Easter is completely meaningless at the Biden White House

 The administration has blasted away at America's foundation with a double whammy.

Egg designers are to stay away from the actual reason why Easter is celebrated:

Children of the National Guard are prohibited from submitting religious Easter egg designs for the 2024 “Celebrating National Guard Families” art event at the White House. 

The art contest is part of the White House’s Easter traditions, which include the annual Easter Egg Roll.

The flyer for the contest states that an Easter egg design submission “must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements.” 

And get this:

Children are asked to design eggs with images based on their own lives.

Yes, indeed, nothing more important than what these toddlers have so far experienced in their not-much-more-than-blank-slate lives. Maybe they get extra points for designs that express their feelings about those lives. Never mind the risen Lord and the life available when we take up our cross and follow Him.

And since March 31 is the day when, since 2009, the federal government has made people with delusions about what sex they are feel comfortable in those delusions, the fact that it coincides with Easter this year ain't gonna stop this president from proceeding with proceedings:

President Biden this week declared Transgender Day of Visibility for March 31 — which this year is on Easter Sunday.

“I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., president of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility,” the Friday pronouncement read. 

“I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination against all transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people.”

 Devout Catholic, my ass.

This is obviously not going to be the only noting of this trampling on sound-doctrine faith out there. But much of the consternation is going to come from the drool-besotted yay-hoos who intend to vote for the candidate who hawks pieces of his suit, calendars depicting himself in various macho fantasy settings, golden athletic shoes and sixty-dollar Bibles, who tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the last election, who, in 1997, after being introduced to her by Ghislane Maxwell, spent several days with a 20-year-old model at Mar-a-Lago and then put her up in one of his New York apartments, and who, when asked in 2016 what Easter meant to him, couldn't come up with anything meatier than that the holiday means "family and get-together" in a "beautiful church."

I wanted documentation to exist that actual conservatives are disgusted with the Biden administration's stripping of Easter of all significance.

I realize it's a position that requires some fleshing out, but I still intend to stay home in November. 

 

 

The UN, as usual, displays its moral vacuity for the world to see

 The Security Council did this:

The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on Monday demanding an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas after the United States abstained from the vote, sparking a spat with its ally Israel.

The remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution - proposed by the 10 elected members of the body - that also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. There was applause in the council chamber after the vote.

"This resolution must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres posted on social media.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the failure of the U.S. to veto the resolution was a "clear retreat" from its previous position and would hurt Israel's war efforts and bid to release more than 130 hostages still held by Hamas.

Ah, the hostages. What's life like for an Israeli being held captive by Hamas?

Amit Soussana has become the first Israeli woman to speak publicly about enduring what she says was a sexual assault and other forms of violence during her 55 days in captivity following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, according to reporting by The New York Times on Tuesday.

Abducted from her home by at least 10 men, Soussana said she was subjected to a horrifying series of events that saw her beaten and dragged into Gaza. The details of Soussana’s captivity paint a grim picture of her suffering; from being locked alone and chained by her ankle to being forced into performing sexual acts under the threat of a gun, according to The New York Times.

Soussana, a lawyer, was released in late November of 2023 as part of an exchange of hostages in Gaza who were kidnapped during the Hamas attack for Palestinian prisoners.

“Amit Soussana’s courageous testimony detailing her horrific captivity is one of many harrowing accounts from hostages held by Hamas,” the Hostages Families Forum said in a statement.

It added, “Amit is a hero, as are all hostages enduring this living hell for 172 agonizing days. We must bring these brave women and men home before it is too late.”

Soussana’s eight hours of interviews with The New York Times shed light on the psychological and physical torment she said she experienced at the hands of her captors, offering extensive details of her ordeal across several locations in Gaza, including in private homes and a subterranean tunnel.

Several days into her captivity, she said, her guard began asking about her sex life.

Soussana said she was held alone in a child’s bedroom, chained by her left ankle. Sometimes, the guard would enter, sit beside her on the bed, lift her shirt and touch her, she told The New York Times.

Soussana added that the guard repeatedly asked when her period was due. When her period ended, around Oct. 18, she tried to put him off by pretending that she was bleeding for nearly a week.

Around October 24, the guard, who called himself Muhammad, attacked her, she said.

Early that morning, she said, Muhammad unlocked her chain and left her in the bathroom. After she undressed and began washing herself in the bathtub, Muhammad returned and stood in the doorway, holding a pistol.

“He came towards me and shoved the gun at my forehead,” Soussana recalled. After hitting Soussana and forcing her to remove her towel, “Muhammad groped her, sat her on the edge of the bathtub and hit her again,” The New York Times reported, citing Soussana.

Dr. Ayelet Levy Shachar, mother of 19-year-old hostage Naama Levy, who was captured on video being dragged by her hair from the back of a Jeep at gunpoint in Gaza, her sweatpants stained with blood said, “Amit’s horrifying testimony is more proof that our loved ones in Gaza endure physical, sexual, and psychological torture every single day. Each day there is like an eternity.”

She said what happened to Amit “is the same nightmare so many other hostages, women and men, are facing every day in captivity. Maybe even at this very moment. We are begging – their lives hang in the balance. Bring our daughters and all our loved ones back to us now – before it is too late”.

I repeat: The conflict in Gaza could end this afternoon if Hamas did two things: release the hostages and dismantle itself.

It's not going to do either, so Israel has to go into Rafah. And every Palestinian child who starves or gets bombed or shot is on Hamas. 

The last thing we need is any vomit-inducing moral preening from the UN, or moral cowardice from the Biden administration. 

It's clear what has to happen. And it will, "world opinion" be damned.  

 

 

 

Imposing tyranny on two policy fronts: the family and energy

 LITD readers are familiar with my explanation regarding why, while I can't vote for a Republican Party that has wholly given itself over to the MAGA cult, I also cannot vote for any candidate of the Democratic Party. It's the party of climate alarmism, militant identity politics, and wealth redistribution.

The third characteristic is the means by which it enacts policies motivated by the first two.

Today's Exhibit A is the Biden administration's plan to subsidize day care:

It’s an election year, and so the Biden administration is going all-in on an ill-considered, poorly targeted campaign of subsidizing child care.

Biden’s child care plan is expensive social engineering that would create shortages and reward special interests while providing no help to millions of parents. While we grant it will get glowing press and might sound good in a stump speech, there are no redeeming traits to this plan. None. It is wretched from top to bottom.

“Make no mistake,” Vice President Kamala Harris posted last week. “President Joe Biden and I intend to cap child care costs at $10 a day for the average family and make preschool free for all four-year-olds.”

It’s imprudent for the government to spend tens of billions of dollars a year on child care at a time of record deficits and high inflation. Any pro-family spending or tax breaks Congress sees fit to provide should go to slight expansions of the child tax credit (indexing it for inflation, at the very least).

Giving parents money or letting them keep more of their own is obviously superior family policy because it gives parents a choice. Some will spend their tax savings on day care. Others will use the cash cushion as a way to work less and thus spend more time with children. Still others will use the money to build a granny flat or hire a nanny.

But the Biden administration seems dominated by ideologues who think there is only one right choice for a couple: two full-time jobs and institutional day care.

Most parents, however, do not want this. American Compass found in a 2021 poll that 53% of married mothers prefer to have one stay-at-home parent at least until the youngest child is in kindergarten.

This truth will be lost on the governing and media elites. “Whereas lower-, working-, and middle-class adults are most likely to choose a full-time worker and a stay-at-home parent as their ideal,” American Compass reported, “upper-class adults prefer both parents to work full-time and to rely on paid childcare.”

In this way, Biden’s day care subsidies are like his student loan bailouts: Wealth transfers to his highly educated, high-income base in high-cost states.

What’s more, the $10-dollars-a-day child care plan simply will not work. Ten dollars a day is the same tagline used by the liberal government of Canada, where the day care industry is imploding.

Subsidizing demand is not the way to make a thing more available and affordable. If you simply subsidize demand for a thing, it gets more and more expensive: See American healthcare and higher education.

Then there is the ever-more aggressive government interference in the agreements which millions of free individuals, some of whom produce cars and some of whom buy them, enter into as to what kinds of vehicles are produced and consumed, all in the name of forcing play-like energy forms down our throats:

The Biden administration is expected this week to finalize highly anticipated regulations targeting gas-powered vehicle tailpipe emissions, considered the tip of the spear in its efforts to electrify the transportation sector.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is slated to issue the final rulemaking — which officials have boasted will incentivize greater adoption of electric vehicles (EV), but which opponents have criticized as a de facto mandate — as soon as Wednesday, industry sources told Fox News Digital. The regulations, a key part of President Biden's climate agenda, would ultimately force automakers to more rapidly expand electric options in their fleets beginning in a matter of years.

They are targeting specific percentages:

Overall, under the proposal, which EPA unveiled in April 2023 and will go into effect in 2027, the White House projected that 67% of new sedan, crossover, SUV and light truck purchases would be electric by 2032. In addition, up to 50% of bus and garbage truck, 35% of short-haul freight tractor and 25% of long-haul freight tractor purchases could also be electric by then.

The White House said the proposal, which represents the most aggressive proposal of its kind ever proposed, would "accelerate the clean vehicle transition" and reduce oil imports by 20 billion barrels. Biden and climate activists have taken aim at the transportation sector over its high emissions profile — it alone produces roughly 29% of America's greenhouse gas emissions, federal data shows.

So, no, I can't subscribe to the idea that, because I understand what a disaster a Trump victory would be,  I'm obligated to vote for the alternative.

I'm staying home in November. I don't want the eternal record book to show I had anything to do with either form of American ruination. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not moved by the binary-choice political argument - today's edition

 LTID readers who have been here any length of time know that I am unequivocally opposed to another Donald Trump presidency. I was opposed to the first one. I wrote in Evan McMullen when I voted in 2016, and Ben Sasse in 2020. Donald Trump had established himself as a solipsistic charlatan long before he descended the elevator in 2015. He has transformed the Republican Party into a cult and to a disgusting degree has defiled the worlds of conservative punditry and institutional Christianity.

But the Democratic Party is no alternative. It is too spiritually rotten for the nation to consider for governance.

Today's Exhibit A is the vice president's trip yesterday to Minnesota:

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday toured a health clinic that offers abortion services while she was in Minnesota, spotlighting growing restrictions on women's rights that Democrats believe will animate voters in November.

The visit, believed to be the first of a sitting president or vice president to such a clinic, comes as President Joe Biden highlights abortion rights as a key issue ahead of the November presidential election.

Harris arrived for a tour at Planned Parenthood's St. Paul Health Center-Vandalia facility as some two dozen anti-abortion protesters stood in the street outside holding signs that read, among other statements, "Abortion is not healthcare."

After completing a tour that was closed to the press, Harris said women in the country are undergoing "silent suffering" because of attacks on their health. The clinic in Minnesota's state capital provides a range of care, including birth control and preventive wellness services.

"Right now, in our country we are facing a very serious health crisis, and the crisis is affecting many, many people in our country," the vice president told reporters.

"I'm here at this healthcare clinic to uplift the work that is happening in Minnesota as an example of what true leadership looks like."

Democrats think personal freedoms could be a key issue for women, independents and other key voters after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade abortion rights in 2022. Harris has held more than 80 public meetings on the topic since then. 

This is not the occasion to revisit the entirety of what's happened to Western civilization since Rousseau and up through Shelly, Marx Freud, John Dewey, Hugh Hefner, Gloria Steneim et al. I've done so a few times at Precipice, and it's a subject of great importance. For our purposes here, let me say that what we've done over the last 400 years is jettison something key to human flourishing: acknowledgment of a transcendent order, of the fact that we are designed in certain ways and not others, that female human beings, like females of lower species, bear young. 

And I'm well aware of the very important debates going on within institutional Christianity regarding complimentarianism versus egalitarianism, which plays out in such ways as whether women can preach. I'm well aware of the boneheads such as John McArthur - he who infamously told Beth Moore to "go home" - and the damage they have done to the appeal of the Gospel to the unacquainted.

On a larger scope, I'm aware that there's no turning back regarding the leadership roles women have assumed in business and government. That ship has sailed, and civilization is the richer for it.

But the basic fact to which I allude two paragraphs above will not be disproved. The design of nature, and the fact of a designer who decreed it so, is impervious to the perverse trends by which we attempt to rebel.

To speak plainly, we can call a days-old embryo a pomegranate or a carburetor, but the fact remains that whatever term we use to deny his or her humanity, we each and all were one once.

Vice President Harris may couch her rebellion against the transcendent order in terms of women's health, or personal autonomy, but the Creator will not be mocked. 

Exhibit B is what Senator Chuck Schumer said yesterday:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the highest-ranking Jewish lawmaker, levied some of the harshest criticism yet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from a top U.S. official, calling on Israel to hold elections for a new government to deal with the threat of Hamas.

Why it matters: Democrats have felt increasing pressure from their left to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and be tougher on Israel, while also standing with a key ally.

• Schumer had largely stayed away from criticizing the Israeli government and Netanyahu in recent months.
• His remarks come as President Biden and other Democrats are wary of alienating progressive voters who are concerned about Israel's attacks that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.

Driving the news: Schumer said in prepared remarks that new elections are the "only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel."

• Schumer criticized Netanyahu for aligning himself with far-right extremists in the Israeli government, saying he has turned away from a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. Biden supports such a plan.
• "Nobody expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the things that must be done to break the cycle of violence, preserve Israel's credibility on the world stage, and work toward a two-state solution," Schumer said.

The big picture: Schumer said the four obstacles to a two-state solution are Hamas, far-right extremists in the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and Netanyahu.

The other side: Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog fired back, "Israel is a sovereign democracy. It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at war against the genocidal terror organization Hamas, to comment on the domestic political scene of a democratic ally.

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also rebuked Schumer for his remarks, labeling the Democrat's call for new Israeli elections as "unprecedented."
• "It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of a democratically elected leader of Israel," McConnell said.

To reiterate some basics, Israel is the only Western nation in a region hostile to Western values, it has had war waged against it multiple times since the 1947 founding of its modern iteration, the October 7 Hamas attack unified Israeli public opinion, and, yes, the Jews were selected by God to show the world how He wishes humankind generally to relate to him.

For Schumer to speak of a two-state solution before Israel has ended Hamas's existence, and as Hezbollah intensifies hostilities on the northern border, calls into question his understanding of the fundamental dynamics of the Mideast. 

A party whose most prominent leaders are so very much on the wrong side of the truth is no more qualified to steward the United States of America than the one slavishly devoted to the least dignified person to ever enter American politics.

I'm staying home in November.

You should, too. 

 

 

Biden, Pope Francis, and the rules-based international order

 The two hottest of the world's hot spots had the moral clarity with which they're fraught muddied by, respectively, the leader of the world's pre-eminent superpower and the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church.

After Biden announced, in his State of the Union address, the pier the US military will construct to get more aid into Gaza (which one would hope will work out better than the air drop, two parachutes of which didn't open, killing several Gazan on the ground, but, based on experience, is likely to be pilfered by Hamas, and may put US troops in harm's way), he was caught on a hot mic telling Colorado Senator Michael Bennet that he was going to tell Netanyahu "You and I are going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting."

Netanyahu has responded:

When asked on Sunday whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah, Netanyahu replied: "We'll go there. We're not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again." The PM was referring to the murderous Hamas raid that killed more than 1,160 people in Israel and triggered the war. 

Without naming them, Netanyahu claimed he had the tacit support of several Arab leaders for driving ahead with the onslaught against Hamas.

“They understand that, and even agree with it quietly,” he said in an interview with Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company. “They understand Hamas is part of the Iranian terror axis.”

And he again reiterates Israel's position on an idea whose time has definitely not arrived:

Israel's prime minister also doubled down on his rejection of the possibility of a Palestinian state — a topic that pits Israel against most of the rest of the world.

“The positions that I espouse are supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis who say to you after October 7: 'We don't want to see a Palestinian state,'” he said. 

Netanyahu also directly addressed criticism from Biden, who has said the Israeli leader is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.” 

Netanyahu hit back, saying while he didn’t know “exactly what the president meant,” if Biden was saying he was contravening the wishes or interests of Israel, he was “wrong on both counts.”

“[The Israeli people] also support my position that says that we should resoundingly reject the attempt to ram down our throats a Palestinian state. That is something that they agree on,” Netanyahu said.

When asked about the European view that there cannot be peace without a two-state solution, Netanyahu replied: "Yeah, they would say it. But they don't understand that the reason we don't have peace is not because the Palestinians don't have a state. It's because the Jews have a state. And in fact, the Palestinians have not brought themselves to recognize and accept the Jewish state."

Then there is the response of Ukraine and its allies to Pope Francis's blurting, which echoes both the Kissingerian Realpolitik camp as well as unhinged yay-hoos like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene - namely, that Ukraine needs to give up the idea of having its post-1991 borders restored: 

Ukrainian and allied officials Sunday criticized Pope Francis for saying that Kyiv should have the “courage” to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, a statement many interpreted as a call for Ukraine to surrender. 

The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland, a vocal ally of Kyiv, condemned the pope’s remarks. And a leader of one of Ukraine’s Christian churches on Sunday said that only the country’s determined resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion, launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24, 2022, had prevented a mass slaughter of civilians.

In an interview recorded last month with Swiss broadcaster RSI and partially released on Saturday, Francis used the phrase “the courage of the white flag” as he argued that Ukraine, facing a possible defeat, should be open to peace talks brokered by international powers.

“Our flag is blue and yellow. We live, die and win under it. We will not raise other flags,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted on Sunday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted: “How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations.”

In his tweet, Kuleba urged the Holy See to “not repeat historical mistakes” as he alleged that the Vatican didn’t do enough to resist Nazi Germany. Yet he also invited Francis to Ukraine, saying the pope’s visit would show support for the “more than a million Ukrainian (Roman) Catholics, more than 5 million Greek Catholics, all Christians and all Ukrainians.” 

The head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said Sunday that surrender isn’t on the minds of Ukrainians.

“Ukraine is exhausted, but it stands and will endure. Believe me, it never crosses anyone’s mind to surrender. Even where there is fighting today: listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy,” Shevchuk said while meeting with Ukrainians in New York City. He mentioned the regions that have been under heavy Russian artillery and drone attacks.

These matters look a little different to the nations whose sovereignty is threatened than it does to those who can adopt a -just-stop-all-the-icky-killing stance from the distance of well-defended capitols.

 

 

 

 

A night on which everything that makes post-America "post" was on display

 I didn't watch the SOTU speech, but I've read a pretty comprehensive array of takes. It appears to have been "fiery" (a word that has shown up in several headlines), with some left-of-center partisans saying it dispels any notions that Biden is senile. 

From the LITD perspective (again, on what I've gleaned of the content by reading about it), it seems to have been a mixed bag.

He is - and perhaps the stopped-clock-being-right-twice-a-day framing has some applicability here - spot on about the stakes in Ukraine. In fact, his choosing the opportunity afforded by that topic to point out the quashing of a painstakingly hammered out bipartisan bill that would have provided Ukraine aid and Israel aid and Taiwan aid and border resources, with cameras panning to Senator Lankford - he whose noble efforts in crafting it fell short - was a moment of moral clarity.

But his picking on Israel and this business about a port for aid to get into Gaza - aid that will be surely be pilfered by the enemy Israel must obliterate - was definitely not such a moment.

He unsurprisingly displayed the ignorance of basic economics common to pretty much everyone left of center by saying corporations and "the rich" needs be taxed more.

And of course, in driving home his theme of freedom, he had to include this "right" he sees for people to exterminate fetal Americans. 

I have no problem with his going after Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. The Very Stable Genius and the party he now completely dominates are at least as spiritually rotten as the Democrats, so it stand to reason that Biden is going to point out that rottenness.

The general consensus, even among Republicans, is that Katie Britt's Republican response was just plain goofy. As observers are saying, it's ripe for a parody skit on Saturday Night Live.

Then there was the array of costumes, buttons and all such regalia that yay-hoos of various stripes decided to come attired in. Hecklers. Walkers-out. Marjorie Taylor-Greene. 

And note must be taken of the re-routing of the motorcade from a straight shot up Pennsylvania Avenue because pro-jihad protestors felt self-righteous preening was a higher priority than public order.

A little something for everybody on a March Thursday night as we stare over the precipice into the abyss where the echoes of Western civilization's architects fade into silence.

The misery in Gaza could end in the next day

 So US Vice President Kamala Harris is doing what she does best - indulging in self-congratulatory moral preening - with a call for a 6-week ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and also chastising Israel for not doing enough to get aid into southern Gaza for good measure. 

Here's the hangup, Madame Veep: Hamas won't specify release numbers - either of the Israeli hostages it's holding captive or the number of its terrorists it wants released from Israeli prisons:

Israeli officials said on Sunday that Hamas responded to the proposal agreed with mediating countries in Paris last week, but still refuses to provide the names of Israeli hostages who are still alive and state how many Palestinian prisoners they demand would be released from Israeli prison, for each hostage freed.

"There is no Israeli delegation in Cairo," the officials said in reaction to Arab and American media reports that a delegation was making its way from Israel. "Hamas refuses to provide clear answers and therefore there is no reason to dispatch the Israeli delegation to the talks in Cairo," they said adding that position was agreed to by all relevant professional teams and was not exclusively the position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Oh, and Hamas is insisting one one other little thing, which really makes the brokered talks for a ceasefire a non-starter:

A Hamas official said that the terror group has not backed down from its demand that a hostage release deal would include an end to the war. According to a report in the Qatari newspaper Al-Araby al Jadeed, Hamas rejects Israel's demand for names unless there is an agreement on the full withdrawal of IDF forces from Gaza.

No, that's the mirror opposite of what needs to happen.

Our hearts understandably go out when we see Gazan hospitals trying to treat injured and malnourished children with inadequate resources, but what doesn't get nearly enough mention is that Hamas has extensive tunnels underneath those hospitals as well as putting its jihadists working as UNRWA staff in schools, mosques and churches.

No, there could be not just a ceasefire, but an end to this entire conflict if Hamas would do two things: release all Israeli hostages and dismantle itself.

Only those without a functioning moral compass would deny this, a position that is pregnant with the implication that Hamas has some kind of valid point. 

It doesn't. It wants the state of Israel obliterated and Jews killed.

So here we are. 

 

 

It's very late in the day for Ukraine

 If you haven't seen it yet, I'd like to steer your attention to a Washington Post story this morning profiling seven Ukrainian men, most of them in their early 20s, and who had decidedly non-combat lives before their country was invaded, who were among the last to try to defend Avdiivka before it fell. Each profile is accompanied by a portrait-style photograph. Stare deeply into their faces, their eyes. These guys have seen things that have forever transformed them.

Here's a taste of a. couple of their stories:

Major had just arrived in Avdiivka in the second week of February and set up in an old, two-story student dorm when waves of Russian troops began crashing against his unit’s position. 

Eventually, a group of well-trained Russian soldiers hit them with a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and were soon fighting their way through the building. 

Russian troops backed Major into the corner of a room and screamed at him to surrender. He played along and begged them not to shoot as he frantically looked for a way out. 

Other Ukrainian troops came to his rescue with an assault of their own and in the ensuing chaos, he scrambled out of a second-floor window to safety. 

By the time his unit retreated, he was in charge. So many soldiers had been wounded that there was “nobody more senior left,” the 21-year-old said. 

His unit was then assigned to a tree line along the evacuation routes — one of the last lines of defense — to cover the troops pulling out. Soon the Russians were “raining down very targeted artillery fire on us,” he said. 

If there were more troops, artillery and air cover, Ukrainian forces could have held on to the position, he said, adding, “We just needed something to fight with.” 

When his group finally left the city entirely, he watched the convoy in front of him erupt into fire as artillery took them out. “It was just a convoy of people. A convoy of the best men ever. And in front of our eyes, this convoy was destroyed by artillery. People of my age, between 20 and 30.” 

“This was the road of death,” he said, “the very last one out of Avdiivka.”

And 

Shved, a marksman, was constantly moving between positions in Avdiivka, shooting so many Russian troops he said he “lost count after 10.” 

Setting up in abandoned civilian homes, he had to get creative to find firing positions. At one point, he said, he perched on top of a wardrobe to get a better shot. “I learned everything I needed to know about unstable positions in Avdiivka,” he said. 

The skill levels of Russian troops were not “really consistent,” he said. There were some with little more than uniforms and basic rifles while others had more advanced equipment. He had several close calls and after three concussions, his commander consulted a medic and suggested it might be time to leave. 

By then, he said, it felt like “someone put a pan over my head, hit me with a baseball bat, and then punched and kicked me.” 

He agreed to evacuate, but while being driven out with three other wounded men, a drone hit their vehicle, damaging it and giving him his fourth concussion. They all survived. 

Now, I'd like to steer you to a piece Gary Kasparov posted on Facebook about the current situation:

Russia is currently deploying six times the number of shells that Ukraine is, helping to propel it to victories like the recent recapturing of the eastern city of Avdiivka. And, shortly after the opening of the conference, attendees received news of the devastating murder of Aleksei Navalny, the most prominent opposition leader remaining in Putin’s Russia. The energetic mood of last year’s conference gave way, this time, to weariness and resignation.

To see such a concentration of power, money, and influence in one place, and yet no political will, was truly shocking to me. The subtext of what I heard can be summed up as follows: “We understand that the reason Ukraine is struggling in its fight to maintain its independence is because the West is failing to provide it adequate support. But, we are not willing to undertake any risks, to make any uncomfortable sacrifices, in our effort to help. Ukraine is our dear friend, of course, and our GDP is twenty-five times greater*, but, unfortunately—there isn’t anything else we can do.”

Even promises already made are not being kept. Days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to supply $1 billion in arms; two years later, his government is still negotiating with major arms manufacturer Rheinmetall over a multiyear contract that would allow the company to increase its manufacturing capacity.

The vacuum looming in these European deliberations is the lack of resolve on the part of the Untied States. The dynamic does not favor decisive action:

[Nikki Haley] likes to say “the world is on fire,” with conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and brewing problems elsewhere. She advocates more military aid for Ukraine and argues against Trump’s “America First” worldview. Her argument, shared by others, is that a retreat by the United States from a leadership role in the world leaves both this country and the world at large less safe in the face of threats from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. 

She harks back to a different Republican Party, a party that has been in retreat since Trump first ran for president. She wins votes — 20 percent or 30 percent or even 40 percent in states where she has competed — but she is not winning the argument. 

If the next round of primaries goes as expected, with Trump triumphant, Haley will face more calls to withdraw. She has been defiant in resisting those calls to date, marching to the beat of her own drum. But to what end? For there is little to suggest that she can now or in the near future arrest the inward turn within her party.

And, while much can transpire over the next several months, the current dynamic between the parties suggests that this inward turn has the momentum. 

Encouraging developments are hard to come by, but this one is worth noting:

A pro-Ukraine House Republican is preparing an effort to go around House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to get aid to Ukraine passed.

Why it matters: It's a rare break with House GOP leadership, which has resisted holding a Ukraine aid vote due to strong opposition from the right.

• "We have to get something done," said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, who is leading the push. 
• "It's existential, it's time sensitive. Whether that's our product or somebody else's, we've just got to get the money out the door to them," he said.

What's happening: Fitzpatrick told reporters he is preparing what is known as a discharge petition, which can force a House vote if it gets 218 signatures.

• Such a petition would therefore require support from a handful of Republicans, assuming it gets signatures from most House Democrats.
• The maneuver also requires a certain amount of time – 30 days in which the House is in session – before it can be forced to the floor.

What he's saying: Fitzpatrick said the petition will be ready for signatures by early March and signaled he expects it to garner some Republican signatures.

• Asked about the depth of Republican support, he told reporters, "more than you think ... a lot of people who know it's the right thing to do."
• One House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Axios they will sign on "if [there's] no other progress."
• But Fitzpatrick also stressed that the discharge petition mainly serves to "apply a pressure point to get something done soon."

Fitzpatrick is doing his career no favors, but he understands that that's not the important thing here.

And Argentinian president Javier Milei continues to confound preconceived notions. He's initiating a rallying of the global south of a sort we ought to applaud: 

Argentina's President Javier Milei has announced his intention to convene a summit aimed at bolstering Latin American support for Ukraine, as revealed in a Financial Times interview on Feb. 28. 

This move marks a clear divergence from the more neutral stances of other regional leaders like Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Mexico's Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

So there are developments that, with encouragement, could reverse what looks increasingly inevitable. But it's going to require vigor and courage.