DL Open Thread: Friday, Feb. 18, 2022
Putin Facing A Personality Crisis? Is he rational, or has he undergone a fundamental change?:
In Moscow, many analysts remain convinced that the Russian president is essentially rational, and that the risks of invading Ukraine would be so great that his huge troop buildup makes sense only as a very convincing bluff. But some also leave the door open to the idea that he has fundamentally changed amid the pandemic, a shift that may have left him more paranoid, more aggrieved and more reckless.
The 20-foot-long table that Mr. Putin has used to socially distance himself this month from European leaders flying in for crisis talks symbolizes, to some longtime observers, his detachment from the rest of the world. For almost two years, Mr. Putin has ensconced himself in a virus-free cocoon unlike that of any Western leader, with state television showing him holding most key meetings by teleconference alone in a room and keeping even his own ministers at a distance on the rare occasions that he summons them in person.
Speculation over a leader’s mental state is always fraught, but as Mr. Putin’s momentous decision approaches, Moscow commentators puzzling over what he might do next in Ukraine are finding some degree of armchair psychology hard to avoid.
Did I say ‘personality crisis’? Crank it up to 12:
House D’s: ‘Terminate Trump’s Hotel Lease Before He Can Sell It. Since he lied about its worth, and all that other accounting stuff:
“No one should be rewarded for providing false or misleading information to the federal government or for seeking to profit off the presidency,” the committee wrote.
“In light of these new revelations, including further evidence that the former President submitted at least one financial statement with possible material misrepresentations to GSA, we request that you consider terminating the Old Post Office Building lease to former President Trump … and end, once-and-for-all, the grave damage this inappropriate lease has done to presidential ethics and integrity in government contracting,” the committee’s letter said.A spokesperson from the GSA said in response to the House Oversight request on Thursday that the agency will have a thorough “and appropriate” review of the lease transfer for the downtown Washington building.
As head of the department, Newman held major sway over virtually every public battle that the ACLU has chosen to wage beyond the courtroom. But inside the organization, Newman was the subject of sustained complaints about his treatment of staff, including claims of bullying and misogyny and accusations that his fixation on short-term wins was thwarting the ACLU’s ability to push for more meaningful and lasting policy changes.
In Newman’s nearly three years as director, his department of roughly 100 people shed dozens of employees, many of them women of color. So many people have left that the ACLU has lost the ability to effectively advocate on some of its core issues, former and current staffers told HuffPost.
There is something very satisfying about going, in the space of a few months, from neophyte, to expert, to outraged dissenter, and enjoying that journey alongside thousands of others. I’m talking about Wordle, obviously, the five stages of which, after its invention in October last year, might usefully be delineated as indifference, confusion, enjoyment, obsession and resolution to cancel the New York Times.
Officials with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control failed to submit the survey results to the General Assembly and the governor by the Jan. 1 deadline. More than three weeks later, DNREC issued a three-page report indicating that 140 drinking water systems had been sampled, and that two had PFAS levels at or above the EPA health advisory limit. But DNREC has yet to provide any specific data, including PFAS levels for each water system. It also has failed to respond within the required time period to a public records request from The Associated Press regarding the survey.
“Speculation over a leader’s mental state is always fraught”
As someone who thought Trump’s brain worms were within days or weeks of winning, I’d agree.
Putin always strikes me as a return of the cold warriors I remember from the early sixties, Nikita Khrushchev with slightly more hair. I think it’s a bluff, if he was serious it would have been an over night blitzkrieg and done with. I may well be wrong.
Well if it happens it will be the least surprising surprise attack in military history.
Wordle is fun, but WORLDLE is better.
For my fellow Geography nerds — school Bee Champion 1996! — this is where it’s at: https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/
Bastard! Now you’ve got me hooked!