: https://bit.ly/3xHYRCY PODCAST: https://apple.co/3G7zr4L We can’t do our work without your support. Thank you.

RSN: FOCUS: Robin Wright | Who Blinks First in Ukraine?

 

 

12 February 22

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FOCUS: Robin Wright | Who Blinks First in Ukraine?
Robin Wright, The New Yorker
Wright writes: "For decades, U.S. and Russian leaders have engaged in brinkmanship over territory, influence, and weapons. They're at it again, this time in Ukraine, with stakes that could shape the balance of power, European unity, the Western alliance, and the success of Joe Biden's Presidency."

Joe Biden is the latest in a long line of American leaders who have tried to persuade Russians and other rivals to back down from a military confrontation.

For decades, U.S. and Russian leaders have engaged in brinkmanship over territory, influence, and weapons. They’re at it again, this time in Ukraine, with stakes that could shape the balance of power, European unity, the Western alliance, and the success of Joe Biden’s Presidency. On Friday, the national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned that Vladimir Putin could invade even before the Winter Olympics end, on February 20th—and urged all Americans to leave Ukraine immediately. Yet almost frantic diplomacy—as senior French and British officials travelled to Moscow this week and the Germans are due next week—has so far failed to get Putin to blink. Diplomacy could take months to resolve the Ukraine crisis, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, conceded this week after his five hours of talks with Putin in Moscow. But a decision by the Russian leader to pull back in the weeks or months ahead does not mean he will surrender his ultimate goal. “Even if Putin doesn’t invade this time, he will still want Ukraine,” William Taylor, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine now at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told me this week, a few days after returning from Kyiv. “He will want to own or dominate or reabsorb Ukraine until he dies.”

For more than a century, U.S. Presidents have had a mixed record in staring down rivals and persuading them to peacefully retreat. The classic example is the Cuban missile crisis. In 1962, U.S. spy planes spotted construction sites for Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba, leading Pentagon brass to unanimously urge President John F. Kennedy to strike the sites—and then invade. Kennedy pushed back. Instead, he ordered a naval “quarantine” and demanded that Moscow withdraw its weaponry. Washington would regard “any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union,” Kennedy warned in a televised address. The Pentagon moved to DEFCON 3, requiring the Air Force to be ready to launch in fifteen minutes. Premier Nikita Khrushchev countered angrily that the blockade was “an act of aggression” and refused to budge. The U.S. moved to DEFCON 2, signalling that war was imminent. It was, according to the State Department’s official history, “the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict.”

Even as a military confrontation seemed inevitable, Kennedy opted for the long and often tortuous game of diplomacy. Several weeks into the stalemate, a Soviet agent passed a message to the White House—through the ABC correspondent John Scali—with a compromise. It was followed by a secret and emotional ramble from Khrushchev about the spectre of nuclear holocaust. “If there is no intention to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war,” he wrote Kennedy, “then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us take measures to untie that knot.” The note led to unusual back-channel talks, including the first Track Two diplomacy between the superpowers through back channels that were not diplomats. It ended with Washington promising not to invade Cuba again and Moscow removing its missiles. A year later, the U.S. also quietly withdrew its missiles from Turkey. The diplomacy had enduring impact. It spawned the first “hotline” between Washington and Moscow, and negotiations for the historic Nuclear Test Ban Treaty concluded the following year.

Yet the U.S. has had epic and long-forgotten failures, too. In the late nineteen-thirties, after Japan occupied China, tensions erupted between Washington and Tokyo at a time they were jockeying for influence, resources, and trade in East Asia. To counter Japan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt extended credits to China to buy war matériel and restricted oil, steel, iron, and other goods needed for Japan’s growing industries. Joseph Grew, the U.S. Ambassador in Tokyo, was part of intense behind-the-scenes diplomacy to defuse the crisis, which was compounded when Japan joined the tripartite alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In September, 1941, Japan proposed a meeting between Roosevelt and Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro in Hawaii. Roosevelt countered that the journey would eat up twenty-one days—too long to be away—and proposed Juneau, Alaska, a trip requiring two weeks. Roosevelt insisted on preliminary talks to create a common understanding, and gave notice that he intended to first “discuss the matter fully” with China, Britain, and the Netherlands, according to the State Department. In November, the U.S. proffered a ten-point statement calling for Japan to withdraw its troops from China in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions. Neither side budged.

On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor—killing more than twenty-four hundred Americans—and then attacked U.S. and British bases in the Philippines, Malaya, Hong Kong, and several island nations. “Within days, the Japanese were masters of the Pacific,” the National World War II Museum records. The U.S. entered the Second World War. And more than a hundred thousand Americans died in the Pacific over the next four years. “We were unsuccessful in deterring a major Japanese attack in 1941,” Hal Brands, a former special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, now at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told me. “That was a classic failure of deterrence. It may actually have been because we put the Japanese in a place that if they didn’t use force, they would die by slow strangulation.”

Success requires an inherently fraught blend of deterrence and engagement, Brands noted. The art of diplomacy, as the old adage advises, is telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions. There is no single formula, no algorithm to prevent conflict. Avoiding conflict can still mean diplomatic setbacks.

Four years before the Cuban missile crisis, Khrushchev issued an ultimatum, in 1958, demanding that the U.S., Britain, and France pull their forces out of the divided Berlin within six months. Washington refused, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower hosted the Soviet leader at Camp David the next year to probe for compromise. Neither budged. Diplomacy soured after the Soviets shot down an American U-2 plane spying overhead. In a second U.S. attempt, in 1961, Kennedy met Khrushchev in Vienna, but later admitted that he was poorly prepared; the Soviet leader “savaged” him. Emboldened, Khrushchev again gave the U.S. six months to leave Berlin. Kennedy countered by sending troops to Europe, mobilizing a hundred and fifty thousand reservists, and increasing the defense budget to show American resolve. The Soviets, who did not want a war, responded by overseeing the building of the Berlin Wall. The Cold War raged for the next three decades, with Berlin the symbol of the ideological chasm and military tensions between East and West.

American history is replete with other cases when diplomacy failed to prevent confrontation, Brands noted. In the late nineteenth century, President William McKinley tried to compel Spain—through a mix of threats and diplomacy—to either improve the treatment of Cubans who were revolting against colonial rule or grant independence to the island. In exchange, the U.S. proposed that it would not try to annex Cuba. Diplomacy failed. In 1898, Spain declared war on the U.S., triggering the Spanish-American War.

The successes and failures of the past echo in the current U.S. crisis with Russia. Diplomacy, then and now, is always dicey. “America has a prestigious record of using diplomacy to avert war,” Douglas Brinkley, a Presidential historian at Rice University, told me. “During the Cold War era alone, we defused crises in Berlin, Cuba, the Taiwan Strait, Hungary, and elsewhere. But, boy, when we get military intervention wrong—like in Vietnam and Iraq II—it’s beyond tragic.”

In 1990, the U.S. mixed words and muscle after the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, occupied oil-rich Kuwait. For six months, the Administration of George H. W. Bush issued diplomatic démarches, mobilized a U.N.-backed coalition, and deployed troops along the border of Saudi Arabia. In a last-ditch overture, Secretary of State James Baker hand-carried a letter from Bush to a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart, Tariq Aziz, in Geneva. Baker later recounted that Aziz looked over the correspondence and said, “I cannot accept this letter. It’s not written in the language that is appropriate for communications between heads of state.’ ”

The U.S.-led coalition invaded Kuwait and forced an Iraqi retreat. But hostility and suspicion endured between Washington and Baghdad. In 2003, U.S. diplomacy again failed to win Saddam’s full compliance with U.N. weapons inspectors—or international support for bad U.S. intelligence that claimed Baghdad was hiding facilities to produce weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. invaded Iraq again, in what many historians view as the worst-ever mistake in U.S. foreign policy.

U.S. diplomacy has also rarely been able to multitask crises. Eisenhower pledged to roll back the spread of Communism in Eastern Europe. He was tested when students and workers launched a spontaneous uprising in Budapest in 1956. Radio Free Europe, funded at the time by the C.I.A., egged on the “unanimous, brave, and heroic strike of the workers.” After Soviet troops intervened to put down the rebellion, Eisenhower said that the uprising reflected “the intense desire for freedom long held by the Hungarian people,” which was clearly affirmed in the charter of the United Nations. But Eisenhower did little except give lip service as he focussed on a simultaneous crisis involving the Suez Canal. The U.S. prevailed in the Middle East, but Hungary remained under Communist rule for another three decades.

Six decades after the Cuban missile crisis, Biden’s challenge with Moscow differs in political geography, strategic interest, and a leader’s grasp on power. Cuba is more than five thousand miles from Russia; Ukraine constitutes Russia’s longest border with the West. The Soviet Union didn’t have an easy way to deploy more than a hundred thousand troops in Cuba, as Russia does today along its border with Ukraine. The Cuban missile crisis marked the beginning of the end for Khrushchev, Brinkley noted. The Soviet leader was ousted in 1964 after setting up a system that made him more vulnerable politically. In contrast, Putin has manipulated politics—including constitutional changes to term limits—to insure his longevity. Brinkley predicted, “Putin is not going to collapse anytime soon.”

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RSN: FOCUS: Juan Cole | The Unbearable Double Standard of the US Press, Judging Biden Harshly and Abruptly Forgetting Trump's Bizarre Antics

 

 

31 December 21

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FOCUS: Juan Cole | The Unbearable Double Standard of the US Press, Judging Biden Harshly and Abruptly Forgetting Trump's Bizarre Antics
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "I am not the only analyst to see an extraordinary set of double standards applied in the US media to Joe Biden in comparison with Donald Trump."

I am not the only analyst to see an extraordinary set of double standards applied in the US media to Joe Biden in comparison with Donald Trump. It is almost as if reporters and anchors are willing to forget every one of Trump’s perfidies but never willing to forget even one of Biden’s missteps. It is hard to know what drives this weird amnesia. Maybe it is a desire to appear even-handed, given the rabid email rebukes they would receive from Trump loyalists if they reported on the former president as he deserves. Maybe it is an attempt by for-profit news to get Republican readers. Maybe it is sensationalism and clickbait. Maybe the handful of big corporations that purvey to us most of our news would really like to have Trump back. After all, he put viewership way up by his constant trolling of the public, and he cut taxes on the rich and corporations, so what is not to like?

Biden’s pull-out from Afghanistan was admittedly a disaster. But it was a disaster because the Afghanistan army and government put in place by the US nearly twenty years ago unexpectedly and abruptly collapsed. It was not a disaster because Biden decided to pull out of Afghanistan.

Historian Timothy Naftali was on CNN on Wednesday arguing that the withdrawal was an unforced error on Biden’s part. He could not be more wrong.

Trump was the one who pulled out of Afghanistan. He reduced troop strength from some 14,000 to only 8500 in 2019. He made a peace treaty with the Taliban in February of 2020, in which he gave an iron clad pledge to get all US troops out of the country by May 1, 2021. You hear pundits say that the US troops had not been attacked lately. But that was why. The Taliban had a truce with Trump. By the way, Trump negotiated the surrender to the Taliban without so much as a by your leave regarding the Afghanistan government. They were not allowed to be at the table. Also, Trump said he thought the Taliban might take over the prosecution of the war on terror for us. Trump tried to order the US troops out of Afghanistan in October of 2020 by Twitter, but the Pentagon would not take the hint. The former president had it in his head that the withdrawal would be popular with the white working class resentful of spending money on foreign boondoggles and might help him get elected.

Biden postponed the US withdrawal from May 1 to August 31 without starting back up a war with the Taliban, but the latter warned that if he tried to stay later than that, they would go to war. We now know that they actually controlled most of the country by last summer, so if Biden had tried to stay, he would have had to fight the Second Afghan-American War. Given that 20 years of massive US support to the tune of $2 trillion had not produced a government or an army that could stand on their own feet, to go to war all over again in 2021 raises the question of “are you effing kidding me?” The NYT’s intrepid Azmat Zahra’s reporting on the massive unacknowledged civilian casualties of US air and drone wars has lessons for us about how the US was only able to stay in Afghanistan by bombing the bejesus out of the rural population year after year, which kept US troops from just being tossed out of the country but made the country’s population more and more determined to do just that.

But Naftali voiced the common wisdom among the chattering classes, slamming Biden for a situation that Trump created and not even once remembering that Trump hoped the Taliban would take up the war on terror for us.

It is like we had President Elmer Fudd and then we had a normal human being, and the pundits want Elmer Fudd back; he can’t shoot a rabbit to save his life, but by God he’s entertaining.

Then there is all the angst about whether Biden is being “weak” in facing Putin. If you read Fox News headlines you’d think “weak” was the president’s middle name. Biden on the contrary has been so firm with Putin that Putin has asked for a call today, Thursday, clearly concerned that the Ukraine crisis could get out of hand.

So let’s recall about Trump being Putin’s lap dog. The unrecorded conversations he insisted on having, with no US interpreter present (a breach of protocol). The way he kept telling his adoring cultist crowds that better relations with Russia would be a good thing. The time 2 years ago when CNN had the wit to observe 37 times Trump was soft on Putin are long gone. Trump said Putin did “an amazing job” taking over Crimea from Ukraine, and said people in Crimea were much happier this way.

Can you imagine the weeks-long piranha-like frenzy in the US press today if Biden had said something like that?

Trump met with a Russia delegation including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and let them know that Israel had a highly placed spy in ISIL. Trump tried to invite Russia to the G7 meeting although any pretense that Russia is a democracy had long since been dropped, and he ordered the CIA to share intelligence with Russia.

Trump had all the spine of a garden slug in dealing with Moscow.So now Biden, who is tough and forthright with Putin, is being pilloried as weak?

And don’t get me started on the treatment of Biden’s pandemic response, in which he called out troops and the national guard and pulled out all stops to get 200 million Americans vaccinated, in the teeth of Republican opposition, and saved 1.1 million lives this year that otherwise would have been lost. Trump in contrast actively sabotaged the Covid response in 2020 and suggested people shoot up with chlorine, so that Deborah Birx suggested he killed off 130,000 to 160,000 people that hadn’t needed to die.

Biden like any other president should have his policies critiqued. That is the democratic task of the press, and I’m glad to pile on where I see bad policy. But Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal was not an unforced error out of the blue, and he hasn’t been weak in dealing with Vladimir Putin, and his Covid response has been an amazing success, and you just would not know that from watching or reading news in America.

How Putin and Trump's relationship developed over the years

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CC Newsletter 24 Dec - Wishing you a Merry Christmas!

 

Dear Friend,

This is Christmas eve here in India. Christmas is a time of peace, justice, forgiveness and harmony. For millions of people around the world, this Christmas may not be a day of happiness or peace as they face sanctions, starvation, war, homelessness... For Christians in Karnataka, India where an anti-conversion law has just been passed, this Christmas may not be a happy occasion as it is, in reality, an Act for persecution of Christians and other minorities. Among all these hardships, Christmas is a moment of hope. Wishing you all and your loved ones a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Since our annual fundraising appeal went out three weeks ago, we've raised about 60% of the funds needed to continue our operations for another year. However, we've a long way to go to meet our target. We need a lot more people to come forward to support our work. Kindly support CC. You can do so here https://countercurrents.org/subscription/

If you think the contents of this news letter are critical

for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/.

In Solidarity

Binu Mathew

Editor

Countercurrents.org

Don’t Let the Deeper Meaning of Christmas Be Lost in Materialism

by Jesse Jackson

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/dont-let-the-deeper-meaning-of-christmas-be-lost-in-materialism/

Today teachings of Jesus are more important than ever. The pandemic threatens us all. It respects no boundaries. We can only defeat it together, by organizing across the world to ensure that all are vaccinated, that care is available for those who get sick, that safety precautions from masks to ventilation are universally available.

No USA Christmas Charity for Afghans, Venezuelans, Cubans, Syrians, Iranians, North Koreans

by Jay Janson

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/no-usa-christmas-charity-for-afghans-venezuelans-cubans-syrians-iranians-north-koreans/

The Christmas time Christian tradition of charitable feeding of the hungry homeless in capitalist USA never extends to include those millions of men, women and children made hungry by heartless US sanctions on countries overseas. It’s just something the hard hearted Deep State investors in war of the Military Industrial Complex would never allow any of its captive US presidents to be gracious to the hungry in sanctioned nations at Christmas time.

My Year and Welcome to It

by Tom Engelhardt

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/my-year-and-welcome-to-it/

A reflection on the year gone by and things to come in the new year

Putin in a different December

by Farooque Chowdhury

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/putin-in-a-different-december/

A significant shift in power equation is going on in today’s world. It’s going to impact almost all countries

including geographically small and tiny countries. A recent incident including arson in an island-country is one of the latest evidences. This situation is meaningful for both of the ruled/exploited and the ruler/exploiting classes. It’ll be stupidity to not keep an eye on the developments, and listen to Putin’s pronouncements.

Millions Of Armed Americans Ready To Seize Power, Warns U.S. Weekly

by Countercurrents Collective

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/millions-of-armed-americans-ready-to-seize-power-warns-u-s-weekly/

Citing Nieznany, a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran, a Newsweek report said: Millions of fellow would-be insurrectionists will be there, too, says, “a ticking time-bomb” targeting the Capitol. “There are lots of fully armed people wondering what is happening to this country,” he says. “Are we going to let Biden keep destroying it? Or do we need to get rid of him? We are only going to take so much before we fight back.” The 2024 election, he adds,

may well be the trigger.

Japan Business Lobbyist Backs Coup, Urges Investment In Myanmar

by Countercurrents Collective

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/japan-business-lobbyist-backs-coup-urges-investment-in-myanmar/

A Japanese former politician who campaigned to bring billions of dollars of investment from some of Japan’s top companies to Myanmar has urged Japan to endorse its military regime, saying the nation’s coup leader has “grown fantastically as a human being,” while praising his “democratization efforts.”

The Combating Islamophobia Act: On Hate Crimes and ‘Irrational Fears’

by Dr Ramzy Baroud

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/the-combating-islamophobia-act-on-hate-crimes-and-irrational-fears/

The result of a vote, on December 14, in the US House of Representatives regarding the combating of Islamophobia, may, possibly, appear to be a positive sign of change, that Washington is finally confronting this socio-political evil. However, conclusions

must not be too hasty.

263,000,000 Hate Messages and Counting

By Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/263000000-hate-messages-and-counting/

Cyberbullying and Internet hate speech continues unabated. If anything, it has gotten worse, perhaps turbo-charged by the Coronavirus pandemic forcing people to sit at home in social isolation. Recently, UK anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label has completed a study on hate speech which focuses on transphobia, racism, homophobia, sexism, misogyny, and violent threats against a wide range of identities.

Failure of US media on Ukraine

by Ron Forthofer

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/failure-of-us-media-on-ukraine/

We need to constantly remind ourselves about the US media. During the Cold War, there was the saying that the difference between the New York Times and the Soviet Pravda was that Pravda readers knew they were being lied to. Unfortunately, current coverage by the US media about the movement of

Russian troops demonstrates the applicability of that saying today.

The present state of India, the concept of freedom and diversionary tactics

by Dr A V Koshy

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/the-present-state-of-india-the-concept-of-freedom-and-diversionary-tactics/

I stand for freedom and no diversionary tactics and global as well as national wellbeing and happiness and not for stultification of cultures to their detriment. Freedom and advancement comes from hybridity and not false notions of purity and though I speak alone I prefer to do so and am ready to continue speaking alone as a sane voice than to join any group or faction none of which supported me in the name of these diversionary tactics which they are also embroiled in in a futile for and against fashion instead of looking long and hard at the real problems India faces.

Pegasus Trail -2

by Hiren Gohain

https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/pegasus-trail-2/

It is of utmost importance to underscore and

reiterate this idea in the face of the multi-pronged and incremental attacks on ALL freedoms feeling their way ahead,now concentrating on this campaign,now on that.The indivisible freedom of citizens as a whole are under vicious and well-planned attack,to raise on its ashes an inhuman and tyrannical edifice of Rashtra.

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Delta to Biden: The easy part is over

 

BY LAUREN MORELLO With help from Myah Ward SO MUCH FOR OUR HOT VAX SUMMER — America’s official return to pre-Covid life lasted all of three weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abruptly reversed its guidance on mask wearing today. The agency now says that vaccinated people in Covid-19 hotspots should mask up indoors, and sometimes even outdoors, based on new data on the highly contagious Delta variant. For President Joe Biden, who pledged a “return to normal” on July 4, the CDC’s about-face is a tacit admission that competence alone won’t vanquish the coronavirus. When his administration took office in the chaotic early days of the nation’s vaccine rollout, it picked the low-hanging fruit by working to streamline vaccine distribution channels and improve communication with governors and other state officials. The federal government set up a network of high-volume vaccine mega-sites across the country and arranged for pharmacies nationwide to give out the shot, helping to boost Covid vaccinations to a daily record of 4.6 million doses on April 10. A sign advises shoppers to wear masks outside of a store in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles. | Marcio Jose Sanchez, File/AP Photo But the deep partisan split over the pandemic — and the value of the vaccines — has helped to stall the country’s adult vaccination rate at just under 70 percent, the goal Biden hoped to reach by Independence Day. In states like Alabama and Louisiana, where the Delta variant is driving a surge in new infections and hospitalizations, the adult vaccination rate is just over 50 percent. So, with the pace of inoculations slowed to a crawl, and a new wave of infection building nationwide, the CDC has once again turned to masks to fight the virus. We’re not alone in this: Countries like Israel, Australia and South Korea have reinstated national or regional mask mandates in the face of Delta. It’s yet another sign that Covid-19 is a wily foe, and the fortunes of the vaccinated and unvaccinated are inextricably linked. Unwilling to revisit the lockdown days of 2020, the White House now appears to be turning to powerful but so far untested tools against the virus. Biden said today that he is considering a vaccine mandate for federal employees — one day after the VA said it would require the shot for any employees who provide direct patient care. “Unlike 2020, we have both the scientific knowledge and the tools to prevent the spread of this disease,” Biden told reporters. “We are not going back” to “the kind of lockdowns, shutdowns, school closures, and disruptions we faced in 2020.” There’s no way to roll back the clock. But there’s still a way to beat Covid. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author directly at lmorello@politico.com or on Twitter at @lmorello_dc.   National Security Daily From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, get the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. Subscribe now   ASK THE AUDIENCE Nightly asks you: As the Delta variant leads to increased cases around the nation, are you changing your behavior this summer? Send us your answers using our form , and we’ll feature select responses in Friday’s edition. WHAT'D I MISS? — Senators nearing $2B Capitol security deal: Senate spending leaders are closing in on a more than $2 billion agreement that would fill the waning budgets of the Capitol Police and National Guard after months of strain following the Jan. 6 insurrection. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) are negotiating the deal as a counter proposal to the $1.9 billion emergency spending bill that stalled in the Senate after House passage in May. The package would total just over $2 billion, including more than $1 billion for the Department of Defense, $100 million for the Capitol Police and $300 million for other Capitol security measures, according to sources familiar with the proposal. — Biden expected to visit NYC’s 9/11 memorial site for 20th anniversary of attacks: Biden is expected to attend the 9/11 memorial in New York City to mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks , four sources with knowledge of his plans told POLITICO. The White House recently indicated to officials in New York that Biden plans to travel for the commemoration, two of the sources said. Officials are also looking at possible stops at other locations attacked that day: the Pentagon and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa. But one administration official said it may be logistically difficult to attend all three spots in one day. — DHS Secretary Mayorkas cancels in-person events over Covid fears: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is working remotely because he was in contact with a department official who later tested positive for Covid-19, a DHS spokesperson told POLITICO. — Cuban embassy in Paris attacked with petrol bombs: The Cuban embassy in Paris was attacked with petrol bombs today, its staff said, causing damage to the building but no harm to those working inside. The Cuban Foreign Ministry condemned the attack on Twitter and posted photos of the damaged building, writing: “Those directly responsible for these acts are those who incite violence and hatred against our country.” — Warren urges Yellen to crack down on cryptocurrency: Sen. Elizabeth Warren is pressing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to rally federal agencies to develop a “coordinated and cohesive regulatory strategy” on cryptocurrencies, which the Massachusetts Democrat says pose growing risks to the financial system. Warren told Yellen in a letter released today that she should tap the Financial Stability Oversight Council — a panel of top regulators that the Treasury secretary chairs — to “act with urgency.”   JOIN WEDNESDAY – A WOMEN RULE CONVERSATION WITH THE WOMEN POWERING SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT: Covid-19 took a massive toll on the entertainment and sports industries over the past year and a half. As the summer movie season kicks into full gear, concerts make their way back and crowds fill sports stadiums, we look to the women powering these industries to return in full force. Join POLITICO Women Rule editor Elizabeth Ralph for a conversation with Kamala Avila-Salmon, head of Inclusive Content for Films at Lionsgate; Monica Dixon, president, External Affairs & chief administrative officer Monumental Sports; and Sandy Lighterman, Film & Entertainment commissioner, Miami Dade County Office of Film and Entertainment on lessons learned from the pandemic upheaval to these industries and what it means for the long haul. REGISTER HERE.     NIGHTLY INTERVIEW JUST ANOTHER MANDATE MONDAY — Yesterday felt like a tipping point for vaccine mandates — a contentious idea that employers across the U.S., including the federal government, are warming up to as Covid patients once again fill up hospital beds. More than 60 medical organizations, including the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association, said vaccine mandates for all health care workers are an “ethical” obligation. Nightly’s Myah Ward talked with ANA President Ernest Grant about his organization’s decision to sign on to the joint statement, why he felt now was the right time for it and how these moves may influence hospitals across the country to require vaccinations. This conversation has been edited. This is a large group of people in agreement on a controversial topic. Did it take a lot of debate to get here? ANA changed our position statement on vaccines a couple of weeks before this. But this was relatively quick. The request came in, I believe, last Thursday, and within a couple of days, all the other organizations had signed on. From our perspective, it was an easy decision. It felt like yesterday was mandate day. We had New York and California issuing requirements, and the first federal agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs, said they would require health care workers to get shots. Why now? We had no idea that New York and California would be issuing their statement, and we definitely did not have any idea that the VA system would issue that statement as well. Even though it was not a concerted effort, I think the fact it was like boom boom boom boom boom, hopefully the public and health care workers will begin to sit up and take notice: “Hey, they really mean that. We need to get control of this virus.” Some people argue that it’s too soon to mandate a vaccine that doesn’t have full FDA approval. What would you say to that? There is evidence that the vaccines are effective. There’s been more than 300 million doses of the vaccine given in the U.S. with a relatively small amount of side effects. And of course, if more and more people are not vaccinated, that’s going to allow for more mutations of the virus. And the potential that the vaccines that are out there may become ineffective altogether. And so we’re going to be right back where we were at the beginning of 2020. Any idea when we may see full approval? If I were to speculate, I would say probably before the end of the year. One of the things you have to think about is the hesitancy that individuals might have if there were a rush to approve the vaccines. And then the story would be, “Well, you know, they didn’t study it long enough before it was approved.” We were experiencing a nursing shortage before and during the pandemic. Do you worry mandates will exacerbate this? We estimate probably about 83 percent of nurses have been vaccinated, which is really good, but we’d like to see that number higher. This is based on some surveys that we have done. My big concern is that I hear from nurses every day that they are tired. They’re exhausted. Just when they thought they were going to get the chance to catch their breath, the hospitals are filling up again, and filling up needlessly because we know that if people were to get vaccinated, we could tamp down this virus. Until that happens, it’s going to be very challenging for the nurses, and some of them are choosing or may choose, “I can’t take this. I need to either step away from the bedside or do something else in nursing.”   SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TODAY: Power is shifting in Washington and in communities across the country. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. The Recast is a twice-weekly newsletter that explores the changing power dynamics in Washington and breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics and policy in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear critical new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out, SUBSCRIBE . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel.     AROUND THE WORLD ‘YOU NEED SOME GUNSLINGERS’ — If the United States really wants Russia to stop ransomware attacks and other hostile activities, Garry Kasparov has a solution ripped from his days as a chess grandmaster: Go after the king. Russia President Vladimir Putin is thought to be worth tens of billions of dollars, Kasparov notes. Researchers have pieced together his alleged assets by examining everything from Putin’s luxury watches to a palace he’s said to frequent to unusual money trails that lead to his inner circle. That secret wealth makes Putin uniquely vulnerable to U.S. sanctions, Kasparov argues. It’s time, he says, for the Biden administration to crack down on the billionaire loyalists who keep the Russian dictator in power and help hide his riches. The chess champ and Kremlin critic is not the only one pushing the idea. Activists working with imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny have been circulating in Washington a list of 35 people linked to Putin whose assets they say America should freeze. “It’s not an extreme measure. It’s the only effective one,” Kasparov told POLITICO. “Putin doesn’t care about Russia or Russians. There are no national interests, just his.” But to the chagrin of Kasparov, his fellow Russian dissidents and even some former U.S. officials, Biden is resisting such appeals for now. “We’re not really trying hard enough,” said Evelyn Farkas, a former top Pentagon official under then-President Barack Obama. “[Putin] is not taking the message from the new United States president seriously enough.” Instead, Biden has turned to more traditional sanctions and diplomatic moves in the face-off with Russia, Nahal Toosi writes. Some Biden aides are not convinced that going after Putin’s wealth would chasten him to the point critics predict. Instead, after a vigorous internal debate, White House officials decided on a less aggressive approach: They’ll put Russia on notice without escalating tensions or jeopardizing potential cooperation on shared challenges like climate change. NIGHTLY NUMBER 47 percent The percentage of California voters most likely to participate in the September recall election who support recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom , according to a poll conducted by the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and cosponsored by the Los Angeles Times. The poll also showed 50 percent opposed the effort. That difference falls within the poll’s margin of error. PARTING WORDS ‘A MEDIEVAL BATTLE’ — Four police officers who defended the Capitol from a Jan. 6 riot by Donald Trump supporters spoke out today during the first hearing of the select committee investigating the attack , sharing harrowing details of their physical and mental trauma. As the riot fades from public memory amid a new wave of Republican revisionism, select panel members aimed to cast the hearing — the first time Congress has heard publicly from law enforcement on the front lines of the response to Jan. 6 — as a vivid reminder of what happened. Watch what they said, in 180 seconds. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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