Mike Luckovich for February 22, 2022

What I hear is that the Russian oligarchs are pushing for a war, complete with a preemptive attack on several of the western nations.

You want help? Get rid of putin.

Putin must believe that there are too many Russians, and he has to decrease the population.

The situation is unbearable.

Totinputtin will be the ruin of russia!

Don’t worry, Mike! Dementia Joe will be there, at the bottom, to catch him.

The pro-Russia right-wing politicians and pundits have been propping up Trump’s approach to foreign policy by asserting that he was successful in keeping Putin from invading Ukraine. But what they are purposefully suppressing – is the fact that Putin didn’t need to make such threats when his ally Trump was occupying the White House.

The evidence is that the one thing that Putin has been adamant about in the current conflict is his determination to extract a promise that Ukraine will never join NATO. His goal all along has been to weaken NATO and the European Union. But Putin didn’t need to take military action to achieve that goal during the Trump administration because Trump was doing that for him.

Trump even granted another Putin wish by withholding military funds from Ukraine in an attempt to blackmail Ukrainian President Zelensky into digging up dirt on Biden. Trump was impeached, the first time, for that anti-American thuggery.

Now that Biden is President and is restoring the NATO alliance, Putin is resorting to military measures to get his way. The reason that Putin is threatening Ukraine now, but wasn’t when Trump was in office, is because Biden isn’t the sort of servile stooge that Trump was.

Fiona Hill could not have been more right. And her words bear repeating: “There’s no Team America for Trump. Not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second.”

Maybe it’s a “Hunger Games” kind of thing. Those of the population who survive, get to eat.

we sure thinned the herd in Korea & Viet Nam…..

Putin is stepping into the traditional role of all the other totalitarian leaders, from the czars onward. These leaders generally have no care for the population except the leaders need the food prepared from the farms, fighters of the wars, constructors of planes, bombs, and other materials. So, yes, the Russian bear has some reason to fear its annihilation with the start of another unnecessary war.

Nothing like a war to step up the sagging economy. War is profitable. Nasty as it is, it’s still advantageous to capitalism. We’ve been spending a lot of money on the military industrial complex for a long time. No one is concerned about that.

Russia, for its size, is a one-trick pony. Its gas sales to European countries provide its main trade income and Putin is desperate to expand and prop up the Russian economy. Ukraine has traditionally served as the Tsar’s and then the Soviets’ breadbasket. Without Ukraine’s agriculture, Russia is hard pressed to feed itself. Ukraine has large reserves of coal(especially, hard coal) that Russia needs for energy production and its steel industry. Russia already retook the Crimea, giving itself a warm water port. Follow the money.

rasPutin wants to bring back the title of czar and start his own dynasty. Or Die-nasty.

The Budapest Memorandum, signed by Russia and the US in 1994, guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for giving up their nukes.

There are a limited number of responses to its violation, those being war or economic sanctions. Obama and Biden chose sanctions. Trump chose neither.

As usual the right wing troll traitors are against the efforts of the USA to resolve this.

This is Putin eugenics.

Add the world to that unicycle.

Putin fully clothed is a neglected artistic detail akin to drawing Kavanaugh without a beer in hand.

Putin will be using SwampyDon’s praise of his actions as propaganda to broadcast across the Russian media… much more effective than just Tucker Carlson!

The Russian’s need Trump in power…they need to get all that money paid back that Putin loaned him when he ran and won and then ran and lost.

Although Ukraine can hold their own for a time with Russia, how long can they last without support from NATO and the West? Unfortunately, NATO and the West offer little more than moral support.

Maybe sometime today someone should send Putin the front pages of the newspapers from August 7 through 10 in 1945. That package with a note that says that this could be Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Heritage before breakfast tomorrow. A much better idea than sending my grandkids to Moldova next week.

Time for the NATO neighbors in Europe to form a posse and stand up to the bully.

FYI, a bit of information I learned from ABC News this morning: the two syllable pronunciation of Kyiv is Russian, but the one syllable pronunciation is Ukrainian. Show your support and say “Kyiv” in Ukrainian.