Ukraine's Getting Everything Too Late
Plus: The Right-Wing Lawsuit That’s Forced the Feds to Stop Talking to Social Media Firms
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GISELLE DONNELLY: Ukraine Gets the Weapons It Needs, But Always Too Late.
THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE’S ANNOUNCEMENT Friday that it would send “hundreds of thousands” of dual-purpose improved cluster munition (DPICM) artillery rounds to Ukraine illustrates everything that is wrong with the Biden administration’s policy regarding the war in Ukraine: It’s the right decision, but made far too late.
DPICM rounds, which include a mix of anti-personnel and anti-armor bomblets that are released over a broad area, will help to offset Russian artillery advantages over the Ukrainians.The original point of cluster munitions was to slow mass enemy attacks, first in Vietnam and then later against a prospective Red Army onslaught in the Cold War. They were employed to some effect against Iraqi trench lines in Desert Storm, becoming lionized as “Steel Rain,” and would be useful against the fortifications the Russians have constructed across southern Ukraine.
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ELLEN BORK: China’s Influence Operations in the U.S. Demand Closer Scrutiny.
PRESIDENT BIDEN IS SENDING HIS top cabinet officials to China, ostensibly to lessen tensions between Washington and Beijing. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing in June, and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen visited last week. But in trying to warm U.S.-China relations, the Biden administration is playing into Beijing’s hands by helping China’s “united front” agenda.
While the term “united front” implies to Americans a common cause in a shared enterprise, to officials of the Chinese Communist Party, the term refers to the Leninist tactic of exploiting and coopting non-party groups to achieve the party’s objectives.
KIM WEHLE: The Right-Wing Lawsuit That’s Forced the Feds to Stop Talking to Social Media Firms.
LAST WEEK, THE STATES OF MISSOURI AND LOUISIANA (along with a number of individual plaintiffs) secured a preliminary injunction prohibiting a host of federal agencies from communicating with “social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing” the “reduction of content containing protected free speech.” The ruling temporarily prohibits the government personnel—specifically naming several White House staffers, the CDC, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and a slew of other federal agencies, officials, and employees—from even speaking to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies about misinformation online.
This is a big legal deal.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.