Author Archives: Hue White

There may be some puzzlement about the assertions of this Republican at the Michigan Trump rally:

Rep. McClain: What we have now is a shambles. It’s a complete mess. Unemployment, 40 year high pic.twitter.com/wEaem0LF4w

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 2, 2022

But when you’re McClain, with no talent and no achievement, you’d better distract with assertions that will please your boss, such as that the current President has led us to huge unemployment, rather than huge employment.

Don’t look for truth, look for what pleases the boss. Because he doesn’t care if it’s true or not.

Among the risks of new technologies are those of losing money, both legitimately and illegitimately. WaPo covers the latter in relation to cryptocurrency, and how today’s communications technology enables a risk-free scamming opportunity for the criminal element. If you’re a cryptocurrency user or investor, you should read this article.

The summary?

One of the particular features of crypto scams is how close they sit to conventional investing. Because of its volatility, crypto trading can have the feel of gambling — fortunes are gained and lost before lunch. Subareas like liquidity mining are even blurrier — the idea that your money could earn double-digit percentage returns with no risk seems too good to be true. But there are legitimate liquidity-mining operators, so how to tell the difference?

Remember, cryptocurrency is supposed to be a currency, not an investment, for the vast majority of its users – currency traders are few and far between in the real world. If you’re offered a chance for easy money, think twice and make sure you understand how it works, and how each option in the software works.

That’s a new one.

And remember – this isn’t The Sting. Vengeance will be doubtful.

This strikes me (and Daily Kos‘ Mark Sumner) as a big deal:

“Russia wants us to support them but we don’t recognize Crimea, or Donbas. Yes, we are in a union with Russia but it doesn’t apply to this situation. We won’t help Russia avoid US and EU sanctions.” – Deputy chair of the presidential administration in Kazakhstan. This is huge.

— Bakhti Nishanov (@b_nishanov) April 1, 2022

In the old days, such a declaration by a member of the Soviet Union would have resulted in the removal and imprisonment of the deputy chair, and probable execution, by agents of the Soviet Union.

Assuming it’s authentic, the fact that a government official is willing to tell Putin off suggests that Putin’s power is strictly limited, even in the horrific face of deliberately horrific carnage in Ukraine. It may indicate a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine is imminent – whether Putin orders it or not.

Come, step through the screen and get your ass handed to something that will literally eat it.

Knights of Badassdom (2013) has Peter Dinklage and Summer Glau, so if you’re completists you will wish to see this.

Otherwise? Gore, some creepy nerd humor, bad special effects. And accidental magic, that’s always fun.

Sigh.

… is snow in April.

Not unknown, but definitely unwelcome.

Reflective of how I felt. Vertiginous.

Kat Rosenfield writes on the newly found predilection for censorship on the left, and implies a question that may be more interesting that it first appears:

The subtext is a profound shift in the idea of what it means to “deserve” a career as a writer, as if book deals are a reward for good moral character rather than compensation for quality work. When Penguin Random House declined to publish a new collection of works by Norman Mailer in January, the predominant sentiment was frustration—not that the renowned writer’s ideas were suddenly too provocative for print, but that he hadn’t been canceled ages ago for stabbing his wife. It is this sensibility that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie captured in a series of essays in 2021, writing, “What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.” [Persuasion]

Or, to simplify, what sin must be committed in order that we deny to the writer, painter, creator, the rewards of having committed the act of creation?

Or is it wrong to assume that an artist wants to sell their creations to consumers of art? (I don’t think it’s wrong to make that assumption. The writer wants to know others appreciate your words, and what you try to convey, and I can only assume the same applies to other artists.)

So we assign the sin, thus dividing creators into those allowed to enjoy the fruit of their labors – the knowledge that others have consumed their art, a statement notable for its inexactitude – and those that are disallowed.

Disallowed from …. being paid? No, from knowing they’ve been appreciated.

No, from being appreciated. A subtle but keen difference.

Wait. Uh. Doesn’t that mean the audience didn’t …?

Who all is being punished here, anyways?

OK, why do we like art? (Yeah, I know, but ’tis only a rhetorical question, to stir the blood and remind one of the eternal question, Is there anything wrong with a chocolate chip cookie that won’t be solved by eating another chocolate chip cookie?)

So art springs, outside of some limited exceptions, from the brains of humans. It conveys ideas, processes, projected results. Do we value, such as in the case of Mailer, the ideas of those we think are morally repulsive?

But, wait, art colored by the moral mindset of the immorally repulsive, if I may coin a phrase, can it have a genuine artistic value as well?

I pretend to no conclusions, just the questions to haunt the absurdly arrogant. Or do the left not serve an ethereal tea to Banquo?

I’m just so lost.

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon, by Rosa Brooks. Here, briefly but hopefully enough to whet the appetite of the interested reader, is its coverage:

Chapter 1: Piracy, its challenges to the military and the lawyer. Too bad there were no comparisons to the problems of piracy experienced by the Americans shortly after the Revolutionary War.

Chapter 2: Guantanamo Bay

Chapter 3: Can the military implement Rule of Law? Or is it just a bunch of heavily armed lawyers running around?

Chapter 4: Discusses what I would call mission creep, or what happens when your victory turns to ashes, and how the State Department is chronically underfunded and undermanned. This forces the military to take over functions that seem more appropriate to State, and sometimes their performance in these roles is wanting. PLUS: What happens when the Alaska National Guard fights a US Army tank battalion in combat.

Chapter 5: Are drones forces for evil or for good? The impact of drone warfare, both on the individuals involved and the US government, as DoD and intelligence agencies maneuver for best positions.

Chapter 6: Killer Robots and are they better at following the rules? The Milgram experiment. Non-fatal weapons and how they will improve the humaneness of warfare.

Chapter 7: The introduction of Regionally Aligned Forces (RAF) in the Army in reaction to the Iraq War, and the reactions to it from both inside and outside the Army: How does this work again? from Army personnel, They’re taking our jobs! from the State Dept, and This is all about instigating and extending war! from those who see the Army as causing wars, rather than responding.

Chapter 8: The composition of the US Armed Services – not necessarily conservative, well educated.

Chapter 9: The definition of war is a troubled area, as the lines definitions seek to draw are inevitably blurred by the creativity of the combatants. The rituals of war, from thousands of years ago to today, are explored, describing the transition of humans between peaceful and violent modes of existence as requiring ritual, cleansing, and sometimes reparations; that they exist today, even in the sometimes-rational United States, should perhaps be seen as inevitable.

Chapter 10: The historical development of the rules of war is given, from millennia ago to the infamous memos of John Yoo. Includes a contrast of the attitudes of military lawyers with those of civilian Bush Administration lawyers, and their concerns, well-founded as they turned out to be, when the American public was informed of the torture sessions of the Iraq War.

Chapter 11: The operation of International War Law: What happens when a crime occurs, but the perpetrator could either commit the crime or die? The tragedy of the rabidly nationalistic.

Chapter 12: The challenges of classifying aggression and attacks, such as the 9/11 attack, and why they’re important.

Chapter 13: The myth of the ‘international community’ is explored; the failed state and how the entire idea of a state is a nebulous concept.

Chapter 14: The human cost, as witnessed by Brooks, of intra-State wars is brought to the fore, and her helplessness. Then an exploration of the intervention of one State into the affairs of another: the Humane intervention, and the problems it brings for the legal community, once over lightly, such as the War on Terror: despite the legitimacy of Kofi Annan’s warning about States’ cruelty to their own citizens, interference in another State’s affairs is a heavy problem for lawyers to justify.

Chapter 15: The Military: a Recent Development. What is a Soldier, anyways? These days, weapons hardly get involved.

Chapter 16: An Age of Uncertainty, brought on by powerful computing/communication devices and medical technology, all of which conspires to make predictions concerning international security an occupation akin to economics’ predictions, a dismal practice to be certain.

Chapter 17: Is a drone strike self-defense or state-sanctioned murder? Is it war or just a terrorist organization being extinguished? Definitions of state (vs State) lead to conclusions as to the legality of extra-territorial actions, and an action is often justified – legal – only in the eyes of those that it immediately benefits, long-term consequences be-damned.

Chapter 18: The gap between what is said and what is done; can a country be unable to quell a terror threat against the United States, or are they compliant with it? And other conundrums of note.

Chapter 19: The mistrust between top civilian leadership and military leadership. The civilians want a single, all-purpose tool; the military would prefer to stick with what they know. This is the conundrum of a democracy in which rank amateurs can achieve high rank based solely on blather and even worse.

The final chapter: Overview and warning.

In essence, this is an informative and entertaining – gulp! – exploration of the hows and whys the American military is used for missions well outside of its primary expertise, why it often fails at those reluctant forays, and how it’s more or less at the mercy of provincial American leaders, all from the viewpoint of a lawyer specializing in international law.

I won’t generally recommend it, but it’s not a difficult read, Brooks doesn’t appear to have a hidden agenda, and if it crosses one of your paths of interest, give it a read. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

The best – well, only – April Fools’ Joke this year that I saw:

I think Michael DC Brown has something serious to say:

We have entered an era in which the relative neutrality of racial identity no longer exists in the mainstream of American life. The truce signed in the 70s by nominal blackfolks and nominal whitefolks has broken. Not by you and I, but by a collection of people who are determined to say that race matters, and that it matters more than you or I. It has broken over some truly phenomenally trivial bullshit which has been magnified many orders of magnitude into a symbol, perhaps the most incredibly weighty hot air balloon America has ever seen. It doesn’t matter that St. George has put more people and violence in the street than anybody short of Rodney King and MLK, it matters that the truce is broken and people are scrambling to do something. This is a poignant moment. Things are out of balance. It’s fair to say that so-called whitefolks and so-called blackfolks are at odds, or even at war. Sucks to be them.

So what do I mean by personal deracination? Well in distinction from the some of the talk above, it means that you abandon whatever it is you think your racial role should be in improving ‘race relations’. You must first grasp the fact that anything having to do with race relations is a game for which you must don a uniform and represent your team. You never will get to be the leader of your team, and every time you attempt to be an individual, you will not get recognized unless you are following the team playbook. [Stoic Observations]

In combination with Andrew Sullivan’s recent furious diatribe against Jon Stewart and Critical Race Theory (CRT) campaigner Lisa Bond, this is convincing to me to come around to the position that CRT is just another vehicle for grifters, those creatures that can tell ridiculous lies with completely straight faces, like Greg Locke.

Bond’s gig? In Sullivan’s words:

Stewart invited on, and fawned over, a woman named Lisa Bond, who runs an organization called Race2Dinner. She charges white women $2,500 per dinner to be harangued for their racism.

The best grifts have a patina of plausibility that covers up an abyss: missing context, generalizations that collapse like a tent in a windstorm, mis-direction, refusal to engage. It was while reading Sullivan’s description of Bond, which goes on a trifle longer, that I finally began to clue in to what I think CRT is really turning out to be.

So if someone starts howling CRT tenets in your ears and sticks a hand out, or into your pocket, remember my words and start thinking for yourself. Not their thoughts, but your own.

Although Mr. Brown’s thoughts are well worth considering.

Caesaropapism:

Caesaropapism /ˌsiːzəroʊˈpeɪpɪzəm/ is the idea of combining the social and political power of secular government with religious power, or of making secular authority superior to the spiritual authority of the Church; especially concerning the connection of the Church with government. Although Justus Henning Böhmer (1674–1749) may have originally coined the term caesaropapism (Cäseropapismus), it was Max Weber (1864–1920) who wrote: “a secular, caesaropapist ruler… exercises supreme authority in ecclesiastic matters by virtue of his autonomous legitimacy”. According to Weber, caesaropapism entails “the complete subordination of priests to secular power.” [Wikipedia]

Noted in “An Orthodox awakening,” George Weigel, Denver Catholic:

Second, the signatories “firmly reject all forms of government that deify the state (theocracy) and absorb the Church, depriving the Church of its freedom to stand prophetically against all injustice.” They also “rebuke all those who affirm caesaropapism,” which subordinates obedience to Christ to obedience to a “leader vested with ruling powers and claiming to be God’s anointed, whether known by the title ‘Caesar,’ ‘Emperor,’ ‘Tsar,’ ‘or ‘President.’”

Say caesaropapism five times fast.

Paranoia, yes, I know, but I can’t help but wonder if the Chinese government is sabotaging this primary – and close to only – market for metals:

One Chinese metals producer, Tsingshan Holding Group Co., sat at the center of the storm. The group had wagered a massive bet that the price of nickel would fall. At its peak, Tsingshan’s short position was equivalent to about an eighth of all of the outstanding contracts in the market: If prices had stood at $100,000 the company would have owed the LME [London Metals Exchange] $15 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The spike generated margin calls higher than the LME had ever seen — and if paid, they would force multiple defaults that would ripple through the exchange and destabilize the global market.

Exchange executives scrambled to respond, ultimately throwing a lifeline to the brokers representing Tsingshan and other producers. In an unprecedented move, they halted trading and retroactively canceled all 9,000 trades that occurred on Tuesday, worth about $4 billion in total. …

But in recent years the exchange has been pushed to start moving into the 21st century. Until 2012, the LME was owned by its members, the same people who traded on the exchange — but then it was sold to Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) for $2.2 billion. The new owners raised fees to recuperate some of their investment, upsetting the community. Volumes dropped significantly, and the chief executive and operating officer left. [CNN/Business]

Thus destroying trust in LME, the article notes. LME could be considered a critical part of the world economy’s infrastructure. Could it be a target for China?

I’m not a fan of HOAs (home owner associations), as I dislike meddling in my business, especially when it comes to decorating decisions. However, this HOA has excited my favor:

Using the same legal authority that allows homeowners associations to punish people who fail to cut their grass, the Potters Glen board erected a hurdle for investors: a new rule required any new home buyer to wait two years before renting it out.

Since the board adopted the rule in 2019, property records show the pace of investor purchases has dropped by more than half.

Long time readers may remember this post concerning Erick Erickson’s misunderstanding of how private companies work. I wonder how he’ll feel about the HOAs taking defensive actions.

It’s all sort of … Soviet, I suspect he’ll feel.

There’s an old Greek adage, perhaps apocryphal, which is different from apocalyptic by letter count, that goes Who’ll watch the Watchers? It refers to the problem of who is policing the police, etc. I’m reminded of that bit of old wisdom in this paragraph from WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin:

The Thomas scandal cannot be ignored. As University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman tells me, “The court protects its reputation in large part through good will, and by acting like a respectable institution. Ginni Thomas is burning through that good will at a rapid pace — making the court and its justices appear corrupt, as if they are or could be casting votes in cases based on the interest or possible involvement of their spouse.” Litman rightly calls Thomas’s conduct “appalling.”

As SCOTUS is SCOTUS, there is no real appeal of bad behavior by SCOTUS justices, except impeachment and conviction by the Senate. When such a political institution is as polarized as it is right now, in which the arrogance of – let’s say it together, both parties – catalyzes fear and hatred, rather than mature judgment, in Senators, there is little hope for seasoned oversight of SCOTUS by the Senate.

This is not an unique problem. Governing bodies are often infested with inferior, damaged human beings that lust for power and are driven by irrational urges. In autocracies, it results in everything from injustice to mass murder. In democracies, it results in discontent, mass mutterings, and the rise of charismatics who characteristically know little beyond their lust for position and power.

It’s up to the people to replace those Senators who won’t do their jobs, whether it’s McConnell or Manchin.

The utter and unexpected failure of Russia to take its objectives in Putin’s War has left most observers a little dazed, but the reports that Ukraine is pushing Russia’s best around is bordering on the surreal, although a lot of it must have to do with supplies of American weaponry, which would appear to be superior. Most of the aggressive claims I’m seeing are coming off Daily Kos, such as this opinion piece by Hunter:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with President Joe Biden again today as Biden confirmed another $500 million in aid would be headed for the country, while peace talks between Russia and Ukraine continue to go nowhere. Peace talks aren’t likely to go anywhere for a while yet; Ukraine’s very successful recent routing of some of the best the Russian military has to offer is likely contributing to the country’s conviction that they need not abandon territory to Russia in exchange for a peace deal, even as Russia continues to shell civilian population centers in an effort to focus their military might against primarily unarmed targets.

As for the announced Russian retreat—that is, “tactical withdrawal”—from positions around Kyiv most at risk of being encircled by Ukrainian counterattacks, there’s still no evidence to suggest Russia is doing anything but some minor shuffles. The biggest battlefield changes aren’t from intentional Russian moves, but from Ukraine retaking ground by blasting through Russian equipment; if Russia does intend to fall back to more defensible positions, even that may prove a challenge.

If, in fact, Ukraine’s tactics are disassembling a vaunted war machine to the extent that a special conscription has been ordered by Putin in order to continue his war, it speaks volumes to Russia’s war readiness.

And does nothing to further discourage a Chinese grab for Russia territory, as I suggested a few days ago here and here.

It may up the chances, but, given Russia still holds nuclear weapons, tactical that they may be for the most part, China still faces spectacular hurdles to leap, no matter how hollow the Russian war machine may appear.

But, in my limited reading time, I’m becoming more and more astounded that no one remembers the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. For the unfamiliar, this divided Europe into spheres of influence for Germany and the Soviet Union, and the naive should think that it would also prohibit mutual aggression. However, it did not, as Germany soon attacked the Soviet Union.

Recently, China and Russia signed a treaty that sounded at least little bit like the pact above – and my point is that two autocratic regimes signing a non-aggression pact is hardly an iron door locked with shackles. The perception of facts is changing rapidly, and re-appraisals could lead to abrupt aggression.

So we should be talking about that potential aggression, in the papers, in the halls of the Pentagon, and at the White House. Are we? No one’s mentioning it that I’m aware of.

We need to be ready, as we were for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Today, Rep Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) is hoping to move up the ladder of Trump social prestige:

FIRST ON FOX: Oklahoma GOP U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Markwayne Mullin Tuesday is introducing a resolution to expunge former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment – saying Democrats didn’t prove “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Mullin’s nine-page resolution, if passed by the House, would declare “expunged” Trump’s 2019 impeachment over allegedly leveraging U.S. military aid to Ukraine for political favors involving investigations of the Bidens. It accused Democrats of “flippantly exercising one of the gravest and most consequential powers with which the House of Representatives is charged.” [Fox News]

If we all stamp our feet and howl loudly at the moon, our beloved Leader’s criminal act will have never happened!

It must be noted that this is also another sordid attempt at moral equality, as it accuses the Democrats of ‘flippancy’ when it comes to impeachment proceedings. However, an official expungement is not the same as disproving the actual accusations, but is more along the lines of a pardon.

Yeah, he did it. In order to salve our hurt feelings, let’s officially forget about it.

When it comes to corporate shame, while reading that Koch Industries continues to prioritize corporate profits over respect for the Law, it occurs to me that far-right Mr. Koch (the other Mr. Koch having passed away a couple of years ago) could use a new defense for this failure to toe the Western line:

This War is a liberal conspiracy to destroy the private sector!

Yep, I think that would be quite effective, and very aligned with standard far-right thinking. The liberals and Vlad just conspiring away … to eliminate Mr. Koch.

Yeah!

I can’t help but think of the over-populated elite described by Turchin, et al, in Secular Cycles and War and Peace and War in connection with this WaPo report on Facebook’s Meta’s dirty tricks take-down of TikTok:

Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok.

The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook, and pushing to draw political reporters and local politicians into helping take down its biggest competitor. These bare-knuckle tactics, long commonplace in the world of politics, have become increasingly noticeable within a tech industry where companies vie for cultural relevance and come at a time when Facebook is under pressure to win back young users.

Employees with the firm, Targeted Victory, worked to undermine TikTok through a nationwide media and lobbying campaign portraying the fast-growing app, owned by the Beijing-based company ByteDance, as a danger to American children and society, according to internal emails shared with The Washington Post.

I can’t help but wonder how much the relentless investor drumbeat of “higher profits! higher profits!” contributes to honorless campaigns such as this:

WaPo has an article on cryptocurrency industry efforts to convince candidates for elected office to support cryptocurrency legitimacy and usage, and it struck me as a good addition to this thread. What impressed me is that the description, the quotes, are really a bit weaselly. Possibly the most misleading is this one:

Those opposing views are squaring off in some Democratic primaries. Rhodes, a veteran of Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential campaign who is echoing his call for universal basic income, frames her support for crypto as a matter of economic justice. And she is featuring it in her challenge against Sherman, a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee who has called for cracking down on the technology.

“What I hear in the Black community all the time is, ‘We want ownership and to acquire wealth,’ ” Rhodes said. “I’ve met people who’ve pulled themselves out of poverty because of bitcoin.”

What Rhodes fails to mention is the context of bitcoin at the moment. It‘s value is quite volatile, sometimes wildly so, and is not functioning as a primary currency, but as a speculative investment. Did Rhodes’ examples make their money by taking advantage of these temporary, even pathological, conditions?

I don’t know. But yes is the way to bet.

That’s not the only example, the careful reader will find several more quotes that carry red flags, such as this one:

Probably known as Necking Man, but possibly as Bad Hair Dude. Except that the good guy’s hair is frickin’ amazing.
In a horrible sort of way. Kinda like me, ten years ago.

Big Man Japan (2007) examines an important problem in today’s Japan: if you’re the alter-ego of a kaiju-fighting giant, how does that affect your ordinary life? Masaru Daisatō, like several of his recent forefathers, makes his living defending Japan from the occasional monster, and this documentary about him.

Unfortunately, his efforts are not universally celebrated, as his fights have collateral damage, and sometimes his success is definitely limited. This leaks into his private life, as his wife loathes him, and his young daughter does not adore him; indeed, she may fear that she’ll be following in his footsteps, which when they’re not being made by huge feet in sandals, appear to involve a lot of lying around awaiting a phone call from the government, and otherwise meditating on a future that is definitely cloudy, if not outright depressing.

Eventually, Big Man Japan wanders off into incomprehensibility – at least for me – which left my Arts Editor and I goggling at the screen in wonder at a group of kaiju-sized fighters who seem to be playing a game.

This is definitely a strange one, but at least it has high production values.

Michael Gerson has written a lovely column summarizing much of what I’ve been saying for years, using much lovelier prose.

I will now paraphrase his wisdom somewhat more pithily:

If your Divinity cannot materialize on that hilltop over there and confirm what you say, then your claims to position and power are arrogant and empty assertions that will lead us all to disaster. So fuck off with your self-righteous anger.

Thanks.

The Washington Times reports that Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH) has plans for the next session of Congress:

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who is poised to control the panel if the GOP takeover next year, said Republicans must consider impeaching President Biden.

He said the GOP should weigh impeaching Mr. Biden for failures in office, most notably his administration’s inability to stop a massive influx of illegal immigration through the southern border.

“I think that’s definitely a discussion we have to have,” Mr. Jordan told The Washington Times at a Republican planning retreat in Florida.

Does he have a point?

Not that I can say.

We’re seeing here a Republican Party which, despite it being poised to take advantage of Democratic Party miscues and foolishness – and its own gerrymandering – is in desperate straits. It’s faced with a Democratic Party that is generally far more competent than itself, the competent Republicans have left or are leaving, and, as my frequent references to moral equality should make clear, they are desperate to throw mud on the Democrats in an effort to take attention off its own incompetency.

But this would be a valuable moment for all independent voters, if it ever comes to pass. Why? Because, unless Jordan and his allies come up with a substantive matter worthy of impeachment, we independents will know which Republicans are incompetents that need to be replaced by whether or not they vote for impeachment.

Today’s nominee is Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL):

Gaetz: I’m going to nominate Donald Trump for Speaker of The US House of Representatives pic.twitter.com/1MeVrwVIjI

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 27, 2022

When you have no political chops nor achievements of your own, instead just kiss up to the idiot who drove you here.

Former President Trump has that rare capability to same things that just look worse and worse, doesn’t he? I’m not sure Steve Benen, from where I’m taking this, is actually realizing that:

A couple of weeks before Election Day 2020, the then-U.S. president thought it’d be a good idea to boast about how much more authoritarians prefer him to his rival. “The only thing I can tell you for sure President Xi from China, President Putin from Russia, Kim Jong-un [from] North Korea, and I could name 40 others — they’re sharp as a tack, they don’t want to deal with Sleepy Joe,” Trump said at the time.

In the face of the disaster of Putin’s War, if those autocrats of Trump’s favor are really that smart, yeah, they’d rather deal with Trump, rather than hard-as-nails President Biden. Trump’s easy to manipulate.

The 50+ years of experience that Biden has accumulated is an entirely different deal from amateur businessman Trump.

And don’t forget it.

The excitement of politicians and press over President Biden’s statement

[Putin] cannot remain in power!

has been interesting to watch. Erick Erickson remains convinced that Biden is in dementia – or at least that’s the line the right wing propaganda machine is pushing – while I ran across one piece in the mainstream media, link sadly lost, suggesting that Biden was off-script is nonsense, and this was a planned gaffe.

I incline to the latter. The right wing propaganda machine is trying to hold together a base and mislead independent voters into forgetting that “demented Joe” beat an overwhelming field of Democratic rivals when he looked like he was down and out, beat the incumbent President handily, kept a nation together by demonstrating, time and again, political maturity and patience, hit the ground running, fulfilled campaign promises, took us successfully (in my view) out of the bad situation called Afghanistan, and has been so successful at fulfilling campaign promises that the Republicans are panicked, and Biden’s and the Democrat’s possibly greatest foe, Putin’s Russia, was forced to invade Ukraine, because the Democrats have proven to be competent and anti-Russia.

And Putin wants to be seen as the savior of the Empire of Russia. That’s why he was forced to invade Ukraine. He needed to destroy his most dangerous foe, the Democrats, and he wants to be a savior.

To the point: Biden was playing to a number of audiences: Russia, NATO, Democrats, independent American voters … and Republicans. Responses to war are always highly varied and passionately held, and some cannot garner satisfactory responses from those in power, such as the horrified pacifist response. But for those who’ve complained we’ve not done enough, which occurs up and down the political spectrum this time ’round, this is the sort of response you want to see. I’ve been calling it Putin’s War because that’s what it is: I doubt more than a small Putin coterie was really passionate to go to war with Ukraine. Because it’s Putin’s War, it seems logical to assume that removal of Putin, by the proper persons, i.e., not NATO, will be necessary to increase the probability that peace will descend upon that part of the world.

I think this is a mainstream view of the situation as well, which means I think Biden also holds this view, and this conclusion.

So his off the cuff remark is actually a message, to Republicans and independents who’d like to see us do, well, more, which is usually undefined, since Putin does have nuclear weapons and we can’t afford to have them rain down on our heads, to NATO, telling them how it is, to the non-members of NATO … and to the Muscovite elite, who have the best chance to rid themselves of Putin, and to do it semi-legitimately.

And when the right runs around screaming about Joe’s alleged dementia, just remember all the lies the right wing propaganda machine has spewed, its backing of Trump and his plethora of fourth-raters, and be very suspicious of how information is presented to you. Democrats have their own set of problems and extremists and apologists, it’s certainly true. But rather than picking the best of a bunch of rotten tomatoes, demand better of them. Of both sides.