Besides blaming Biden for the rise in gasoline prices (which is false), right wing media is now howling about how the US has increased its imports of Russian oil in recent years.  We have indeed increased our imports of Russian oil, but most of it is actually not crude oil, but unfinished component products for making gasoline and diesel.  Why?  Interesting you should ask – imports of Russian oil and products increased when Venezuelan crude and products were banned by a US president.  Biden, you ask?  Nope – TFG.  In 2019.  At the time strongman Nicolas Maduro had seized the presidency of Venezuela after the election, and TFG’s handlers saw an opportunity to connect Democrats with “leftists” in Venezuela, attracting votes from a growing population of Venezuelans in Florida, and banned imports of the country’s crude and products.  All that accomplished was drive Maduro into the arms of Putin, AND forced US refiners to increase Russian imports to replace the lost Venezuelan product and keep supply of motor fuels flowing into US markets.

Since the war in Ukraine started, the Noise Machine has been howling about how Biden is responsible for rising prices and “increasing dependence” on Russian crude, which is all bullshit.  Even at it’s peak, Russian product has only made up about 4% to 8% of total imports into the US, and only about 2% of US consumption.  This is all a tempest in a teapot trying to blame the Biden administration for the price and demand crunches that exist through no direct actions of Biden, or any other president, for that matter.

The global energy markets are made up of millions of players in every energy consuming state.  The US government does not control US production which is controlled by private companies navigating shifting sands of economies, investors, and consumers.  Today, the Washington Post published a really good explainer of how gasoline prices are determined and worth the time of anyone not familiar with how the oil and gas industry actually works.

I don’t have to recount the thousands of times that all but a tiny handful of GOP politicians have praised, looked the other way, made excuses for or lied about the despicable and illegal conduct of TFG.  Goofballs, weirdos and Fox News talking heads called sensible public health policy “tyranny”, comparing wearing masks and getting vaccines to the Nazi run gas chambers during the holocaust.  Said goofballs also did the bidding of TFG  and attacked the US Capitol to stop the lawful certification of the presidential election.  Since the attack, every conservative talking head and politician have twisted themselves into pretzels downplaying the insurrection or trying to justify it because of the tyranny of a free and fair election that their guy lost.

Then comes the guy TFG loves, Vlad Putin.  Doing what TFG only dreams of, Putin completely controls the levers of power in Russia and its zone of influence, having destroyed the constitution that Boris Yeltsin pushed through to make Russia a democracy.  He decided that Ukraine, which has been an independent democracy since 1991 when the Soviet Union finally collapsed, was actually his in his fever dream of rebuilding the Soviet Union.  Violating a whole book full of international laws, Putin launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine last week, expecting the same tepid response of 2014 when he annexed Crimea and succeeded while Europe looked the other way and the US responded with limited sanctions (that Trump undid as one of his first acts in office).  TFG stayed in character this last week lavishing praise on Putin, followed by sycophants at Fox Noise, and the TFG wing of the GOP.

And then, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky stood up, took off his suit, donned olive drab, declared he was not surrendering, and started rallying his people. When offered an evacuation by the US, he declined, saying, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”  Following his lead, thousands of Ukrainians have volunteered to defend their homeland, and even expat Ukrainians are returning to fight.  They’ve built barricades, made Molotov cocktails, taken up arms, and have steadfastly resisted the onslaught.

After witnessing Zelensky’s courage and the response of his people, the international community has responded in a way unseen since 911.  The EU banned Russian aircraft in their airspace; the US, with cooperation of allies, implemented sanctions on Putin and his henchmen, even including denying some Russian banks access to the SWIFT international payments system, which I believe hasn’t been done before and threatens to cripple the Russian economy.  Hundreds of thousands of Russians in large cities around the country, risking arrest and detention, publicly protested against Putin.  The EU offered to finance weapons into Ukraine, and then Fedex and UPS announced that they were halting all shipments into and out of Russia. Shortly after, BP announced that it was exiting its 20%, $14 billion position in Rosneft, the Russian national oil company.  Boom. In less than a week, Putin was isolated and now a pariah in global political and industry circles with few exceptions.  Even Putin ass-kisser Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has announced that he is “neutral” about the attack on Ukraine.

The pressure on Putin is now so great that, after putting his nuclear assets on alert, he asked for talks with Ukraine through the president of Belarus.  So far the talks are said to be arranged on the border between Ukraine and Belarus, a Russian satellite state.  There are no real hopes for progress, but with Putin raising the specter of nuclear war, he is clearly on his heels.

This is how you deal with a despot.  When they threaten unlawful actions, you don’t appease.  You kick them in the groin and poke them in the eye.  This is not only how you deal with Putin, you do the same thing with shitbags like TFG, Bolsanaro, Kim Jong Un, and other despots around the world.  They rule with fear; they’re bullies.  When overpowered, they run.

There is a lesson being taught the world by the people of Ukraine.  I’m just hoping that many people, including TFG appeasers, are learning it.

Let’s all keep in mind that Putin killed a new democracy in its crib back in 2000 when he took over Russia after Boris Yeltsin.  Using the KGB skills he honed in Communist East Germany in the early 80s, Putin then created a Russia that is now more dangerous and rich than the previously known Soviet Union.  Putin was ashamed that the Soviet Union collapsed after the Berlin wall fell, and he wants it rebuilt, but not as the Soviet Union, but as an imperialist Russian Empire.  He doesn’t want to be president, he wants to be Czar.

He can do that now that Russia is one of the largest oil and gas producers and controls energy supplies into Europe.  He has rebuilt the Russian military, now has a warm water port after taking Crimea from Ukraine, quashed all opposition, changed the constitution so he can stay in power for life and has made elections there a joke.  Billionaire oligarchs support and protect him, and his drive to build a new Russian Empire is relentless.
And who’s happy about it?  TFG himself and his supporters. Last night Putin brazenly invaded Ukraine, even shelling facilities near Kyiv, and millions of Ukrainians, in disbelief that he actually attacked, are fleeing to the west.  On Tuesday, TFG call Putin a genius and said how smart he was to go in as a “peacekeeper”.  Last night, right before Putin launched attacks in to Kyiv and other cities, TFG did it again, praising Putin at a fund raiser at Mar a Lago, saying how smart Putin is, walking in “for two dollars worth of sanctions”, then ironically claiming that if he were in office,

“This would never have happened, ever in a million years, it would have never happened.  And I know him very well. I know him probably almost as well as I know anybody in this room other than Doc Ronny [Jackson].”

So, let’s be clear – TFG is characteristically praising, as he has for years, then tried to push blame onto Biden for Putin doing what he himself supports.  Of course, his sycophants fell in line, praising Putin and TFG, bashing Biden.

If anyone doubts what the US would look like during a second TFG term, just look at Russia today and listen to TFG’s actual words.  He dreams of being a dictator and almost accomplished that in 2020.  With the Republican Party in tatters and now virtually 100% aligned with TFG and Russia, the only thing standing in his way is the rest of us making sure he never gets close to the Oval Office ever again.

TFG and his supporters are using Putin to undermine Biden and the US government to his own advantage, and Putin is so long term focused and patient that I don’t have any doubt that another TFG victory in 2024 figures into his calculus in going after Ukraine today.  Even if he doesn’t succeed this time, he’ll just come back in 2025 as Trump holds the door open for him by lifting all sanctions (like he did in 2017) and undermining NATO while fantasizing doing the same thing to Mexico.

If one ever needed another justification for abolishing the Electoral College, TFG is it.

The TFG and his spawn lost big time today when a New York Supreme Court judge ruled against their effort to quash subpoenas by NY AG Letitia James to give testimony in her civil fraud investigation where they are suspected of overstating values of their assets for banking purposes and understating them for tax purposes.  The case came to a head earlier this week when long-time TFG accountants Mazars resigned and said their financial statement audits for the last 10 years were not reliable and couldn’t be depended on.  TFG will appeal, of course.  If he ever gets in front of James, expect him to take the 5th, because otherwise he’ll lie because he can’t help himself.

The slow plod towards justice continues, as slow as it is.

The sordid details of TFG’s extreme efforts to stay in power after he lost the election in 2020 are finally surfacing.  TFG tried to get the US military, the DOJ, and Homeland Security to seize the voting machines in states he lost so he could steal the presidency away from millions and millions of voters who chose the other guy.  I even remember the rumors that were floating around that the US military was seizing machines, as far fetched as that sounded pre-January 6. Today, it’s perfectly plausible, because that’s EXACTLY what TFG was actually trying to do.  He’s even publicly admitted it.

Even today, all of these facts are not only shocking, they are enraging.  It REALLY pisses me off that people in the government KNEW what he was doing.  A LOT of people knew what he was doing.  Many people in these agencies were aware of TFG’s efforts to steal the election; more important, those in high ranking political and non-political offices knew, including the Joint Chiefs, Attorney(s) General, Secretary of Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA, and hundreds of staffers in these agencies.  Fortunately for us our brittle system held this time, but that’s unlikely the next time it happens (and it will) with the changes Republicans have rammed through the state legislatures over the last year to make it easier to overturn election results they don’t like.

What I want to know, and I demand this answer, is where in the hell have these hundreds of people been in the last year?  Because he was so dangerous, I understand the cone of silence until we ousted TFG from the WH, but why the silence since then?  Now he’s just a crazy old fat man sitting on his gold plated toilet screaming at his television. It’s been over a year since he committed serious crimes on both state and federal levels, and NO ONE has come forward with the full story.  Why in the hell isn’t the FBI perp walking him right now?  This son of a bitch almost succeeded in overturning a national election, aided by many, many, co-conspirators.  Why aren’t THOSE people being perp walked?

Hey, Merrick Garland, DO YOUR DAMN JOB.  No more eggshell walking – go after this guy and everyone who either aided him or even looked the other way.  If there is such a thing as accessory to sedition, THIS IS IT.

Get to work.

This weekend I was reminded of Liz Cheney’s words at the beginning of the January 6th committee investigation that they had a responsibility “…to make sure that Donald Trump is not our nominee, and that he’s never anywhere close to the reins of power ever again.”  TFG was in the Houston area on Saturday grifting money from stupid and corrupt fans, playing his Top 40 hits of lies and hate.  This time, though, he added a new promise to the menu – to pardon the insurrectionists who’ve been charged, convicted, and jailed for attempting to overthrow the US government.  That’s right, folks, even after reversing himself on vaccines, which pissed off the base, he terrified everyone else with his promise to pardon the criminals who did his bidding on January 6th.  On top of that chilling declaration, he called for his supporters to demonstrate in New York and Georgia should prosecutors bring charges against him and his family.

TFG’s profound corruption is back on public display where he demonstrated that nothing at all has changed; he puts his own welfare and wallet in front of all other priorities, including the public welfare.  He doesn’t care if you live or die, as long as the lights are always focused on him and his followers do his bidding without question.

The stakes have never been so high as they are right now.