Europe
Germany
Why Germany doesn't want to place sanctions on Russia, in two charts. Danny Vinik at the New Republic.
Poland
Poland convenes an emergency NATO meeting. "Although there has been no suggestion of Western military intervention, some of NATO’s Eastern European members have made clear that they take seriously the mutual-defense provisions of the alliance charter. A meeting of NATO’s North Atlantic Council was scheduled for Tuesday after Poland said it felt threatened by Moscow’s moves in the region. The meeting came under the same provision that led the alliance early last year to deploy Patriot missile batteries in response to a Turkish request for protection along the border with conflict-ridden Syria." Karen DeYoung at the Washington Post.
Russia
Russia's economy takes a hit in exchange for Crimea. "The markets are punishing Russia much more swiftly than the diplomats. A wide range of Russian assets … plunged in value today. To shore up the ruble, which is plumbing record depths, Russia’s central bank unexpectedly hiked interest rates today … The central bank has also been spending billions of dollars in currency markets to stem the fall in the value of the ruble. The two main Moscow stock markets … have fallen by more than 10% … in a broad-based selloff … Russia only recently vanquished double-digit inflation. An extended fall in the value of the ruble could push inflation back up, further denting the country’s economic prospects." Jason Karaian at Quartz.
No, Russia won't cut off energy supplies to Europe. "Russia would almost certainly lose more in an energy war with Europe than it would gain. Fundamentally, energy trade between Russia and Europe is a two-way street. As much as European policymakers fret about dependence on Russian gas, Gazprom frets about dependence on the European market, which accounts for fully three-quarters of its export sales. More broadly, Moscow relies on oil and gas exports for one half of its federal budget. That makes a prolonged shut off of gas exports to Ukraine and the rest of Europe a dangerous proposition for Russian President Vladimir Putin." Keith Johnson at Foreign Policy.
Ukraine
Russia isn't leaving Ukraine anytime soon. "Russia has vowed its troops will remain in Ukraine to protect Russian interests and citizens until the political situation has been 'normalized'. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was defending human rights against 'ultra-nationalist threats'. Russia is now in de facto military control of the Crimea region, despite Western condemnation of a 'violation of Ukraine's sovereignty'." BBC.
Russia and Ukraine: the military imbalance, with charts. The Guardian.
Ukraine would be vastly outgunned in a combat situation. "Ukraine is in trouble if Russia escalates its use of military force in Crimea. Ukraine's military has shrunk dramatically since 1991, when the Soviet Union fell to pieces and the Cold War ended. At that time, there were some 700,000 active-duty Ukrainian forces. The military there now numbers closer to 130,000 … Just as significantly, Ukraine has done little to upgrade their military equipment and weapons since then, leaving it a generation behind if facing the muscular Russian military." Dan Lamothe at the Complex.
Why Russia and Europe care about Ukraine. Will Englund at the Washington Post.
Stop treating Putin like a strategic genius. "From House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers: 'Putin is playing chess and I think we are playing marbles, and I don’t think it’s even close. They’ve been running circles around us.' This kind of knee-jerk reaction is unsurprising, but it's also nuts. Has Rogers even been following events in Ukraine lately? The reason Putin has sent troops into Crimea is because everything he's done over the past year has blown up in his face. This was a last-ditch effort to avoid a fool's mate, not some deeply-calculated bit of geopolitical strategy." Kevin Drum at Mother Jones.
Russia might be gearing up for cyberattacks on Ukraine. "The Russian forces occupying Crimea are jamming cell phones and severing Internet connections between the peninsula and the rest of Ukraine … The attacks could be sign that Russia is looking to escalate its military operations against the new government in Kiev … Experts are concerned that the strikes could be a precursor to damaging Russian cyber attacks on communications infrastructure elsewhere in Ukraine, particularly if tensions escalate or Russian military forces push beyond Crimea." Shane Harris at Foreign Policy.
Russian nationalism and the Crimean crisis. Paul Goode at the Monkey Cage.
Art, history, and collective identity. "The vandalism and destruction of Lenin statues across Ukraine is only the latest attack on symbols of the old Soviet state and its Eastern European satellites … Collective memory and the desire for a particular ... identity are often bound up in historical sites and objects of commemoration and the way in which they are preserved or destroyed … History is filled with examples of manipulated images and defaced symbols of power … But the destruction or removal of symbols as a means of national reconciliation, building consensus, or cultivating a new collective memory is rarely successful." Justinian A. Jampol at the New York Times.
Politics
California
Water witches. "With California in the grips of drought, farmers throughout the state are using a mysterious and some say foolhardy tool for locating underground water: dowsers, or water witches. Practitioners of dowsing use rudimentary tools - usually copper sticks or wooden 'divining rods' that resemble large wishbones - and what they describe as a natural energy to find water or minerals hidden deep underground. While both state and federal water scientists disapprove of dowsing, California 'witcheries' are busy as farmers seek to drill more groundwater wells due to the state's record drought that persists despite recent rain." Jason Dearen at the Associated Press.
DOD
So much headdesk. How does this keep happening? "The former head of a Marine Corps legal team tasked with prosecuting sex assault cases will face an administrative hearing in March, accused of touching a female subordinate inappropriately." Marine Corps Times.
The Economy
Q4 growth was lower than expected, but things should improve. "Real GDP growth ... was marked down from an annualized growth rate of 3.2% to 2.4%, as per revisions reported today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis ... Growth towards the end of the year was notably slower than that of the third quarter, which clocked in at 4.1% … The markdown was the result of downward revisions to inventories, consumer spending, exports … and state and local spending … All told, average growth in 2013, including today’s revision, was around 2%. This year, the expectation is we’ll hit something closer to 3%, due in no small part to diminished fiscal drag from the 'do-less-harm' Congress." Jared Bernstein at On the Economy.
Elections
Does the GOP have a competitive 2016 candidate? "We currently have 11 Republicans ... as probable or possible presidential contenders. The Republicans ... have plenty of wannabes but no obvious general election winner … No one on the present list seems able to convincingly combat the growing demographic edge that produces a Democratic lead in the Electoral College … If the general election turns out to be closely competitive … who among the Republicans can redraw an Electoral College map that’s strongly in the Democrats’ favor? Many Republicans privately worry that there isn’t anybody." Larry J. Sabato at Politico.
And what happens to the Dems if Hillary doesn't run? "If Hillary Clinton doesn't run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 ... the party could have a nervous breakdown. On the national level, the Democratic bench is weaker, or more overshadowed, than at any time in the past several decades. There are several reasons. The election disaster in 2010 wiped out many possibilities, especially at the gubernatorial level. More important, with two heavyweight camps -- President Barack Obama and the Clintons -- there is no political oxygen for anyone else." Albert R. Hunt at Bloomberg.
Remember, elections are not like March Madness. "It’s nothing like March Madness, in which if a 16 seed beats a 1, that’s the end of the story. Santorum can win Iowa 2012, but it doesn’t knock out Mitt Romney. George H.W. Bush can finish third in Iowa 1988, but still win the nomination pretty easily: It didn’t become a contest between winner Bob Dole and second-place finisher Pat Robertson. Forget bracketology." Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg.
On overuse of the term 'frontrunner.' "As things are, we deploy the word 'frontrunner' way too readily, using it to describe everybody from candidates who are clearly dominating a race, to candidates who have snagged a slight lead over a pack of contenders, to ... candidates who aren't even candidates … we really need a different term to distinguish the true, dominant, likely-to-win frontrunner from a candidate that enjoys an early lead that’s quite possibly temporary." Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post.
Fiscal Fights
Dueling visions of government are evident in competing budgets. "Ryan and Obama do not disagree totally ... But for the most part, Obama's and Ryan's contrasting visions of government reflect profoundly different understandings of the success or failure of federal programs over the past 50 years. Ryan, for instance, argues that the war on poverty has failed … That difference of opinion colors many of Ryan's critiques ... Ryan singles out Head Start … and Medicaid … as particularly flawed. In his budget, Obama will propose increasing funding for Head Start, and expanding Medicaid coverage in every state under the Affordable Care Act remains a top piece of his agenda." Zachary Goldfarb at Wonkblog.
In favor of 'Life Cycle' insurance. "The larger problem is a disconnect ... Those who lose their jobs need not only unemployment insurance ... but also a chance to train for new work … Conservatives ... have suggested relocation subsidies so people could move to more promising labor markets. Many parents need paid leave time for a newborn or for family emergencies. Isn’t it time to consider a comprehensive Life Cycle Insurance program that wraps these benefits, and perhaps others like them, together? … We need to remember the American tradition of using government to empower people and reduce their level of economic insecurity." E.J. Dionne Jr. at the Washington Post.
Ukraine fuels GOP fights on defense spending. "The deepening East-West standoff over Ukraine is triggering a shift in political pressures in Washington and adding fuel to a debate over U.S. military spending cuts … Lawmakers ... demanded more funding for missile defense programs across Europe and for strengthening Georgia and Moldova … But the GOP ... has been splitting between traditional defense hawks and a rising wing of conservatives who are skeptical of … overseas adventurism." … The Ukraine crisis comes just as Mr. Obama ... planned to unveil a budget plan that calls for cutting the size of the U.S. Army and for other reductions to address congressionally mandated cuts." Dion Nussenbaum and Julian E. Barnes at the Wall Street Journal.
But - let's be honest - this fight was already in the making. "It's hawk vs. hawk when it comes to the new defense budget cuts. Defense hawks are decrying reductions in Pentagon spending, but their budget hawk brethren see more fat to be trimmed. Both sides are gearing themselves up for a prolonged fight over the size and shape of the military as the war in Afghanistan winds down and more sequester cuts loom. The intra-party fight among Republican factions will play out in the coming months as lawmakers decide whether to try to boost the Pentagon’s budget this year. They also must decide whether to roll back additional automatic cuts known as the sequester that are planned in 2016." Jeremy Herb at the Hill.
Foreign Policy
Why Putin must be stopped. "The international community should ... condemn Russian actions ... because Mr. Putin’s reserving the right to protect the 'Russian-speaking population' of Ukraine is an affront to ... international order. Not even ... ultranationalists who Mr. Putin claims now control the Ukrainian government have tried to export their uprising to Ukrainian speakers ... It is Mr. Putin who has made ethnic nationalism a defining element of foreign policy … The future of Ukraine is ... about how to preserve a vision of ... the world — where countries give up the idea that people who speak a language we understand are the only ones worth protecting." Charles King at the New York Times.
Sanctions can deter further Russian expansionism. "The situation in Ukraine … does not look likely to become catastrophic … Putin ... hasn’t killed people … He wants to protect his military bases in Crimea, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet ... is based … He wants … to protect fellow ethnic Russians and Russian speakers … I doubt very much that he is seeking to forcibly annex part of Ukraine ... We have a pretty strong set of potential economic sanctions and Putin knows it. The West has gotten a lot better at applying sanctions … These kinds of tools would be applied. They’d be effective and Putin knows it." Michael O'Hanlon at Reuters.
In fact, the White House is floating sanctions as one possible response. "In response to Russia's surprise takeover of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, the Obama administration ... floated an array of punitive measures aimed at isolating Moscow, including economic sanctions and visa bans … The initial warning to Moscow came from Kerry, who warned that Russia could face asset freezes on businesses and expulsion from the Group of 8 industrialized nations." John Hudson at the Cable.
The public wants Obama to stay out of Ukraine. "Few Americans want the United States getting involved in policing the political turmoil in Ukraine ... even though a plurality say they think Russia's military incursion into the country qualifies as an invasion. Americans are more likely than not to say that the United States has no responsibility to get involved in Ukraine even under extreme circumstances … Forty-six percent said the United States has no responsibility to protect Ukraine in the case of a Russian invasion ... Pluralities of Democrats, Republicans and independents agreed that the U.S. does not have a responsibility to protect Ukraine." Emily Swanson at the Huffington Post.
GOP
Obama, weakest tyrant ever? "President Obama is such a weak strongman. What’s more, he is a feeble dictator and a timid tyrant. That, at any rate, is Republicans’ critique of him. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Obama’s critics pivoted seamlessly from complaining about his overreach to fretting that he is being too cautious. Call it Operation Oxymoron … In theory, it is possible for Obama to rule domestic politics with an iron fist and yet play the 98-pound weakling in foreign affairs. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense ... A better explanation is Obama’s critics are so convinced that he is wrong about everything that they haven’t paused to consider the consistency of their accusations." Dana Milbank at the Washington Post.
Health
The ACA is good for households and the economy - who knew? "The Affordable Care Act ... is already boosting household income and spending. The Commerce Department reported Monday that consumer spending rose a better-than-expected 0.4% and personal incomes climbed 0.3% in January. The new health-care law accounted for a big chunk of the increase … The law’s expanded coverage boosted Medicaid benefits ... The ACA also offered several refundable tax credits ... Taken together, the Obamacare provisions are responsible for about three-quarters of January’s overall rise in Americans’ incomes." Jeffrey Sparshott at the Wall Street Journal.
Pro-vaccine campaigns are backfiring. "Public health messages aimed at boosting childhood vaccination rates may be backfiring … Current efforts that use scientific studies, vaccine facts and images and stories of disease-sickened kids actually increased fears about vaccine side effects … Even when they successfully refuted claims about ... autism, they made parents who were the most wary less inclined to inoculate their children. That's according to a study published ... in the journal Pediatrics, which raises questions about the effectiveness of well-funded public health vaccination campaigns and the difficulty of swaying vaccine views, particularly when they’re entrenched." Jonel Aleccia at NBC.
SCOTUSwatch
Religion should not be a shield against business regulations. "The Supreme Court could do real damage. Hobby Lobby wants to be relieved of regulatory controls because of religious views. Such relief will give it an unfair advantage in the marketplace, since Hobby Lobby would not have to provide health coverage that its competitors still must … Companies will experience a Road to Damascus conversion ... Companies will assert religious convictions inconsistent with whatever regulation they find obnoxious … Our public efforts to constrain business through regulation will be circumvented by assertions of religious belief." Kent Greenfield at the Boston Globe.
Hall v. Florida - the new death penalty case. "After twelve years of allowing the states to make up their own minds on how to define the mental defect that makes an individual convicted of murder ineligible for a death sentence, the Supreme Court is pondering whether to provide at least the beginnings of a constitutional definition. At issue in a Florida case is whether a state can constitutionally use a specific IQ score — seventy — as the basis for allowing execution of anyone whose intellectual capacity measures above that number." Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog.
As usual, Kennedy will probably be the swing vote. "At the heart of the issue is a tension between the power of a state and its supreme court to set a definition for intellectual disability and the role of clinical standards and norms determined by professionals in the mental health community … The line-up looks more like a divided Court with, as so often happens these days, Justice Kennedy casting the deciding vote. If Justice Kennedy remains with the Atkins majority, then Hall’s position may prevail, but if Justice Kennedy is persuaded either by deference to the states or an apparent absence of consensus among the states, then Florida seems more likely to prevail." Stephen Wermiel at SCOTUSblog.
IQ scores are a terrible standard for determining who a state may kill. "The problem with applying such a test to evaluations of intellectual disability is that the science of the mind cannot be reduced to a definitive mathematical equation. And, even if it could be, Florida's standard refuses to acknowledge any 'standard error of measurement' in testing IQ scores. The test score counts to the exclusion of all other evidence of retardation, no matter how compelling that evidence may be … Its lawmakers and judges won't even contemplate possible inaccuracies in its standard … States like Florida have ... embraced new ways to ensure that prisoners in borderline cases are executed anyway." Andrew Cohen at the Atlantic.
Texas
The false economic miracle. "Population growth fuels economic growth … As the population of Texas swelled by more than 24 percent from 2000 to 2013, so did the demand for just about everything ... And this, combined with huge new flows of oil and gas dollars, plus increased trade with Mexico, favored Texas with strong job creation numbers. But this model of economic development, which also combines a highly regressive tax system with minimal levels of public investment, has not allowed Texas to keep up with America’s best-performing states in per capita income or rates of upward mobility ... The real Texas miracle is that its current leaders get away with bragging about it." Phillip Longman at the Washington Monthly.
Voting Rights
War on Drugs
We might actually get sentencing reform. "Eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders … unites the nation’s first African-American attorney general, who sees his legacy in a renewed focus on civil rights, and some of Congress’s most prominent libertarians … It is this alliance that may make politically possible the most significant liberalization of sentencing laws since ... Nixon declared war on drugs." … For Mr. Holder, addressing sentencing laws is central to a second-term agenda … Libertarian-minded Republicans see long prison sentences as an ineffective and expensive way to address crime. 'This is the definition of how you get bipartisan agreement'." Matt Apuzzo at the New York Times.
Wisconsin
International
Global
The global banana threat: I'm quite serious. "Compared its 20th-century cousin, Tropical Race 4 is a pure killing machine … Tropical Race 4 is capable of killing at least 80% … of the 145 million tonnes (160 million tons) of bananas and plantains produced each year … Bananas are the fourth-most valuable global crop … Nearly nine-tenths of the world’s bananas are eaten in poor countries, where at least 400 million people rely on them for 15-27% of their daily calories. And that’s the really scary part. Since the first Panama disease outbreak, bananas have evolved ... into vital sustenance. And this time there’s no back-up banana variety to feed the world with instead." Gwynn Guilford at Quartz.
How international organizations have responded to Ukraine. Hayes Brown at Think Progress.
The 7 most memorable moments of the UN Security Council Meeting on Ukraine. Miriam Berger at Buzzfeed.
How the world sees Vladimir Putin, in 15 photos. Annie-Rose Strasser at Think Progress.
Africa
On wildlife poaching. "We know that elephants and rhinos are being killed at unprecedented rates … Demand for ivory and horn is increasing rapidly in Asia … Poachers increasingly have sophisticated weaponry and equipment, a likely indication of the involvement of politically connected individuals … Rebel and terrorist groups often fund themselves from the trade … Ivory and horn has been seized at ports ... with increasing frequency … Wildlife crime is a U.S. $10 billion a year trade, its existence and prevalence undermines government authority and institutions, its survival threatens valuable national assets and revenue opportunities for countries that desperately need them." Emily Mellgard at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Asia
India's poverty rates are improving. "As India gears up for its general election next month, it has some cause to celebrate: extreme poverty is finally in retreat. In 2012 – two decades after the government launched a series of economic reforms aimed at opening up the economy – the official poverty rate had reached 22%, less than half the rate in 1994." Subir Gokarn and Anu Madgavkar at Project Syndicate.
Ethnic violence in Myanmar is increasing. "The government has continued to deny that this massive attack, supposedly led by a Buddhist mob that included local security forces, took place, but the United Nations’ investigation of the massacre appears to be pretty damning ... The killings ... resulted in the deaths of 'at least 40 men, women and children, one of the worst instances of violence against the country’s long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims.' The killings allegedly included beheadings, including beheadings of Rohingya children … The intensity of violence against Rohingya (and non-Rohingya Muslims) in Myanmar has not abated since it began three years ago." Joshua Kurlantzick at the Council on Foreign Relations.
More North Korean missile tests. "North Korea on Monday launched two short-range missiles into the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, South Korean defense authorities said. A defense ministry official in Seoul confirmed the firings occurred ... at its missile launch site in the southeastern region of Kittaeryong. These are the second firing of missiles in a few days … Analysts and officials in Seoul see the firings as a protest at ongoing South Korean-U.S. joint military exercises." Kwanwoo Jun at the Wall Street Journal.
Middle East
Afghanis are optimistic about their country's future. "There are larger positive trends emerging in Afghanistan that bode well for Western interests … Some three-quarters of Afghans trust the Afghan National Army (ANA) and ... the police (ANP) … 80 percent of Afghans reported that the government is in control of their areas of the country … The Taliban generate little support, with only 7 percent of respondents wanting to see them back in power … Afghans have seen their standard of living improve over the last 10 years, particularly in areas of education, healthcare, infrastructure, and access to goods." Derek Harvey and David Jacobson at Foreign Policy.
South America
Venezuelan protests continue, but probably won't succeed. "While many Venezuelans went to the beach to enjoy the Carnival holiday, thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched in the capital on Sunday, trying to keep up the momentum from weeks of protests demanding President Nicolas Maduro resign. There are no signs that Maduro, who says the protests are part of a U.S.-backed coup plot, could be ousted in a Ukraine-style overthrow despite widespread discontent with soaring inflation and chronic product shortages." Girish Gupta at Reuters.
Science
Virus resurrection. "A 30,000-year-old giant virus has been revived from the frozen Siberian tundra, sparking concern that increased mining and oil drilling in rapidly warming northern latitudes could disturb dormant microbial life that could one day prove harmful to man. The latest find, described online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appears to belong to a new family of mega-viruses that infect only amoeba. But its revival in a laboratory stands as 'a proof of principle that we could eventually resurrect active infectious viruses from different periods,' said the study’s lead author, microbiologist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University in France." Geoffrey Mohan at the LA Times.
The science of cheese. Michael H. Tunick at Wired.
A new state of matter? "Never before seen in biology, a state of matter called 'disordered hyperuniformity' has been discovered in the eye of a chicken. This arrangement of particles appears disorganized over small distances but has a hidden order that allows material to behave like both a crystal and a liquid. The discovery came as researchers were studying cones, tiny light-sensitive cells that allow for the perception of color, in the eyes of chickens." Megan Gannon at Live Science.
