The Mouse That Roared

Ukraine 🌻🌻🌻:  The Ukraine war that Putin insists is “only” a special military operation to rout out imaginary Nazis continues.  The current view is that Putin is living in some kind of groupthink bubble, that those around him are telling him what he wants to hear and that he doesn’t know what’s really happening on the ground.  That may or may not be true and it’s correct that his “military operation” is not going according to plan but as our Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq experiences have proven, an unsuccessful war with disconnected leaders is still a war and his continues to destroy lives and infrastructure.  It’s probably premature to count Russia out or to assume that Vlad is totally clueless to what’s going on given that someone in Russian leadership has “convinced” Syria’s Bashar Assad to send in some of his hardened fighters.  One thing of note is that the Russian’s have given the ultimate hot potato, the Chernobyl nuclear site, back to Ukraine.  Apparently having inexperienced troops dig trenches in radioactive waste laden mud wasn’t such a good idea, especially for those doing the digging assuming of course that irradiating your own wasn’t in the Putin playbook.

Laptop Update:  Back at home, the investigations continue, not just into all things Former Guy but also into Hunter Biden and his infamous laptop.  On the Hunter front, it’s not clear that his business endeavors were illegal, he’s hardly the first son to monetize his name, but they were definitely slimy and he definitely suffers from a lot of personal demons. What’s particularly odd right now is that while so much of what Attorney General Garland is or is not doing with regard to the investigation of the January 6^th insurrection remains opaque, we’re getting so many details about the investigation into Hunter, not just from the right but from the Washington Post and the NY Times. It’s hard not to believe that the Hunter dump is coming from sources associated with David Weiss, the FG appointed US Attorney for Delaware who President Biden left in place so that no one could accuse him of trying to quash the investigation into his son. Anyway, the troubled Hunter is far from an angel but it doesn’t appear that anything he did involved his father.  Still that’s not going to stop the slime from getting tossed around, we’ve already seen the Former Guy publicly request help from Vile Vlad, help that has Russian media appears to be more than willing to provide to their “partner,” truth be dammed.  As to family ties, son in law Jared, who is a lot smoother than Hunter, but who has clearly monetized his family ties testified in front of the January 6th Committee yesterday for about six hours.  His testimony was characterized as “valuable” whatever that means.  Getting back to Merrick Garland, the quiet AG does appear to be widening the January 6th investigation, now looking into the efforts to obstruct the Electoral College certification and the push by some FG allies to promote slates of fake electors.  His prosecutors are also asking about the planning for those “nice tourist” rallies that preceded the assault on the Capitol, the ones that culminated in the storming of the Capitol.  Maybe they should call Ginni Thomas, she seems to know a lot of people or at the very least has an impressive rolodex?

Viral Musings:  The US 7 day average of new cases is about 30,000 with daily deaths “down” to 690.  Count CIA Director William Burns among the newly infected.  Somehow or other, he is another person that is not considered a close Biden contact.  For his part Biden got his second booster, a good thing given how out and about he’s been these days and how many of his people have turned up positive.  By the way one of those infected people, Press Secretary Jen Psaki has still not returned to the podium.  Though it’s not done yet, it looks like a deal is close on more coronavirus funding. Senator Mitt Romney, who still hasn’t revealed how he’ll be voting on Judge Jackson’s confirmation, is leading the Republican negotiating team.  As to Judge Jackson, no surprise that the incredibly hypocritical Lindsey Graham who voted for her previous confirmations will be a “no.” Also, not surprising that no Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee will be voting for her, forcing the committee’s Democrats to go through an extra step to get her vote to the Senate floor. 

Other News:  Florida Governor DeSantis is fighting with Disney, threatening to take away the company’s 55 year old special Orlando area self-governing status because Minnie and Mickey came out, albeit too late to matter, against his “don’t say gay” law.  In other news US District Court Judge Mark Walker has struck down Florida’s restrictive newest election law, saying that “Florida has a grotesque history of racial discrimination.” He ruled that the state can’t make any major changes to election regulations for the next 10 years unless a judge clears them first.  Of course, Florida is appealing.  In New York, an upstate Republican judge threw out the state’s newest voting map yesterday, the one that results in more Democratic leaning districts than the state had before it lost a House seat as a result of the census, but that ruling is not expected to stand.