Sen. Lindsey Graham - Consistently Inconsistent

[Volkonski]

I suppose you might say that D Day was a failure to the extent that the none of the first day goals on the 5 beaches were completely achieved. However landings of thousands of troops with their equipment and supplies were made. The Germans didn't push the Allies back into the sea. The Germans would surrender less than a year later.

[Suranis]

I think he was trying to say that D Day was the resolution of a war that was a failure. Or something like that anyway.

[johnpcapitalist]

Not exactly what was said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lindsey-gr ... 6-09-2024/

They're sitting on 10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals in- in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. I don't want to give that money and those assets to Putin to share with China. If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of, that 10 to $12 trillion of critical mineral assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China. This is a very big deal how Ukraine ends. Let's help them win a war we can't afford to lose. Let's find a solution to this war. But they're sitting on a gold mine. To give Putin 10 or $12 trillion for critical minerals that he will share with China is ridiculous.

I've been following the Ukraine war extremely closely since the opening days to assess the implications for my employer, and I haven't previously heard a single word about major unexploited critical mineral deposits in UKR. This is a staggering amount -- nearly 100x the $160 billion GDP of the country, and it would put them in enviable position economically relative to the rest of the world. It may be true, but I'm a little suspicious of the timing.

The USGS 2019 global mining assessment shows Ukraine as a capable producer of a number of minerals and metals, but doesn't mention any of the usual critical minerals at all. Yeah, they produce 4% of the global supply of Titanium sponge, but most of what's used in aircraft comes (50% of global demand) from Japanese sponge mills that use Russian ore. For reasons I don't recall, sponge from most other sources isn't suitable for aerospace applications.

I've seen the "critical minerals" gambit being trotted out to bolster a political stance in the past. In particular, there was the unexpected discovery of $1 trillion of critical materials in Afghanistan, just as we're getting set to leave the country. The timing was suspicious because it was used by some to a) justify not leaving and b) stoke fear of China getting their hands on it (Afghanistan shares a very small border with China via the nearly deserted Wakhan Corridor, which China is talking about putting a railroad in).

It sure sounds like Lindsey is trotting this argument out to get the GOP to go along with more aid to Ukraine -- "if we keep sending them weapons, they'll pay us back by sending us all $12 trillion of that stuff and it will pay for itself." Unfortunately, when coming from a Republican, that's about as credible as "we'll build the wall and get Mexico to pay for it."

Note that I'm not suggesting that, if these critical mineral deposits exist, that Ukraine will sell them to Russia and China -- they're not going to do business with Russia ever, and they'll remember for a long time how China helped Russia. They want to join NATO and the EU because they don't want to be a kleptocracy like Russia. They'll negotiate a good deal for their resources. I'm merely suspicious of how Lindsey is harping on this surprising new discovery right at this moment.

[Foggy]

Thanks for making sense of this, JPC.

[Kendra]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... fd6b&ei=37

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, was confronted by CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday morning about the January 6, 2021, awards gala that is set to take place at former President Donald Trump's golf club next month.

On January 6, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's 2020 election victory following repeated claims from Trump that the election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud. There is no evidence to support such claims.

Nearly 1,500 people were charged over their alleged involvement in the riot as of August 15 and over 460 were sentenced to prison as of this past January. A gala organized by Stand in the Gap, a group formed to support "January 6th defendants and their families during their time in incarceration," is being held on September 5 at Trump's New Jersey golf resort in Bedminster. Trump is an invited guest speaker at the event, but his campaign said he will not be attending.

"Do you think it would be a mistake for [Trump] to go? And is it a mistake for this event to be taking place at Bedminster at all?" Tapper asked Graham, a Trump ally, on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday morning.

The GOP senator responded: "My view of January 6th, I was actually there, that the people who broke into the Capitol and assaulted police officers should go to jail. They committed a crime. There are people very upset about the outcome of the 2020 election. I get that."