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Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism — and should be treated that way

Thus far in the 21st century, any number of terrorist organizations have disgraced the Earth with their unspeakable acts of savagery, including al Qaeda, ISIS and al-Shabaab. Terrorists are usually diffuse groups that are not controlled by an organized government. When a country sponsors repeated acts of international terrorism, it can earn U.S. designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation is the leading terrorist nation of the 21st century and should be officially designated as such.

Putin’s terrorist path began with the brutal subjugation of Chechnya shortly after he assumed power in 1999. He unleashed massive firepower upon civilians for the purpose of terrorizing the population. The objective was to kill so many civilians that Chechen forces would have no alternative but to capitulate. It worked. He later succeeded with the same scorched-earth tactics in Syria as a favor to the Syrian government, which the U.S. has labelled a state sponsor of terrorism. Putin has visited practically every outrage in the war crimes playbook on the Ukrainians in his push to seize their sovereign nation.

The world is familiar with the continual targeting of civilians by Russian forces, including the deliberate attack on the Mariupol theater that killed about 600 people, the July 1 airstrike on a residential area near Odesa that killed at least 21 and a mall attack days earlier in which 19 died. This butchery has been a daily occurrence since the beginning of the Russian onslaught, and it appears to be intensifying. Russia fired twice as many missiles in the second half of June as in the first half.

Russian ground forces routinely engage in criminal activity in occupied areas — rape, theft, murder, torture and the like. When the small city of Bucha was liberated by Ukrainian forces, they found 280 bodies buried in mass graves. Similar atrocities have occurred in other occupied areas. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the Russians have “interrogated, detained and forcibly deported” up to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children into Russian territory. Putin’s evil words and horrendous misdeeds provide substantial weight to Ukraine’s claims of genocide.

Russia’s “widespread use of weapons that kill, maim and destroy indiscriminately” violates international norms. As a former artillery officer in Vietnam, I’m familiar with cluster munitions, a weapon widely used by Russian forces. These consist of an artillery, missile or bomb canister that bursts in the air, spreading many little bomblets over a wide area. They kill indiscriminately and should never be used in civilian areas. Many of the bomblets do not detonate and can lay on the ground long into the future, waiting to be picked up by a curious child. Because of that, I refused to use them in the Vietnam War.

Russian forces use six types of cluster munitions in Ukraine, both to spread terror and to indiscriminately kill civilians. Most recently, they have used them, along with incendiary devices, to frighten Ukrainian farmers and destroy their grain crops, sabotaging Ukraine’s domestic and export food supplies.

The U.S. is not currently using cluster munitions but should ban their use by our military and call upon Russia to do likewise. To set an example, we should join the Convention on Cluster Munitions. That would give us standing to exert leverage against Russia.

The Biden administration has declared that Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine but seems reluctant to designate the Russian Federation under Putin as a state sponsor of terrorism. However, this issue is not confined just to his country’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. There is Russia’s vicious subjugation of Chechnya, its terrorist acts against Georgia and its scorched-earth hostilities in Syria.

Furthermore, Putin’s war against Ukraine is also a stealth war against NATO nations. A principal reason for his terrorist tactics against Ukraine’s civilians is to drive millions into neighboring NATO nations to strain their economies and weaken their resolve to stand against him. And we should not forget the numerous times Putin and his cronies have threatened Ukraine and NATO nations with nuclear weapons. Nor that Putin often kills his enemies and rivals, both at home and abroad. Putin may have orchestrated the deaths of at least eight foes on foreign soil. The reach of his terrorist activity extends well beyond the borders of the Russian Federation.

A bipartisan group in Congress has been urging the administration to designate the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Resolutions to that effect are currently pending in both Houses. Four countries – Syria, Iran, North Korea and Cuba – currently have that unenviable distinction. All of them are treasured soulmates of the Russian despot.

Russia’s qualifications are clearly comparable, at the very least, to those of these cutthroat regimes. A country should not be exempt from the designation merely because it has large oil reserves and an extensive nuclear arsenal.

The terrorist designation would further tighten economic restrictions on Russia, prohibit a broad range of dual-use exports and require the U.S. to take economic action against countries continuing to do business with Russia. More than anything, it would be a well-deserved recognition of the pariah status that Putin has earned for himself and his country. After all, he is the leading terrorist of the 21st century.

Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served eight years as Idaho attorney general (1983-1991) and 12 years as a justice on the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). He is a regular contributor to The Hill.

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Four ways to address the housing shortage

America’s current housing shortage is not just a consequence of a global pandemic riddled with supply chain issues. Instead, it is a result of decades of underproducing entry-level homes and more than a century’s worth of policy decisions. 

These supply chain issues, labor shortages, increased material costs and rising rents have led to a shortage of at least 1 million homes – though one recent analysis puts U.S. housing underproduction closer to 4 million. 

But experts say there is a path forward. 

“We’re in this housing crisis, because of a certain set of policy decisions made over decades going back over 100 years, but the good news is this is not an act of nature. It’s not a force of God that we’re missing all of these homes,” Mike Kingsella, CEO of Up For Growth, a housing policy group based in Washington, D.C. told Changing America.

“It’s a result of policy choices that we as a community have made,” said Kingsella whose organization is focused on solutions to the housing shortage and affordability crisis. “And so, the good news about that is that we can solve this by simply making a different set of policy choices.”  

Updating zoning laws 

One underlying issue intensifying the housing crisis is existing zoning laws that prevent the construction of multi-family structures in a particular area. Removing these zoning barriers could then lead to further development outside of single-family units, thereby increasing availability while lowering costs. 

“There are a lot of people who are stuck where they don’t want to be and have the ability to rent to move into homeownership, but they can’t because those entry level homes are just not there,” Arica Young, associate director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Terwilliger Center for Housing, told Changing America. 

Restrictive zoning policies based on the idea of nimbyism –not in my backyard— for fear of hurting surrounding property values created a situation where many major cities across the country were zoned upwards of 70 percent for detached single family homes. 

Addressing these zoning restrictions has the potential to transform neighborhoods and grow metros nationwide. 

“Tearing down exclusionary zoning, reimagining what is permissible to build particularly in high opportunity neighborhoods for many communities are really critical solution, particularly those high growth superstar metros that have experienced a lot of job and population growth but have not seen corresponding increases in housing supply,” Kingsella said. 

Removing stigmas around manufactured housing 

Manufactured housing – units constructed off site before being moved to a property — is another way to increase the housing supply quickly. But shifting away from non-traditional buildings would require an effort to convince surrounding communities of their value. 

Young said these innovative solutions come with stigmas and biases, while some cities ban them.  

“Encouraging communities to allow for manufactured housing as infill would be great. Cities like Oakland, California have used it for almost 30 years, if not longer, and it’s not the mobile homes that you think of in the past,” Young said. 

The main fear, experts say, is that introducing manufactured housing into an area will lower existing property. But Young said this would not be the case. 

“These are built to a national standard. They can meet the same quality and safety, quality and safety standards of a stick-built side of a house,” Young added. “And they can mimic traditional architecture now.” 

Closing the racial gap 

Up for Growth’s analysis noted one of the main driving factors behind housing underproduction is the number of uninhabitable units in areas like Detroit, leaving policymakers to design ways to invest in legacy housing. 

One way to achieve this, Kingsella said, is through the bipartisan Neighborhood Homes Investment Act. The federal policy would create an equitable tax credit for developers who acquire derelict homes, fix them up, and put them back onto the market. An important provision would ensure the refurbished homes would be listed at affordable prices. 

“Building more housing isn’t always the only way to address underproduction leveraging existing, but derelict housing stock can be a really effective solution,” Kingsella said. 

“The idea is really to leverage this existing housing to deliver workforce, homes, home ownership opportunities, recognizing the wealth building potential, and the imperative to really close that black versus white homeownership gap that is at the widest point it has been since 1968.” 

Invigorate the workforce  

The housing shortage is also exacerbated by a depleted workforce. Estimates suggest that the required job growth for the sector is around 740,000 per year. Yet data shows the labor supply falls short by up to 400,000 jobs nationwide per month.  

And the workforce is aging, with nearly 9 percent of the industry’s workers aged 20 to 24. Still the data shows a high percentage of available workers are in their prime working age. For growth to continue, it is important to inspire young people to enter the trade, Young said. 

“What’s really important is for people to understand, and to get trades back in the schools, and where parents understand that it is a good career. They’re very well-paid positions,” Young said, adding these “are not just good jobs, they’re good careers.”  

Workforce development could start early, Young continued. One way to promote creativity that could lead to the industry is by making sure kids are taking wood shop classes in school. 

“And a lot of people get their ideas through tinkering and we’re losing that in this generation, where kids are not going in and building a chessboard for themselves or building a little model car,” Young said. “It’s a different way of learning and we’re missing out on reaching kids and using their hands and minds together.” 

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Far-right internet personality 'Baked Alaska' pleads guilty in Jan. 6 case

Anthime Joseph Gionet, a far-right personality known online as “Baked Alaska,” has pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The Department of Justice reported Friday that Gionet pleaded guilty to unlawful and violent entry of restricted areas and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. The rioter is one of hundreds arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.

According to an FBI affidavit, Gionet shared a 27-minute livestream of the riot, during which he can be heard chanting “Patriots are in control,” “Whose house? Our house,” and “1776, baby.” He is seen on the video entering various office rooms at the Capitol.

“We are in the Capitol Building, 1776 will commence again,” Gionet said, according to the FBI report. “Occupy the Capitol let’s go. We ain’t leaving this bitch.”

In an encounter caught on tape, Gionet called a law enforcement officer a “f—— oathbreaker.”

Gionet was arrested just nine days after the riot but made headlines last summer for avoiding house arrest. He entered a guilty plea on Friday.

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Manufacturers knock drug pricing bill in ad blitz

The National Association of Manufacturers launched a six-figure ad campaign over the weekend opposing Democrats’ proposal to regulate drug prices in their budget reconciliation package.

The lobbying group, which represents Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and other top drugmakers, is airing ads arguing that price controls on popular drugs amount to a “hidden tax” that will hurt U.S. competitiveness.

“Politicians shouldn’t force government price controls on Americans that harm manufacturers’ ability to develop and innovate new cures,” the narrator tells viewers. 

The ad blitz comes as Democrats aim to include the drug pricing bill in their reconciliation package, which can bypass the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster with a simple majority. 

The longtime Democratic priority, which has been derailed numerous times by pharmaceutical industry lobbying, would allow Medicare to negotiate the price of some popular prescription drugs and cap annual out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000. 

Democrats are expected to tout the measure — and highlight GOP opposition — on the campaign trail. An October Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 83 percent of Americans support allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.

“This is something we’ve waited for for a very long time and is going to be a major, major accomplishment to help people, bring down inflation,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week.

Democrats are expected to hear from the Senate parliamentarian this week on whether the drug pricing measure complies with reconciliation rules. Republicans, who generally oppose government regulation of drug pricing, are making the case that key aspects of the bill shouldn’t be included. 

“We are calling on senators to vote ‘no’ on reconciliation and stand with manufacturers and the hardworking Americans who are integral to battling this pandemic and discovering future cures,” National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons said in a statement Monday.

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Warren: Fed chief threatening 'surprisingly strong economic recovery'

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) writes in a new op-ed that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s efforts to control inflation risk “triggering a devastating recession” and jeopardizing the country’s “surprisingly strong” post-pandemic economic recovery. 

“Rising costs are an urgent problem, and interest rates play a key role in maintaining price stability. But urgency is no excuse for doubling down on a dangerous treatment,” Warren wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

As inflation hits 40-year highs, the Fed has hiked interest rates in an effort curb rising costs, and is expected to announce still more increases.

Warren wrote that the Fed “has seized” on interest rate hikes despite Powell himself acknowledging that the move is “largely ineffective against many of the underlying causes of this inflationary spike.” 

The Massachusetts senator noted that the actual impacts of increasing borrowing costs with higher interest rates add costs for businesses, meaning companies will pump the brakes on hiring, cut employee hours and even fire workers. 

“In the bloodless language of economists, that’s referred to as ‘dampening demand,’” Warren wrote. “But make no mistake: If the Fed cuts too much or too abruptly, the resulting recession will leave millions of people—disproportionately lower-wage workers and workers of color—with smaller paychecks or no paycheck at all.”

Powell’s interest rate increases will likely trigger a “brutal” recession, Warren added, noting Republicans will try to combat by cutting taxes and easing regulations for corporations and for the rich.

She also lauded some of the Biden administration’s efforts to tamp rising costs, like his release of strategic oil reserves to combat high gas prices, and called on Congress to act against inflation through means like investment in child care so parents can get to work and in American manufacturing. 

“Higher interest rates won’t end skyrocketing energy prices caused by Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. They won’t fix supply chains still reeling from the pandemic. And they won’t break up the corporate monopolies that Mr. Powell admitted in January could be ‘raising prices because they can.’”

First nominated to the Fed board by then-President Obama and elevated to chairman by then-President Trump, Powell was renominated by Biden last year. 

Warren has opposed Powell’s renomination from the start, saying he “failed as a leader” and ignored a “culture of corruption” in his office. 

She and fellow progressives Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) wrote in a joint statement last year that “President Biden must appoint a Fed Chair who will ensure the Fed is fulfilling its mandate to safeguard our financial system and shares the Administration’s view that fighting climate change is the responsibility of every policymaker. That person is not Jerome Powell.” 

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The intel on Zelensky’s troubles with Ukrainian intelligence

The timing and circumstances that led to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to relieve Ivan Bakanov, chief of Ukraine’s domestic security service, the SBU, was more likely driven by internal political considerations than counterintelligence revelations. That’s not to say that challenges concerning Ukraine’s counterintelligence environment are cause for concern. Ukraine reports at least 1,234 individuals were being investigated for high treason and collaboration with Russia, a statistic that includes government officials. 

Given America’s intelligence support to Ukraine, where does this internal reshuffling leave the U.S. intelligence community in the face of vulnerabilities that Zelensky himself acknowledges?

The SBU has been a particular problem for Zelensky and Western governments whose civilian security services normally engage an equivalent counterpart. Questions long have persisted over the SBU given it’s a service structured along the lines of the Soviet Union’s KGB that has been slow to evolve to Ukraine’s direction as an open society. SBU cadre often looked nostalgically upon Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, even after the 2004-2005 Orange revolution, and possibly until the Maidan protests of 2014.

The SBU is not the U.S. intelligence community’s primary counterpart, according to American officials who say that, instead, it’s the GUR — Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency. The GUR is Ukraine’s lead intelligence agency in prosecuting the war and enjoys a better reputation than the SBU among foreign partners. And the GUR has made a more deliberate effort to refashion itself for the times and circumstances, which includes an active social media profile and online footprint.

Bakanov was unable to advance the progress sought by the Ukrainian parliament and Western observers in reforming the SBU from its Soviet KGB model. Toward that goal, Ukraine’s parliament passed a National Security framework law in 2018 which aims to redefine and limit the SBU’s authorities and create more effective oversight structures, though some of the target dates were as distant as 2025. While Bakanov might have had Zelensky’s loyalty as his childhood friend and former campaign manager, his success was impaired by not having been a professional intelligence officer or career public servant who came into the SBU as an outsider.

Rumblings that Zelensky ultimately lost confidence in Bakanov had been emerging for weeks. The SBU chief was increasingly a political liability given criticisms of him and other senior Ukrainian officials for poor decisions in the opening hours of Russia’s Feb. 24  offensive. Among their complaints, Ukrainians blamed the SBU for Russia’s expeditious seizure of the strategic southern city of Kherson, for failing to blow up the Antonovsky Bridge spanning the Dnipro River in order to impair Russia’s advance.

But Ukraine’s counterintelligence challenges precede Russia’s invasion. The SBU was not well disposed toward Western intelligence partners, despite playing a contributing role in the Orange Revolution. But SBU attitudes were not unique among those living in the Soviet Union’s former republics whose security services, along with other public institutions, long remained largely staffed and managed by former Soviet-era functionaries. Although that SBU generation continues to move on, many of its successors had their outlooks similarly shaped by the greater visibility, continued training, and influence of Russian FSB liaison contacts.

I witnessed the “better the devil you know” dynamic first-hand while serving in the former Soviet republics. Russians weren’t necessarily liked by the locals but remained a known commodity. As my local counterparts used to tell me, there was a certain degree of comfort in being able to predict how Russians might act, versus Americans, who few had even met and for whom they had been indoctrinated to suspect.

The FSB was all that the Ukrainian security services, especially the SBU, had ever known. But the FSB was also Russia’s lead agency for intelligence collection and covert activities against Ukraine, as well as the other former Soviet republics following the empire’s collapse. And that in itself is rather revealing about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s perspective. It was Putin’s decision to assign those responsibilities to the FSB, an internal security organization primarily focused on counterintelligence and subversion, rather than Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, known as the SVR. Putin, after all, still views the former Soviet republics as very much part of Russia.

And it was the FSB’s Fifth Service, also known as the Foreign Intelligence Branch, that was the everyday face to the SBU and other Ukrainian agencies. The Fifth Service’s official liaison duties provided it the means and access to prosecute its espionage and covert influence functions. FSB personnel leveraged their officially sanctioned work to spot and recruit agents and collaborators across the circles within which they operated.

The Fifth Service was long directed by Colonel-General Sergei Beseda, who was reportedly in Kyiv during the February 2014 protests. Russian insiders contend that in addition to keeping Putin apprised of developments, Beseda was there to urge former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to crush the Maidan uprising. Beseda, along with his deputy Anatoly Bolyuk, was reportedly removed from his position and placed under house arrest — or worse, according to some accounts — for failing to accurately forecast the realities of Ukraine’s resistance.

More recent reports suggest that Beseda since has been seen in public, but that Putin reassigned the FSB’s responsibilities in Ukraine to Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. While there was most likely a purge of those within the FSB who Putin held responsible for Russia’s early failures (as well as the rest of Russia’s military, intelligence and security services), just because Moscow claims to have cleaned house and reassigned the FSB’s duties to the GRU, I remain skeptical.

The GRU did not acquit itself well in the conflict, having, like the FSB, similarly miscalculated Ukrainian resolve and Russian military effectiveness. But perhaps more importantly, as a career Soviet-era KGB officer and the FSB’s first director, Putin’s innate mistrust and contempt for the Russian military likely would not move him to increase his reliance on it. Putin’s attitude is the product of KGB conditioning to view the Russian military as a target on which to spy and not to be trusted, and that would lead him to look down on its spy service.

These counterintelligence considerations notwithstanding, the U.S. intelligence community is equipped to maintain robust collaboration while mitigating risk with even the most questionable partners. Possibly the most significant consequence of 9/11’s reforms was the U.S. intelligence community’s development of processes to avert replicating its original sin of sitting on intelligence that impacted life and death outcomes over concerns about protecting sources and methods, or turf.

Enter the “tear line.” It’s a process that the CIA long has used to share “actionable intelligence” with other U.S. government agencies or foreign partners. But such sharing and transparency became the default, rather than the last, option given 9/11’s consequences. The tear line is a means to provide crucial details from classified reporting that separates the substance from the operational details explaining its acquisition and thereby less source revealing. 

The U.S. also can work with foreign partners to further mask its role by restricting the foreign users who are aware that U.S. intelligence was the source, or even the existence, of an official cooperative relationship. In some cases, that decision is driven by the foreign partner, rather than the U.S., concerned at the internal political optics from cooperating with U.S. intelligence, or over the fidelity of its personnel.

Still, any reflection that you’re aware of what your adversaries deem to be secret threatens the sources and methods behind its collection. When it comes to intelligence, there’s never a perfect solution, but rather degrees of risk management. Where there are sources and methods involved, namely human lives, it’s a situationally dependent calculus of potential gain against worst-case loss. America’s national security interests at times will require passing reporting to a foreign partner whose vulnerabilities, like Ukraine, or political agendas, such as “frenemies” like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, poses a calculated risk.

Ukraine’s counterintelligence challenges are nothing new and pose risks that what the U.S. provides can fall into the hands of our adversaries, compromise capabilities, or at a minimum, focus Russia’s attention to targets against which we’re collecting. But there’s evident impact from U.S. support for Ukraine’s successful prosecution of key Russian targets identified via good intelligence. In the end, like the considerations associated with the increasingly sophisticated arms the U.S. is providing, intelligence decisions are a risk versus gain calculus done with open eyes. 

Douglas London is the author of “The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.” He teaches Intelligence Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute. A Russian-speaking operations officer, he served in the CIA’s Clandestine Service for over 34 years, mostly in the Middle East, South and Central Asia and Africa, including three assignments as a Chief of Station. Follow him on Twitter @DouglasLondon5.

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Younger Republicans significantly more concerned about environment than older ones: Gallup

Younger Republicans are significantly more likely to worry about the environment than older Republicans, according to a Gallup poll published Monday.

Of Republicans aged 18 to 34, about 32 percent say they worry “a great deal” about the quality of the environment, while 37 percent said they worry a “fair amount.”

Those aged 35 to 54 worry less, with 18 percent worrying a great deal and 34 percent a fair amount.

Around 14 percent of Republicans aged 55 and older say they worry a great deal and 32 percent say they worry a fair amount.

Climate change has increasingly been in the news amid weeks of deadly heat and high temperatures in Europe and the United States, with a number of cities breaking records.

Extreme temperatures are tied to climate change as greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere lead to warming temperatures across the globe.

Efforts to pass climate change legislation in Congress were dealt a blow this month when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced he would not support the package in the evenly divided Senate where his vote is crucial.

President Biden last week called climate change an “emergency” and announced some limited actions to combat extreme heat and ramp up offshore wind energy.

According to the Gallup researchers, if younger Republicans are more likely to worry about the environment, public opinion on action to combat climate change could shift.

“If increasing numbers of Republicans experience extreme weather, and younger generations continue to exhibit higher levels of environmental concerns, these partisans overall may become more likely to believe global warming is affecting the world and increase their worry about the environment,” researchers wrote.

The Gallup poll shows 64 percent of Democrats worry a great deal about the quality of the environment and around 80 percent of Democrats in all age groups say the effects of climate change and global warming are already here.

About 44 percent of Republicans aged 18 to 34 say the world is experiencing the effects of climate change, a similar percentage shared among Republicans aged 35 to 54, according to the Gallup poll.

Around 29 percent of Republicans 55 and older say the effects of global warming are already here.

Independents also vary by age, but are far more likely than Republicans to worry about the quality of the environment and say the effects of global warming are already here.

The Gallup poll was based on aggregated data from annual surveys taken from 2019 to 2022.

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The ugly America, at home and abroad

“The Ugly American,” a 1958 best seller, became a 1963 hit movie starring Marlon Brando. The book was a precursor to what would become the Vietnam War and the absolute failure of American policy, strategy and diplomacy. The ugly American was Homer Atkins, the unsung hero sent to help the mythical Southeast Asian country of Sarkhan. 

Today, unfortunately, the positive portrait of this ugly American has metastasized into the ugly America, because, in many parts of the globe, that is how most people now view this country. Worse, the ugly America label also applies to how we view ourselves.

Many Americans do not seem to understand these realities. We still think of ourselves as the leader of the free world. But internationally the U.S. is harshly regarded, in some cases feared, and in others distrusted. The United Nations General Assembly vote to condemn Russia over its invasion of Ukraine reflected this imbalance. Many of the most populous and powerful countries, including China, Brazil, India and Mexico, either abstained or voted against the resolution.

Domestically, anger, violence, disrespect and incivility have replaced consensus, decorum, truth and fact. Consider that 75 to 85 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. America’s current and most recent former presidents and Congress have among the lowest favorability ratings in history. The nation may be more polarized than at any time since 1861.

The sad and sorry tale of how America descended into this dismal state has been well reported. But why this has happened and what, if anything, can be done to reverse the trajectory are open questions. The answer to why the world views America less favorably rests in a combination of arrogance, ignorance and a series presidents who lacked the requisite experience, judgment and in at least one case character to be commander in chief.

From the Vietnam debacle to the bungled Afghan evacuation last year, American presidents since George H.W. Bush (arguably the last president possessing the skills for success) have all failed to varying degrees. 

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003, the collapse of relations with China and Russia, the huge inequalities in wealth in the U.S. and the absence of plans or strategy on virtually every issue, including energy, Social Security, the environment, immigration, voting rights and national security are among the symptoms of an ugly America at risk of growing even uglier.

The Jan. 6th riot and the abysmal conduct of then-President Trump in refusing to call off the rioters, many of whom believed they were following his directions, are a stain on this nation. Whether the former president committed any crimes and will be indicted is uncertain. But this is far from America’s finest hour. And Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are sure to exploit this calamitous situation.

The most crucial question is not how to reduce inflation and gas prices, as important as they are. The most urgent question is how America can extricate itself from this most ugly of situations.

First, American leadership and competence must be demonstrated at home and abroad. America has only one president at a time and Joe Biden is it. He must assemble the leaders of Congress at Camp David and lock themselves inside until agreement is reached on three or four key issues that will turn the nation around. One of the most important is how to get Congress working and finding commonsense and bipartisan solutions.

Second, the U.S. must assert leadership abroad. Biden needs a summit with Putin and one with Xi. As Biden accepted the backlash for meeting with Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, he must do the same with Putin. The subject is how to reverse the adversarial and hostile relations that help no one. Ending tariffs with China and working out a new security relationship with Russia in Europe to include ending the Ukraine war are vital.

Third, the president must begin hosting members of Congress from both parties for lunches and dinners to identify areas that can lead to bipartisan support.

This is an ugly America, but it doesn’t need to be. Only the president can change that.

Harlan Ullman is senior adviser at the Atlantic Council and the prime author of “shock and awe.” His latest  book is “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large.” Follow him on Twitter @harlankullman.

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US condemns executions of former lawmaker, detainees in Myanmar

The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar on Monday condemned the country’s military regime for executing a former lawmaker, a pro-democracy activist and two other prisoners over the weekend.

The embassy tweeted officials were mourning the loss of Ko Jimmy, Phyo Zeya Thaw, Hla Myo Aung, and Aung Thura Zaw, whom Myanmar military officials executed despite international pleas to grant clemency to the prisoners.

“We condemn the military’s regime execution of pro-democracy leaders and elected officials for exercising their fundamental freedoms,” the embassy wrote.

The military junta carried out its first executions in 50 years, hanging the former lawmaker and other three detainees.

The executions were announced over the weekend by the state-run newspaper the Mirror Daily, according to The Associated Press, and the prisoners were reportedly killed for directing “violent and inhuman accomplice acts of terrorist killings.”

Myanmar, also known as Burma, fell to a military junta in February, 2021 after the Asian nation’s democratic leaders and government were ousted in a coup.

The country has since fallen into economic despair and protest movements have been squashed by deadly violence from the military, which has opened fire on unarmed civilians.

According to the AP, Phyo Zeya Thaw was a former member of the National League for Democracy party and was convicted in January during a closed military court proceeding of financing terrorism.

Kyaw Min Yu was a former pro-democracy activist convicted on counterterrorism charges, while Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw were convicted of torturing and killing a woman last year.

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Rubio fires back at Buttigieg over same-sex marriage legislation

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) fired back at Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Sunday after the Biden administration official called out the Florida senator for saying that legislation protecting same-sex marriage would be a “stupid waste of time.”

Rubio, in a 58-second long video on Twitter, called Buttigieg a “Harvard-educated Transportation secretary” who he said didn’t know the difference between state and federal levels.

The Florida Republican added that, on the federal level, he focuses on “federal problems that matter to real people.”

“I’ll give you a real problem. We have a Transportation secretary named Pete Buttigieg, who believes that highways can be racist. Who believes that $5 gas. which is killing working Americans, is a great thing, because that means people are going to drive less or because everyone’s going to go out and buy a $65,000 electric car with a Chinese battery in it,” he said.

He added that he will focus on “real problems” and not on an agenda that he believes is “dictated by a bunch of affluent elite liberals” and a “bunch of Marxist misfits, who sadly today control the agenda of the modern Democratic Party.”

Rubio posted the video hours after Buttigieg told CNN “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper that he didn’t know why Rubio wouldn’t have time to help safeguard same-sex marriages if he has the time to fight against Disney.

Buttigieg was responding to remarks Rubio made after the House advanced the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify marriage rights for same-sex and interracial couples.

Democrats introduced the bill after concerns about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, in which he also called on the court to revisit other rights including marriage equality.

Source: TEST FEED1