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.

Greg Abbott is a small government, local control, free trader.  Until he’s not.  Abbott is the worst kind of politician, one who doesn’t really believe in anything but his own power, who shifts his ideology to fit the situation that always advantages himself and his largest donors.  Texas has always been very independent where local control has been sacrosanct, and the governor’s office was designed to be a weak position.  No more.  It started under Rick Perry, but Abbott put consolidation of power on steroids aided by a state house full of ideologues who are either stupid, corrupt, or likely both.

Abbott has seized power away from municipalities and counties on everything from oil and gas development to environmental regulation to even trimming trees.  In good times the consolidation of broad local authority to a central point is bad policy.  The US Constitution recognized the role of the states in limiting the power of the federal government.  Abbott and Perry quoted that loudly and often with Barack Obama occupied the White House.  No more.  Now, Abbott cherry picks what he wants to control, like tree removals for some weird personal reason, and has done so again by abruptly ordering the reopening of thousands of businesses in Texas over the orders of municipal and county authorities all over the state.

What Abbott is doing is stupid; it’s not only stupid, he’s also doing it for precisely the wrong reasons.  He’s not rushing to reopen the state’s businesses because he believes it’s the right thing to do, he’s doing it to kick hundreds of thousands of workers off of state unemployment rolls.  The Texas Workforce Commission has already announced that if a business reopens and employees do not work ALL of the hours required by that business, the employees lose their unemployment benefits. Cisco Gamez, a Texas Workforce Commission spokesman even said that if an employee doesn’t feel safe working, they must refer their concerns to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, governed by the US Labor Department currently run by…wait for it…Eugene Scalia.  Yes, that Scalia, the son of Antonin Scalia.  The younger Scalia who’s made his career and is well known for undoing worker and safety regulations, was appointed by Trump to head the agency tasked with protecting workers’ rights (Yes, it’s a drinking game.)  Since Gamez’s statement, the Texas Workforce Commission “clarified” the policy that the state “may” allow some benefits to survive if a worker doesn’t feel safe to go to work.

The dangerous feature of Abbott’s idiotic orders is that he’s going to damage the programs that adults, like Lina Hidalgo and Sylvester Turner, have been implementing round the clock to protect those in Harris County.  The result is reduced cases here, but according to latest data from Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracking program, Harris County new cases are still growing at an average weekly rate of 13%, which is low compared to other counties like Tarrant County, location of Fort Worth.  That city is governed by Trump supporter Betsy Price, who has already ordered that churches can begin holding services and bars and restaurants can open.  Their case growth rate? 51% this week.  That’s right, THREE times that of Harris County.  And those are just the cases we know about.

Abbott, like Trump, is literally getting people killed.  And he’s covering it up.  To keep the numbers low, I’m convinced Abbott is dragging his feet on broad distribution of testing.  Like Trump, Abbott keeps promising millions of tests that never materialize.  Texas has tested just over 200,000 people or less than 1% of the population.  Every medical expert advises not to reopen businesses and public buildings until testing and contact tracing is massive.  Abbot clearly doesn’t want that because then it would be hard to justify what he’s doing right now.

Abbott’s plan is dangerous.  Overruling local officials who are actually listening to medical experts is nothing short of gross negligence.