Tucker Carlson, who might as well be a mole planted by the KGB, is the darling of Russian propaganda. Why doesn’t Tucker cease his treason and emigrate to the Russian Confederacy, a country he loves and where he is so highly regarded?
In Saudi Arabia, the government executed 81 people in one day. In Ethiopia, soldiers have been photographed burning civilians alive. In Ukraine, Russian barbarism seems more mild, but differs from these only in degree.
The accusations of war crimes committed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine must cause a lot of confusion in the Russian military and in the upper strata of Putin’s wannabe empire. These Russians, you see, have no concept of “war crime.” They make no distinction between military and civilian, between military targets and everyone and everything as a target, between tactical strikes and mass murder.
It has now become fashionable among American oligarchs, rightwing entertainers, and conspiracy fans to accept and repeat the claim of the Russian propaganda mill that attacking Ukraine was necessary because, with American help, the Ukrainians are manufacturing bio-weapons.
Putin is a hero to our oligarchs. They consider him to be a kindred spirit who shares their enchantment with autocracy and disdain for democracy. Rightwing entertainers, like Tucker Carlson, know what it is to be part of a propaganda mill. They are paid to tell whatever lies their owners want circulated. The conspiracy fans can never get enough of new conspiracies and they will wolf down any garbage that comes along without even tasting it.
All of these are providing support and comfort to America’s enemy.
Are they not a security risk?
NYC District Attorney Alvin Bragg has shut down the investigation of Trump & Co.’s financial crimes. He has been very secretive about this, thus failing to explain behavior that even charity would have to call questionable. My ever-suspicious mind grasps for an explanation. Did somebody get to Mr. Bragg. Who talked to whom? Who was promised what? What was used to threaten or entice and whom? Does Bragg care nothing at all for his credibility as a DA and as a lawyer? A District Attorney’s decision not to prosecute might in different circumstances be unremarkable. But this is about Trump who corrupts anyone he touches.
There is nothing novel about the current Russian drive to annex Ukraine. They have been doing this sort of thing for centuries. The several Russian Empires came to include virtually all the one-time nations on its borders. These seizures were most extensive and intense in the later 19th-early 20th centuries under the First Russian Empire of the Tsars: Siberia, Caucasus, Central Asia, etc., etc. The Bolsheviks of the Second Russian Empire continued grabbing up neighbors property, particularly through the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with the Nazis that gave them half of Poland and the Balkan countries and then through the creation of the Iron Curtain that as good as absorbed all neighbors into the Russian Empire. Russian rapacity seemed to have eased up with the fall of the Second Empire, but that was only an interlude while the Third Empire under Putin I was tooling up. Putin I has now resumed traditional Russian foreign policy: Conquer and annex, conquer and subjugate, conquer and control completely.
This is bad enough. But what if we describe Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in less refined terms. Again, Asia is belching a host of barbarians against the West. Putin’s army is following in the footsteps of the Huns, the Mongols, the Cossacks, the Red Army. “But surely, Russia is too civilized, too sophisticated to sponsor an army of barbarians.” Well, we must recall accounts of Russian atrocities in countries it annexed, e.g., the Katyn Massacre in Poland, and the atrocities of the Red Army raping and butchering its way through civilian populations whom it was “liberating” at the end of WWII. We must realize that Molotov’s criticism of the West for being too sentimental about the loss of human life is not only a Bolshevik criticism, but a Russian criticism as well.
I could have predicted the behavior of Michelle Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green at the State of the Union address is not surprising. They couldn’t have forgiven themselves if they failed to act out outrageous before so large a television audience. The rest of Congress booed them, but that was part of the plan. These are two cheerleaders playing to “the base,” and the base loves disrespectful behavior, hence part the appeal of the militant boor, Trump.
These people, Michelle & Marjorie, Trump and his base, were never taught the conventions of good manners and common courtesy, and they are to a surprising degree embarrassed because they are ill-prepared to behave as adults, because they do not know the correct way to act. Rising up from the disadvantaged base is an animosity towards adults and the educated that is far more intense than we thought. Trump, with his 5th-grade vocabulary and play-ground insults, is, for his base, the public figure of their dreams. And Michelle, Marjory, Matt, the Capitol insurrectionists, et al., with their proclivity to hillbilly gags, guns, and violence, are heroes to the base, not because they irritate the libs, but because they have no respect for the adults.
What will M&M do to follow up heckling during the State of the Union address? Mooning the Congress, sending a box of dog poop to the President, putting cellophane wrap on the toilets in congressional wash rooms, setting off fire-crackers during opening prayers — who can say. All I can say is that to surpass themselves, they will have to come up with some really gross shtick.
Trump is boasting that he knows Putin as well as almost anybody. Maybe he’s thinking of the happy times they had in Trump’s hotel room in Moscow. Getting physical might be a way for people who are ignorant of one another’s language and culture to get to know one another.
Trump has been cheering for Putin and denouncing Biden. So has Trump’s monkey, R. Giuliani. Mike Pompeio is mouthing the Trump line as well, as are many other Trumpublicans. Is this only a bit of routine ass kissing, or could it suggest that alliance with Putin is something to which the Trumpists aspire? The Republican right wing has more in common with an amoral authoritarian like Putin than with those Americans who are still offended by deceit, despotism, and brutal sleaze.
I see that the OPAC meeting of aspirational oligarchs in Orlando will be featuring Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Ron De Santis.
Cruz belongs in the Guiness Book of Records as the only man in the world whom absolutely no one is able to like. Hawley, the morbidly ambitious “country boy,” is so historically naive that he raised his fist to give a traditionally communist and anarchist salute to the Trump Militia on Jan 6. De Santis is more dangerous than dumb, because he doesn’t know how dumb he is. And a number of former MAGAs who are now Make Russia Great Again zealots will gather around the Defeated Donald, their “once and future king.”
This “unite the right” assembly will be a confluence of the sewers of American politics. Their combined gas will blow sewer lids to the sky.
So the Russians have invaded Ukraine. They will mop up Ukrainian defense forces in no time flat, and proceed to annex Ukraine. This is standard Russian behavior from olden times. They conquered Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and half of Poland through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. They bit off a chunk of Finland. Earlier they had conquered Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
And here in the U.S., the world’s bastion against Communism, the home of “Better dead than red,” Tucker and Trump are cheering Putin on — I guess Trump regards Russia’s seizure of Ukraine as manifest destiny at work.
We should not expect Trump and his anti-rational followers to be upset over the destruction of a democracy. They are doing their best to suppress democracy in the United States, so they can only praise someone they see “doing it right.”
So will Putin be satisfied with Ukraine. Not likely at all! Rhineland, Sudetenland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Norway did not satisfy Putin’s forebears.
It is not surprising that Trump and some of his hangers-on have lately expressed their admiration and sympathy for Vladimir Putin. For these quasi-treasonous pols, it has always been party over country. They are so keen to praise anyone who clashes with Biden, that if Biden launched a crack-down on child molesters, these Republicans would come to the molesters’ defense.
And, of course, Trump and Putin are brothers in spirit, even if Trump’s admiration for Putin is alloyed with considerable envy. Hitler and Mussolini too were joined in a fervent mutual-admiration society. If only America would set a good example for the world by prosecuting and imprisoning our own Mussolini, Donald Trump.