US flags in Ukraine's parliament; Grassley makes no apologies; American tech learning the hard way; China losing soft-power edge & Dimon's greatest hits
Ruslan Stefanchuk, Chair of Ukrainian Parliament: “Today, MPs of Ukraine once again expressed their gratitude to the United States and to every member of the House of Representatives who supported the Ukraine Aid Bill.”
Senator Chuck Grassley: “I don’t buy this notion that it is conservative or Republican position to abandon the American leadership that has kept the peace...I make no apologies for supporting Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan in the face of threats from the axis of anti-American dictatorship.”
David Sanger, NYT, on how American tech needs to improve after failing in Ukraine: “So Mr. Schmidt began funding a different vision, one that is now, after the Ukraine experience, gaining adherents in the Pentagon: far more inexpensive, autonomous drones, which would launch in swarms and talk to each other even if they lost their connection to human operators on the ground. The idea is a generation of new weapons that would learn to evade Russian air defenses and reconfigure themselves if some drones in the swarm were shot down.”
Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Richard Fontaine on countering the joint threat of China, Russia, Iran & North Korea: “The West has everything it needs to triumph in this contest. Its combined economy is far larger, its militaries are significantly more powerful, its geography is more advantageous, its values are more attractive, and its democratic system is more stable. The United States and its partners should be confident in their own strengths, even as they appreciate the scale of effort necessary to compete with this budding anti-Western coalition.”
Semafor: China is losing ground in its soft-power battle with the US in parts of Asia, according to a new report on how the world perceives the rivals’ leadership.
The current geopolitical situation is probably the most complicated and dangerous since World War II.
The best defense for the United States is to have the strongest military.
God bless Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries for getting this latest aid bill to Ukraine done.
The economy’s been booming for a while. Unemployment is at an all time low. Even if we go into a recession, the average American consumer is in good shape right now.