Also on today’s menu:
Putin’s Perspective
The news that former Vice-President Mike Pence had confidential records in his possession after he left office and, like President Joe Biden Jr., willingly turned them over to authorities once they were discovered has added to the questions about the haphazard handling of classified documents by top executives. While the issue originally arose when former president Donald Trump refused to turn over classified documents, the Associated Press reports that the problem dates back to President Jimmy Carter, who found documents at his home after leaving office in 1981.
It was Carter who signed the Presidential Records Act in 1978, which took effect with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. Prior to that, presidential records were generally considered the private property of the president. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) said senators are required to retain classified materials in secure rooms at the Capitol, but “Executives go back and forth to their house with documents and read them. They read them at night, they bring them back.” The Classified Information Procedures Act stipulates how judges must handle material that comes before them, and another law deals with foreign intelligence investigations by a special court that operates in secrecy.
The material found in boxes at Pence’s home came mostly from his official residence at the Naval Observatory, collected by military aides, and from from a West Wing office drawer. The boxes were taped shut and were not believed to have been opened.
There has long been a sense that the government has been overly zealous in labeling material as classified when there is no reason to do so, and, as the handling of official documents comes under greater scrutiny, Congress may end up rewriting the rules to better define what should be classified and how such documents should be safeguarded.
Putin’s Perspective
Frontline has a new documentary, “Putin and the Presidents,” which follows the Russian president’s rise to power from his days in the KGB and his interactions with presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. It rightfully paints the Russian leader as a man without a conscience — what Biden described as “without a soul” — but also, almost inadvertently, explains why Putin views the West as he does.
When Ronald Reagan asked, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall,” it set in motion the fall of the Soviet Union. When George W. Bush used the terrorist attacks on 9/11 as an excuse to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and followed up with talk of spreading democracy to Georgia and Ukraine, encouraging them to join NATO, it demonstrated that no nation was safe from the United States’ aspirations when it served the West’s purposes. Putin was right to be concerned.
Unfortunately, Frontline interviewed no one for the Russian perspective except for a journalist who opposes Putin. Most of those interviewed were U.S. officials who were able to provide wonderful detail about our interactions with Russia and Putin’s gamesmanship, making the documentary come across as pro-USA propaganda.
This is not to say that Putin is justified in his “special military operation” in Ukraine that has clearly involved war crimes. He needs to pay for the atrocities he is responsible for. But the United States needs to acknowledge how its own focus on regime change has contributed to the current situation that has placed us on the verge of a third world war.
Café Chatter
On Ponzi Payout: The Governor of Florida is in step with Sununu. As many Republican governors believe that it’s ok to use funds designated for a purpose, and paid for by federal taxpayers, to be used as they want. That includes using funds for Covid relief to, for example, fly immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard to “make a point”. The bills you mentioned have little to do with making voting safer. Floridians voted to allow former non violent felons to be able to vote, by constitutional amendment. DeSantis then made it difficult for them to do so. People who wanted to vote had to pay all fines first. Poll tax anyone? That requirement was not in the constitutional amendment that we voted on. And, the state didn’t have anything set up for people to find out exactly what they might owe. Registration was encouraged to people who even said they didn’t know if they were eligible. Registrars said the state will tell you if you are eligible or not. The state sent them voting cards. So, they thought it was ok to vote. It wasn’t until two years later when police showed up at their door that they discovered they were not. Just two of many problems in our country today. I think it is a scary time.
— Candace Skurnik
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