- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, culminating with a speech to a joint session of Congress.
Something a lot of people noticed, myself included? Zelensky's attire, which consisted of a plain dark-green sweatshirt and cargo pants. While I firmly believe any male visitor to the White House should don a suit and tie, National Review's Jim Geraghty says anyone focusing on that aspect is missing out on the bigger picture.
In other circumstances, I could see getting upset about a foreign leader’s choice of attire while visiting the White House. If French president Emmanuel Macron visited the White House and didn’t wear a suit, we would be surprised and dismayed.
But Zelensky’s in awfully unique circumstances. We don’t know all the details of how he got to the U.S., but European newspapers published a picture of the Ukrainian president at the train station in the southern Polish city of Przemysl, just across the Polish–Ukrainian border.
Flight trackers determined that shortly after Zelensky announced he was going to visit the U.S., a U.S. government Boeing C-40B took off from Poland’s Rzeszów airport. That U.S. government jet looks like a miniature version of Air Force One, with “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” written in big letters on the side.
Zelensky traveled that way because on any other jet, there’s a chance — not a big chance, but a chance — that Russia would deem shooting the plane down worth the risk. Remember, if Putin and his top military advisers had a great ability to assess risk and consequences, he wouldn’t have launched the invasion. Sure, it would be extremely dangerous for the Russians to send some MiGs to attempt to shoot down a foreign leader over NATO airspace. But it’s also extremely dangerous to dig trenches and camp right outside of the Chernobyl nuclear plant and subject yourselves to high levels of radiation, and the Russians chose to do that, too. The phrase, “Oh the Russians would never do that!” needs to be put on temporary hiatus.
During the biggest land war in Europe since World War II, getting upset about what Zelensky chooses to wear while visiting the U.S. seems awfully silly and shallow. (I notice that a lot of people judge political figures — and likely everyone else — on their appearance because you don’t need to know anything else about them. Learning anything else about the person requires effort, and the last thing some people ever want to do is put effort into learning something they didn’t already know.)
Fair enough. And while my hope is for the Ukrainian military to succeed in fending off Russia (given their literal survival as a country is at stake, in addition to it being a plus for the entire world), the unconscionable amount of money the U.S. is spending in this "proxy war" should absolutely be called into question. As we learned the hard way with our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, endless founts of money with no coherent end goal is a recipe for disaster.
- Speaking of disastrous circumstances in Afghanistan.......
Taliban security forces fanned out to some universities and informal learning centers in Kabul on Wednesday, teachers said, enforcing an edict issued the night before that appears to have banned most females from any education beyond the sixth grade.
In one instance, a teacher reported security forces barging into his class, shouting at girls to go home. "Some of students started verbal arguments with them, but they didn't listen. My students left their classes, crying," said Waheed Hamidi, an English-language teacher at a tuition center in Kabul.
The move was expected – and dreaded – by observers as the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Haibutullah Akhundzada imposes his vision of an Afghanistan which is ultra-conservative, even by the hardline group's standards.
Say, do you happen to recall President Joe Biden's declaration upon American forces withdrawing from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021?
It was shortly thereafter that Biden's approval rating went underwater and has rarely been above the low 40s since.
It's absolutely sickening to ponder the countless deaths of American military and their allied forces (not to mention the hundred of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars) over nearly 20 years, only to see Afghanistan wind up literally where they were upon the initial invasion.
- A lot of concerns raised over draconian lockdowns and nonsensical mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic have become validated more and more with each passing day.
Better late than never, WaPo.
A new study found that exercise, in almost any amount, reduced people’s risks of being hospitalized or dying of covid. https://t.co/tKpKyxLPiJ
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 21, 2022
New Jersey gym owner Ian Smith defied lockdowns in order to keep his business open to allow people to better their physical and mental health. He was fined by the government for every day he kept his doors open amid the pandemic. Any idea where he can get his reputation (and money) back?
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