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[Cynics of the world, unite! Trump vs. Biden]

  The 2020 Election Offers Low Spirits and High Comedy Anyone not already committed to a political hard line can’t get excited about either candidate. By  Joseph Epstein Sept. 17, 2020 1:28 pm ET The Wall Street Journal  https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-2020-election-offers-low-spirits-and-high-comedy-11600363705?mod=opinion_lead_pos7; original article contains a video and an illustration How is it that in what has been called the most important presidential election in our nation’s recent history, I find myself viewing the candidates as essentially comic characters ? The one man with his baroque hairdo, the other with his sad hair plugs; the one who speaks before he thinks, the other who doesn’t seem able to think very well while he is speaking—these two men, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, seem like nothing so much as puppets. They are two Punches with no Judy, each beating the other with his brickbat, which one assumes they will continue to do right up to Nov. 3. My guess ...
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Will Biden’s Fall Be Worse Than His Summer? [Yet another negative media reaction re Biden]

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From the Afghan debacle to his economic overreach, the White House has ample reason for alarm. Image from article: President Biden pauses while speaking at the White House, Sept. 24.  By Peggy Noonan , The Wall Street Journal , Sept. 30, 2021 6:43 pm ET The White House should be feeling alarm. It hasn’t been a good summer for the president, and it isn’t looking to be a good fall. The manner and timing of the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a catastrophe that left Americans infuriated and ashamed. The president’s statements and interviews in the aftermath were highly unsuccessful. The testimony of his top military leaders that they advised him to leave 2,500 troops to keep the process safe made him look dodgy. The whole thing was a botch from beginning to end, and it will stick in history. The images it yielded (kids running to the planes, 13 Americans killed as they tried to bring order) seemed to sum up the political moment, making this seem not like merely a bad event for the pre...
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Two maps of Ukraine

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image from  Wikipedia Commons , with comment:  English: Simplified historical map of Ukrainian borders (1654 - 2014). Word "gift" is used for "conquests" or "reconquests" are too long for the simple map.  See  also, which notes:  " In 1922 , Ukraine became one of the original constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.); it would not regain its independence until the U.S.S.R.’s collapse in 1991 ." *** Russian invasion Areas seized as of Saturday Direction of invasion forces Controlled by or allied to Russia RUSSIA Ukraine territory, recognized by Putin as independent Primary refugee crossing locations Nuclear facilities BELARUS Chernobyl Not in operation Rivne Kharkiv Kyiv POLAND Luhansk Khmelnitsky Dnipro Lviv Donetsk UKRAINE Controlled by separatists Mariupol Zaporizhzhia South Ukraine Kherson TRANSNISTRIA Sea of Azov MOLDOVA Odessa CRIMEA ROMANIA 200 miles Sevastopol Black Sea 200 km Sources: Organization for Sec...
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