Tilting at Windmills 🌻 🌻 🌻

Ukraine Crisis:  The unimaginable humanitarian crisis continues to worsen in Ukraine.  The refugee count now exceeds 2 million. More than two weeks in and with quick victory out of reach the increasingly isolated Putin appears to be going for siege warfare, starving, bombing and trapping remaining Ukrainians in the cities he previously planned to “liberate” and “denazify.”  He’s even cut off electricity to the Chernobyl nuclear site.  In a show of US support, President Biden sent VP Harris to Eastern Europe where yesterday she met with Poland’s President Duda to express appreciation for Poland’s impressive assistance with the huge number of Ukrainians refugees and to smooth over the very public disagreement over whether Poland should be allowed to send some of its Russian war planes to Ukraine in exchange for US ones.  That scheme which seemed plausible last week hit a huge wall after President Biden’s military advisors told him that it would likely escalate hostilities with the trigger happy Putin, would be difficult to pull off especially given how much press it’s gotten and at least for now probably wouldn’t do much to help the Ukrainian military which has been holding its own with the planes it has.  Of course, the right wing press immediately attacked Harris’ performance despite the fact that she more than held her own because that’s what they do. 

Back in the USA:  The Former Guy who had he managed his election steal scam would still be president is still finding it bizarrely inconvenient to say anything critical about Vlad.  Even for him, the FG seemed unusually unhinged when he responded to a question during a podcast interview by the host of “Full Send” about how he thought the Russian invasion of Ukraine would end by immediately pivoting to windmills, yes those “cancer causing” windmills.  The FG riffed on and on about how windmills don’t work, they’re too expensive, they kill all the birds….they ruin your landscapes.”  Nothing about people being killed by his BFF Putin, or the bombing of hospitals, but a lot of concern about the landscapes, especially the ones near his Russian funded golf courses.  Last night Sean Hannity tried to help him out, feeding him several opportunities to condemn Putin’s evil ways, but once again the FG couldn’t do it and so he didn’t. The FG’s continued Putin friendly position still has a lot of influence with his supporters, likely one of the reasons that fifteen Republican House members, including among others the usual clown contingent of Margie Q, Boebert, Gosar, Biggs and Cawthorn,  voted against the bipartisan ban on US purchases of Russian oil.  In particular, North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn, when not getting caught speeding and driving without a license, appears to be acting under the influence of Russian handlers.  How else can his assertion at a weekend campaign rally that Ukraine President Zelenskyy is a “thug” and that the Ukrainian government is “incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies,” like democracy, perhaps, be understood.   Cawthorn’s talking points come right out of the Russian playbook.  Don’t be surprised when he joins Russian Foreign Minister/Baghdad Bob imitator Lavrov in claiming that the Russians didn’t really bomb any hospitals, kindergartens or civilian targets, that such assertions are all Ukraine invented bunk. Keep in mind that bombing hospitals is a Russian thing, they repeatedly bombed them in Syria. Worse yet, the Russians appear to be on the verge of launching a chemical strike or two.  We know that because they are now claiming that Ukraine will and false flag assertions are on page one of their playbook. One more thing worth noting, it’s not just Republicans, two House Democrats, Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush, also voted against banning Russia oil out of what Omar said was concern that doing so would hurt the Russian people.  Apparently she has chosen to ignore that stressing the populace is the point.  Getting back to the Russian playbook, one of Putin’s favorites Maria Butina, the Russian sparrow who was released back to Russia, where she is now a member of the Duma, after completing her US sentence is pushing the Ukrainians as Nazis theory and doing videos showing her comrades how to sew the Russian Z on to their jackets.  By the way, it turns out that she wasn’t the only Russian woman trying to exert influence in the US. Earlier this week the DOJ  indicted Russian/American dual citizen Elena Branson who was engaged, albeit, less successfully, in activities similar to those that got Butina into jail.  Branson even shows up in a few pictures with Butina.  Unfortunately, Branson has already fled and is now back in Moscow.

Lending Trees: Just a day after accounting firm Mazars announced that they were dumping him as a client, the FG completed a refinancing of a $100 million Trump Tower loan, proving that there are still lenders sketchy enough to do business with him. The new loan was made by Axos Bank, a California based internet bank headed by a former Goldman Sachs banker name Greg Garrabrants who has also personally donated money to the FG’s campaigns.  Axos has previously come under the scrutiny of regulators so we may hear more about this loan in the weeks to come or maybe not because everything FG seems to be protected by magic Teflon,  everything but his plane.  It looks like he still hasn’t repaired his personal Boeing 757.  Over the weekend he and his entourage were forced to make an emergency landing after the donor provided plane he was traveling on for his New Orleans large donor trip lost an engine.  Freeloader FG and his crowd managed to get back to Mar a Lago but only after another donor coughed up a plane.  One guy who wasn’t with the FG on that trip was his one time convicted and then pardoned national security advisor Michael Flynn.  Flynn likely spent his weekend preparing for the January 6^th committee testimony he provided yesterday, not that repeatedly claiming the Fifth takes that much practice but then again, Flynn has been caught lying before so maybe he needed to be prepped. Add Colorado election official Tina Peters to the list of people who could use a really good legal team to prep her for future court appearances. Republican Peters, County Clerk of Mesa County and a hero to those who admire her embrace of election-fraud conspiracy theories, has been indicted on state criminal charges for her efforts to secretly copy hard drives from Dominion Voting Systems equipment.  Why is it that almost all of the people responsible for election fraud turn out to be Republicans?