Tank You 🌻 🌻 🌻

🌻 🌻 🌻: I once toured Yad la Shiryon Latrun which in addition to serving as Israel’s memorial for fallen armored corps soldiers, houses a tank museum with a diverse collection of armored carriers, some made in Israel others from the former Soviet Union, the US, Britain, Germany, and France. Some of the tanks made it to Israel as leftovers from wars in Algeria and Korea and others, including the Russian ones and at least one Nazi tank, were captured by Israel during one of its wars in part because the Egyptians or Syrians operating them were poorly trained on the equipment. At some point in the future Ukraine could have a tank museum with a collection as diverse, or maybe even more diverse than Israel’s but only if the Ukrainians, who to their credit appear to be quick learners, are able to get up to speed on how to operate the tanks that are enroute because the US Abrams, the German Leopards, and the UK Challengers are all different, they don’t even use the same type of fuel.  The risk is that those tanks end up destroyed or in a museum outside of Moscow. The hoped for reward is that they help Ukraine beat back the Russians. Notably, the US Abrams tanks aren’t expected to make it into Ukraine’s arsenal anytime soon, but President Biden’s decision to send them was what it took to get Germany to agree to allow its Leopards, some of which are in Poland, to be sent to Ukraine now.  Putin’s response to the tank decisions was to immediately ramp up attacks on Ukrainian civilians. Trump responded too, not with bombs but by echoing Putin’s talking points. He posted “FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES, adding that ending the Russia-Ukraine war would be easy while also saying that the war never would have happened were he president.  By easy he means that he’d abandon Ukraine and by “never would have happened” he means, he would have handed the keys to Kiev to Putin on day one had he made it to a second term. By the way, Trump is still making most of his statements via Truth Social, but word is that he’s about to abandon his social media company and start posting on his reactivated Twitter account and Facebook where his frozen account has also been reactivated. If he starts tweeting again, Trump won’t be “liked” by Nick Fuentes, at least not right away.  The white supremacist who got his account back almost immediately was suspended for tweeting offensive things. Who but everyone would have guessed he’d do that?   

Not Funny:  George “many names” Santos is another one with a history of posting interesting things on social media. Yesterday, New York Patch published a story with screenshots, about some offensive Hitler jokes that Santos previously posted on his Facebook page, because according to Santos Jew ish people are allowed to joke about Hitler. The Hitler humor is offensive but not illegal, but Santos’ recent Federal Election Commission filing probably is and may be the biggest misstep he’s taken so far, which is saying a lot since it’s not like he’s been walking the straight and narrow.  In addition to failing to identify the true source of somewhere between $500,000 and $750,000 he earlier claimed he had contributed to his campaign, the newly filed forms include the electronic signature of Thomas Datwyler, a veteran Republican campaign finance treasurer who wants it known that he is not and has never been Santos’ treasurer.  So far, no comment from McCarthy who still desperately needs Santos’ vote on just about everything, well everything except the Fair Tax Plan, the legislation that the Freedom Caucus and their friends would like passed so that they can eliminate the IRS, replacing income taxes with a 30% sales tax. Even Kevin knows that the regressive Fair Tax Plan would impose much higher taxes on everyone in his base except for those in the highest tax brackets. The Fair Tax Plan isn’t going to pass but it’s one of those things Kevin promised he’d let his crowd vote on to secure his speakership so it could come up for a floor vote, one that will fail with or without Santos, while giving Democrats some really good talking points alongside those they already have about how the Republicans are holding Medicare and Social Security hostage in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.  The thing about talking points is that they don’t have to be completely accurate, they just need to scare voters and cutting Medicare and Social Security while raising taxes is bigly scary.

Which Witch Hunt?  Also scary is yesterday’s NY Times story about John Durham, Bill Barr and their investigation into what Trump calls the Russian “witch hunt.”  Durham, the US Attorney who was supposed to expose that the witch hunt was a witch hunt never did, he also didn’t produce that report that Trump and his echo chamber promised would be coming out in time to help him win the 2020 election.  However, that wasn’t because Durham, who was once well respected but apparently bonded with Barr over their shared heritage and moved to the dark side, didn’t try to uncover a deep state plot, it’s because there was nothing to uncover. The NY Times reports that Durham and Barr’s desperate efforts involved trying to harangue their Italian and British counterparts into coming forward with incriminating dirt about the Russian investigation that didn’t exist.  Ironically, the Italians did come forward with something, they passed on some dirt about some Trump financial finagling but somehow or other neither Durham nor Barr opted to pursue that criminal tidbit. What the dastardly duo did do was try to use some questionable Russian intelligence to further their position that the Russian investigation was a witch hunt which is especially ironic since that’s what they were trying to pin on FBI Director Comey and Hillary Clinton, among others. 

Pillow Talk: Barr and Durham aren’t the only two who have bonded.  Apparently, Kevin is totally into Margie Q these days, that’s Margie who sees herself as Trump’s next Vice President.  Another interesting pair is Harmeet Dhillon and Pillow Man Mike Lindell.  Both are challenging Ronna Romney McDaniel to become Republican National Committee Chair.  Ronna still has an edge over her competitors, but the two challengers have now teamed up so who knows what’s going to happen.  It’s fun to dismiss Mr Pillow because, well obviously, but some people do like him or at least appreciate his disruptive nature and his crappy pillows.  Harmeet Dhillon, who has the support of quite a few on the right, got an endorsement from Ron DeSantis, of anti-African American AP History fame, yesterday so while she remains an underdog anything could happen and she does have a point about Ronna, who is viewed as Trump’s puppet, not having a successful track record.