It’s Friday, March 4th, 2022…but before we begin, upon TLJ showing us an Instagram of Pelosi’s bizarre dancing, we realized what was the scariest aspect of Biden’s State of Disunion address:

These three complete clowns effectively control the country, and none of them have the faintest grasp about anything but accumulating personal wealth and power.  Case in point, the following Jen Psake quote forwarded by Speed:

“We don’t have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy and that would raise prices at the gas pump for the American people around the world because it would reduce the supply available. And it’s as simple as less supply raises prices, and that is certainly a big factor for the president at this moment. It also has the potential to pad the pockets of President Putin, which is exactly what we are not trying to do.“

Yet, that is, in fact, what they actually ARE and HAVE BEEN doing!!!  Heaven help the United States of America.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, since we’re on the subject of 46*, in Charlie Cooke’s exceptional post-SOTU address analysis entitled…

…we found this piece of prose particularly notable:

“…Simply put, Joe Biden can no longer speak properly. He slurs and mangles his words; he struggles mightily to distinguish between concepts — and contexts; his memory cannot keep up with his folksy off-script digressions, which now end with a trail-off or a pivot or an involuntary Kerouacian riff. Unable to read or process the contents of the Teleprompter, Biden talked last night about “a pound of Ukrainian people,” confused “Ukrainian” with “Iranian” (provoking a mouthed correction from Kamala Harris), referenced “other freedee loving nations,” and praised the Ukrainian “mall of strength.” And those were just the highlights. Throughout, Biden exhibited the talent for compressing full sentences into single words that brought us his campaign-trail commitment to “truindenashendduvbapresser.” No wonder Nancy Pelosi looked so nervous.

So no, there was no attempt to “reset his presidency,” because this is a presidency that cannot be reset. I spent the first year of the last administration wondering when Donald Trump would realize that this was no longer a game and consent to be shaped by his office, before recognizing to my dismay that the answer, alas, was “never.” So it is with Joe Biden. This is who he is, and what his presidency will be like. It’s not an act or a calculation or a bout of 3D chess. He won’t change on the advice of the wise or the circumspect. This is it. The man’s an oblivious, ignorant, overconfident blowhard. Corrections will be brought only by the clock.“

We’d add evil, corrupt, perverted and a sorry excuse for a human being.

Since we’re on the subject of evil, corrupt, perverted sorry excuses for a human being, the WSJ‘s Holman Jenkins explores…

The Putin Endgame

His regime is destroying itself over a fictional threat of NATO aggression.

“…I’ve been wondering for weeks now how Mr. Putin can survive his Ukraine gambit. His basic bet failed a month ago, when Volodymyr Zelensky, Joe Biden and Olaf Scholz refused to concede Ukraine’s independence to appease the Russian dictator. That ended any chance of an outcome that actually strengthens him.

A military victory in Ukraine now will be indistinguishable from defeat. If Mr. Putin is sentient, he will look for ways to limit the costs of his miscalculation, which I doubt the U.S and its allies will afford him. He will have to slaughter his way to Kyiv and Western public opinion will make sure economic sanctions are a one-way ratchet. Ukrainians will fight on and suffer more, with the consolation that a great nation is being born. (Meanwhile, if you thought China, which could have prevented all this, was ready for global responsibility, you’re over that now.)

…Events can be momentous without meriting grandiloquent description. There can’t be a new cold war because the Russia of today can’t sustain a cold war. It’s not the U.S.S.R. Economically, it’s not even Spain. Operative all along hasn’t been Russia’s historical and geographic imperatives, but the grotty nature of the current regime. A kleptocracy is reaching its natural ending. It couldn’t create a stable governance model any more than the one-man 1970s African dictatorships it resembles. Mr. Putin’s geopolitical posturing is absurd. His regime is destroying itself over an entirely fictional threat of NATO aggression from Ukraine.

The sanction that might help Kremlin decision makers come to the right decision today is the truth. Open the CIA’s files about his regime’s murders and thefts and bizarre corruption. Open the files about Ryazan. That’s the city where a spate of murderous apartment-block bombings by Chechen terrorists came to an end in 1999. They stopped after then-presidential candidate Putin’s own intelligence agents were caught unloading sacks of explosive into the basement of a large apartment complex.“

In other words, these guys don’t play nice, nor do they play by the Marquis of Queensbury’s rules.

In a second offering from Charlie Cooke, the author cautions us to…

Beware Wishful Thinking in Evaluating the Ukraine Crisis

Manichean cheerleading alone won’t win the day for the West; sober analysis of the state of play is needed, too.

Outraged by Russia’s aggression, armed Ukrainians in both the country’s military and its spontaneously formed civilian militias are able to fight hard enough in all regions that the demoralized and confused Russian army retreats with its tail between its legs. Appalled by the spectacle, and vowing “never again,” the international community comes together to turn Russia into a pariah state — limiting its access to international institutions, weakening its economy, draining the country of talent, and making Vladimir Putin’s position untenable even within his own circle. Alarmed by their vulnerability, previously unreliable nations such as Germany commit to increasing defense spending and to taking NATO more seriously. In the West, the tales of Ukrainian bravery become the stuff of legend, and in Ukraine, President Zelensky cruises to reelection as the new symbol of national resolve. In casual conversation, “Zelensky” and “Putin” become avatars of Good and Evil, while “invading Ukraine” becomes colloquial shorthand for “doing something stupid.” Putin is forced out of office, and Russia reforms itself. The experiment is universally deemed to have been a failure, and we learn that, despite all odds, the world has changed substantially since the mid 20th century.

That’s what I’d like to happen. It’s also what I’m being led to believe, by social media and the hive that sustains it, is happening. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that anything ever turns out that neatly, and I’m not sure that the crisis in Ukraine will, either. As a country, we would do well to remember that, and so to ask some meaningful follow-up questions beyond “Which team do we like?”

The sad truth is that — myself included, of course — we really do not know as much about what is happening in Ukraine as we’d like to. Some of the things we thought we knew — that 13 soldiers were killed heroically on Snake Island; that a mysterious flying ace was downing Russian planes; that random women are carrying rifles on public transport — turned out not to be true. Some of the things we have simply assumed — that because Russia’s invasion seems to have made slower progress than the Kremlin anticipated, the Russian military is on the verge of giving up rather than of changing tactics — are as much wishful thinking as they are analysis. And some of the things that we seem to have forgotten — that the world is full of extremely complex systems that usually cannot be altered overnight — will soon become as apparent as ever. If Russia loses this war, Noah Rothman notes over at Commentary, many of the results will be “of material benefit to the West” — but also “extremely dangerous.” As the ultimate stewards of our government, we would profit from ensuring that our national conversation covers these specifics as much as it is covering the generalities…”

Put another way, forewarned is forearmed.  And, given all the misinformation flowing from a variety of fake news outlets out there, we need all the facts we can gather.  Unfortunately, in this case, it pains us to include Tucker in the sources of fake news, as Mr. Carlson attempts to avoid his culpability:

In a related item, writing at The Epoch Times, Dennis Prager ruminates…

On Ukraine, NATO, America, Comedians and Environmentalists

“…When I was a graduate student at Columbia University’s Russian Institute, I regularly encountered the “paranoid” explanation for Soviet/Russian policies. It struck me then, and even more so now, as pathologic or false, or both. Russia is by far the largest country on Earth, spanning approximately one-ninth of all the world’s land surface. When that fact is combined with Russia’s vast nuclear weaponry, the “paranoia” explanation for Russian aggression is rendered absurd.

It is even more absurd when one considers the countries Russia allegedly fears will invade them. Which one of their Western-border countries—Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine—is likely to invade Russia? Wasn’t every one of them invaded by Russia? Shouldn’t every one of them be paranoid?

We’ll end the “paranoid” discussion with this rule of history: Generally speaking, wars are either between two police states or between a police state and a free state. And the latter are nearly always initiated or provoked by the police state. Russia has nothing to fear from its neighbors. Its neighbors have plenty to fear from Russia.

…I know of no American, on the Right or the Left, who has called for sending the U.S. military into Ukraine. But every American should feel awful—morally and as an American—about America sitting by and watching the first major invasion of a peaceful country since Hitler and Stalin.

…And it remains a fact that Putin did not invade Ukraine while Trump was president. Putin feared Trump. Neither Putin nor anyone else fears President Joe Biden.

It is therefore not at all surprising that a comedian is the world’s most courageous leader. It is surprising that people still think a lifelong political career produces leaders. Biden is a lifelong politician and, as his behavior during COVID-19 showed, may well be the least courageous president in American history.

…It is overwhelmingly likely that American and European environmentalists made the Russian invasion of Ukraine possible. Under Trump, America became energy independent and was even able to supply Europe with energy. But the environmental movement, which dominates the Democratic Party and nearly every Western European country, has made Russia the major supplier of natural gas to Europe, and especially to the most important country on the European continent, Germany.

The environmentalist movement uses climate change to achieve its primary objectives: undoing of the West’s economic foundations, reshaping the Western way of life, dismantling capitalism, and transferring wealth to the Third World. (After first lining their own pockets!) They will pursue these aims at any cost—whether crippling inflation, energy blackouts, even the strengthening of Russia and China.

If you really believe climate change poses an “existential threat” to human life, there is no price too high to pay in order to eliminate fossil fuel-based energy. That includes empowering and enriching evil men.“

As well as empowering and enriching…

…evil women!

Next up, another septet of specially selected items certain to pique the interest of inquiring Conservative minds:

(1). If it’s true you can tell a lot about a family by the company they keep, Jim Freeman offers evidence the Biden’s are as corrupt as they come, asking, “Now we know that Archer for his part is not just questionable. He’s a crook. Why would the Bidens want to work so closely with him?”  Simple: Follow the money.

(2). The WaPo‘s Jennifer Rubin is exposed for the shameless hypocrite she is for suggesting Rubio gave worst SOTU response ever, despite nine years earlier hailing it as the best.  Just another Liberal acting as if the internet doesn’t exist.

(3). China vowing to continue normal trade cooperation with Russia after nixing any U.N. sanctions amid Putin’s bombardment of civilians in Ukraine offers yet another reason the useless, toothless organization should be scrapped.

(4). In a related item, Kevin Williamson relates why Chairman Xi’s big idea — “Let’s you and him fight” — is ALMOST a masterstroke of statecraft, for though “Putin’s war is providing Xi with an invaluable case study, a kind of dry run for what the Western response to some outrage perpetrated by Beijing — say, the invasion of Taiwan — might look like”, Xi isn’t the only one taking notes.

(5). Dan Henninger explains how Ukraine changes everything, as he explores the parallels between Europe’s long failure to deter Mad Vlad with Progressives’ push to defund the police. 

(6). As fantastical as it sounds, in a forward from Jeff Foutch, Townhall.com‘s Guy Benson confirms the Biden State Department has CONTINUED using Russian diplomats as its conduit to pursue another Obama-style nuclear “deal” with Iran.  As Guy remarked:

“Imagine still using Russian diplomats — ‘business as usual,’ under the current circumstances — as your negotiators with another anti-American regime, with which the Russian military (and China’s) has allied itself.  You can’t truly treat Russia as a pariah state while you buy its oil and enlist its diplomats for side projects.  And this side project is looking increasingly outrageous on its own terms…”

(7). At the University of North Texas, “activists” rioted after preventing a speech by Jeff Younger, a father denied custody of his son after contesting the 9-year-old’s transgender diagnosis.  Despite Younger being struck in the stomach and the event’s organizer being forced to hide in a locked janitor’s closet while rioters ran through the hallways “shrieking like animals”, to the best of our knowledge, not a single arrest was made.

Here’s the juice: Anarchy unchecked is anarchy encouraged, and the freedom of speech of “activists” doesn’t entitle them to prevent an invited, scheduled speaker from exercising theirs.

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to the first cartoon in today’s installment of The Lighter Side:

Then there’s these from Balls Cotton…

…and the lovely Shannon:

Finally, we’ll call it a week with this Brave New Army commercial courtesy of The Babylon Bee via The Nickel:

We’d call it a parody, but we’re afeared it conveys far more truth than is comfortable to contemplate.

Magoo

Video of the Day

Courtesy of Balls Cotton, an excellent yet concise history of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine.

Tales of The Darkside

Joe Concha sums up the insignificance of 46*’s State of Disunion address.

On the Lightweight Side

Laura Ingraham and Raymond Arroyo highlight the lowlights of Biden’s State of Disunion address.