Week of Courage and Cowardice
Zelenskyy, European Resurgence, Trump Speech, Lazy Slashes

Key reprimand:
After the Ukrainian thoroughly destroyed his counterpart in the meeting, the Russian agent received a harsh upbraiding from his Kremlin superior, Elon Musk.

Trump’s demented stream-of-consciousness about how poor beleaguered Vlad Putin has had to endure Hunter Biden’s bathroom and bed.

Key biblical lesson:
The coins are transferred, the kiss has been placed, the offering of rare earth minerals has been set. The body of Ukraine. The heroes have already given so much blood. And now, the martyrdom.
 
Rubio will play his part. The cock hasn’t crowed three times, yet. But the US has retracted intelligence and aid. And the weapons they have, have been low-jacked. Leaving the Ukrainian people, who until now have been our allies, tasting gall.

Key apology:
We are ashamed of their disrespect, their lack of empathy, and their partnership with your oppressors. We are mortified at their endorsement of and collaboration with this attempted genocide.
 
Though our voices will never be as loud or impactful as theirs are, we needed you to know how much we abhor that you are having to endure this terrible ugliness in the name of our nation—and that their voices do not represent us.

Subtitles make this easy to follow.

Key review of Trump:
In Trump’s case, it’s just one long, semi-coherent ramble. It’s worse than listening to a best man give the pre-dinner toast when he’s already toasted and woefully unprepared. It’s also mostly fiction.
 
But Trump has it figured out. He can say whatever he wants. “Great television” in his words, and it takes days to fact-check him. Weeks, even.

Key review of Democrats:
It’s nice to see some Democrats were holding up signs saying, “This is not normal.” It would be much better if Democrats stopped behaving like what they’re seeing is normal. But they’ve been playing normal politics for so long against Trump and his followers that they were ineffective in preventing his return.

At The Onion, Trump is sick and tired of mainstream media always trying to put his words into some sort of context.

Key example (1^st of many):
At one point they gleefully proclaimed DOGE had discovered that Social Security payments were going out to people who would be 150 years old if they were alive. It did no such thing, of course. What this reveals is a cringeworthy ignorance of a computer programming idiosyncrasy — involving, I gather, the computer language COBOL, which has been around since the Stone Age.
 
When the birth year of an individual entered into the database is unknown, the system substitutes 1875 as a placeholder, apparently on the theory that it was so long ago it will preclude any confusion. But the programmers severely underestimated how idiotic some idiots can be.

Key example (2^nd of many):
On his Truth Social propaganda page, the cardboard chief executive posted this:
 
DOGE: Looks like the Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department Of Defense to study “large scale social deception”. GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!
 
As you might gather, the Reuters they were referring to is the news agency. But that’s not the organization that the DOD contracted with. It was Thomson Reuters, a totally unrelated cyber security firm. Do these people even know how to Google???

Tommy Christopher brings us the portion of Trump’s speech in which he performs a resurrection of the hoary fiction, presumably for the benefit of those still willing to believe it.

Key smear (directly quoting Trump):
1039 people between the ages of 220 and 229, one person between the age of 240 and 249, and one person is listed at 360 years of age, more than 100 years, more than 100 years older than our country.

Ummmm. No.

Key comparison:
…asking why we need a National Weather Service when we have apps and the Weather Channel is like asking why we need potato farmers when we can buy fries at McDonalds.

Key targets:
In fact, virtually all the cost cutting by Trump and Musk will harm citizens who are not rich. Medicaid benefits will be reduced, and the Affordable Care Act section of Medicaid will likely be abolished, leaving tens of millions of people with diminished or no health care coverage.

Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the polling. The public thinks Trump is prioritizing the wrong things and is moving the country in the wrong direction.

The real potential nightmare is what will likely happen if Trump simply ignores court rulings or if the Supreme Court contorts itself into some way justifying Trump.

Key preparation:
Thus far, albeit with heels dragging and emergency appeals readied at every step, the administration has declined to openly defy the courts. But one must frankly be a bit willfully obtuse not to see how the stage is being set for that to change. All across the executive branch, the sort of person who places fealty to the law and Constitution over personal loyalty to Donald Trump is being laid off or forced out.

Key assurance:
I know, I know. That’s crazy talk. Bigfoot talk. Or a bedtime story for very small children who still believe in Santa Claus and The New York Times. But it’s true I tellz ya! I was there! I saw it on my teevee, in living color.

Key (Once upon a time…)
…there were Republicans who would stand up to a criminal president even if he was the leader of their own party. Even if they had agreed with him and campaigned with him and perhaps even owed their seat in Congress to him. Even if it pissed off their constituents. Even if their mommy told them not to.

and applies his objection more generally:

Key goal:
“The system has been designed to exploit us,” said Schwarz, who goes by “TheOneCalledJai” on social media, in a video to his roughly 250,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok. “On February 28, we are going to remind them who really holds the power. For one day, we turn it off.”

Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara expresses contempt, and offers one basic tenet of libertarianism: exploitation within capitalism is not possible because all transactions are voluntary.

Key dismissal:
Schwarz’s ignorant crusade is, of course, Marxist nonsense. Companies no more exploit us than consumers exploit them. Companies engage in voluntary trade with their customers. Trade is win-win and thus non-exploitative.

Anyone who has ever lived, and especially sought employment, in a one-company town might disagree.

Casual shoppers may find some empathy for such historical figures as Teddy Roosevelt in his campaign against monopolies: called Trusts in those days. Price gouging has become a familiar term.

One last question (mine):
Wouldn’t choosing to shop at a local establishment, boycotting large retailers for a day, be the sort of voluntary activity Mr. LaFerrara embraces?

Words of wisdom from Infidel753:
Boycotting can be an effective weapon, or a completely ineffectual one. It’s necessary to learn from experience what works and what doesn’t.

Last week’s Economic Blackout Day qualifies as ineffectual. Infidel explains why.

tengrain speculates, with photo evidence, about one largely unknown reason for Trump attacks on our northern neighbor.

Key difference with previous powers:
Empire has many different meanings and manifestations, but in essence it can be understood as a hierarchical form of order in which a leading state exercises formal or informal political control over a weaker polity.
 
Liberalism offers a vision of political order based on restraint of power; its principles include the rule of law, separation of powers, protection of property rights, and guarantees of political rights and freedoms.

Key topics:
They cover everything from what could happen if fetal “personhood” becomes enshrined into law to whether abortion bans allow states to assert dominion over people’s bodies.

You may prefer a complete transcript (pdf)

The message? That Jews are the enemy, engaged in a great conspiracy involving replacing Whites with inferior beings:

1. He has developed a pattern of using his official position to bully those he considers his inferiors.
2. He seems to become especially aggressive after drinking (a lot).

Disaffected and it Feels So Good reacts (and we should all consider sharing that reaction) as Van Orden tries to bully a former Veterans Affairs employee, one of those affected by an undifferentiated mass-termination, and whose post-employment offense is inquiring online about care provided to veterans by a drastically reduced staff.

Van Orden threatens to have the fired employee fired.

Key obvious observation:
Van Orden is a mean drunk.

Key judgment (quoting Pastor David Thiessen):
Yes, the predators are guilty of committing a crime and some of them may even qualify legally to be charged with murder BUT there would be no crime if the boys had morals, obeyed the Bible, and had some courage.

Nice.

Has to do with a local farmer who saved his life.

He is inspired to list his own top ten movies of 2024.

It seems eclectic to me. I had only heard of one film on his list of films.
On the other hand, I’m a simple, uncultured, septuagenarian: Largely unfamiliar with any popular culture not specific to boomers.