Opinion

The former president keeps telling on himself. During an appearance Sunday on Jeanine Pirro’s radio show on WABC, Donald Trump expressed, yet again, his sympathy for Russia’s reigning kleptocrat.

"He's got a big ego," Trump said of Vladimir Putin. “I think what's going on now is hard. I understand he's gotten rid of a lot of his generals."

From the incalculable humanitarian disaster that has seen millions of Ukrainians flee their home country, to the appalling carnage on the streets of Mariupol that was devastatingly humanized with the death of a pregnant woman and her unborn baby, the costs of Putin’s unjustified war of conquest will be with us for decades to come.

But the truth also has become collateral damage these last weeks, as Putin has twisted language beyond meaning to justify his atrocities. Russian officials and conspiracy theorists have, for instance, promoted the baseless claim that the attack on the maternity hospital in Mariupol was “staged,” USA Today reported.

The conspiracy theory that Russia invaded Ukraine to stop Anthony Fauci from engineering the next Covid-19 has turned the US far-right against Ukraine and for Russia.

The evolution of this bizarre fantasy can teach us a lot about how the US rightwing incubates and adapts Russian propaganda for domestic consumption.

The common wisdom in the Beltway media was that the confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden's first nominee to the Supreme Court, would be a relatively low drama affair. Prior to her naming, there had been a flurry of fake outrage from the Fox News pundits over Biden's promise to nominate the first Black woman to the court. In the face of Jackson's impeccable resume, however, even the most racist Republicans struggle to deny her qualifications.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson's efforts to "raise questions" about Jackson's credentials fell mostly flat. More importantly, Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate. Republicans can't block her nomination, since Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell destroyed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in 2017 when he wanted to seat Donald Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch. Her nomination won't really change the balance of the court, as Jackson is replacing liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, so the assumption is that Republicans won't bother to put up much of a fight. But, of course, that assumption overlooks one critical factor in the hearing process: Senate Republicans with presidential aspirations see these hearings as a way to pander to the racist, misogynist, conspiracy theory-loving GOP base.

When I hear Republicans blaming President Biden for high gas prices, I’m reminded of what scribe Mary McCarthy once said of her rival Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.”

I wouldn’t go quite that far in condemning Republicans for their current propaganda. But aside from those two little words, they’ve been weaving a panoply of lies that would make Putin envious.

You would think after five years of the Republican standard-bearer telling anyone who will listen that the United States is "stupid" and that "the whole world is laughing at us" while kissing up to dictators and insulting U.S. allies, that members of the GOP would now be embarrassed to fall back on their old playbook of calling Democrats unpatriotic and soft of defense. But as we know, they are shameless so that isn't something that would stop them.

As it stands, after a few weeks of confusion and disarray (which I wrote about here) — not really sure if their supporters' adoration for that gorgeous hunk Vladimir Putin was so deeply felt that they would support the invasion of Ukraine — GOP leadership has mostly come around to the idea that Russia probably shouldn't be ruthlessly murdering massive numbers of civilians. Being the timorous followers these leaders really are, they couldn't just take a moral and principled stand at the outset, particularly since the leader of the party, Donald Trump, was out there saying that Putin was a genius and very savvy for just going in and taking the prime property he coveted. (Perhaps it reminded him of the good old days when he would take elderly widow's land under eminent domain to build parking lots for his casinos.) But they needn't have worried too much. The muscle memory of right-wing anti-communism is still viable in the GOP's body politic.

Recently, the world watched with a mixture of astonishment, delight and concern as an employee of Russian state television Channel One interrupted the evening news program by coming onto the set, shouting "Stop the war! No to war!" while holding up a large handmade sign that said: Don't believe the propaganda. They're lying to you here.

News editor and producer Marina Ovsyannikova rushed out behind a female anchor (reportedly a Putin favorite), who was presenting the national state-sanctioned "news," with a sign decrying the lies being told there about Putin's war against Ukraine.

What is the source of American power? What, to reclaim a denuded phrase, makes America great? Not the biggest economy, the most powerful military, nor the most coveted cultural icons.

Those are end products, not causes.

It turned out to be just another Monday at the White House circus. The clowns came and went. The trapeze artists did their high-wire act. The elephants crapped all over the place and someone forgot to clean up after them.

Under Donald Trump, such apt descriptions were used to define the administration. Today I use it to define the White House press corps. While the world is on fire, we're critiquing the wallpaper.

Rep. Mo Brooks just had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

The far-right congressman from Alabama is best known nationally for his role as a leading insurrectionist on January 6. But rather than get attention for that -- Brooks’ new campaign ad promotes his speech before the riot --- he saw his campaign to succeed retiring Sen. Richard Shelby take a series of body blows.

The hardest thing I do as a writer is trying to find words to describe the indescribable. It doesn't matter what it is — beauty or bliss or sadness or tragedy or dullness or despair or horror or ecstasy or the ordinary — it's the writer's job. I remember as a young man having a dream that someday I might come up with one great idea. Just one would do it, but that was my goal. Now I realize what I've been doing for more than 50 years is excavating old ideas and finding new ways to express them.

This article first appeared in Salon.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and disruptions in and sanctions on Russian oil, have led to a major rise in oil prices.

In Chicago, I’ve seen gas selling for north of $5 a gallon. Some parts of California are reporting gas over $5.50. Last week, average gas prices nationwide hit $4.196 per gallon, which is the highest recorded price in history, breaking the previous record of $4.165 from July 2008.

It’s not clear to me yet why Virginia “Ginni” Thomas admitted to being at the gathering that came before the J6 insurrection. But I’m sure the spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has her reasons.

Ginni Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon Monday that she attended the rally organized by the former president to “stop the steal.” She said she left before Donald Trump ordered a throng of insurgents, some armed, to sack and loot the seat of government.