T for Victory

As the US and its allies talk about entertaining the possibility of ceasing to import Russian oil, maybe, it's left to our own stable jenius to point the way to victory:  Label F-22s with Chinese flags and "bomb the shit out of Russia."  Bomb with fighters?  Forget it, he's rolling:  "And then we say China did it, we didn't do it, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch."  Ssshhhhh!  China can hear you even if you're talking to a bunch of idiots in New Orleans.*  Did you know that?  And Russia can tell the difference between American and Chinese planes without even seeing the flag stenciled on the tail.  Otherwise, a brilliant idea as always, if only that election hadn't been rigged, everything would be sunshine and lollipops.

The rest was pretty standard, including praise for Kim Jong-un.  (Kim's love letters were among the fifteen boxes of "top secret" and other documents seized by the FBI last month, so Trump is probably hinting he'd like some fresh ones.)  "His people were sitting at attention.  I looked at my people and said I want my people to act like that."  My people?  The WaPo describes "laughter" from the crowd at "the elite Four Seasons" (not the one near the sex shop) as he went on to praise the prospect of global warming -- more beach property -- and introduced a new nickname for Adam Schiff ("watermelon head").  The old obsessions were all in evidence, Schiff, Georgia's electoral votes, Mark Zuckerberg (!) and how he has always been tough on Putin, just as Charlie McCarthy was tough on Edgar Bergen.

Has it been only a week since Trump was creaming his Depends over Putin's "smart, savvy" activities?  "He's gonna go in and be a peacemaker...That's the strongest peace force I've ever seen.  They're gonna keep peace all right," and wishing he could have brought peace to Mexico.  Now it's "a massive crime against humanity," a "holocaust."  It's amazing how the Far White party doesn't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.  

Not all of them, of course.  As Putin scapegoated LGBTQ people and identified himself with the virulently anti-Semitic Orthodox Church, some consider Russia the great white hope as Europe (Ukraine included) becomes more ethnically diverse, more democratic and more secular.  In 2017 Ann Coulter proclaimed, "In twenty years Russia will be the only country that is recognizably European," if by European she means Germany in the 1930s.  More apocalyptically David Duke called it "the key to white survival."  More than half of Russia is actually in Asia, home to millions of people neither of them would consider "white," many of them Muslim.  Do they think Putin will build a WALL along the Urals?  (Come to think of it, Putin himself...if we sent his DNA to Ancestry.com, would the results be a bit disillusioning?  Because as the old joke goes, occasionally Genghis Khan's men got down off their horses.)

With Republicans it can be hard to distinguish treachery from stupidity.  President Zelensky had a Zoom call with over 160 members of Congress and all but two refrained from posting it to their social media feeds:  Marco Rubio and Steve Daines.  One Twitter user noted, "He put Zelensky's life in jeopardy.  I think Rubio needs a time out."  The Ukrainian Embassy specifically asked that the call not be shared, so let's go with treachery.  Why not both?

And now for the goofy news:  Poutine, the French-Canadian delicacy, probably took its name from the English word "pudding," but it's right in the middle of the war.  Because it sounds like Putin, get it?  Well, LeRoy Jucep, the diner which claims to have invented it, is now calling it "fries-cheese-gravy" instead, and Maison de la Poutine (in Paris and Toulouse) is receiving "insults and threats."  One fan tweeted, "Please stop confusing Putin and poutine.  One is a dangerous and unwholesome mix of greasy, lumpy and congealed ingredients, the other is a delicious food."  Merci beaucoup, I'm here all week. 

*If this is how rich, angry white people spend Mardi Gras week, I am truly sorry for them.