How low can you go?
Vladimir Putin, Russia's supreme leader who dislikes critics so much they often throw themselves out the window of tall buildings, has been taking over the provinces of neighboring countries ever since Barack Obama was on another Hawaiian vacation and had no comment.
Which is to say 2008.
In 2014, the diminutive Russian leader, who's never lost an election, annexed Crimea and fomented violent uprisings in eastern Ukraine. When Donald Trump became president, the wily Russian decided to not misbehave temporarily. But a month after Trump moved back to Florida and Joe Biden was wheeled into the White House, Putin began assembling an invasion force.
And in February of 2022, those troops moved in for what was expected to be a complete takeover of Ukraine in a few days. It did not turn out that way. Now, four years in, the killing continues despite a returned Trump's earnest efforts to forge a peace, or at least a ceasefire.
It turns out that during all this time of fighting and bombing of civilian targets, Putin's henchmen have been systematically kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian youngsters from their families in occupied territories and taking them to Russia.
There, they are farmed out to assigned families for official adoption and Russification, forbidden to speak their native language, a serious part of erasing the Ukrainian identity.
The Institute for the Study of War, a national treasure you can support here, has monitored the movements and actually created a detailed map showing how broadly scattered the adoptions have been across the nearly seven-million-square miles of the world's largest country.
Now, Russian officials are hinting they might maybe perhaps return some of the children to their rightful families if, you know, Moscow gets what it wants while devastating the neighboring country they promised to leave alone back in 1994.
I have some thoughts. Click here to hear the brief audio commentary:
Perhaps you've heard a little about the Schumer Shutdown of large parts of the federal government for the past several weeks.
Just kidding. Of course, you have. Only the dead are unaware that the Democrat Senate minority has been using the filibuster to reject continuing operations at existing spending levels and prevent government operations. And prolong a now-record-long government shutdown.
All because Democrats still fear retribution from their left-wing if they don't get continued taxpayer subsidies for subscribers to Obamacare. The extreme left is the caucus that led the party of Jefferson over the cliff edge a year ago in the presidential election.
Obamacare is the government health insurance scheme that Michelle Obama's hubby told us would be so affordable and allow everyone to keep their existing doctor and health insurance. The scheme that caused the Democrats' record-breaking midterm losses in 2010 that they have yet to fully recover from.
Fueled by the arrogance of members of a legislative chamber that thinks much higher of themselves than the real world does, senators are among the worst messengers in the history of message-sending.
In both parties.
This week's Sunday column examines that disappointing phenomenon as it relates to Republicans and compares them to the message mastery of Donald J. Trump.
This isn't just a parlor game, people. There are serious policy consequences if people vote next year (or any time) based on false information.
Polls show that Republican senators' lack of skills has allowed the Democrats to dodge the justified blame and label the GOP as the bad guy in this D.C. political charade over inept politics. Losing a PR contest with Brooklyn's Chuck "Granny Glasses" Schumer is more embarrassing than still rooting for the New York Jets.
The most recent audio commentary dealt with the shocking (to me) fiscal reality that United States taxpayers are forking over upwards of $2,000,000,000 every week to subsidize the purchase of "groceries" for 42,000,000 Americans.
The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program was designed to be a temporary supplement for grocery purchases for a small group of people experiencing passing financial difficulties.
It no longer is, if it ever was. It's rife with abuse, scams, and fraud. It's also now become a staple that, studies show, is also a much-abused financial encouragement to prevent creation of more stable nuclear families of two parents.
