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Lo, how far the moralistic mavens of the Republican Party have fallen! They keep attempting to take the moral high road so they can piously point out all the failings of their political opponents in this realm... but they keep being undermined by fellow Republicans who have embraced the new amoralism Donald Trump ushered in to the GOP.
The Russian army has proven to be a lot less impressive than many (including myself, I must in all honesty admit) had previously thought. Ditto the Russian air force. A war of choice waged by an invader with what appeared to be overwhelming military superiority has just not played out as Vladimir Putin expected. They are bogged down, perhaps for good. Their advance has been halted almost everywhere in Ukraine. Today brought the news that Ukrainian forces are actually recapturing territory and pushing the Russians back. This is an astonishing turn of events. Could the war actually be at a turning point? It is likely too early to make such a declaration, but even the fact that there now exists the possibility of that being true gives both the Ukrainians and the rest of the free world hope.
Something rather astonishing happened on Capitol Hill this week. The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent, acting with such blinding speed that some senators weren't even aware of what was happening. Contrast this to the Senate's usual modus operandi, which is for things to move so slowly that a glacier would be seen as zipping along by comparison. Arcane parliamentary procedures are routinely used to gum up the legislative works, which often leads to nothing at all happening -- after spending enormous amounts of time and energy in the attempt.
In Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare gave us a brilliant construct: "Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has had greatness thrust upon him, and he has more than risen to the occasion.
Let's start with some good news this week, because we could all use some, right? Two years ago today Tom Hanks announced to the world he had contracted COVID-19, on the same day that the virus people were then largely calling "the novel coronavirus" was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. This was when it all hit home for many -- that this could quite possibly be a very big deal indeed, even though the president of the United States was desperately trying to get the American public to believe otherwise. Salon provides a good rundown of what we all went through next:
In politics, as in much of life, timing is key. Sometimes there are windows of opportunity that can be missed. Such seems to be the case with the so-called "People's Convoy," a group of American truckers who launched a copycat imitation of the Canadian truckers' protest, in the hopes of bringing media attention to their cause (or just themselves, perhaps). But their time -- if it ever even existed -- seems to have passed long before the big-rigs arrived near Washington D.C.
I must admit that while I am usually open to considering nuanced diplomatic (or military) reasons why something which seems obvious simply cannot be done, for the life of me I cannot comprehend why the MiGs Poland is offering aren't already being flown by Ukrainian pilots over the skies of Kyiv. Because in this case any diplomatic or military concerns are contradicted by what Poland and the rest of NATO are already openly doing, as well as what the United States secretary of State publicly stated last weekend.
President Joe Biden announced today that he was banning Russian oil and gas from the American marketplace. This is a wildly popular position to take and is supported not only by politicians across the political spectrum but also by an overwhelming majority of the American public. We all see the horrific scenes of death and destruction caused by Vladimir Putin and the thought that we are funding that in any small way when we fill up our cars is abhorrent to many. At least, that's the case right now.
With the world in a very dangerous place after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the one thing just about everyone worldwide hopes is that saner minds will prevail. There are always plenty of hotheads and madmen in the midst of a crisis, but we can all certainly hope that the cooler heads will win out in the end.
This week, President Joe Biden gave his first State Of The Union speech to the United States Congress, to the American people, and to the rest of world. This speech had to be hastily rewritten at the last minute, obviously, due to intervening events. Russia's Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine at the end of last week, which was obviously a lot more important than any political points or laundry lists of proposed legislation. So the speech got a quick makeover.