The Carpentariat

Russia's religious leader is a fraud - a Cossack Elmer Gantry

The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has sunk to the meretricious level of evangelical Christian leaders in America. Just as the latter have bowed before the insidious Donald Trump as an instrument of divine favor, Patriarch Kirill I has praised the monstrous Vladimir Putin as a "miracle of God."

Whether Kirill believes this or merely excites to the enormous largess Putin bestows on him and the church — state funding for the construction of religious schools; fabulous apartments, Swiss chalets, yachts, secret bank accounts, a $30,000 watch for Kirill — only his God can know. But one thing is clear: From the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the patriarch has been Putin's #1 publicist of its holy righteousness.

"All of our people today must wake up — wake up — understand that a special time has come on which the historical fate of our people may depend," said Kirill in April. In another sermon to soldiers he said, "We have been raised throughout our history to love our fatherland, and we will be ready to protect it, as only Russians can defend their country." Note the verb, protect.

It should be noted that Kirill has been, from time to time, a trifle off-message when it come to Putin's fabricated rationales for the war — i.e., drug-addicted Nazis oppressing the Ukrainian people. Instead the patriarch once framed the war "as a just defense against liberal conspiracies to infiltrate Ukraine with 'gay parades,'" reports The NY Times. Perhaps Putin will hold another tutorial with him.

Pope Francis has tried. He held a Zoom meeting with Kirill in March, well into Putin's loosely organized massacre of Ukrainian citizens. The two have discussed healing the schism between their respective churches, East and West. But in their electronic meeting, writes the Times, "Kirill spent 20 minutes" explaining to the pope President Putin's ravings about the need "to purge Nazis and oppose NATO expansion."

Francis, reportedly, was rather dumbfounded. He explained in return: "Brother, we are not clerics of the state," and later told a Milan newspaper that "the patriarch cannot transform himself into Putin’s altar boy." It seems he has, though.

The European Union has had enough of Patriarch Kirill I. It's planning on including Putin's altar boy in a list of the wickedly sanctioned. Well, there goes his Swiss chalet. Now if only the U.S. Department of Commerce would do the same for America's private jet-flying Trumpian evangelists.  

Republican senator knows how to cook the sociological books

Louisiana ranks 47th out of 48 states in maternal mortality. But not really, according to Louisiana's Republican senator, Bill Cassidy.

"About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear," said the physician lawmaker at a Harvard Chan School of Public Health panel discussion.

Obstetrician Veronica Gillispie-Bell had to explain the facts of life and death to Cassidy: "Race is a social construct, it is not a biological condition. To say that 'because we have a lot of Black people in Louisiana, that’s why our outcomes are bad' is out of context."

It is also, of course, damned stupid and fucking racist. But more than that, it reveals that in the Republican mind, Blacks still aren't really equal to Whites. They are instead a kind of phantom or obscure silhouette in legitimate society, worthy of being erased from the record whenever convenient.  

Next week, Sen. Cassidy will eradicate all racial problems in Louisiana by simply "correcting" the states's population for race.

Ukraine declares 'Liberty or Death.' The former is assured, if ...

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ukraine's military intelligence chief, 36-year-old Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, reaffirmed a presidential adviser's announcement that Ukraine would cede not one inch of territory to Russia. "I don’t know any borders except the borders of 1991," said Budanov, citing the year of Ukraine's departure from the Soviet Union. "If someone in the world thinks that they can dictate to Ukraine the conditions under which it can or cannot defend itself, then they are seriously mistaken," he added.

And he added much more, that being the one condition under which Ukraine will be able to execute its dual mission of self-determination and the reestablishment its full and absolute sovereignty: the Ukrainian Army's possession of countervailing long-range missile systems, heavier artillery and fighter jets, all of which Russia possesses. 

Said Gen. Budanov: "We have already begun an offensive in certain points, but a large-scale offensive without these weapons will be very difficult." Ukraine has devastated weak Russian forces in the Northeast in a massive counteroffensive. It intends, or at least wishes, to do the same in the Donbas and along its southern coast, where Russia has been better equipped and more determined. Yet Budanov was mistaken when he mused that others are mistaken if they "think they can dictate to Ukraine the conditions under which it can or cannot defend itself" through another counteroffensive. For the West is doing precisely that.

As discussed in this morning's preceding post, Ukraine's military aid has been arriving only piecemeal from individual NATO members. Worse, its chief source of war matériel, the Biden administration, has feared providing the kind of long-range weapons that Budanov itemized. The U.S. becomes shamefully fainthearted whenever it ponders what Putin, might, maybe, could do in response to an adequately provisioned Ukraine. If America had battled Russia's predecessor, Hitler's Germany, in this manner, today every European east of Berlin would speak German.

Gen. Budanov rightly discounted the Biden administration's worries. "If someone" — a polite, diplomatic word for President Biden — "thinks we must have restrictions on using some types of weapons, I would like to remind them that Russia here uses absolutely all the types of weapons in its possession, from cruise missiles launched by submarines to strategic bombers. The entire spectrum of Russian arms has been employed here." The U.S., however, "thinks" it proper that Ukraine fight its war of liberation with one arm tethered to the back.

The heartbreak of Ukraine's undersupplied predicament is that the invaded, sufficiently weaponized, would likely make quick work of the Russian autocrat's warmongering. "Putin is in an absolute dead end," said Budanov, correctly. "He cannot stop the war and he cannot win it." He can prolong it indefinitely, though — assuming Russian elites and the Russian people fail to see that the Russian emperor is clothes-less. "If they finally realize that the czar is not as great and mighty as he pretends to be, it’s a step toward [Russia's] destruction," observed Budanov, again, correctly.

Among NATO's 30 member states, the U.S. is singularly capable of supplying Ukraine with the types and amounts of heavy weaponry needed. Why not expedite Putin's fall? And in the process, untangle Ukraine from the malicious tentacles of his unmistakably collapsing "empire." That is the enemy the U.S. is frightened of?

Trump's head will explode

Politico:

"A little-watched federal court case could upend the neck-and-neck Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania between Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.

"On Friday afternoon, a three-judge panel for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued a judgment saying election officials should count several hundred mail ballots that were submitted without a date written on their mailing envelopes in a November 2021 county judgeship election, as long as they were otherwise received on time."

The senatorial primary finalists are separated by only about a thousand votes. There are still about 9,000 mail-in and absentee ballots to be counted, and if Pennsylvania counties include the above ballots in their count, McCormick might jump ahead.

If so, Trump and his little band of 31.2% Oz voters will erupt in the most psychoneurotically ballistic manner imaginable. What's unimaginable is how much fun that would be to watch.   

Putin is winning the war of nerves - NATO is wimping out

Although the Ukrainian military has repelled Russian attempts to overwhelm defensive positions around the city of Sievierodonetsk, in the Donbas province of Luhansk, in the past 24 hours Russia has shelled a school sheltering more than 200 people there, killing three, and launched artillery fire into the city, killing 12. That, according to the Ukrainian military's morning war assessment.

Far to the northwest, near Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, Russian forces have not yet given up, even after Ukrainian forces pounded them into retreat in a massive counteroffensive. Russia has retained defensive positions in the area north of Kharkiv, to either facilitate a more secure retreat into the motherland or possibly to allow time for reinforcements to arrive. And Russia's forces are making themselves known via artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions, as this devastating video shows.

Video of Russian night artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in Kharkiv Oblast.https://t.co/PLKGN8qWPf pic.twitter.com/OWM9kOxPcp

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) May 21, 2022

Both developments, those around Kharkiv and the Donbas city of Sievierodonetsk, indicate Ukraine's withering lack of counter-battery radar systems, which track the trajectories of fired artillery, thus locating the artillery's position and enabling counterstrikes.

Ukraine's crippling absence of advanced radar systems also indicates woeful gaps in NATO supplies of war matériel, which is to say, virtually none. As The NY Times reports, the Ukrainian government has always given thanks for the West's military assistance, but those thanks go to individual, aiding countries. "It has been critical of NATO over what Ukrainian officials have called the alliance’s lack of support since the Russian invasion," writes the Times.

In a stern address to the Ukrainian people last night, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba asked, "Could you name at least one consensus decision made by NATO over the past three months that would benefit and help Ukraine?" Kubela again acknowledged the military aid dispensed by separate NATO countries: "It is true that the alliance members, individually or in small groups, are really doing awesome and important work, providing vital assistance." But, he continued, "NATO as an institution has done nothing during this time.... They have balked at taking any steps that could provoke a Russian attack on any alliance member."

The foreign minister was merely stating what Al Gore would call an inconvenient truth. NATO, a Western institution originated to check military aggression in Europe, has wimped out. Its Article 5 provision has proven itself either a straitjacket or, more likely, an excuse. Chiefly, however, NATO's inertia is caused by that which Mr. Kubela identified: fear of Russian retaliation. (If NATO's member states have failed to "provoke a Russian attack," why would NATO's institutional assistance be any different?)

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is free to behave like the Borg, announcing that resistance is futile and assimilating Ukrainian populations through imminent annexation. And if anything assures that the Russia-Ukraine war will be a long, long slog, it is the combination of Russia's relentless revanchism and Ukraine's determination to resist. Said President Zelensky's deputy chief of staff, Andriy Sybiha, in a television interview yesterday, “There won’t be a Minsk-2 or Minsk-3. There will be absolutely no compromise over our territorial integrity and sovereignty; these are fundamental positions." (The New Voice of Ukraine)

The completion of Ukraine's objectives can be done, and odds are, they will be done. But they could be done much more quickly if NATO stopped worrying about what Putin might do and simply decided to do what it must do.

Russian citizens are throwing Molotov cocktails at Russian military centers

In the last few weeks, Russian citizens have been hurling Molotov cocktails at Russian military commissariats (local administrative agencies). The arson attacks have occurred in several Russian provinces as protests against "covert mobilization," writes the Institute for the Study of War.

Russian media have reported on the domestic terrorist attacks, of which the deputy chief of the Ukrainian General Staff has said there have been "at least 12 cases of deliberate arson" against the commissariats in total, and five just last week. Two 16-year-olds were caught red-handed at a Moscow commissariat, which "suggests," continues the ISW, that "Russian citizens are likely responsible for the attacks."

Actually, Vladimir Putin is responsible. He's getting so desperate for manpower to fight his illegal war in Ukraine, senior legislators in the Duma have introduced an amendment that will eliminate age caps on military service. Russians above the age of 40 will be eligible for military service, said a statement from Russia's lower House of Parliament. Before Putin is through he'll have old geezers in walkers battling the Ukrainian army. 

U.S. intelligence continues to note that Russia's armed forces are severely short of reservists, which has caused the military to combine depleted battalions. One U.S. defense official observed that Russia still has 106 battalion groups in Ukraine, but only by consolidating them from disbanded groups. The Russians are also pulling former combat units in Crimea to join fighters elsewhere.

It is with this somewhat ragtag army that Russia intends to establish governmental administrations in occupied areas of southeast Ukraine, via annexation. Russia’s deputy prime minister for infrastructure traveled the region yesterday, reported The NY Times, describing it as a "worthy place in our Russian family." He added that "I came here to provide maximum opportunities for integration. We will live and work together."

There is a great deal of doubt about that. "As he spoke," related the Times, Russian soldiers were firing on a "convoy of civilian cars trying to flee the region." Living and working together would not seem to be in either Russians or Ukrainians' future — not peaceably, anyway. And who will Putin have on hand to suppress rebellions? A bunch of old geezers in walkers, trying to stop Ukrainian citizens from hurling Molotov cocktails at military HQs.

Elon Musk, what a guy!

I don't find it strange that Elon Musk was accused of sexual harassment. Every man who holds himself up as singularly righteous in worldly affairs is always exposed as a perverted fraud. It's only a matter of time.

What I do find strange is the accusation itself, which, at the price of a quarter-million dollars, Elon thought he had hushed up:

"The flight attendant worked as a member of the cabin crew on a contract basis for SpaceX's corporate jet fleet. She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage."

Boys will be boys; aye, there's the rub. But buy her a ... horse? For Christ's sake, I'd give the obscene twit an erotic massage myself in exchange for a mansion, or lifetime world cruises, or perhaps a few spare millions. But a fucking horse?

No wonder she sued him.

The Wall Street Journal's editors have fallen out of love with Trump

After reviewing Trump's obscene intimations of (always) unknown forces having "rigged" the Oz-McCormick outcome, the Wall Street Journal editorial board writes this, in disgust: "If Mr. McCormick wins the final count, will Mr. Trump smear him as an election thief? Would GOP voters believe that nonsense?"

The board again notes that "it’s possible that Mr. McCormick might win." Regrettably, that possibility is looking slimmer by the hour. This morning the Washington Post updated its coverage by writing that "McCormick’s campaign got some bad news late Thursday: Pennsylvania’s secretary of state announced there were only about 8,700 mail ballots left to be counted in the GOP primary.... McCormick only closed the gap by about 100 votes [as of yesterday's end].... Oz’s lead is now 1,123 votes, with significantly fewer available votes left."

Thus we'll probably be denied the transcendent pleasure of watching Trump scribble reams of deranged Truth Social pronunciamentos about Pennsylvania's voting rigging. Nevertheless, the Journal is on guard: "By taking a political hatchet to Mr. McCormick, Mr. Trump could discourage Republicans from supporting him in November, giving away a winnable Senate seat.... Recall how Mr. Trump cost the GOP two Senate seats in Georgia’s 2021 runoffs."

Yes, we recall. And it was marvelous. So here's to an improbable McCormick win in the first go-around, or, barring that, in a recount. Because nothing could be finer than the head of the Republican Party accusing his own voters in 2022 of what never happened in 2020: widespread voter fraud.

Advises the Journal: "Don’t bet what’s left of your 401(k) on whether Mr. Trump has learned his lesson." That's more than a safe bet. It's pre-bankable. Trump is not only the embodiment of vile ignorance, he's wholly ineducable. "His advice to Mr. Oz is also a warning about how Doug Mastriano, the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, might react to a loss in the fall," continues the Journal. "If Mr. Mastriano falls short" — and he will — "will he and Mr. Trump claim it was due to some kind of massive coordinated fraud scheme that amazingly can’t be proved?"

Of course they will. That too can be banked. The even better news, though, is that Trump and his many losers in primaries still to come will cry voter fraud, thereby happily dooming the general election nominee.

Trump seems to believe that endorsements guarantee outcomes, in which case, primary races would be unnecessary; the Republican puppet master would simply anoint the nominee. Alas, democracy — such as it is — is a real hindrance to Trump's magical, Prosperolike wand. Hence his unremitting antidemocacy campaign.

When will it end? Once Trump chokes down his last cheeseburger, a DeSantis doppelgänger will likely come along, braying the same "nonsense," as the Wall Street Journal labels it. Astonishing, is it not, that millions of Americans appear to genuinely fall for it. But as long as it does grave injury to the party of buffoons, I have to say ... I rather like it.

More Russian war crimes in Mariupol

U.S. intelligence has declassified a finding on Russia's continuing abuse of occupied civilians — this time in Mariupol, reports the Associated Press.

Intelligence has learned that "some Russian officials" have become worried that Russian forces are indulging in "grievous abuses" of Mariupol's residents, including "beating and electrocuting city officials and robbing homes." The grievousness likely goes further, if the dead and tortured bodies found on the streets of Bucha (right) are any indication. And there is no reason to believe they aren't.

Intelligence added that these Russian officials are also worried that the abuses taking place in Mariupol "will backfire," encouraging its citizens to forcefully resist Russia's occupation. This is more than likely; the citizens of Kherson have already staged protests, which turned violent, in front of Russian administrative buildings.

In addition — and this is almost laughable — Russian officials fear that the severe abuses and wanton violations of human rights might undermine Russia's public contention that their armed forces are liberating Mariupol.

The intelligence findings do not bode well for the hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who have surrendered themselves to the Russians at the Azovstal steel plant.

We give up

"House GOP leaders were among the 192 Republicans who voted against providing $28 million in aid to the Food and Drug Administration to address the shortage of baby formula — within days of criticizing President Biden for not doing enough on the issue." The Washington Post.

Russia is finally sacking its bungling commanders; but there will be bunglers to replace them

The British Defense Ministry reports in an intelligence update that the Russian military has been sacking field commanders, particularly those who have contributed to Russia's major battlefield and waterway debacles. The upper echelon waited unusually long to do what other military's would have done within hours. So we can add procrastination to the long list of its other dysfunctions.

One pink-slipped commander is Lt. Gen. Serhiy Kisel, who was "suspended" from service after what the Defense Ministry calls his "elite" armored unit, the 1st Guards Tank Army, bungled the taking of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city and a key Russian objective.

Another dismissed commander, this one on the seas, is Vice Adm. Igor Osipov, who was responsible for the Moskva's sinking. The warship was Russia's prized, Black Sea flagship, yet as of April, it was no more. Ukraine sank it with two Neptune missiles — confirmed by Western intelligence — although Moscow, as always, lied by claiming it sank because of an accidental fire.

Both incidents, coming after the mother of all military debacles, the failed Kyiv offensive, have upended the Kremlin's flashy invasion efforts and made its military a laughingstock to others. That the Kremlin did not begin making command adjustments nearly three months ago is nothing less than breathtaking. But, again, when has the aggressor behaved professionally?

Russia cannot admit to low-level morale problems as a contributor to its unprofessional performance, since Russia never admits problems. Also, conceding morale issues would be to concede that many of its soldiers either don't know why they're in Ukraine or they have ethical disagreements with their mission, and don't buy the "Nazi"-infestation propaganda vomited by the Kremlin.

One retired Russian commander, Mikhail Khodaryonok, did inch close to acknowledging that his country is in big trouble by saying on a television talk show that "we need to take that into account in our own operational and strategic calculations, that the situation in this regard for us will frankly get worse." Days later he "corrected" himself, saying that Ukraine is in for "an unpleasant surprise." As was he, had he not said that.

The British Defense Ministry concluded in its report that Russia's numerous sackings of commanders is a grim portent; that its "cover-ups and scape-goating" will likely put harmful pressure on the military's command abilities. One might ask: So what else is new?

Our thanks to Trump for exposing Republican election fraud

We were all expecting this, were we not?

He’s at it again. pic.twitter.com/F7AGlfjAbC

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 19, 2022

I thought this more likely to occur in Madison Cawthorn's North Carolina race, a fitting and logical end to, shall we say, a less than distinguished congressional career. Unfortunately, Cawthorn conceded. But Trump's claim of a "rigged" election was bound to popup somewhere. And now we have it.

Trump seems altogether oblivious to irony. His hysterical suggestion that fraud occurred in Pennsylvania is, once again, founded on the premise of the unreliability of perfectly reliable mail-in ballots. He didn't stop there, however. He went on to order the state's election officials to "stop finding votes in Pennsylvania," a practice that he himself employed in Georgia — which is on tape.

In another message on his unvisited social media site, Trump also encouraged "Dr." Oz to simply declare victory, as though that would put an end to ballot counting. In Trump's misfiring brain, Oz's announcement would make "it much harder for them to cheat with the ballots they 'just happened to find.'" Amazing.

Still, we must thank Trump. His charge of voter fraud in the Oz-McCormick race is a clear indictment of widespread Republican voter fraud. Pennsylvania's primaries are closed, meaning that only registered Republicans could vote for Oz or McCormick. Hence Satan-worshipping, child-trafficking Democrats could not have rigged the political contest. It was entirely Republicans' doing, says Trump.

I'm willing to play along. Given Trump supporters' confidence in his skulduggery unmaskings, when Democrats lose seats in November I'll be eager to remind them that their own political leader and TRUTH-telling detective had previously exposed Republican voters for the fraudsters and vote-riggers they are.

The Dems will not have lost seats. Republicans will have stolen them. Audits must be conducted and oodles of fraudulent Republican ballots thrown out. Because "election security" is king. 

A shocking double standard: The U.S., Sweden, Finland, and Ukraine

What follows is the most peculiar, and even borderline surreal, development of the entire Russia-Ukraine war.

Yesterday, Sweden’s defense minister, Peter Hultqvist, met with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Washington, D.C., for an hour. After the meeting, Hultqvist announced that the Pentagon will be providing an assortment of "security measures" to both Sweden and Finland to enhance their defense capabilities as their NATO memberships are being considered by the Western alliance.

The security measures, said Hultqvist, will include (in the words of The NY Times) "U.S. Navy warships steaming in the Baltic Sea, Air Force bombers flying over Scandinavia, Army forces training with Swedish troops and American specialists helping to thwart against any possible Russian cyberattacks."

The U.S.'s double standard is striking. It has agreed to fly American bombers over two nonmember nations of NATO and sail American warships in their waters, should Vladimir Putin decide to do something warlike. The U.S. will also place American troops on Swedish ground, who would be caught in the crossfire of any Russian incursion — which is to say, they would be forced to fight back against Russian troops.

The American promises of Sweden and Finland's security during the waiting period of their NATO memberships are perfectly sensible. Russia has proven itself an erratic, irrational and unpredictable player in the world order. In behaving like a wild animal, it cannot be trusted.

Just ask Ukraine. It too was a nonmember of NATO — although it yearned to join — when three months ago Putin's armed forces crossed into Ukrainian territory and began slaughtering its citizens by the thousands. Understandably, the Ukrainian leadership has since begged for American or allied NATO air power to help protect its skies from Russian bombers and fighter planes, as well as Western sea power to help free Ukrainian waters from Russia's economically strangling blockade.

Yet, although the United States is willing to defend Sweden and Finland from Russian aggression, it has denied Ukraine the same guarantees. This dereliction (as some would call it) is especially awkward since Ukraine at least had some legitimate grounds to expect bold, U.S. military assistance. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by the U.S., the U.K. and the Russian Federation, prohibited each signatory from using military force against Ukraine. In return for Ukraine's relinquishment of nuclear weapons, the three powers granted "security assurances" to Ukraine.

If any European country of non-NATO status deserved America's military protection from Russian aggression, as America is now doing for Sweden and Finland, it was, and is, Ukraine. Yet no such protection has been forthcoming. The U.S. and its NATO allies have provided only military hardware to Ukraine — and that, only after weeks of self-torturing meditation. Ukraine got a raw deal.

Thugs in Europe, and a thug in the U.S. It's not just Russia.

There's always one in the crowd. Or two. Both are authoritarians and demagogues, inhibiting Europe's unified stance in relation to Russia and its authoritarian, demagogic leader.

Turkey's President Recep Erdogan blocked a procedural vote today allowing NATO's fast-tracking of Sweden and Finland's membership applications. He wants Finland, and especially Sweden, notes The NY Times, to stop harboring members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Turkey claims is the unacceptable aiding of "terrorist organizations." Erdogan also wants an end to the two countries' export bans on some types of arms exports to Turkey.

Then there is Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, causing problems for the European Union and its desired oil sanctions on Russia. He has argued that Russia's energy is too important to Hungary to cease its import quickly. To do so, he says, would be an "atomic bomb" dropped on Hungary's economy. Orban has twice had his timeline extended for finding other energy suppliers, first through the end of 2023, then the end of 2024. Now he's demanding up to 18 billion euros in economic aid from the EU.

To be clear, Sweden and Finland's NATO membership will happen, and the EU will authorize oil sanctions on Russia. The two thuggish naysayers simply wanted to make things difficult for both organizations, because they're demagogues playing to the home folks, and, because they're also authoritarians, they could. 

Writes the Times: "While NATO and the European Union have shown remarkable unity in their response to Mr. Putin’s war, the actions of the two authoritarian leaders show the strains building as the war drags on, peace talks appear to go nowhere, and Western sanctions are contributing to economic pain and high inflation."

I believe that's an unfair take. The hindrances that NATO and the EU are experiencing come not from the strains of war or economic pain. That explanation implies blame is due to the two organizations, rather than where it belongs — on Erdagon and Orban, authoritariana and demagogues.

The United States has its own of these types, but here I don't mean Trump, who blessedly is still out of office. I mean Sen. Rand Paul, who has demagogically delayed President Biden's $40 billion aid package to Ukraine for several days now. In brief, the goons are everywhere, not only Russia.

"Ukrainian farmers are stealing the Russian army"

This was a good find — a 16-minute, essentially truthful parody of what Ukraine is going through. (My favorite segment is the first, on Ukrainian farmers whipping the armed forces of Russia.) In English, the video presenter also takes on Ukrainian "Nazis" and other absurdities, such as the absurdity of Putin, of course, NATO, and other topics. Some of it is hilarious, some is solemn, and all of it is encased in popular Ukrainian sentiments. Enjoy, if you've a quarter-hour to spare.