Bipartisan Agreement on Hong Kong and Animal Cruelty

Finally, there are some issues that everyone in Congress can agree on, and President Trump is onboard as well. Aside from the significance of the specific pieces of legislation, the ability to come together on meritorious issues is noteworthy.

Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Republican, along with Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Florida Democrat, introduced legislation to make animal cruelty a federal crime. The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act (H.R. 724criminalizes certain acts of animal cruelty.) Just briefly before that, legislation was passed approving sanctions on China’s illegal repression of Hong Kong.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the animal cruelty bill. The Hong Kong measure passed the House by 417-1.

In 2010, Congress passed the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act, which made the creation and distribution of animal crushing videos illegal. However, the underlying acts of cruelty against animals were not included. The PACT Act closes this loophole by prohibiting certain cases of animal abuse.

Rep. Duetch stated “With President Trump signing the PACT Act, animal cruelty is no longer just unacceptable, it is now illegal. We can now finally say that animal abuse is a federal crime in the United States. Americans have long stood in support of animal welfare protections, and now our national laws reflect these values. This bipartisan achievement has been years in the making, and I am proud to have been a part of this great effort alongside Congressman Buchanan and so many advocates and passionate citizens who made this possible.”

China’s pattern of flagrant violation of human rights on an epic scale, and its habitual use of force and intimidation to steal resources from other nations, was unopposed by the Obama Administration. Similarly, the former President did nothing of significance to deter Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The results have been dire. Beijing has accelerated its terrible practices in the Indo-Pacific, and operates one hundred concentration camps on its soil. Putin has designs on recapturing the nations that gained their freedom following the fall of the Soviet Union.

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History has clearly taught that it is wise to put aggressors in their place early on, or face dramatic consequences down the road. The Hong Kong legislation is a start in doing just that.

While both of these measures passed on their own very worthy merits, the ability to put aside the partisan warfare that has characterized Washington on behalf of the national good has gained a small and tentative first step. It should be extended significantly further, and public opinion may just force that result.

According to recent polls, the most extreme example of excessive partisanship, the ongoing impeachment process, is unpopular. It’s a clear result of the almost total lack of solid evidence of any wrongdoing, and the inability of the House Democrats to even believably describe what crime was committed (they are almost comically reliant on “focus groups” to decide what to charge the President with.) The absurdity of the Democrats move is highlighted by the reality that the next election is less than a year away.

There are other issues that should transcend party politics. The need to address key issues, such as providing an adequate defense in a consistent manner, may be the most significant. The need to wrest government from bureaucrats and restore it to electeds is another.

The budgetary and legislative process has, for far too long, emphasized the needs of careerists over the good of the people. Urgent national requirements are held hostage to the schemes of those attempting to pork barrel their way to longevity in their jobs. The urge to embarrass and harass political opponents, no matter the collateral damage to the nation and citizenry, should be met with staunch disdain by the voters. Individuals of good conscience in government must come together to do this.

Photo: American Analysis of News & Media, Inc.

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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