TheTea Leaves Nobody Is Reading

US coverage of the Ukraine war continues to be inexcusably bad, and this is across the board, from big corporate media including Fox all the way over to smaller independent outlets like Salem Media and Breitbart. Look at this below-the-fold piece at Salem Media's Red State:

Analysts I’ve discussed Russian military activity patterns with note that, until this weekend, their use of force has been remarkably constrained and surgical. They’ve made little attempt to engage the Ukrainian military in a full-force, armored mobile front battle, even though they clearly have the mass and firepower to do so. As of today, they are playing cat and mouse games with the mayors of the cities they’ve surrounded, engaging in combinations of harassing bombardments and offers of refugee corridors. It’s not hard to see that they have orders to absorb some casualties, while bearing in mind that, when the war ends, their country will have to rebuild everything they blow up. Forget about the so-called Paper Tiger narrative. The numbers just don’t add up this way. This is a lion toying with its prey, because the leader of the pride has told it not to eat yet.

This prose is a reader's equivalent of stepping on a blob of used bubblegum and trying to scrape it off your shoe without having to bend over. Beyond that, I think that as an analysis of the situation, it gets everything wrong, at least insofar as you can figure out what he's saying.

Exhibit A is the short video link above. There's no sound, but none is needed. It starts off with an increasingly common scene: Ukrainian farmers towing armored vehicles away with tractors. Last week, there was an announcement from the Ukrainian government:

"Have you captured a Russian tank or armored personnel carrier and are worried about how to declare it? Keep calm and continue to defend the Motherland!" a statement from the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention seen by Interfax-Ukraine said.

"There is no need to declare the captured Russian tanks and other equipment, because the cost of this ... does not exceed 100 living wages," or 248,100 Ukrainian hryvnia, the agency said, according to Interfax-Ukraine. The sum equates to about $8,300.

On the agency's website, a document in Ukrainian dated Monday said the seizure of tanks or equipment would be considered a "manifestation of the unity and cohesion of the Ukrainian people in the fight against invaders" and would not be taxable.

When I first saw it, I thought it was a delicious piece of screw-you irony in the face of likely overwhelming defeat, but it turns out that they weren't joking, and doggone if Ukrainians didn't take it as a joke. They're driving their tractors over to the battlefield and towing the Russian armored vehicles away. I assume there's enough to salvage in an armored car to fix a tractor, and when they're done with that, they'll get a good deal on the scrap metal.

But the scenes go beyond farmers towing tractors away. Other Ukrainian civilians are hopping onto abandoned tanks and taking them for joyrides:

Now, my military experience extends to less than a year in Army ROTC before they threw me out as, shall we say, not officer material. The courses I had were worthless anyhow. But let's apply some common sense to these scenes. That tank is, according to the caption, a Russian T-80, as best I can gather a gas turbine driven main battle tank roughly equivalent to the US Abrams. That the Ukrainians could take it for a joyride says it didn't run out of gas. Apparently it was just left out on the battlefield undamaged, gas in the tank, radios and other electronic gear with codes intact.

I simply can't imagine US troops doing anything like this; at minimum, if they had to abandon it, they'd try to blow the thing up. As far as anyone can tell, the Russians just skedaddled. But also, if Ukrainian civilians encountered a tank in those circumstances, it would indicate the fighting around it is well over, and the Russians haven't come back for it. Indeed, I would assume Ukrainian intelligence has finished whatever it needed to collect from the tank as well and no longer needs it. So hey, let's party! But these scenes aren't unique.

As far as anyone can tell, this is happening in multiple places, and it's an indication that the Ukrainians aren't just slowing the Russians down, they're beating them back. Common sense says there have been battlefields where Russians occupied territory that they no longer occupy, they've left perfecly good equipment in place during a retreat, and they've been gone long enough for civilian scavengers to move in. Lion toying with its prey indeeed. For Salem Media to imply Putin is telling them to do this is absurd.

I think the UK press is more on the ball. From this morning's Daily Mail,

US intelligence believes Russia has committed 95 per cent of the invasion force it had assembled on Ukraine's border to the fight, meaning significant reinforcements to push its attacks forward are unlikely to come soon - and could simply run into many of the same logistical problems that plagued the early assault.

That has prompted some - including UK general Admiral Sir Tony Radakin - to predict that Russia could actually lose the war. Asked by the BBC on Sunday whether victory for Putin's men was 'inevitable', as many had predicted before the fighting started, he responded: 'No.'

This isn't what we're hearing from the retired US general talking heads. As I said yesterday, I don't think losing is the Ukrainian strategy.

By yesterday, I grew increasinghly frustrated with what I was hearing, especially from US corporate media (including Fox), on what is actually going on in Ukraine. The retired US general talking heads seem to have settled on a consensus that, for instance,the 40-mile column stalled north of Kyiv will get moving any time now and begin reducing the city with artillery. That's how Russia operates.

But this hasn't happened, while I get the impression that Ukraine is learning how the Russians operate, is following a coherent strategy, and is having increasing success in the field. I worked hard for most of the day to find better sources. One of them is in the link above; it concentrates on the level of corporate corruption, nonfeasance, and incompetence in the Russian armed forces that explains some part of their current predicament.

Another source I found just this morning, a post on the Chicago Boyz blog, concentrates on actual Ukrainian military strategy that's another clear component of their success.

The head and first dozen or so kilometers of the southernmost column north of Kiev have been stuck there for EIGHT DAYS. The Russians have since rammed more and more vehicles into this monster traffic jam (idiotically “following the plan” Soviet-style) so the whole thing is now 65-70 kilometers long (almost 40 miles).

And, because the trucks can’t go off-road due to the Rasputitsa mud and tire problems, they’re stuck on the roads and the roads’ shoulders three vehicles wide for the whole @40 miles. That means fuel and resupply trucks can’t move on or off road to deliver anything to anybody.

So all the columns’ heads are now out of fuel and battery power. They can’t move north, south or sideways, and everything behind them is stuck because of the mud, and rapidly running out of fuel and vehicle battery charge too (assuming they haven’t already). Nor can any of those columns defend themselves because they’re too densely packed. They’re just targets waiting for the Ukrainians to destroy them.

Only the Ukrainians had something better to do. They opened the floodgates of reservoirs around those columns to flood them and turn the surrounding areas into impassable quagmires for months – probably until July or August. (See photo below) Probably several thousand Russian vehicles in those columns will be irrecoverable losses. Hundreds of Russian soldiers might have drowned.

This was not just a debacle, but an EPIC one. About 1/5th of the Russian force in Ukraine is now flooded or trapped, and are definitely out of the war for good.

This confirms my view that with the column north of Kiev essentially out of action, the Ukrainians aren't spending scarce resources destroying the column completely, as the US might do with a surplus of air power.

He then shifts to the Ukrainian overall strategy:

[T]he Russian advance has been slowed down in a major way. This buys the Ukrainians time to do other things to defeat the Russians. The most important thing the Ukrainians need is time. They have to take it from the Russians with ground operations & airstrikes.

For various reasons, I have the distinct impression that the Russians are now operating on a three-day decision-reaction cycle. If a major attack being planned is suddenly down to one key bridge connecting its assembly area to supply bases in Russia. It takes three days for the Russians to send a ground combat battalion to defend that bridge.

That is more than enough time for the Ukrainians to move one of their raiding companies there to destroy the bridge. I.e., the Ukrainians are clearly operating inside the Russians’ Observe, Orient, Decide, Act [OODA loop] a la USAF air strategist John Boyd.

The current consensus model of the Ukraine invasion in corporate media is that Ukraine will eventually see a Russian occupation of some sort once Kyiv and Kharkhiv are reduced, but there will be an indefinite guerilla-style resistance. My impression is that the Ukrainians are not following a strategy with this as a contemplated end state. One thing that confirms my view is that the news from the field is not a steadily diminishing number of reports on, say, Russian units destroyed in ambushes or helicopters shot down with missiles. Instead, especially with what is now likely resupply from the Western alliance, these reports continue, while even Russian successes appear to be equivocal.

So I think the actual situation is fairly clear: Russia utterly failed to take out Ukrainian defenses in the first days of the war; Ukraine has survived with a credible continuing military force that has at worst forced Russia to a stalemate. But even, as the US retired general talking heads suggest, Putin moves in reinforcements, they're limited by the same constraints of incompetence and corruption that crippled the original invasion force. Meanwhile, Ukraine is gaining more experience with the Russians every day and is being resupplied, while they're following an overall strategy of attrition and defeat in detail that's showing success.

But then, I'm a contrarian by nature. And Zelensky is anything but a defeatist. But this raises another issue: Sen Graham has been widely criticized for wishing that someone would assassinate Putin. But he misses the point -- in World War II, Churchill and his advisers rejected the idea of assassinating Hitler on the basis that if Hitler were out of the picture, someone might take over who knew what he was doing. Same applies to Putin, it seems to me.

The End Stage Of The Panic Continues Apace

As of yesterday, Los Angeles County, one of the major holdouts on loosening COVID restrictions throughout the pandemic, dropped its indoor masking rule.

County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that given the CDC revision of the county's classification, a new Health Officer Order will be issued that removes the county's long-standing mandate for people to wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. That move will put the county in alignment with the state, which dropped its mask mandate on Tuesday.

Mask-wearing, however, will continue to be "strongly recommended,'' particularly in crowded settings or while interacting with people at higher risk of severe illness from the virus.

Masking will continue to be required in higher-risk settings, including health care facilities, transit centers, airports, aboard public transit, in correctional facilities and at homeless shelters and long-term care facilities.

It's still likely to take years until you can do things like ride a bus without a mask. The extreme reluctance of the authorities to relax controls was illustrated in an exchange between Florida Gov DeSantis and CDC Director Walensky:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis admonished a group of students for wearing face masks at an indoor event Wednesday, saying it was time to stop what he called “this COVID theater.” The Republican governor has been a fierce opponent of mask and vaccine mandates.

asked about DeSantis's remarks, Walensky replied,

“Those students should have been comfortable wearing a mask if it makes them more comfortable. . . It's absolutely their choice.”

Well, it's my choice to dress up like Napoleon, it makes me comfortable, but what message does it send to the world? I tend to go along with Fr William Nicholas, a Roman Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, who has often spoken in his YouTube homilies about the downside of masks. He notes that masks can be a way of retreating into fear, and Christians shouldn't be afraid. To the extent that they're superstitious, totem-like remedies, we shouldn't be relying on them. I get the sense that he isn't too far from Gov DeSantis in suggesting that some measure of good-humored tough love is appropriate at this stage.

As I ran some errands yesterday, I noted that roughly half the people I saw on the street were wearing masks outside, a requirement that has long been dropped even in LA County, and this on a day when even most indoor settings no longer require them. Why? Here's a Babylon Bee story: Progressive Christians Sad They Have No Way To Love Their Neighbors Now That Mask Mandates Are Gone:

Progressive Christians are saddened this week following the removal of COVID mask mandates. They allege that with no masking, there is no way for them to love their neighbors anymore.

"COVID enabled me to show the world that I'm a good Christian who actually loves people," said Alisson Forrest, who hasn't been to church in 22 months. "Masks were uncomfortable and inconvenient, but I was proud to wear them every day to show everyone how much like Jesus I was. Now what am I supposed to do?"

But that's not the Bee's only insight for the week: Putin Receives Nobel Prize In Medicine For Ending COVID Pandemic:

{T}he Nobel committee of medicine deciders have awarded the coveted Nobel Prize in Medicine to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for singlehandedly ending the COVID pandemic practically overnight.

. . . Thanks to the Russian President’s decisive blow against the COVID pandemic, Democrat-run states across the U.S. immediately began lifting draconian, life-crushing, and statistically racist mask and vaccine mandates in workplaces, restaurants, and even schools.

Strange coincidence, no? It's as though Putin suddenly slapped the world upside the head and gave it something real to worry about. Think about it -- before Ukraine, the big topic was COVID, and other than that, it was tic tac UFOs. Now we suddenly have real people fighting real problems, showing real courage, and setting real examples.

Which is not to say that everyone suddenly went sane. As I predicted, although the US Senate voted to end the COVID state of emergency -- this of course just one of who knows how many layers of emergency superimposed at every level -- the House defeated the measure, and Biden's handlers said he'd veto it if it reached his desk. This, of course, is what Gov DeSantis means by "COVID theater". It will still take years of work to eliminate it completely.

The End Stages Of The COVID Moral Panic

I'm seeing a certain amount of defeatism over Ukraine's predicament, from sources ranging from the never-Trump Red State site to the UK YouTuber demirep/granniopteryx. Part of this, I think, is the difficulty some people are having getting their heads around the bigger picture.

For instrance, as the meme above suggests, I think the short-lived Canadian state of "emergency" and Putin's invasion of Ukraine are two symptoms of a bigger trend, the closing window of opportunity that had existed during the COVID moral panic. Let's recall that the short-lived "emergency" Trudeau declared was layered upon state after state of "emergency" already declared by federal governments, provinces, states, counties, cities, towns, and local health departments in North America and everywhere else throughout the COVID panic, which as we speak are still being overtaken (or not) by events.

For instance, the US Senate voted just yesterday 48-47 to cancel the US COVID national "state of emergency". Almost certainly the House will defeat an equivalent motion there, and President Brandon's handlers will ignore it anyhow, but it's an indication of where things are headed, if not today, if not next month, if not next year, then one day. I never thought this was going to be a quick or easy battle.

And let's keep iin mind that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is also a delayed outcome of the COVID panic, since one of its early effects was the election of Biden under conditions imposed by various "emergencies" that inevitably affected the vote and have left a continuing taste of illegitimacy to his presidency. Even the transhumanist Hefnerian Glenn Reynolds noted this morning, “This is what happens when you order a President through the mail."

I don't think anyone can seriously disagree that with the 2022 midterms looming and the US political climate likely to change, Putin saw the coming months as his last window for an invasion -- but with his tanks bogged down in Ukrainian mud as of February, was this a Hitler-size miscalculation based on the imperatives of the calendar?

In fact, I see reasons to agree with Reynolds on his current view of the overall problem:

The world is facing its biggest political/military crisis since the end of the Cold War, and for better or worse, the leadership of its largest countries has serious problems. Probably for worse.

Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, seems angry and out of touch.

. . . Here in the United States, meanwhile, we have leadership problems of our own. President Joe Biden managed to stumble his way through an uninspired State of the Union address in which he confused Ukrainians and Iranians, but he has shown no signs of being capable of the kind of leadership we need.

. . . Everybody knows this, and Democrats aren’t happy about it, but removing Joe wouldn’t help as Vice President Kamala Harris seems to be no improvement.

. . . Behind her in the presidential succession line is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who isn’t looking much better. And as she prepares to turn 82, the likelihood that Pelosi would bring fresh energy to the presidency is low.

(And it’s not just age. We need only look north to Canada to see Justin Trudeau — known to some as Prime Minister Zoolander — demonstrate that the trademark mixture of ineptitude and thuggishness can start young.)

Only in Europe do we see, surprisingly, glimmers of more sensible behavior, as fear of a Russian invasion concentrates the minds of leaders there.

The truth is, throughout the past two years of COVID panic, we’ve seen that the world’s leadership class isn’t up to the task. Now, facing a major diplomatic crisis, we have to hope it will do better. Hope and maybe pray a little.

The leadership class was given a pass -- or more accurately, gave themselves a pass -- due to the COVID panic. The window there is simply closing; faux emergencies no longer cut it in the face of real ones. But I started this blog on the basis of a belief that institutions are resilient, while I understood that it's a struggle for them to regain their effectiveness even so.

I think this is playing itself out now, although as we saw in the crises leading up to World War II, it took time for ineffective leadership to leave the scene and more effective leaders to rise to the occasion.

More On Zelensky As Rhetorician

A writer for Red State, a never-Trump Salem Media outlet has nevertheless recognized the real merit of Zelensky's March 2 address to Ukraine, calling it "the greatest speech of our era", which is not empty hyperbole. He went to the effort of transcribing much of it from the subtitles on the screen:

During this war, we have had more unity than for over thirty years before. At first, we were equally scared, then we felt equally painful, and now we do not care. Except for victory. Except for the truth. Except for peace. Except for the tranquility we want to achieve. Except for the lives of our people, for when we are worried. Except for Ukraine. During this time, we have truly become one. We forgave each other a lot. We started loving each other. We help each other. We are worried for each other.

Yesterday morning on Freedom Square we were all Kharkiv residents. Then the enemy destroyed us all by striking at residential buildings in Borodyanka. We were all bombed in Kyiv last night. And we all died again in Babyn Yar — in a missile strike.

Although the whole world promises constantly “never again,” for any normal person who knows history, Babyn Yar is a special place of Kyiv. A special part of history. A special part of Europe. A place of prayer. A place of remembrance for the hundred thousand people killed by the Nazis. The place of old Kyiv cemeteries. Who should you be to make it a target for missiles? You are killing Holocaust victims for the second time.

uring the Soviet era, a TV center was built on the bones there and also a sports complex. Outbuildings. They built a park there. To erase the true history of Babyn Yar. But why was it bombed? This is beyond humanity. Such a missile strike shows that, for many people in Russia, our Kyiv is completely foreign. They know nothing about our capital. About our history. But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all.

On the first day of the war, Uman was brutally bombed. Where hundreds of thousands of Jews come every year to pray. Then — Babyn Yar, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were executed.

I am now addressing all the Jews of the world — don’t you see what is happening? That is why it is very important that millions of Jews around the world do not remain silent right now. Nazism is born in silence. So, shout about the killings of civilians. Shout about the killings of Ukrainians. Last night and tonight, they continued to bomb our cities. Bombs. Missiles. Artillery. Machine guns. Targeting peaceful people. Again. Targeting residential areas. Again. Mariupol. Kharkiv. Kyiv. Zhytomyr. And other cities and towns of Ukraine. This cannot be explained by any human reason. Any reason of God.

What other military facilities threaten Russia? What other “NATO bases”? Saint Sophia Cathedral? Larva? St. Andrew’s Church? Whatever they dream of there — damn them! Because God is with us!

Think of this number: almost six thousand Russians, died. Russian military, in six days of war. This is without counting the losses of the enemy last night. Six thousand. To get what? Get Ukraine? It is impossible.

My dears, the time will come when we will be able to sleep. But it will be after the war. After the victory. In a peaceful country, as we need. Which we have always appreciated. And which we have never destroyed.

I ask all of you to take care of your loved ones. Take care of your brothers-in-arms. I admire you! The whole world admires you. From Hollywood stars to politicians. Today you, Ukrainians, are a symbol of invincibility. A symbol that people in any country can become the best people on earth at any moment.

Glory to Ukraine!

A speech from today continues his carefuly embedded theme expanding the narrative of Ukraine's independent history and equating Putin's invasion of 2022 with Hitler's invasion of 1941. As many know, World War II was called in the Soviet Union and presumably is still called in successor countries the "Great Patriotic War". (My transcription from subtitles):

[The occupiers] will remember what the patriotic war is.

Yes, for us it is a patriotic war.

We remember how patriotic wars begin.

And we know how they end. For the invaders.

Our army is doing everything to break the enemy completely. Almost nine thousand Russians were killed! In one week! In the Mikolaiv direction invaders have to take away the "two hundred" and "three hundred" with tens of helicopters. 19 years, 20 years [old]. . . What did they see in life, apart from this invasion? But most of them remain everywhere.

Ukraine does not want to be covered with military corpses. Go home. Your whole army. Tell your commanders that you want to live. Not to die. To live.

The war must be stopped and peace returned as soon as possible.

Today was, as usual, an active day of negotiations with the leaders of the member states of our anti-war coalition. I held talks with the heads of government of Norway and Israel. With the President of Kazakhstan. With the Emir of Qatar, Tamin Bin Hamad Al Thani. With the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. With Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. With President of Poland, Andrejs Duda.

Brilliant Result at the UN General Assembly. 141 countries supported the resolution, which calls on Russia to withdraw troops from Ukraine immediately. 141 states stand for us! And for Russia -- only four states that voted against. Here is the list: North Korea, Eritrea, Syria, and Belarus. This is the list. These are the friends. And there will be no others for the state that does not know how to live in peace.

Today I held a meeting with the heads of regions and cities in Ukraine. The new head of the Odesa regional state administration is already working. Maksym Marchenko. Military professional. Our guys on the ground are working hard to organize "green corridors". To take out civilians. To bring medicine. Volhovaka. Cities of the Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkhiv regions, south of Ukraine. This is very difficult. Extremely difficult.

We are opposed by terror. But terror loses. Thanks to our heroes. Today I signed a decree awarding the title Hero of Ukraine to fifteen of our defenders. . .

He goes on to list the fifteen individuals, mostly given the awards posthumously, with their particular exploits. Elsewhere, he said,

'They wanted to destroy us. They failed. We've been through so much. And if anyone thinks that, having overcome all this, Ukrainians will be frightened, broken or surrender, they know nothing about Ukraine,' Zelensky said, adding: 'We will restore every house, every street, every city and we say to Russia: learn the word 'reparations'.

'You will reimburse us for everything you did against our state, against every Ukrainian, in full.'

'We are a people who in a week have destroyed the plans of the enemy,' he said. 'They will have no peace here. They will have no food. They will have here not one quiet moment.'

This guy is turning into a figure comparable to Winston Churchill or Charles de Gaulle.

Why Can't We Have President Zelensky?

I've seen the occasional remark that someone would rather have had President Zelensky deliver the US State of the Union than President Brandon, but actually going a little farther, it seems like we'd do better with Zelensky in the Oval Office on a day to day basis as well. He isn't native born, but on the other hand, based on what I hear, his English is better than President Brandon's. Maybe there's a loophole.

The simultaneous translation of the speech above, an address to Ukraine on the morning of the war's seventh day, has Churchillian echoes, not least because it's utterly without bombast. He's speaking realistically about the situation on the ground and making the entirely justified observation that the Russian invasion has unified Ukraine the most it's been in 30 years, given the country a national purpose and national consciousness, and indeed acknowledging the place of Jews in that national identity. It's a piece of rhetoric well worth study.

I also get the sense that he feels like they've turned the corner. Western military observers have been reluctant to declare victory, but from the start, they've noted that Putin failed to occupy major cities within 48 to 72 hours. A few suggested Putin had already lost the war just on that basis; others said he'd lose if Ukraine holds out for ten days. As of this morning, it's been seven, and they'll pretty clearly make it to ten.

The anaysis I'm seeing is that the 40-mile long convoy that's been "looming" near Kyiv is a stalled line of logistical equipment carrying fuel, food, and ammunition for tanks, but this can't reach the tanks and is slowly being picked off by Ukrainian drones, infantry, and guerillas. I see other estimates that Russia has committed about 80% of the 190,000 troops that had been massed at the Ukraine border, with no result. Yet other observers ask why Russian bombers, which could discharge cruise missiles into Ukraine from Russian territory, haven't done so, and the answer appears to be that the Russians have run out of cruise missiles.

So right now, two of the three most powerful world leaders appear incompetent, feckless, even delusional, and they're both being badly outclassed by a former standup comic at the head of a third-rate power. Heck, I'll bet there are Canadians who are jealous, too.

Focus Shifts Back To Biden

With the US trucker convoy in Washington as President Biden is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address, the US media, at least, has shifted its attention back to Washington, although US media reporting on Ukraine has been bad across the spectrum anyhow, legacy or independent, left or right. A few things have been lost in the confusion, such as the remarkable sequence above in which Biden has no answer to the question of whether he underestimated Putin and variously smirks, stares blankly, and picks his teeth.

The establishment media figure George Stephanopoulos asked Press Secretary Psaki over the weekend about Biden's mental capacity:

"The president is approaching his State of the Union in a pretty difficult political position right now, 37% approval rating, Democrats trailing badly in the midterm polling," Stephanopoulos said. "A majority in our recent poll out this morning even question the president’s mental capacity. How is he going to turn that around on Tuesday night? And how much has his State of the Union been changed by this war in Ukraine?"

Psaki did not respond to accusations on Biden’s mental capacity but instead focused on Biden’s State of the Union address.

I continue to think that whatever Biden's problems, they aren't a result of any medical conditon but instead, they're a result of being dumb as a rock. In the video clip, you can see his sheer exasperation at the idea of anyone questioning his judgment over Putin, to the point that this shouldn't even warrant an answer. But right now, he's in the same boat with Putin himself, with former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice saying,

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears "erratic" and is "descending" into something she’s never personally seen before.

"He was always calculating and cold. But this is different. He seems erratic. There is an ever-deepening, delusional rendering of history, it was always a kind of victimology about what had happened to them, but now it goes back to blaming Lenin for the foundation of Kyiv … in Ukraine," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday."

Rice has met with Putin at least a half a dozen times across her career and said he is "descending into something I haven’t personally seen before."

The problem right now is that with the former standup comic Zelensky turning into the most charismatic figure on the world stage, people seem to be looking for ways to bypass both Biden and Putin. Clearly the EU, NATO, and even neutrals like Sweden and Switzerland, forced to recognize the Russian threat, suddenly realized they had to act independently of the US and get ahead of the problem.

The political hot button with the truckers' convoy in Washington is going to be the price of fuel. I've noted that increasing fuel prices is central to the leftist agenda, and it looks like Biden will continue his existing policies of discouraging domestic production and allowing Russia to increase prices. This hasn't gone unnoticed.

The US has mostly followed the EU in its sanctions, but Biden has left one thing in Vladimir Putin’s pockets — American energy purchases. “It’s ridiculous, totally ridiculous,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) declared yesterday, that “we’re buying over 600,000 barrels a day of crude from Russia.” Manchin wants an immediate end to such purchases — and more importantly, an immediate plan to increase American production to return to self-sufficiency.

But it isn't going to happen.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. needs to decrease its reliance on foreign oil by switching over to renewable energy, not increasing domestic production.

"We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, on oil in general, and we need to look at other ways of having energy in our country and others," Psaki said during an interview with ABC This Week Sunday. "We've seen over the last week or so... a number of European countries are recognizing they need to reduce their own reliance on Russian oil."

So the response to the US truckers' convoy is going to be let them buy electric cars. This will set up a confrontation. The problem for Biden before the State of the Union is that every time he opens his mouth it's a disaster, but it's a disaster even when he keeps his mouth shut.

The real problem isn't in Ukraine.