Even many of his critics consider Russian leader Vladimir Putin a brilliant strategist, an assessment that is being proven incorrect with each passing day.
A brilliant player of the geopolitical game would not have allowed the United States and its NATO allies to goad him into an invasion of Ukraine.
A brilliant strategist would not have handed a reeling Joe Biden the lifeline to halt his plunge in approval ratings by getting him past the haunting Afghan withdrawal failure, raging inflation, and lingering COVID regulation overkill that was souring the mood among the voting public here in America.
But Putin blew it. He took the bait, moved into Ukraine and in so doing gave bumbling Joe and his handlers some desperately needed ink for their propaganda printer that they are working overtime to use.
They are selling the same hysteria that paid off so well when it was unleashed under the Black Lives Matter and COVID banners.
Get the ignorant and uninformed acting rashly on misguided emotion while their brains remain in neutral. For those who dare to bring up facts instead of emotions, beat them back with charges of racism, Russian sympathizing, or whatever false incendiary claim of the moment that throws red meat to the mindless masses.
You are paying higher prices for gasoline. Blame the Russians. Never mind that gasoline prices were rising long before Putin launched his Ukraine invasion. The rises were due to Biden’s anti-fossil fuels policy, a payback to what the late Rush Limbaugh would call the environmental wackos who voted for Biden.
Biden has killed the Keystone pipeline and limited drilling and exploration for oil and natural gas. Now the hypocrite Biden has the cajones to rip shale operations for not producing more of the stuff to make up for Russian production going offline.
Inflation here rose 7.9 percent in February, highest in 40 years. Blame the Russians. Sure, right, it is Putin who is making the cost of gasoline, groceries and shelter rise. Tell me again how Putin affects the cost of corn, or meat or eggs, or housing, or new and used cars.
Quick answer: Biden and overspending politicians in general have more to do with the inflation we are suffering. I have written in the past that the government handouts issued during the contrived COVID emergency were going to come home to roost in the form of higher inflation.
It didn’t take Nostradamus to make the prediction. It is Economics 101. Artificially increase demand by giving away purchasing power in the form of stimulus checks or suspended payment obligations like rents or mortgages or student loans, then do not increase production (in the case of the COVID shutdowns, decrease it) and you get the textbook recipe for inflation.
As one panelist on CNBC’s Fast Money noted Wednesday night, before the official inflation report was released Thursday morning, the actual inflation rate as measured by traditional means is more like 14 percent.
You can blame Putin and the Russians, or you can look at the facts.
Social media, megaphone for morons, is full of newly minted Ukraine experts whose mantra is Russians evil, Ukrainians saints.
They forget that in 2016, then vice president Biden held up $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine until a prosecutor was fired, ostensibly for not pursuing corruption in the country. Cynics thought it had more to do with him investigating a company with which Hunter Biden had a business relationship, but that angle was shot down by the usual liberal lapdog media outlets.
Ukraine president Zelenskyy has benefited politically from the Russians coming to call. In mid-February, 2 ½ years after his election, Zelenskyy’s approval ratings were worse than Biden’s. Only 30 percent of Ukrainians wanted Zelenskyy to run for re-election and only 23 percent said they would vote for him if he did.
Now Zelenskyy’s briefings are inspiring awestruck praise on par with that formerly reserved for since-discredited New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Emmy Award-winning COVID briefings. Hope it ends better for Zelenskyy than it did for Cuomo.
If Putin were a relief pitcher in Major League Baseball, he’d get credit for two saves for bailing out – at least temporarily – both Biden and Zelenskyy.
Plus, Putin provided a convenient one-size-fits-all scapegoat for anything not going well down the line here in Bidenville. When in doubt, blame the Russians.
It would be laughable were the distortions not being consumed so eagerly by the brain donors among us.
Sam Ross Jr's site 