Miz Lindsay Graham pried his lips off Trump’s ass long enough to pronounce he’ll not vote for Ketanji Brown Jackson for the SCOTUS seat. Lindsay is not just a hypocrite, but a misogynist racist fascist drunk. Lindsay checks all the boxes for what’s wrong with the senate. Put Ketanji’s resume up against Trump’s nominees. None of them could carry Ketanji’s jock strap. Shut up, Lindsay, and don’t spill your scotch.
mvd
Trump’s remarks at CPAC only serve to highlight his irrelevance. Biden’s leadership has been superb. Putin is not the global strategist Tucker Carlson thinks he is. Ukraine is not without courage. So many Russian soldiers have been killed that international orgs are being asked to remove the corpses. No despot makes a good end. Putin will end up in a bunker with the choice: “Sir, here’s the Glock and here’s the cyanide. You pick, sir. Have a nice day.”
mvd
Solving the puzzle of support for Ukraine is important. As the Ukrainians burn through their military supplies fighting the Russians, re-supplying them becomes critical to their survival. And it puts the U.S. in direct confrontation with Russian forces now blockading the country. Putin’s often repeated threat of Russian “nuclear power” should give us pause. But if hanging the Ukrainians out to dry is not an option, we need to make a decision: is Putin bluffing? Or is he so far down the rabbit hole of delusional world conquest that he’ll pull the nuclear trigger? Comparisons to our confrontation with the Russians over the Cuban missile crisis have been bandied about lately. It’s worth talking about.
In October of 1962, Jack Kennedy’s administration found itself nose to nose with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev over the ICBMs the Soviet Union was secretly installing 90 miles away Cuba. Kennedy took a hard line with Khrushchev about removal of the missiles and sent navy warships to blockade Cuba. We played chicken with the Soviets for 13 days. Their ships, loaded with ICBMs bound for Cuba, steamed toward the blockade while the world held its breath in anticipation of nuclear war. Behind the scenes, Khrushchev desperately wanted a way out. A secret letter from him expressing his fears of a war was delivered to Kennedy by a back channel—Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. At the suggestion of U.N. Ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, Kennedy offered Khrushchev a face saving way out. Through Dobrynin, Kennedy proposed the removal of missiles from Turkey and Germany in exchange for Khrushchev removing the missiles from Cuba. (Khrushchev didn’t know at the time that our missiles were obsolete and scheduled for removal anyway.) At the last moment, Khrushchev gave in and the Soviet ships turned around. JFK took us to the brink of a nuclear war, but not without a little insurance by negotiation. It worked and the crisis was averted.
The circumstances in Ukraine today are vastly different, of course. In Cuba, Kennedy had the power and flexibility of the U.S. Navy to enforce the blockade. Today no such blockade is possible. Our warships operating in the Mediterranean have access to the Black Sea, but the bulk of Putin’s troops are moving overland from Russian soil. Unlike Khrushchev, Putin is uninterested in negotiation, at least for the moment. But the common denominator of these two events is the necessity of taking a hard line in dealing with the Russians. They respect power. In fact, they fear the power of America’ military.
President Biden’s approach so far has been decisive and firm. When we need to get supplies to the Ukrainians, will he call Putin’s bluff? Putin has pushed all his chips to the center of the table. Is there some face saving negotiating ploy moving silently through a back channel somewhere? One hopes so. Putin needs a way out. His concern about his place in Russian history will be moot if he starts a nuclear war. That will be the catastrophic end of history. My money’s on President Biden to stay the course and keep a firm hand on the tiller.
mvd
February 24, 2022. Mark it down: the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. It’ll be looked back upon as a tragic, bloody, and shameful day. Vladimir Putin now has his legacy, but not the one he wanted. The first line of his obituary will describe his bid to takeover a democratic nation in an attempt to rewrite history in the region. It’s a sad replay of Hitler’s power lust in Europe. Putin’s longing for the Stalinist glories of the old Soviet Union has put him on a collision with history. Buckle up. We’re all on this ride together.
mvd
Trump’s unctuous blathering in praise of Putin’s misguided war is really a gift to us. Can you imagine a former U.S. president applauding the invasion of a democratic nation by a foreign despot? And criticizing the current prez’s handling of such a volatile situation? Not in an America that I remember. Trump and all his little Trumpazoids clearly have a political death wish. They make no secret of their groveling adulation of Putin, a former KGB thug, who murders his opposition and views a free society as an impediment to his greed. To beat these traitorous fools in an election, we only need to publish their speeches to reveal the breadth of their sellout. Contrary to Putin’s and Trumps’ opinion, Americans are not stupid. They may be temporarily bamboozled, but eventually they come to their senses—and when they do, watch out. Joe Biden will lead us thru these perilous times. It may not be pretty, but we and the nation will prevail.
mvd
“Some of them want to use you; some of them want to get used by you. Some of them want to abuse you; some of them want to be abused.” —Annie Lennox, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
The January 6 Committee is increasingly engaged in a sort of political proctology as they probe a growing gaggle of Trumpazoidal assholes. Information on Trump’s failed attempt to overthrow a legitimate election will be plentiful now that White House visitor logs are ordered to be released from the National Archives. The committee, and ultimately the public, will get to see the comings and goings of Trump’s sordid collection of sycophants, soothsayers, shyster lawyers, and right-wing numbskulls. If you were involved in the planning and execution of the invasion of the nation’s capitol, you really should be listening for a knock on the door. A picture continues to emerge of Trump as an enraged and obsessive failure, hell bent on maintaining his grasp on power by any means possible. West Wing staffers were swamped with the conflicting tasks of doing the mad president’s bidding, while unplugging White House toilets clogged with presidential documents.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to descend into madness, what little support there was left for him is evaporating. People don’t want to go to jail for this bozo. While it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Trump and members of his family are headed for the hoosegow, folks are trying to save their own asses by making a deal with the committee.
Perpetrators of this low point in American history will not go unpunished.
mvd
Inside/Out 