Is the Biden regime creating a “Wag the Dog” scenario with Ukraine ?

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There is considerable talk in the media right now about Russia and Ukraine. Russia has moved troops close to the Ukrainian border. The Biden regime, which has no interest in the US southern border, has expressed alarming determination to stop a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why are they so interested in a corrupt country that has no strategic importance to us ? Certainly the Biden family has profited from Ukraine. Hunter Biden, who seems to be the family bagman, was paid $50,000 a month by the Ukraine Burisma gas company.

It was in April 2014 that Hunter became a board member for Burisma with at least $50,000 per month compensation, and $83,000 by some accounts.

The board appointment for someone who had no experience in the energy industry or in Ukraine came just months after Hunter was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserves after testing positive for cocaine.

Burisma’s board chairman, Alan Apter, said, “This is totally based on merit.” Apter added: “The company’s strategy is aimed at the strongest concentration of professional staff and the introduction of best corporate practices, and we’re delighted that Mr. Biden is joining us to help us achieve these goals.”

Recently, the president of Ukraine, in a phone call from Biden, is alleged to have told Biden to “calm down.” The transcript of the call has not been released.

Why the threats, including moving 8500 US troops to eastern Europe ? Back in the 1990s, there was a movie called “Wag the Dog.” The plot was “Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.” Is that what is going on now ?

Biden’s poll numbers keep going down.

At 33% approval last week. The 2022 election is coming in a few months and prospects for Democrats are poor. It is known in history that authoritarian governments, like this one, have been known to create war fever and even war to conceal weakness in domestic affairs.

Tucker Carlson had a show last night on this topic. He shows the left leaning TV shows all cheerleading the Biden threats. In fact, they are accusing Carlson of being pro-Russian. Sound familiar ?

I think, with the people around Biden, there is a real risk of major errors. These people belong in the Harvard faculty club, not the White House.

95 thoughts on “Is the Biden regime creating a “Wag the Dog” scenario with Ukraine ?”

  1. wheels within wheels, the guy who popularized the ‘wag the dog’ notion, was christopher hitchens, and he was listening to among other milt bearden, who was the afghan task force chief, and who apparently missed how dangerous his counterpart hamid gul was, at the time bearden was lobbying for Sudan, coincidence, shortly before this, the station chief in khartroum was one joseph cofer black, he had pushed for action against bin laden who was residing there, until 1996, when he returned to Afghanistan, he would rise up to counter terror chief, and later at large state department official, it’s in this capacity where were encountered the oligarchs, who would later found burisma, and years later, he ended up on the board of said outfit,

  2. If Brandon’s advisors think there’s going to be any sort of “rally round the flag” effect if anything happens in Ukraine, they’re delusional. The GOP base will be demanding instant impeachment. And the regime is so incompetent as well as utterly untrustworthy that most of us won’t believe anything they say, so they better hope that if Russia does anything (they won’t, I’m quite sure of that), it’s completely unambiguous and unmistakable.

  4. The President of Ukraine is pushing back, saying that Biden’s intemperate comments about the impending and inevitable war is aggravating the situation, overstating the risk, and tanking Ukraine’s economy by provoking panic. It certainly seems that some factions in Washington seem eager for a confrontation and US involvement.

    Some of it is doubtless delusional thinking that the US is capable of making feel-good gestures throughout the world’s trouble spots with no adverse consequences, some of it is an irrational loathing of Putin to a degree that failing to aggressively confront him damages their sense of self worth. The latter feeling is of a piece with the current Spotify dust-up between Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, who just have to emote and act however foolishly because the very existence of Joe Rogan’s guests cannot be tolerated. It seems our affairs of state are affected by similar lunacy.

    US involvement in Ukraine is a source of graft and gain for various and sundry elites, politicians and their families, shadowy NGOs and oligarch foundations, and the usual kickbacks and grift by defense and intelligence contractors. Not to mention the Maiden insurrection, which was good practice for interfering in other countries as well as our own internal power struggles. Laughable that the State Department, NGO, and intelligence godfathers assumed after Ukraine their next success would be overthrowing the Putin cleptocracy.

    Instead of fouling Putin’s nest they ensnared our own junta.

  6. “Rally around the flag”? Offer up our sons and daughters to defend the Biden clan’s corrupt income streams or serve as some kind of ghastly demonstration of something or other, after the debacle that has been the Biden mis-administration over the last year? Not just ‘no’ but “hell, no with bells on,” and if the potted plant in the Oval office and his advisers believe that engineering a war in Europe will distract us from their abysmal record in managing anything … well, whatever they are drinking, snorting or injecting is a more mid-boggling drug of choice than fentanyl.

  7. From one of the biggest IC mouthpieces of the Russiagate insanity:
    https://mobile.twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1487529292225523713
    Confirming Reuters : The US has seen indications that Russia has positioned supplies of blood near Ukraine’s borders, according to a senior US defense official. Ukraine denies. WH official says Ukraine is “downplaying” the threat.

    No one’s buying their garbage anymore, the GOP needs to grow a spine, any of them who don’t start screaming about this need to be purged utterly without mercy.

  8. The current regime may be in power, but it is not an American government. It’s motives for it’s actions, however, are not suspect. “Suspect” implies there is some doubt. We know that those currently in power and those who support them [both foreign and domestic] wish to destroy our country, our Constitution, and our people. The 8500 troops are there to be killed and convince Americans that there is a grounds for both war and domestic emergency suspension of the Constitution.

    bear in mind that duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather

    Subotai Bahadur

  9. “Wag the Dog” implies a conscious plan by someone who know what he is doing. The foolish situation Biden* has got himself into vis-a-vis Russia & Ukraine is more like blunder upon blunder.

    Blunder #1 — Ukrainian kleptocrats making loud public noises about arming up and threatening to invade Crimea, plus positioning forces at the border with Donbass, further plus failing to implement the Minsk Accords.

    Blunder #2 — Biden* lamentable crisis abandonment of Afghanistan, demonstrating lack of leadership and lack of competence.

    Blunder #3 — The degradation of the US Military, from Milley’s traitorous calls to his Chinese opposite number to appointing a trans-sexual admiral. This destroyed any fear that opponents might have had of the US.

    Blunder #4 — US refusal to even consider that Russia might have a valid concern about NATO aggressively expanding towards its borders.

    Blunder #5 — US bureaucracy’s failure to notice that Germany’s own blunders with “green” power had left Germany (and indirectly much of Europe) critically dependent on Russia to keep the lights on.

    So with winter coming on, Putin moved some forces around in Russia — and NATO effectively collapsed, from Germany refusing to back the US to even tiny Croatia saying count us out.

    Biden*’s handlers may desperately want to turn this succession of blunders into a “rally round the flag” moment — but Biden* has lost the confidence of the US people too. It won’t work!

  10. It will come down to what Putin does,duh. I’d be more interested if he was placing supplies of fuel and ammo with transport near the border and forming a unified command than where he puts his blood banks. Ukraine is a little smaller than Texas, any sort of real attack will take considerable logistics to get out of sight of the border. My personal opinion is that Russian capabilities have been grossly exaggerated.

    NATO seems committed to deploring any Russian incurious but nothing more. As far as our domestic politics are concerned, it’s hard to see Biden as anything except an impotent bystander. This wouldn’t seem to be a plus for him.

  11. It’s hard to add anything worthwhile to the above comments generally, but I’ll try.

    It’s possible that Putin does intend to start a war. I don’t think so, right now anyway, but I don’t rule it out. He is a genius at playing poor hands well, but can overplay too–leave aside President L.G. Brandon’s reaction, a reluctance to fight in Ukraine doesn’t mean that other countries in ‘the near-abroad’ aren’t recalibrating their own neighborly arrangements. And those may prove more realistic and durable for the future than fantasies of US/NATO battalions in the line.

    Russian wars sometimes change Russian regimes. 1905 triggered mass rebellion, and we all know what happened in 1917, when the Bolshies overthrew the liberals. The Polish fiasco after WWI and Finland in ’39-40 were brief and the latter a partial win, so not too threatening to the new regime, and 1941 might have gone differently had Hitler not been such a loon. Afghanistan of course–can’t win a war against those bozos? Really? Then what good are you?

    Nina Tumarkin’s “The Living and the Dead” is excellent on how the Reds created a victory cult out of the Great Patriotic War, and how badly it had begun to stink in the nostrils of Soviet youth by the mid-70s. In the 80s, Russian schoolkids on museum and battlefield trips flocked to the Nazi stuff . . .

    As for Deutschland, I’m old enough to remember when it was di rigueur to smirk and nod knowingly about The Fourth Reich hiding behind Adenauer and all his successors at least until La Merkel, if you wanted to be considered a political sophisticate. It’s a nice irony that after their 20th C crime sprees, gun-shy Germans are a ‘problem’ for Europe. Or us.

  12. The number one evidence that this isn’t some sort of wag the dog is that this group (Brandon & Co.) is so delusional they think they’re doing a good job. Why would they need a distraction that might dilute the universal acclaim they’re entitled to.

    Afghanistan, covid, inflation, supply chain, border security and now speed cameras.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10455557/The-speed-camera-nightmare-thats-coming-America.html

    Way to assure a Democrat majority for the next 50 years. What could they do next that’s even more unpopular? I’m sure they’ll figure out something.

  14. Michael,

    It isn’t a ‘wag the dog’ story.

    The Putin Regime’s build up is pointing to an attempt ar a full knock out blow/regime change invasion of the rest of Ukraine.

    See:

    Andy Scollick
    @Andy_Scollick
    https://twitter.com/Andy_Scollick/status/1487837388613337092
    Getting there: the ballpark figure used by military planners for full Russian force mobilisation for operations against Ukraine is between 250,000 and 300,000 troops. Including 15,000 VDV; 20,000 to 90,000 Rosgvardia; and 10,000 paramilitaries (mainly from Chechnya).

  15. and we buy that from the same people that pushed the Russian bounties, the chances they have a clue are very unlikely, because of the all the players listed above,

    how many troops did the Russians commit to Afghanistan, Chechnya

  16. The source on that tweet is Victoria Nuland, who is a total lunatic, plus married to a Brookings Institute blob member. There’s zero reason to take anything she says seriously.

  18. Alexander Nevsky, Dmitri Donskoy, Vladimir Dneprsky; the poetry writes itself.

    Alternatively, Putin could have as much luck crossing the Dnepr as Sviatoslav.


  19. Trent Telenko
    January 30, 2022 at 12:58 pm | Edit

    Michael,

    It isn’t a ‘wag the dog’ story.

    The Putin Regime’s build up is pointing to an attempt ar a full knock out blow/regime change invasion of the rest of Ukraine.

    I disagree. I think Putin is probably pushing a confrontation to get NATO to back away from Ukraine.

    As for Biden and whoever is running him, I think this is an attempt at distraction from domestic failure.

    There is the possibility that the Biden regime could make a catastrophic mistake like the one Austria Hungary made in 1914.

  20. Doc K, is right about 1914. I would only add that both Putin and Biden could make catastrophic mistakes, which I guess squares the possibility of disaster.

    I think it’s clear that the Teutons (and The Other Master Race) bear the greatest responsibility for the Great War, but Russia crossed the great power involvement threshold over what might have been a local event between A-H and Serbia.

  21. Mike K: “I disagree. I think Putin is probably pushing a confrontation to get NATO to back away from Ukraine.”

    Mike’s assessment is more probable than Trent’s.

    Another element of this story is that, if we go back some months to the time when the Ukraine was getting as little attention in the news as Kazakhstan is now (Remember Kazakhstan?). there were then minor page 39 reports in Western media about the Ukrainian kleptocrats talking about attacking & retaking the Crimea. They also apparently began massing tens of thousands of troops close to the Donbass.

    Under such circumstances, it would have seemed quite rational for Russia to respond in kind and move forces closer to the Ukraine, just in case the kleptocrats did something stupid. In fact, it would have been Milley-level incompetence not to have taken such precautions.

    Now, once President Putin saw Biden/Milley cosmic-level incompetence in Afghanistan, and once it became apparent that NATO would fracture over the Ukraine, Putin may have decided to tighten the screws. if the end result is that the Ukraine becomes a peaceful near-neutral country and NATO collapses (saving the US massive amounts of money we can’t afford), we Americans would have better reasons to be grateful to President Putin than to Biden*.

  23. Mike K,

    It’s pretty clear from the Belarus build up and the Russian Troll s–t posting on Twitter someone sold Putin the Russian air force & Russian Army MLRS/SRBM version of “Shock and Awe.” That is, airpower & recon-strike complexes can replace 1/2 the necessary troops needed.

    The buildup of Russian tanks & AFV’s with additional fuel tanks but w/o enough trucks for sustained ops has all sorts of implications given how the Ukrainian small, Polish made, Warmate loitering munition equipped special forces plan to operate.

  24. Trent — Can I ask a serious question? Why are you so convinced that Russia is planning to invade the Ukraine?

    Yes, the former USSR was an expansionist power intent on spreading their rule as far & wide as possible. But the USSR has collapsed and gone — it is as lost to history as the patriotic US industrial giant which won WWII.

    NATO has continued to expand long after WWII was over — reaching right up to Russia’s borders in the Baltic states. NATO has invaded distant countries, like Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. The US has military bases around the world; Russia does not. The US Political Class has accused Russia of interfering in US elections — something which they (and we) know was balderdash, blatant lies.

    Russia’s military actions have been limited to countries on its borders where there were at least arguable reasons for Russian concern, such as South Ossetia and the Crimea. The Ukraine fits into that pattern, and Russia has repeatedly & publicly made clear that what it wants is the Ukraine not to be a threat on Russia’s borders. If NATO would agree to that reasonable request, the problem would be settled without a shot being fired.

    It seems rather obvious which side is being the aggressor in this situation. What are you seeing that I am missing, Trent?

  25. A good analysis of the Ukraine situation now.

    Worse for him is that he has 56 percent disapproval of his handling of Russia and Ukraine in general. So, if he’s trying to “wag the dog,” the dog is having none of it. It doesn’t help when the Ukrainian president has to tell him to calm down the hype about an invasion, and Biden reportedly takes the toughest sanctions against Russia off the table.

    His disapproval numbers seem to be getting worse across the board – with them now in the 60s, including handling of gun violence (69 percent disapproval), crime (64 percent), immigration (64 percent), and the country’s economic recovery (56 percent).

  26. I can’t get the page that is linked to in this tweet to translate, so I can’t tell exactly what it says.
    https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1488072631387668481
    Startling fact that conveys the scale of what Russia has transferred from its eastern military district to Belarus. “since 1922 there have never been so few forces on the border with Mongolia & China, even in the most difficult [year of] 1941”

    I don’t believe Russia for one second is going to invade Ukraine. Far more likely to me is that Russia and China, who are most definitely not “friends”, have an understanding that now is the time to probe the US and NATO and the West in general to see what sort of faults can be exploited, since the current US regime is pitifully feckless and weak. So they make various agreements, and Russia can relocate troops and equipment to their Western borders, to put various stresses on the Ukraine government and the US/NATO. After a few weeks of nothing happening the story will fade from the media, and yet the pressure will still be there, able to exert various concessions on all sorts of issues.
    They still have a few years of the Slow Joe regime to push further, depending on what happens next.

  28. they have invaded the donbass, and the puppet government they put in place, was wildly unpopular, the Journal (now called the Glen Simpson Times) says even Russian redoubts like Kharkiv have lost support, which after eight years of grinding warfare is understandable,

  30. Trent T: “Because they already have.”

    Thanks for your response, Trent. Have to say — it is not particularly convincing. There is a world of difference between on the one hand helping some Russian people who happen to be living on the other side of a rather arbitrary & historically fluid border, and on the other invading & occupying the Ukraine right up to the NATO border at Poland. We each have to make our own judgements.

  31. Russia is well known for it’s humanitarian impulses. If they were going to show concern for some Russian folks, they might better start with the ones living of their side of the border. It’s not like Putin would hesitate a moment if he thought it best to ship the whole bunch to Siberia. Whatever Putin does next will be determined by what benefits him and nothing else.

  32. >>Thanks for your response, Trent. Have to say — it is not particularly convincing

    it wouldn’t be for a Russian Troll.

    I deal with reality. Like the reality of 14,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers in Donbas fighting since Russia invaded in 2014.

  34. “Lmao, now Gavin’s a Russian troll?”

    Hey! I am a card-carrying Chinese troll. :)

    So to get back to what’s important — Brian points out there is evidence that China & Russia have some kind of cooperation going on, giving Russia the freedom to move troops that long way from east to west. It is a good guess that China wants to see the US weakened, with allies stepping away (probably especially Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan — but some more respect from India too would be a bonus). The question then is what would be the best outcome of the Ukrainian situation from China’s perspective?

    Would China like to see a Milley-run US military clusterfark, with US Navy ships running aground in the Black Sea while US jets are shot down by Russian missile systems and Ukrainians surrender to Russia en mass? Or would China rather see a US diplomatic clusterfark, with NATO allies refusing to allow US troops on their territory and supporting anti-US resolutions at the UN? Or both?

    Another way to pose the question — What outcome would be most likely to make the leaders of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan decide to put no more trust in the US and instead try to cut deals with China?

  35. Apparently Biden is not the only one trying a “Wag the Dog” scenario.

    Trudeau has dismissed the thousands of protesters as a “fringe” minority and fled to an undisclosed location shortly before the truckers arrived in the capital. He has since announced that he tested positive for Chinese coronavirus.

    Canadian National Defense Minister Anita Anand arrived in Kyiv on Sunday for meetings with senior Ukrainian officials and to draw attention to Canada’s military support for the country:

    Trudeau is ignoring 50,000 protesters while trying to defend Ukraine. Hmmmm.

  36. Canada has an influential Ukrainian lobby. They played a significant role in transforming Canada into a multicultural country. The government minister expected to succeed Trudeau is from a well-connected Ukrainian activist family with property in Kiev. Canada always takes a hard line pro-Ukrainian nationalist stance no matter which party is in power; similar to Dems/GOP always being pro-Israel in your country.

    BTW this weekend a CBC presenter (born in Turkey &and still closely tied to that country) suggested that Russians might be the driving force behind the trucker protest. The Russkies are everywhere!

  37. yes he’s alway a yutz, and he’s not an offspring of the ‘walking coma’ (play on comandante) Fidel, Freeland is ukrainian, at least her grandfather chomiak, and he was a complicated character, if Putin was an actual leftist, instead of a warlord who thinks he’s a czar, he would have no opposition in the west

  41. To the extent that we should care about or deem it wise to meddle in the affairs of Ukraine at all, it should be to warmly support reuniting the region with Russia. Strategically, Russia is a natural ally against the most credible international threat to our country, China. It should be our goal to make her as strong as possible. Other than that, Russia has strong cultural and historical reasons for reuniting with Ukraine. Originally, Russia was Ukraine, with her capital at Kiev. Since then, she has shed oceans of blood defending the region, most recently in WWII. We have no similar reason for meddling there at all. Certainly, the vast majority of the American people could care less what happens there. The exceptions are neocons with their persistent dreams of international empire and an assumed “right” to stick our noses in any international conflict that comes along, regardless of our real national interests. Historically, many Ukrainians have identified with and considered themselves loyal citizens of Russia, in spite of the fact that they were perfectly well aware of the existing differences between the regions. See, for example, the work of Vasily Shulgin, born in Kiev, but an ardent Russian nationalist and member of the Duma under Nicholas I.

    As for our “obligations” to Ukraine, there is a credible case to be made that they don’t exist. The current regime in Kiev exists by virtue of a revolution, and the case has been made by some experts in international law that treaties made with a previous government do not automatically apply in such cases. To the best of my knowledge no credible international body has ever passes judgment on the matter one way or the other.

    Beyond that, of course, there is the danger of blundering into a nuclear war via “miscalculation,” resulting from the persistent efforts of the regime and its media propagandists to whip up war fever. There is no question that nuclear weapons will eventually be used again. I, for one, would like to put off our date with Lucifer as long as possible.

  42. “Since then, she has shed oceans of blood defending the region, most recently in WWII.”
    Shall we recall the oceans of Ukrainian blood shed just previously to the attempt to divide Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin where Hitler proved the superior in duplicity to Stalin. Thus necessitating the “defense”.

    “To the best of my knowledge no credible international body has ever passes judgment on the matter one way or the other.”
    By all means lets have the borders of Europe redrawn every time some opportunist can site some imagined ancient history. Poland has spent more time under Russian domination than as an independent country, should they be reunited with the Motherland? Why not?

  43. MCS: “By all means lets have the borders of Europe redrawn every time some opportunist can site some imagined ancient history.”

    Here’s an idea! Why don’t we let the people decide?

    Say, the inhabitants of someplace like Crimea decide they want to be in Russia rather than Ukraine, and they vote for that — then the rest of Europe should happily agree and wish them well.

    If the inhabitants of Catalonia vote to be independent rather than part of Spain, then their wishes should be respected — instead of having the Spanish Political Class ignore the election result and put the leaders of the independence movement in jail.

    And if the people later change their minds and vote for something else — no problem, change again. In reality, borders have always been fluid everywhere. If we simply allow people to change borders by voting, we will remove a major cause of war. Of course, this democracy will inconvenience the current Ruling Classes, but that is a downside we should be prepared to accept.

  44. I don’t understand what people think we’re supposed to do about nasty European historical grievances. We’ve had troops in Bosnia for more than two decades because the instant we leave they’re going to start killing each other again for each and every square inch. We should support local sovereignty and human rights, but we’re not the referees of every single border dispute, we can’t possibly be.

  45. Here’s how schizophrenic our situation is–there’s been several weeks now of national freaking out about Russia invading Ukraine and bizarre suggestions that we should physically get involved, and today we have the Speaker of the House saying that American Olympic athletes in China should shut up in order to keep themselves and their families safe. So we’re strong enough to stop an invasion but weak enough that we’re unable to prevent high-profile athletes from getting punished for speaking out against the CCP? Give me a break. That botox-addled idiot should have said “I encourage all Americans to speak your minds about any subject, any time, anywhere. And the full power of the United States government will back you 100% and make sure no one messes with you for it, period.” But we all know–those of us here, all across the country, and all across the world–that only a deeply unserious nation could find itself led by these idiots who in any sane world would have been back benchers put out to pasture decades ago.

  46. Brian: “today we have the Speaker of the House saying that American Olympic athletes in China should shut up”

    It is common knowledge that Speaker Pelosi has somehow become very wealthy while scraping by on a CongressCritter’s allowance. We also know that her husband has done well in business with China, and that she had a Chinese driver with interesting contacts, and presumably there is lots more we don’t know.

    We have to start with the hypothesis that Speaker Pelosi got a call from her paymasters telling her to shut down criticism of China. At least she is staying bought.

    Historians will note the heavy stench of corruption that hung over the DC swamp before the Collapse — and wonder why We the People tolerated it? Is universal suffrage democracy irredeemably dysfunctional?

  47. I think the Chinese driver was Feinstein’s, but yeah the entire California congressional delegation is brazenly corrupt.
    I still think in the end we win, but there’s a loooooot of pain to get through…

  48. yes and she was the chairperson of the intelligence committee, there was one defector who was denied asylum, in part due to her influence and was sent back, (this was in redhanded)
    back in the earliest days of the drone war, the location of one of the bases, in pakistan was leaked,

  50. “By all means lets have the borders of Europe redrawn every time some opportunist can site some imagined ancient history. Poland has spent more time under Russian domination than as an independent country, should they be reunited with the Motherland? Why not?”

    I simply pointed out that Russia has far better reasons for caring what happens to Ukraine than we do. Beyond that, I suggested that it may be to our advantage as well as to Russia’s to reunite with Ukraine, not to mention Belarus. The stronger she is as a counterweight to China, the better. As you may have noticed, China is an aggressive power with far more industrial and potential military muscle than Russia. Among other things, she recently annexed the entire South China Sea without consulting anyone. She’s making nice with Russia at the moment, but you can be sure that, when she is not preoccupied elsewhere, she will bring up the “unequal treaties” that established her current borders with Russia and suggest that they be “adjusted.”

    In response, you tried to construe my comment as somehow relating to morality, an issue of what Russia “ought,” or “ought not” to do, apparently in order to meet some arbitrary criteria of what constitutes a “good” country. I note in passing that the Left now enjoys cultural and political hegemony in our country by virtue of its vastly superior ability to manipulate moral emotions. For more than half a century, conservatives have played the losing game of attempting to demonstrate that they are even better than leftists at conforming to some novel “moral code” that the Left just concocted out of thin air the day before yesterday. Before I begin playing that game, I would first like to establish on what authority the Left or anyone else is justified in making their moral claims, whatever they happen to be. The Left sawed off the moral limb they were sitting on long ago and have no basis whatever for their moral claims. They are based solely on the Left’s virtuosity in manipulating moral emotions, and otherwise just float about out there in the luminiferous aether without any recognizable legitimacy or authority whatever.

    My personal opinion is that morality is a manifestation of human emotions, which in turn exist by virtue of natural selection. Absent that “root cause,” our morality would not exist at all. One can also argue that God put the emotions there, as Francis Hutcheson did long ago. However, it follows that, if one agrees with me, it is not possible for anything to be more immoral than failing to survive. I would respectfully suggest to Russia that she take that into account should she aspire to be a “good” country.

  51. I was merely pointing out that millions of Ukrainians have experienced the kind ministrations of the Russians unto death and, understandably, the survivors have no desire to get any more. I don’t have to endorse the Ukrainian regime or even believe they are superior to the Russian one for the idea of granting Russia license to invent reasons to extend their borders to seem stupid. The last time we let them, we were barely able to stop them at the Elbe and had to station thousands of troops to keep them there.

    The solution to those that feel they are on the wrong side of a border is emigration, not “liberation”.

  52. yes ukraine and russia were in a blood feud for much of the 20th century, there was a precursor to bandera, who was blamed for some of the antisemitic outrages of the cossacks, in the post war period, name escapes me, Stalin took revenge with the Holomodor, the OUN rose out of that impart, and did their stance with Hitler, the US govt encouraged by the likes of philby, took some of these figures under their wing, in their sector and later into the states, Putin remembers this and more, the OUN was reborn into Swoboda faction, that held ministries in the first Maidan regime, along with the Azov militia which is their armed wing,

  53. What I find really annoying about the Ukraine situation is how many people seem to think that the Russians have some sort of “right” to Ukraine, as though the Ukrainians were errant pets that somehow got loose, or something.

    The Russians sacrificed any moral standing with regards to Ukraine during the Holodomor. The way they casually destroyed the people of that nation simply to enable their little pet economic theories? Killing millions through planned famine and the appropriation of the labor of the kulaks?

    The Ukraine owes Russia nothing, on that basis alone. Is it any wonder that the neo-Nazis have such sway there, given the history? Who else stood against the Soviets? The Russians should hardly be surprised that the Ukrainians have embraced what they see as effective opposition to the Soviet mentality.

    Of course, the ethnic Russians throughout the former Soviet Union fail to see themselves as colonialists, an irony of history that is darkly humorous to any but the involved parties.

  55. What is strange about the Ukrainian situation is that most of the armchair warriors who want someone else to go & die refighting WWII don’t seem to have paid any attention to what Russia has been asking for — which is to have non-threatening buffer states between Russia and NATO. If Russia occupies the Ukraine, then Russia will have its border right up against NATO, and NATO could then park its offensive weapons right up against Russian territory.

    Bottom line — occupying the Ukraine would be contrary to what Russia wants to achieve.

    A cynic might suggest that Biden*’s handlers are pumping up the war scenario so that when the Ukraine declares it no longer wants to join NATO and Russia sends its forces back to the Chinese border, they can send out Biden* to claim victory. Biden* saves the world!

  56. “The Russians sacrificed any moral standing with regards to Ukraine during the Holodomor.”

    The Russians? At the time of the Holodomor Stalin’s control of the Soviet Union was virtually absolute. He was a Georgian, not a Russian. One of his henchmen at the time was Khrushchev, a Ukrainian. Communists were responsible for the famine, not “the Russians.” We can certainly go on with the game of historical finger pointing if you like. The Ukrainians murdered thousands of Jews in vicious pogroms in the years immediately before, during and after WWI alone. They enthusiastically denounced their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis during WWII and were willing participants in the death squads that hunted them down and murdered them. Many of them served in military units on the side of the Nazis. I could go on and on.

    In the end, the game is futile. The question to be answered now is, what is in the best interests of the Ukrainians. In my opinion they would be far better off reunited with the rest of Russia than serving as an “independent” pawn of Western warmongers.

  57. ” which is to have non-threatening buffer states between Russia and NATO.” You keep repeating that nonsense as if it’s the second law of thermodynamics. Russia would like a two dollar per ruble exchange rate too but they don’t get to decide that either.

    I suppose that if Mexico decided they needed a non-threatening buffer state, you ‘d hand over San Diego to Brownsville. This was tried, most notably before 1914 and 1937-1939 with outstanding results for grave diggers and coffin builders. ALL borders are arbitrary, the alternative is constant war. Been there done that for 5,000 years.

    The only thing that NATO interferes with is Russia’s ability to intimidate their neighbors. Where is their buffer? What happens when Russia decides Ukraine isn’t sufficient and they “need” Poland and the Baltics?

    The mistake was to allow Crimea and an airliner to be shot down and Georgia before that with no more pushback than a “strongly worded note”. We have allowed ourselves to be pushed into the position where all our choices are unpalatable. Those that refuse to fight for principals will end up fighting for nothing but still fighting.

  58. well a wag would say, they need it to prevent invasion from germany and france (hitler and stalin) or the combo of the brits, the french and the turks, this is why giving up the crimea was probably a non starter, most of the players like kolomoisky, who has financed the odious azov batallion are non optimum, as well as other players,

  59. “The question to be answered now is, what is in the best interests of the Ukrainians.”
    The Ukrainians seem to have decided that Russia isn’t the answer, the question will be who runs out of ammunition first.

    Once you’ve established that borders and alliances are to be negotiated at gun point, it’s devil take the hindmost without end

  60. So much talking past each other here.
    1. No, Russia should not invade Ukraine. (And I still do not believe they are about to.)
    2. No, we should not directly get involved if they do.
    The fact that the claim is getting thrown around that saying 2 means disagreeing with 1 is idiotic.

  61. it seems like a lot of troops for a bluff, Soviet tactics see Afghanistan, where they knocked off an unwilling puppet, and found themselves in worse situation (not unlike our slow sludge into Vietnam after Diem) then less an decade later, they ventured into Chechnya, they failed to cap off Dudayev for two years, the alternatives have not been good, even originally Russophile quadrants like Kharkiv, are less enthusiastic after nearly eight years (who could blame them)

  62. Current top tweet from NATO’s official account, in case you think this is some sort of serious defender of Western civilization, deeply worried Russia’s about to launch an invasion.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/NATO_ACT/status/1489837919682678787
    The Gender & Hybrid Deep Dive is the first among a series of future sessions, including Gender & Resilience, Gender & Deterrence and Gender & Climate Change. The Deep Dive series aim to integrate a gender perspective throughout all of NATO’s core tasks.

  63. “The Deep Dive series aim to integrate a gender perspective”

    Do those people even read with they write? :)

  64. MCS: ” which is to have non-threatening buffer states between Russia and NATO.” You keep repeating that nonsense

    That is what the Russians are saying, MCS. Maybe it is “nonsense”. Perhaps you have special inside information which shows that the Russians are lying. If so, please share what is the basis for your information.

    You don’t have to convince anyone that the Biden* Administration is lying. We all see that, with them lying about almost everything, including the Ukraine. Is it smart for us to go to war with a nuclear-armed power over something far away that does not concern us when we cannot even trust our own government?

  66. Why haven’t the Russians invaded Ukraine — and swept on to the English Channel too?

    Theory #1: President Xi asked the Russians to hold off until the Winter Olympics are over.

    Theory #2: President Putin is waiting until summertime brings dry ground, suitable for massive tank assaults (and until the short attention span West has forgotten all about the Ukraine).

    Theory #3: Russia never intended to invade — it was simply massing forces in response to the earlier massing of forces near the border by the Ukrainian kleptocrats.

    Theory #4: Russia hopes not to invade, and is betting that the show of force will persuade the West to Finlandize the Ukraine.

  67. Theory #5: Russia and China are just waiting for our worthless elites to destroy the military so they don’t have to worry about any opposition.
    https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2929658/diversity-equity-inclusion-are-necessities-in-us-military/
    Diversity, equity and inclusion in the military are necessities for the United States, Bishop Garrison, the senior advisor to the secretary of defense for human capital and diversity, equity and inclusion said.

  68. The Wag The Dog theory is now confirmed.

    The first topic is the “Russia-Ukraine crisis,” with Stephanopoulos asking Pelosi directly if she believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is about to invade Ukraine. Nancy Pelosi’s response [Transcript Here] tells us all we need to hear:/b>

    PELOSI: “Well, I think we have to be prepared for it. And that is what the president is — yes, I do believe that he is prepared for an invasion. I also understand why the President of Ukraine wants to keep people calm and that he wants his economy not to suffer. But, on the other hand, if we were not threatening the sanctions and the rest, it would guarantee that Putin would invade. Let’s hope that diplomacy works.

    It’s about diplomacy deterrence. Diplomacy deterrence. And the president’s made it very clear. There’s a big price to pay for Russia to go there. So, if Russia doesn’t invade, it’s not that he never intended to. It’s just that the sanctions worked.” … “I’m very proud of the work that the president has done.” (read more)

    Can you see the domestic political scenario that has been created out of thin air?

    Yup. This was it all along. The Midterms are coming.

  70. Whatever happens in the Ukraine, there is no doubt that Biden*’s handlers will push him out to claim a victory and the tame media will lionize Biden* for saving the world. The question is whether anyone will care?

    It seems that most of the people in the US who might vote in the Mid-Terms either don’t care about the Ukraine or have already lost confidence in Biden*. There may be very little electoral benefit from “preventing” a war.

    On the other hand, the cracks in NATO are not going to be papered over so easily, and countries like Japan and Taiwan are going to be asking themselves about whether the US still looks like a winner. Plus we can reasonably assume that Russia will not give up until it gets what it is asking for — a neutral Ukraine. The problems for Biden*’s crew are not going to go away.

  71. In the next decade, I expect several things to happen, mostly due to the feckless idiots running this country.

    First, and most damaging, the number of countries that will go “nuclear” will likely include everyone who can. You can’t rely on “Pax Americana”, well… You’re going to do for yourself. Taiwan, Japan, South Korea almost certainly already have the capability, and will likely go public with the fact as deterrent to the Chinese. Follow-on from there will likely include Singapore, Australia, and maybe Indonesia.

    In the Middle East, Iran may finally get into the nuclear club, but based on their so-far demonstrated competence, maybe not. They’ve had more time than they should have needed, given that the technology was already well-proven and entirely doable. One has to look at how long it has taken them, and marvel at their institutional and cultural incompetence. Saudi Arabia will get their payback for financing Pakistan’s nuclear program, and likely have a full fleet of weapons to counter Iran with, along with technical assistance from the Israelis, who will likely leverage their nuclear umbrella to achieve one-upsmanship over Iran with regards to the Gulf Arab states.

    Along with that, expect to see Ukraine reaching out for the bomb, again–If only in the form of gun-type nuclear landmines intended to discourage Russian ambitions. Given how much of the Soviet nuclear industry was in Ukraine, I’d be surprised if they really had a major problem going nuclear at all. They may be corrupt, but they’ve had decades of experience with nuclear industry under the Soviets, and if nothing else, they could easily turn Chernobyl into a source for radioactive contaminants with which to render a bunch of Russian territory essentially unusable. Or, in a suicide mode of operation, their own. Hell, the potential for blackmailing the NATO countries into acting on their behalf against Russia is certainly there–“Help us, or we blow the sarcophagus…”.

    All these geniuses out there who’re working against the Pax Americana haven’t really thought through the consequences of that going away–Just like the US didn’t think through the consequences of pushing Britain out of that role during and after WWII. You can bitch about “American Hegemony” all you like, but in the end? You’re not going to like the world that comes after that all goes away. China, for example? LOL… They’re gonna love the world that they have to pay to police themselves, or face the consequences of people just not paying them for their shit. Care to imagine how much of a pain in the ass it would be for the Chinese to try to keep their colonies in Africa running, when they also have to pay for the naval fleet to protect the sea lanes, and simultaneously establish a new international reserve currency? And, God alone knows what other “interesting” second- third-, and fourth-order effects which will accrue from the United States no longer serving the role it is in, right now?

    Two biggest threats to the established order in todays world are inextricably linked: The US as the “court of last resort” for international order, and the Chinese as the “workplace of the world”. You start screwing around with things the way they are right now, we’re in for an age of chaos the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. And, I guarantee you this much: The assholes making it happen are not going to like what ensues, whatsoever.

  72. “Saudi Arabia will get their payback for financing Pakistan’s nuclear program, and likely have a full fleet of weapons to counter Iran with”

    It is public knowledge that Saudi Arabia some years ago bought a set of ballistic missiles from China. I once had a long conversation with someone who apparently knew what he was talking about — his information was that China also sold Saudi the nuclear weapons to fit on those missiles.

    “Iran may finally get into the nuclear club, but based on their so-far demonstrated competence, maybe not.”

    Considering how few years it took the US to build the first nuclear bombs back in WWII when no-one even knew if it could be done, and considering Iranian demonstrated technical capabilities in building missiles and drones, it does seem very unlikely that Iran has not built nuclear weapons in the last few decades. Perhaps Iran has decided that it is better to keep pretending they are almost on the point of having nukes, so they can keep receiving those pallets of ObamaCash as bribes for not going the whole hog.

    So yes, the world will go nuclear — but will that change anything? Will Euros suddenly develop a spine? Or will they decide it is better to knuckle under than to get bombed? Will Australians decide it is better to reach an accommodation with China than to have the satisfaction of taking 10% of China’s population with them when they get blasted off the face of the planet?

  73. yes it was the CS-27, there was even a report about where said weapons, were kept, however in this timeline, shambling man is all on qatar and iran, and against the kingdom and the emirates wonder why, also patriot batteries were removed to allow more access to drones,

  75. Somebody else agrees with me on the Ukraine “crisis.”

    Then Joe Biden had a long phone conversation with Vladimir Putin in which Biden supposedly conveyed stern warnings. If war is now called off, who benefits? Joe Biden.

    The U.K. jumped into the fray on Ukraine’s side, asserting British standing in world affairs and coming to Ukraine’s defense, including, I believe sending some troops to the area. So if the Russian invasion is called off, who benefits? Someone who needs a boost almost as badly as Joe Biden: Boris Johnson.

    Emmanuel Macron, following in the footsteps of Charles DeGaulle, charted his own course independent of NATO and tried to be a broker via independent conversations with the Russians. He is engaged in a tough re-election race; if the Ukraine crisis dissipates, he will take credit for it.

    Seems to be a general good thing for politicians in trouble. The solution ?

    And Vladimir Putin, by far the most secure of these four leaders, will benefit as long as Russia gets something out of its mobilization of troops at the Ukraine border. Putin is popular because he is seen as a strong leader, but no leader’s popularity is enhanced by soldiers being killed. So Putin gets the best of both worlds if he takes an aggressive position, mobilizes troops and threatens war, but then achieves Russia’s ends by peaceful means. And, of course, he avoids sanctions that could threaten Russia’s creaky economy.

    Are the Western powers prepared to sell Ukraine down the river? The answer, I think, is how far down the river Putin has in mind. Some concessions are easy:

  76. Way more people will think the administration is a hysterical joke shrieking over nothing than will think they stood up to scary Putin and stopped an invasion.

  77. John Hinderaker over at Powerline:
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/whos-wagging-whose-dog.php

    has a take I find emotionally appealing as it combines my purely amateur judgement that Putin is the last person in Europe that would actually invade Ukraine, although I’m at a loss to see what he intends to really accomplish, with the notion that Biden and Johnson are stupid enough to twist the tiger’s tail for some perceived gain of “statesman” points. They will have saved Europe from WWIII.

    The question, as always, is will Ukraine and especially Ukrainians go along? Hinderaker seems to think permanent cession of Donbas and Crimea is Putin’s carrot. Biden will have a Neville Chamberlain speech he can plagiarize. Peace in our time, what could go wrong?

  78. Here we go.

    President Biden will speak on the Ukraine crisis at the White House this afternoon. Western analysts said it was too early to say if the announced troop movements were meaningful, but it might be a sign that Russia is stepping back from the threat of invasion.

    President Vladimir V. Putin said Tuesday that Russia had decided “to partially pull back troops,” and the Russian Defense Ministry announced that some forces from military districts bordering Ukraine were being sent back to their garrisons, a sign that Moscow might be stepping away from the threat of an invasion.

    And this is sweet.

    Yesterday, Zero Hedge ran a CTH article detailing the fabricated ruse from the White House. Today the AP said Zero Hedge was promoting propaganda from Russia. Also today, White House has to pretend to take their victory lap early. Go Figure.

    Yes, you can thank me in the comments section for saving Ukraine from the United States CIA construct and averting war. [ LOL ] But seriously, that inflated sense of CTH importance is less silly than Biden’s claims today. That’s how stupid this entire thing has been.

    Yes, the White House is exactly that desperate.

    Another Biden triumph.

  79. Like I said, if they think they’re going to take a victory lap and get anyone to take them seriously, they’re completely delusional.

  80. I don’t think that the word “delusional” quite gets to the fullest sense of what their state of mind is. As a term for whatever it is that passes for rational thought, I think it lacks sufficient descriptive power. The merely delusional talk to giant pink rabbits, or espouse flat earth theories in public. That’s deluded; I don’t know what the hell you describe these people as, because it’s well past “delusional-cubed”. They’re living in some sort of fantasy world wherein bills are never paid, and the rest of the universe orders itself to their fantasies, regardless of reality or self-interest of the other parties.

  81. They’re living in some sort of fantasy world wherein bills are never paid, and the rest of the universe orders itself to their fantasies, regardless of reality or self-interest of the other parties.

    I would prefer to call it magical thinking. There is a lot of that. Leftists think that because they want something to turn out well and because they have good intentions, it will turn out well. Defunding the police is one example. The Soviets thought that human nature could be created by incentives. Lysenko, who is coming back into style, was one example. Stephen Jay Gould, the apostle of “The Blank Slate,” thought that nature was malleable with conditioning, like what is going on in our schools. This ignored the genetic role in behavior that is hundreds of thousands years old. Read “Blueprint,” although the author chickened out fearing he would be cancelled by the left.

    Plomin reports that genetics explains more about the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Nature, not nurture, is what makes us who we are. Plomin explores the implications of these findings, drawing some provocative conclusions—among them that parenting styles don’t really affect children’s outcomes once genetics is taken into effect.

    The “new afterward” is his attempt to avoid criticism by the left.

  82. I’m coming around to the idea a childhood friend of mine had, which is that much of the left’s ideology consists of pathologic mental illness expressed as politics. Of course, he also thought that the right was similarly afflicted, just expressed differently.

    The raw fact is that ideology cripples thought. You think that your belief system shapes reality, you’re functionally insane and should be kept far away from the levers of power.

    A rational operator, looking at the last year-plus, would recognize that the ideological choices driving things like shutting down oil leases and pipeline construction has not resulted in the predicted outcome. As well, the increase in inflation would do the same thing for their beliefs about how the economy works. However, since things are not run by the rational, they’re not reacting to events in any rational way.

    Thus, my entirely empirical diagnosis of these people as being effectively functionally insane, across the entire spectrum of leftoid “thinking”. If you can’t observe actual effect and work backwards to grasp the fact that your theory-driven actions were incorrect, then…? There’s really only one conclusion to be reached.

    “The rest of us” are well on our way towards recognizing that fact. The criminally insane “elites”, however? Oblivious. I don’t think they’re going to like the wake-up call, when it comes.

  83. Mike K’s quote: “President Biden will speak on the Ukraine crisis at the White House this afternoon.”

    Remember when we had Presidents who could stay awake long enough to make announcements in Prime Time? As the Leftie lady sang — You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

  84. Quinnipiac poll from today has Biden at 35/55 approve/disapprove overall, and at 34/54 at handling the Russia/Ukraine “issue”, so it’s purely a partisan split, i.e., no one actually takes this seriously at all, they just respond based on their politics.
    The November election is going to be an historical obliteration. The Dems should have just declared covid over last summer, but they’re in the thrall of the crazy white liberal women they drove insane starting in 2016, and they have no exit stragegy.

  85. I don’t think you ought to frame this as “Democrat”, at all. What’s going on around us is not a function of the Democratic Party doing its thing all by its lonesome self. The reality is that there is no functional opposition party to be seen, anywhere–The so-called “Republican Party” is merely their effective handmaiden, serving to divert attention and action away from the reality that the oligarchic Uniparty is running everything. Note how few of the so-called “Republicans” were out there defending Trump, or calling into question what was going on with regards to the things that are now finally starting to be revealed by Durham… There is no “Democrat” or “Republican” party: It’s “Them” vs. “The rest of us…”, and it has been for most of my lifetime. How much of the so-called “Democratic agenda” has been enacted, as opposed to what we’re told is the “Republican” one? See any fiscal sanity, which those assholes in DC have been promising us for decades, now?

    Repeat after me: It ain’t the Democrats, it ain’t the Republicans. It’s “Them” and “The rest of us”, and They ain’t listening to any of our pedestrian concerns, like who the fsck is paying for all this crap they’ve blown the public fisc on for these last few decades.

    I really am beginning to loathe the whole joke of “political parties” in this country–In practice, there’s not a fscking knife-edge of real difference between the long-term effect of Democrat vs. Republican. They’re all equally adept at picking our pockets and taking our liberties. How much of the Patriot Act was Republican in sourcing? What about the rest of the crap the oligarchy and the bureaucracy has weaponized against “the rest of us”?

    Do remember who, precisely, created the Department of Education, the EPA, and all the rest of that crap. Remember? A fscking Republican, one Richard M. Nixon. Who was it that first began cozying up to the Communist Chinese, again…? Who benefited, long-term, from that? Was it you and I, normal American citizens?

  86. This November is the perfect election to run the craziest candidates possible, for every office possible, because a whole lot of Republicans are going to get elected who in normal years would have no chance. I’m talking about people who make Trump look like Jeb Bush. Anyone who wants to rip DC to pieces, now is the time to primary incumbents, and run for otherwise seemingly uncompetitive offices. Get them in there now, to completely reshape who the incumbents are in a decade or two.

  87. Here’s the easiest possible big win for the GOP–make colleges co-signers on student loans, and make it back-dated, and prioritize it for big private schools. Those places are the enemy, anyway. Seems a massive win, politically, ethically, morally, etc.

  88. The web site “Zero Hedge” published an agreement with my Wag the Dog theory of the Ukraine “crisis.” The Associated Press reported that ZeroHedge was under investigation by US Intelligence Agencies for “connection with Russia.” That is how crazy the Biden regime is now.
    Zero Hedge does not seem to be intimidated.

    It’s here: D-Day 2022… the day that Russia was to invade Ukraine, according to President Joe Biden.

    “Putin could attack Ukraine on February 16, Biden told allies,” Politico reported on Friday. “America warns of an imminent invasion of Ukraine,” the Economist warned on Sunday.

    Today is that day, at least according to the brilliant minds of the American intelligence agency who tell Joe Biden what to think.

    I posted that same theory, plus I donated $50 to the GiveSendGo fund for the truckers. I can hardly wait for the FBI to show up at my door.

  89. this is like the intelligence that chicago was going to win the olympics, (probably qatar bought the bid) bellingthecat, is the newest fusion wannabe that provided the phony ‘russian bounties’ and this war plan,

  90. One of the things I see coming down the pike is going to be similar in nature to what Henry VIII did to the Catholic Church in England: All of these “tax-exempt” outfits with massive trust funds, like the Ford Foundation? Harvard? Yale? They’re going to be stripped bare of their “endowments”, and the money used to fund the government.

    My guess is that the people who will do that aren’t going to have the slightest amount of mercy for any of them, being as they’re all a part of the oligarchy. The 21st Century Jacobins who wind up running things after all the contradictions come home to roost are not going to be “nice people”, and I would wager heavily that they’re also going to be merciless with the forensic accounting.

    The thing to worry about in the near-term future is the question of just how badly the current set of idiotarian kakistocrats are going to discredit themselves. The thing to worry about in the mid-term future will be how to survive the ensuing chaos; long-term future worries should be just how the successors to today’s elites decide to rectify it all. I’ve mentioned that Harvard and Yale diplomas might well be the “glasses” for the coming of the American Khmer Rouge, I think–But, that might actually be a best-case scenario for these self-proclaimed elites that can’t “elite” their way out of the path of a falling feather-pillow.

  91. Ivy League faculty and alumni are the Democrat base. They can’t go after them. They also can’t just waive student loans because it will make way too many people furious that they didn’t take out loans and/or already paid theirs off, no matter how much the indebted suckers demand they do.
    The GOP, of course, isn’t constrained by either of those factors. Waive the student loans for individuals, but go after the institutions for the money, so the rest of us suckers don’t feel like we’re paying for it, and sock it to the enemy as well.
    Taxing the bejeezus out of their endowments in step 2.

  92. After they get done convincing everyone of their utter uselessness and essential incompetence, there won’t be and “Democrats” or “Republicans”. The masks will be off, and the New Jacobins will do as they damn well please with the surviving remnants of the ancien regime.

    Were I any of these people, I’d be feeling a cold wind on the back of my neck right now, watching the Biden Krime Krewe at work. The unfortunate fact is that they’re only going to have themselves to blame, along with their hubris.

    I don’t think enough people really grasp the fact that once it goes all Mad Max, all bets and assumptions are off. Sure, today the various leftoid institutions are untouchable, but in the coming denouement of their incompetent stewardship…? Not. So. Much.

  94. The White House is finally revealing the scheme behind the Ukraine panic.

    the White House is shifting blame for the collapsing economy, surging oil prices, massive gas price increases and overall U.S. inflation.

    The manufactured crisis in Ukraine then takes on a geopolitical angle and a domestic angle. The prior rate of inflation is now being blamed on Russia-Ukraine.

    It is not coincidental that ABC (think George Stephanopolous) takes the lead in helping to push this narrative as a cover story for the problems in the economy that are specifically driven by U.S. energy policy (chasing Green New Deal objectives), environmental policy, regulatory policy and massive spending. The politics are to blame for the inflation, so it is the deployment of politics used to create the cover.

    Yup. It has been a lie all a,long.

  95. External enemies are always a good excuse for the failures of governance.

    Bigger question might be “Why is Putin cooperating with these idiots…?”.

    Or, is he? Remains to be seen. I can’t think of a more effective way to discredit BidenCo. than to refuse to play the baddie in all this. If I were Putin, that’d be one of my strategies: Engender panic, then not actually produce cause for said panic, making the Americans look like idiots on the international scene.

    On the other hand, who the hell knows? Kabuki theater, all of it. Distract with the left hand, move with the right… Prestidigitation is the model for what we’re seeing.

    Thing is, I think that circumstances may blow the whole thing up into an unholy concatenation of unintended second-, third-, and fourth-order consequences that will do more damage to the elites than just leaving them with egg on their faces. Canada is an interesting example–It remains to be seen just how much of Trudeau’s BS is going to be tolerated by the public up there. I suspect that the last week has hardened more than a few hearts and minds, and we may see the results of that in the next little while.

    I honestly don’t give Trudeau until summer before something happens to his political career–As in, its end.

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