This has been a very troubling week. Three things stand out.
First, Putin is telling a completely backward view of history. He claims Ukraine invaded Russia, that western militaries are using the Ukrainian army as slaves (and he's suggesting our militaries are actually in the field), and that we are threatening Russia with nuclear war. All backwards. So is Putin deranged or is this what all (liberals and) dictators do: accuse the other guy of their own crimes? I'm leaning toward him not being deranged, but being scared. He's scared he's going to get killed if he loses and he must know he cannot win this war. Making it even worse, Turkey and China have both told him he needs to stop the war, yet he's not listening because if he stops the war, he dies.
The problem is that he's making threats to nuke Western cities (he specifically called out Britain, but he means us all). If he's scared, then he could do anything. Indeed, a lot of dictators and related monsters prefer to see everyone die if they need to die. That makes these very troubling threats.
The thing is, he doesn't even need to go full nuclear to destroy the world. A nuke or two in orbit could wipe out electrical grids and satellites, things we all depend on for things like food. It could take months for food to show up in grocery stories again. That would be a supply chain crisis to make early covid shortages look like the land of plenty. And if he hit a city? It's very hard to predict what the effect could be, but we are too dependent on the entire world working without a hitch for things not to fall apart badly. This is very, very troubling.
Secondly, forget Trump, but focus on DeSantis. DeSantis shipped some immigrants to liberal town, the same as the Democratic mayor of El Paso has been doing and the same as is pretty much routinely done. Did you think all those clumps of immigrants happened randomly? Hardly. There are 66,000 Hmung in Minneapolis because that is where they were sent by the government. So political stunt or not, this is typical behavior. Nevertheless, the Democrats are screaming to have him charged with a crime. What crime? They don't even know, and that is what makes this even more disturbing -- they want someone to find a crime to charge him with.
This is a huge step further down the Nazi road for these people: trying to criminalize being their opponent. At times, people have crossed various lines and the other side tried to make a case out of it, but this is different. This is a group of deranged, hateful leftist literally trying to use the power of government to imprison people with whom they disagree. And it's been building to this. This is just the next step in the woke creatures trying to cancel people who say the wrong thing or live in ways of with which they disagree. These are the criminal impulses of totalitarian regimes... third world dictators. This is a troubling trend.
Third, after a brief pause in inflation, it's taking off again with a vengeance. Do you recall how I told you gas prices would fall to around $3.20 from $4 in what is called a retrenchment and then would start up again? We hit around $3.35 here and then it turned around. Virtually overnight, we jumped back to $3.75. Then today, we went to $3.79. I look for $4 next week. Making this worse, on gas at least, part of the reason gas fell was a federal gas tax holiday, which ends in October. So it will rise significantly in October again. Gas also will now be shifted to heating homes.
Food prices are skyrocketing again too. All the excuses aligned this week: (1) bad harvest due to "climate change", (2) anything carbonated (beer, soda) is about to shoot up because the nation's largest source of carbon dioxide has somehow been contaminated by a dormant volcano, (3) transportation costs will rise because of gas prices rising and the supposed settlement with the rail workers, and (4) "labor shortages" (read: wage hikes to cover inflation). Someone estimated the other day that food prices are up about $500 a month per family ($6000 a year). Ours are up more than that, I can tell you. Look to double that before Christmas.
All very troubling.
First, Putin is telling a completely backward view of history. He claims Ukraine invaded Russia, that western militaries are using the Ukrainian army as slaves (and he's suggesting our militaries are actually in the field), and that we are threatening Russia with nuclear war. All backwards. So is Putin deranged or is this what all (liberals and) dictators do: accuse the other guy of their own crimes? I'm leaning toward him not being deranged, but being scared. He's scared he's going to get killed if he loses and he must know he cannot win this war. Making it even worse, Turkey and China have both told him he needs to stop the war, yet he's not listening because if he stops the war, he dies.
The problem is that he's making threats to nuke Western cities (he specifically called out Britain, but he means us all). If he's scared, then he could do anything. Indeed, a lot of dictators and related monsters prefer to see everyone die if they need to die. That makes these very troubling threats.
The thing is, he doesn't even need to go full nuclear to destroy the world. A nuke or two in orbit could wipe out electrical grids and satellites, things we all depend on for things like food. It could take months for food to show up in grocery stories again. That would be a supply chain crisis to make early covid shortages look like the land of plenty. And if he hit a city? It's very hard to predict what the effect could be, but we are too dependent on the entire world working without a hitch for things not to fall apart badly. This is very, very troubling.
Secondly, forget Trump, but focus on DeSantis. DeSantis shipped some immigrants to liberal town, the same as the Democratic mayor of El Paso has been doing and the same as is pretty much routinely done. Did you think all those clumps of immigrants happened randomly? Hardly. There are 66,000 Hmung in Minneapolis because that is where they were sent by the government. So political stunt or not, this is typical behavior. Nevertheless, the Democrats are screaming to have him charged with a crime. What crime? They don't even know, and that is what makes this even more disturbing -- they want someone to find a crime to charge him with.
This is a huge step further down the Nazi road for these people: trying to criminalize being their opponent. At times, people have crossed various lines and the other side tried to make a case out of it, but this is different. This is a group of deranged, hateful leftist literally trying to use the power of government to imprison people with whom they disagree. And it's been building to this. This is just the next step in the woke creatures trying to cancel people who say the wrong thing or live in ways of with which they disagree. These are the criminal impulses of totalitarian regimes... third world dictators. This is a troubling trend.
Third, after a brief pause in inflation, it's taking off again with a vengeance. Do you recall how I told you gas prices would fall to around $3.20 from $4 in what is called a retrenchment and then would start up again? We hit around $3.35 here and then it turned around. Virtually overnight, we jumped back to $3.75. Then today, we went to $3.79. I look for $4 next week. Making this worse, on gas at least, part of the reason gas fell was a federal gas tax holiday, which ends in October. So it will rise significantly in October again. Gas also will now be shifted to heating homes.
Food prices are skyrocketing again too. All the excuses aligned this week: (1) bad harvest due to "climate change", (2) anything carbonated (beer, soda) is about to shoot up because the nation's largest source of carbon dioxide has somehow been contaminated by a dormant volcano, (3) transportation costs will rise because of gas prices rising and the supposed settlement with the rail workers, and (4) "labor shortages" (read: wage hikes to cover inflation). Someone estimated the other day that food prices are up about $500 a month per family ($6000 a year). Ours are up more than that, I can tell you. Look to double that before Christmas.
All very troubling.
I am also very worried about Putin for the reason you state. It probably is not feasible to negotiate a safe haven wealthy retirement for him. He would not believe it. Maybe hope a close aide has enough of a conscience to assassinate or arrange a coup.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how much leftists accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they themselves do. We are losing new generations to brainwashing.
Jed
Hi Jed, That's kind of the best hope right now, that one of his guards or someone else close decides to end him.
ReplyDeleteIt's shocking how easily leftists do this. Even more shocking is how they genuinely believe their own lies. One great example, they've been disassociating from family and friends who support conservatives. They've been openly doing this for years with a really strong emphasis on it under Trump.
But that looks bad, so they wrote articles about how conservatives doing it because conservatives are intolerant but liberals aren't doing it. At the same time, there are liberals bragging about friends they dropped when they said they supported Trump or Republicans.
Ditto on masks. Half the anti-mask nuts were leftists... and all of the pro-mask nuts. Yet, the media painted this as a conservative thing.
The examples are endless. All the "Karens" were leftists, even as they were painted as right wing.
The people inside Russia who are unhappy with Putin’s handling of the war in Ukraine and who are in a position to remove/replace him are unhappy because they want to win that war. I don’t know that ending Putin is a best-case scenario at all.
ReplyDeleteThat was me, BTW
ReplyDelete- tryanmax
tryanmax, That seems to be the other problem. All the people with power who are upset are upset that he hasn't been harsh enough. That doesn't leave us with much to hope for except a lone sane person in his midst.
ReplyDeleteAnd the clowns they have on television are shocking, even compared to our clowns. They are openly calling for the nuking of Britain (they're picking on Britain for some reason).
I made the point recently that inflation is good for the government and corporate America because it shrinks debt in real terms and made wages more competitive (by screwing the employees). Bloomberg had finally caught on to the first part and is now writing that the government's debt is magically shrinking because of inflation.
ReplyDeleteThey haven't caught on to the second part yet.