I can’t say, for sure, who’s copying whom but it seems as though Putin is trying to take a page from the Trump playbook. The specific page is the one where a person simply declares some…preferred reality and then insists THAT’S the “true” reality. Trump does this with…well, everything, really. He seems to live in a completely alternate reality of his own making. Of course, Trump got a little carried away with his delusions and now actual reality is intruding in the form of law enforcement enforcing real life laws.

But not even Putin is as Brazen a liar as Trump and just can’t seem to pull it off. It’s not that he doesn’t stick to the story. It’s that something happens to undermine his lies in a way Trump rarely suffers. My current favorite is Putin’s declaration that four regions of Ukraine are now Russia. Poof! He held a pseudo-plebiscite in which the locals supposedly determined their own political direction. Surprise, surprise, the results worked just the way Putin wanted them to and he had a big ole party announcing the annexation.

At the SAME TIME, though, the Ukrainian army was moving into and taking a key region, running the invaders out and controlling the entire area Putin was – at that moment – claiming. I laughed out loud. I never thought I’d be laughing at Vladimir Putin but at this point, I can’t help myself. He’s been ‘Trump pretending’ since his ill-advised invasion began. He lied to his army about what they were doing and why and as the soldiers have discovered the truth, they are largely NOT into the whole thing. They run at the first opportunity and they seem to be almost intentionally leaving equipment and ordinance around for the Ukrainians to use after the Russians bug out.

Now he’s conscripting more Russians into the fight and the vast majority seem to have other priorities. They’re running in droves trying to get away from Putin and if they DO get caught up, there are reports they’re trying to contact Ukraine to find out how to defect! It doesn’t help that Putin tipped his hand, a bit, and showed that this is important to him – but not important enough to risk sending ethnic Russians to the battle. He’s mostly been showing up and taking men who are NOT ethnically Russian – yet another reason for those men to NOT fight in Putin’s war.

Now he’s out threatening to use nukes. The “news” wants us to relax about the whole “nuke” thing so they’re stressing that these would be tactical, battlefield nukes. Smaller. “Safer.” But nukes beget nukes. If Putin DOES follow through with his threat, a concern the Ukrainians currently dismiss, Ukraine doesn’t have any nukes to respond with – but their friends do. (Ironically, Ukraine doesn’t have any nukes because they gave up their old Soviet stockpile in exchange for a promise from Russia that Russia would never attack Ukraine…)

I’ll tell you this: I’m pretty sure the world won’t let Russia use nukes with no response. I can only hope that Putin knows this as well, despite his Trump-like delusional status.

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Hey, Trump toady Aileen Cannon has apparently decided her taste for humiliation hasn’t yet abated. Look, I’m no lawyer but everything I’ve heard from competent lawyers suggests that she’s not all that great a lawyer, either. She’s loyal to Trump over everything else. He needs someone to run interference for him and she’s doing everything she can but she’s been over-ruled by better judges on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and she’s going to be over-ruled again.

She was presented a case she really shouldn’t have had because it really fell under the auspices of the judge who issued the search warrant, Bruce Reinhart. She kept the case, anyway. Trump wanted a Special Master even though there was no basis for a Special Master and she gave him his Special Master anyway. THEN, the Special Master demonstrated HIS loyalty to the law over Trump so, suddenly, Trump DIDN’T want the Special Master, after all, and went back to his Special Toady, Cannon, to block the Special Master’s ruling. She did, too. But the DOJ knows they’ve got a lackey on their hands and they use good attorneys. They know she’ll slow the process as much as possible but they ALSO know they’re going to defeat her efforts at every turn in higher courts. She’s exposing herself as a fool but not doing too much else that will have any lasting effect. (The fool thing will last forever…)

Now Trump has himself a Special Master he doesn’t seem to want, who isn’t willing to embarrass himself to protect Trump, AND whom Trump has to PAY! (I know. Trump doesn’t pay his bills. IF the Special Master gets paid at all, it will come from Trump’s PAC, not Trump’s pocket.)

I’ll tell you this: I had started to become concerned that maybe a person could just insist on alternate realities and have them become magically true. This week has been good for me as Putin’s folly in Ukraine AND Trump’s delusions in America have both been subjugated by reality whether they like it or not…