“Two red lines remain,” the Associated Press reported on July 5, regarding the topic of Ukraine at this week’s North Atlantic Treaty organization summit: “No NATO membership until the war is over, and no NATO boots on the ground there.”

But, Politico reports as the summit opens, citing two anonymous sources, one a Ukrainian official, “NATO members are likely to declare that Ukraine’s path to membership in the alliance is ‘irreversible.'”

The reality:

Ukraine was, and is, never going to formally become a NATO member state.

Why is that never going to happen?

Because formal NATO membership requires unanimous consent from all of the current member states, because several NATO member states enjoy friendly relations with the Russian Federation, and because there’s no way at least one such member state wouldn’t exercise its veto for the purpose of maintaining and enhancing those friendly relations.

That being the case, why does NATO keep dangling the prospect of membership in front of Ukraine? And why do defenders of Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine continue to pretend that the prospect is real — just as Putin himself has from the beginning of the conflict?

As a bargaining chip, of course.

If peace talks ever begin in earnest, NATO negotiators get to offer a meaningless concession (withdrawing the non-existent prospect), and the Russian Federation’s negotiators get to pretend they got a meaningful concession (withdrawal of the non-existent prospect).

A key element of international negotiations is that all sides have to “get something.” Unconditional surrenders occur only when one side is militarily defeated and/or economically exhausted.

NATO’s likely “irreversible” statement is just NATO’s way of saying it’s not ready to negotiate yet. And if NATO isn’t ready to negotiate, neither is Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has essentially become a US/UK/EU/NATO puppet “president.”

Zelenskyy wants the “irreversible” statement because he fears the appearance of any daylight at all between him and his regime’s western backers. Any slight crack in the wall of western support for his regime would encourage Russian forces to stay their military course, and likely end with him in exile at best, and more probably dead.

As a non-interventionist, I’ve opposed US meddling in Ukraine for a decade — ever since the US-sponsored coup that culminated in the secessions of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk, and eventually in the 2022 Russian invasion.

The US and its allies worked hard to bring the current situation about, and — with the full cooperation of Vladimir Putin — succeeded.

If it was up to me, US aid to Zelenskyy’s regime would end today. Not because I support the Russian invasion, but because it’s simply not (and never was) any of “my” government’s business.

Of course, that aid WON’T end today, and after more than two years of stalemate, the war is far more likely to end in a negotiated settlement that leaves neither side completely happy than in either side collapsing.

The sooner Ukraine and its backers come to the table and start their horse-trading, the better for everyone involved.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“Who runs the country?”

I’ve been hearing variants of that question a lot over the last  few weeks, mainly in forms like “given Joe Biden’s age and apparent mental decline, can we trust him to run the country for another four years?”

For the last eight or nine years, I’ve also heard it a lot, in slightly different forms, about Donald Trump.

I visited Google Trends to find out if I’m just imagining increased frequency of that annoying question. Turns out my perception is correct: After a brief spike in 2004, the phrase “who runs the country” took a long vacation, only beginning to rise to prominence again a decade or so ago, and recently peaking at its highest point since 2015.

It’s a really dumb question … and a pet peeve of mine.

Donald Trump did not “run the country” from 2017 to 2021.

Nor has Joe Biden “run the country” since then.

Whoever wins this November’s presidential election will not “run the country” starting next January 20.

What are you doing today?

Whatever that might be, did you ask Joe Biden for permission to do it? Next January, will you start running your daily calendar by Joe Biden or Donald Trump for approval?

Almost certainly not.

The president is just one of more than 330 million Americans. He (or, someday, she) may be more powerful than most of us, But not so much more powerful that he “runs the country” in any meaningful sense.

At MOST, the president “runs” one of three branches of the federal government … and the federal government is not “the country.”

Economics isn’t everything, but it’s a useful thing. US Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services produced) in 2023 topped $27 trillion, of which the federal government spent $6.13 trillion. That’s a lot. It’s WAY too much. But it’s hardly “running the country.”

That $6.13 trillion was appropriated by Congress, not the president.

His only power over that is to sign or veto the appropriations bills (in the latter case, Congress can override him), then spend the money as Congress directs.

Increasingly “imperial” presidents since World War 2 have tried to get around such strictures with “executive orders.” Sometimes that works. Other times Congress or the courts say “nope.”

Outside the purely economic arena, the president gets to negotiate treaties (but the Senate must approve them) and act as commander in chief of the armed forces when they are “called into the service of the United States,” which should only happen when Congress has declared war (it hasn’t done so in 80 years).

The president doesn’t “run the country.” He only “runs the government” to a limited extent, if Congress and the courts allow it (they allow it far too much).

The country is “run” by those of us who produce that $27 trillion in goods and services every year … or don’t .. and who go about our business with or without a president’s permission.

We should stop fantasizing so much power into the hands of politicians. They’re just wasteful parasites. We’re the productive hosts.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both old men. We already knew that.

Neither’s brain can be honestly characterized as hitting on all the key cognitive cylinders. We already knew that.

They’re both compulsive liars. We already knew that.

Did listening to the two geezers argue about their golf handicaps in CNN’s June 27 “presidential debate” tell us anything we didn’t already know about them? Nah.

On the particular night in question, Biden came off as more dazed/confused and Trump as more fever-dreamy/hallucinatory but in any given week we can expect each of them to display characteristics of both mental status sets.

They’re both decrepit. They’re both deranged. They’re both demented. They’re both dishonest. Neither adds up (or seems to have ever previously added up) to much beyond the sum of those characteristics.

Even if  someone, anyone, could plausibly be “qualified” to “serve” as President of the United States, neither of these two would come close to making the list. If sanity, competence, and morals were the criteria, we’d be safer picking a random name from the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane’s patient roster than choosing between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how one looks at it, we don’t have to worry about “qualifications” — because it’s impossible for anyone to be “qualified.”

If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Abraham Lincoln: “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.”

In 2020, only about 47% of Americans voted for president of the United States.

About 90 million  weren’t allowed to vote. How can they have been said to have “consented” to be ruled by the winner?

Another 82 million chose not to vote. How can they be said to have “consented” to be ruled by the winner?

As for the 158.5 million Americans who DID vote, they hardly displayed unanimity. Can those who voted for Donald Trump, Jo Jorgensen, Howie Hawkins, et al. really be said to have “consented” to be ruled by Joe Biden?

Biden only knocked down 51.31% of votes actually cast … and because so many Americans chose not to vote or were forbidden to vote, fewer than one in four Americans could plausibly be said to have “consented” to his rule.

This time around, instead of arguing over which incompetent liar should rule us, let’s start thinking about how to do away with a system that allows anyone to rule us at all.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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