Losin' it

 Vladimir Putin is losing his war and his mind.  In the wake of the humiliating Glorious Victory parade comes a list of still more Americans who cannot visit Mother Russia.  I can't find a complete tally but I am reminded of a line from Victor/Victoria, a movie which can no longer be shown in either St. Petersburg (Russia) or St. Petersburg (Florida):  Fired from his cabaret job for provoking a riot, Toddy (Robert Preston) observes, "Being thrown out of this place is significantly better than being thrown out of a leper colony."

Brace yourself, it's a deeply schizophrenic list:  Barack Obama, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), Rachel Maddow, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Rob Reiner, Morgan Freeman, Erin Burnett, Joe Scarborough, Hunter Biden, you see where this is going, right?  No, you don't:  Marjorie Taylor Greene and Bob Casey also made the cut, along with deceased John McCain and Orrin Hatch.  If you think you're among the Fortunate 963, check with the State Department or your local Aeroflot office.  (Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson are still welcome.)

It could be worse.  The Russians want to arrest Karim Khan, a British prosecutor with the International Criminal Court who has the arrest warrant for Putin.  The Russians don't even deny that they are abducting Ukrainian children and giving them to Russian families, as the Nazis did with Polish children who "looked Aryan."  Shamelessness helps.

The deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar says fighting between Ukrainian forces and the Wagner Group (nobody pretends the Russian army is doing anything but looting now) is "critical" in Bakhmut.  Meanwhile a UN report says the Wagners murdered five hundred civilians in Mali last year as they warmed up for atrocities in Ukraine.

Russia continues to shred its own culture sector with the arrest of theater director Ivan Vyrypaev  and film producer Alexander Rodnyansky for criticizing the Russian army.  Dictatorships are very touchy about their military (see People's Liberation Army v. Li Haoshi).  A month ago the Bolshoi was forced to cancel a new ballet about Rudolf Nureyev for violating the ban on "LGBTQ propaganda," which is nearly as strict as Florida's.

Despite fighting an all-in war for survival, the Ukrainian government continues its efforts to root out corruption, a prerequisite for joining the European Union.  The head of the country's Supreme Court was arrested on suspicion of taking bribes (these Benjamins were discovered in a sofa).

John Roberts, it can be done.