What Happened Today: December 21, 2022
Putin will pay anything; Texas prepares for migrant surge; $1.7 trillion on the table
The Big Story
In a speech to his Defense Ministry on Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin promised to provide the military with everything it needs to complete Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We have no funding restrictions,” he said. “The government will provide whatever the Army asks for—anything.” Putin promised that the “special military operation”—his preferred term for the war in Ukraine—“will be fulfilled in all territories of the Russian Federation, including the new territories, and a safe life for all our citizens will be ensured.” He compared the efforts of his military to the Russian wars against Napoleon, in WWI, and against the Nazis in the “Great Patriotic War.”
But the most revealing language came from Putin’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who said that Russia is “fighting against the collective forces of the West” in Ukraine and that “the current situation primarily benefits the United States, which seeks to take advantage of it to maintain global dominance and weaken other countries, including its allies in Europe.”
Meanwhile, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to address Congress tonight, in person, the United States has announced an additional $1.8 billion in aid to Ukraine, including—for the first time since the war began—Patriot missile batteries. The United States will train Ukrainian operators to use the advanced air-defense batteries; the trainings will be held in a third country, probably Germany, lending some credence to Shoigu’s accusations about NATO involvement in the war. Patriots are capable of taking out incoming missiles and other airborne threats.
The Kremlin is not happy about Zelenskyy’s visit or the additional aid, saying the new supplies will deepen the conflict and will not “bode well for Ukraine.” A senior U.S. administration official told The Washington Post that they anticipate sending an additional $40 billion in aid in 2023 and that Biden intends to make clear to the visiting Zelenskyy that “that the United States will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
Read More: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/world/europe/putin-war-russia-ukraine.html
In The Back Pages: Candle Lighting in Kyiv
The Rest
→ Everything is bigger in Texas, including surges of undocumented migrants from Latin America pouring over the border. The Title 42 immigration statute invoked by the Trump administration—which allowed immediate deportation of migrants from countries that might be carrying “communicable disease”—was set to end Dec. 21, until the Supreme Court stepped in to temporarily preserve it. Now the Biden administration is asking the court to let the order expire on Dec. 27, after it has had time to prepare for the expected mass influx of as many as three times more migrants per day. Border officials estimated they’ve deported 2.5 million people under the statute since its implementation on March 20, 2020, including 2 million during the Biden presidency. With Title 42 set to expire, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called the National Guard to the border. Abbott has also suggested that without federal help, he’ll do whatever it takes to handle the crisis, including building walls, deploying gunboats, and even labeling the drug cartels (who facilitate much of the immigration) as terrorist organizations. In the border city of El Paso, the chief executive of a local food bank, Susan Goodell, told the BBC that things were already at a breaking point and she had “never seen numbers like this.”
→ As of Jan. 1, doctors in California will no longer be allowed to offer “a second opinion” on COVID-19. Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law bill AB 2098, prohibiting free speech and critical thinking in the Golden State. The bill will “designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19,’ as unprofessional conduct”—meaning that doctors who violate the law will be at risk of losing their medical license. In fact, many are already under investigation by the state medical board. As justification for their tyrannical suppression of speech, lawmakers cite “major news outlets” who have reported that some of the biggest spreaders of inaccurate information about vaccines are medical professionals. Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, the former director of medical ethics at UC Irvine who was fired over the vaccine mandate, testified before the California State Senate against the bill. Kheriaty told lawmakers, “Advances in science and medicine typically occur when doctors and scientists challenge conventional thinking or settled opinion. Fixating any current medical consensus as ‘unassailable’ by physicians will stifle medical and scientific progress.”
→ Twitter files drop No. 8 arrived Tuesday from Intercept journalist Lee Fang, who details the extent to which Twitter executives took their instructions from the Pentagon. The “files” are an ongoing, curated release of internal Twitter communications as selected by a team of independent journalists to help the American public understand how the social media company has played a role in our national life—they are also great free promotion for the social media platform and its new direction under owner Elon Musk. What Fang reveals is that while Twitter claimed to be fighting against “bots” used by national governments to spread propaganda, it was effectively a propaganda wing of the U.S. military. The platform allowed known Department of Defense-run accounts to stay up for years, in spite of its policy to take down such accounts. DoD passed Twitter lists of accounts to prioritize, particularly accounts focused on spreading helpful narratives to residents in the Middle East.
Read More: https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/
→ Thread of the Day:
In the middle of the night on Monday, the government’s new “omnibus” spending bill was released, coming in at more than 4,000 pages, with leadership in the House and Senate urging an immediate vote. Working through the massive bill, which few officials will have time to read before casting their votes, Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina has been highlighting curiosities, including $65 million to save Northwest salmon and $575 million for family planning “including in areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species.” But really it’s all about Ukraine, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY): “Finalizing the omnibus is critical, absolutely critical for supporting our friends in Ukraine.” Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) echoed this, saying, “Providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans.”
→ Incoming Republican Congressman George Santos, of Northern Long Island, is apparently not all he claims. Santos, 34, said during his campaign that he went to Baruch College and worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, but according to a new New York Times investigation, none of that is true. Also, Santos reported no assets during his failed 2020 campaign, but in the span of two years has become worth millions. Not only that, but while Santos campaigned partially on his Catholic faith but also on his Jewish faith—he supposedly had a Jewish mother—there’s no evidence of a Jewish mother. Santos’ lawyer did not respond to requests for comment but did post a statement that accuses the Times of making defamatory statements and wanting to destroy Santos for being a gay, Latino Republican who won in a Biden voting district. Is he the Talented Mr. Santos or just a talented politician named Mr. Santos?
→ The University of Pittsburgh is advising the Marine Corps to drop the sir and ma’am monikers commonly used for drill instructors. The Marines commissioned the university in 2020 for $2 million to “analyze combinations of gender-integrated training and make recommendations for models that integrate genders to the greatest extent possible while continuing to train Marines to established standards.” The report now says that ditching the gendered forms of address, as has been done in the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the Army, will allow recruits to respect authority regardless of gender. Chief of staff for Marine Corps Training and Education Command, Col. Howard Hall, told Marine Corps Times, “It’s not something we would change overnight … We’ve got a history of ‘sir, ma’am, sir, ma’am.’”
→ A New Jersey lawyer working for a firm engaged in a lawsuit against the Madison Square Garden group was thrown out of Radio City Music Hall (owned by MSG) in front of her daughter on a Girl Scout outing last month. MSG CEO James Dolan apparently has facial recognition technology installed at his venues, which was used to identify the lawyer, Kelly Conlon, as being on his no-fly list. MSG says its policy on this has been clear: If you’re a member of a firm engaged in litigation against the company, you’re not welcome at its properties. The future is here. Wear a balaclava.
→ Number of the Day: 26%
Everyone is hedging their bets ahead of an inevitable recession in 2023. According to data from LinkedIn, courtesy of the Financial Times, companies are posting way more contract work than full-time jobs: 26% more this May through November compared to last. Gusto, a payroll software company, reports that five years ago, only 1 in 10 employees paid through its service were contractors; now it’s 1 in 5. According to Gusto’s principal economist Liz Wilke, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the trend, highlighting the usefulness of a flexible workforce. While one may think the instability of contract work and the lower pay would be discouraging to the workforce, 67% of workers surveyed by Gusto said they would not prefer traditional work.
→ After narrowly averting a major shutdown and assorted railroad-related meshugas, the largest of the two Teamsters Rail Unions, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, has elected a new leader. Eddie Hall, a 28-year veteran engineer on the Union Pacific out of Tucson, Arizona, defeated Dennis Pierce, the uncontested 12-year union president, by a vote of 53-47. Members have grown increasingly upset with leadership this year, as their request for 15 days paid sick time annually got whittled down to three unpaid days, in a last-minute agreement with the U.S. government to prevent a holiday railroad strike. Pierce pushed the agreement as a victory for the workers, but they didn’t agree. New president Hall says he will travel the country and speak with rank and file to see what his men on the ground want going forward. In the meantime, trains are running. Misbehaving minors will get their lump of literal coal, and train workers will begin plotting how to get more than zero days of paid leave.
→ Photo of the Day:
TODAY IN TABLET:
Under the Eyes of Our Lady of Guadalupe by Maggie Phillips
Catholic churches in El Paso offer assistance to a new wave of migrants amid an uncertain future for Title 42 pandemic restrictions
The Land of Milk and Horny by Dana Kessler
In the new television show ‘Chanshi,’ an engaged Jewish woman from Brooklyn flees to Israel to sleep with as many hot IDF soldiers as she can
SCROLL TIP LINE: Have a lead on a story or something going on in your workplace, school, congregation, or social scene that you want to tell us about? Send your tips, comments, questions, and suggestions to scroll@tabletmag.com.
Candle Lighting in Kyiv
Spending the Third Night of Hanukkah with Ukraine’s Future
By Edward Serotta
Edward Serotta is the director of Centropa, a Vienna-based Jewish historical institute, and the producer of the podcast series, “A Ukrainian Jewish Century.”
When spending time with the Ukrainian teenagers of the ORT Jewish high school, all of whom have been living with missiles, drone attacks, and power outages since February, how does one do anything but cry? They pepper me with questions: Why am I there? (To show support, visit friends, write articles.) How many times have I been to Ukraine during the war? (Twice.) Before the war? (Eight.) What do I think of President Zelenskyy? (I’m a fan.) Will the Americans continue to support Ukraine? (Yes.)
They are as eager as puppies to engage and obviously want to be assured. No 15-year-old who hides in a basement wants to hear about the nuances of U.S. congressional support. So I praise the Ukrainian army and especially the head of the armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. I tell them that for years to come military historians will study the opening battle at Kyiv, where a small band of Ukrainian soldiers repelled and then pummeled a Russian force several times its size.
When several of them rush over to take selfies with me, I feel relieved—I have passed the test.
Yurii Kinkov, headmaster of the ORT Jewish high school, tells me that at least 10% of his students have fathers serving on the front right now. A few have even been orphaned.
Of the 1,360 students enrolled in February of 2022, a great many fled the country or moved to western Ukraine. But even now, in these grim days of below-freezing mornings, spotty electricity, and iffy water in their homes, 500 students show up every day to a school with unreliable electricity, barely any heat, and a lunchroom that can’t function. The internet is, for the most part, dead, and the halls almost impassibly dark.
What little electricity the school has is funneled to the lobby, where a few power banks have been set up so residents in nearby apartment houses can come and charge their phones. They sit there bundled in overcoats, waiting to reconnect with family, with the world.
A few years ago, Yurii insisted on preparing the school in case visually impaired students wanted to attend, and over the course of a summer break, plastic stripping was added to the floors. The timing could not have been better. I follow Marina Pyasenets, one of Centropa’s most active English teachers, as she and two of her colleagues show me around the school. We rely entirely on those strips as we walk about the pitch-dark building.
Every student carries either a flashlight or a cell phone with a light in it—or, in some cases, they wear baseball caps with flashlights in their visors.
Ruslana Bernatsk, another teacher, explains that “kids adapt. And ours are used to this life now. Sure, we have sirens and everyone heads for our shelter. But no one runs. The kids don’t panic or cry out for mama. They just go. Sometimes we spend the entire day there.
“Every child is required to carry a bag we give them. It has in it a chocolate bar, a granola bar, some dried fruit, copies of their personal documents, a bottle of water, another of juice.”
Ruslana chuckles. “Actually, they eat the chocolates immediately. Later they nibble on the granola bars. Many don’t touch the dried fruit, and some just leave the bags at home. But sometimes they bring other snacks, and in between classes, they trade with each other.”
As if prompted, one student plops himself down on a windowsill in front of me and surveys his haul. He gives me a thumb’s up: It has been a good day.
Tetiana Ibrahimova, a third teacher, says, “I’ll tell you what’s different about our students today. They’re not aggressive, they don’t act out, so that’s a good thing. But they refuse to make plans. My daughter is 19 now, and when she was younger she would tell me all about where we should go on holiday, where we should go out to eat. Not today. Now she won’t even plan for tomorrow, and we haven’t gone anywhere since February. Actually, when the war first started in February, we got in our car for a few days and waited in a parking lot. Then we came home to the life we live now.”
Marina says, “Of course they worry. About their fathers, about their grandparents. All the time, they ask to be excused for a bathroom break, but I know they just go out in the hall and—what’s the term—doom scrolling, that’s what they do. Of course, how can they not?”
All 500 students gather in the auditorium to light the Hanukkah menorah for its third night. Afterward, a teacher asks the students if they have any last questions for me.
One hand shoots up. “Yes. Can you tell me, after we win this war, after our victory, how do you see Ukraine progressing?”
I tell them I can’t say for sure, but there seems to be genuine interest by most member states for Ukraine to join the European Union, and it is clear, at least to me, that Ukraine isn’t just fighting for itself, but for freedom for all of us. I tell them that the whole world is impressed with President Zelenskyy.
Smiles all around. I end by saying, “Thank you for having me. Slava Ukraini (glory to Ukraine)!” And 500 teenage voices roar back to me, totally assured, as proud as they are loud, “Heroyam slava (glory to the heroes)!”