FEBRUARY 2022 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

NOTE: I know, I declared that because Donald Trump is a member of the Ignominious Hall-of-Shame his evil absurdities would no longer be noted in monthly postings. Though he's ineligible for a monthly IGGY, I can't resist including his latest.  

After Russian military forces began moving into Ukraine, while claiming that nothing like this would have happened under his administration (of course), Trump told a Tennessee talk radio audience that after watching the news after Putin declared the Donbas region of Ukraine to be independent and ordered Russian troops to storm the region for alleged “peacekeeping” purposes, Putin should be praised.

“This is genius,’” Trump recalled. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine, of Ukraine ― Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.” “So, Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent.’ A large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force.”

“We could use that on our southern border,” he added, before continuing with his praise. “That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re going to keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy.”

“I know him very well. Very, very well,” Trump said. The fondness that Trump displayed for the Russian strongman over the course of his presidency and beyond has continues to baffle even some in his own party. Along with his general affinity with autocrats, and Putin in particular, didn’t you expect such a comment? I’ll lay you ten to one that the only thing Trump knows about Ukraine, let alone the Donbas region, is that it’s a place where Hunter Biden was doing “bad things, very bad things.”

1. Texas Senator John Cornyn. It doesn't get any more dimwitted than this. Last week, Cornyn claimed that Democrats' focus on protecting the right to vote was in response to a “manufactured crisis.”

To support that claim, he pointed to a Pew Research Center poll conducted just after the November 2020 presidential election that found more than nine in 10 voters said it was easy to vote in the election.

"More than nine-in-ten voters (94%) say that voting in the election this November was either very easy (77%) or somewhat easy (17%), while just 6% say that voting was very or somewhat difficult," Cornyn tweeted, quoting an excerpt from the Pew report.

Several hours later, Cornyn managed to finish his thought.

"Democrats claim there's a nationwide assault on the right to vote, but 94% of voters said voting was easy in 2020. This is a manufactured crisis designed to achieve political gain," he tweeted.

Seriously, how stupid does this guy think voters are? Sure, the GOP base is living in an alternate universe, but there's no need to convince them using a Pew poll. They'll soak up any old slop they're served.

Instead, the tweet seemed aimed at slightly swingier voters—an attempt to sell them on the idea that Democrats are making stuff up. Only Pew was talking about 2020, and the GOP's nationwide assault on voting rights began in the wake of 2020, precisely because Joe Biden flipped states that hadn't gone for a Democrat in decades.

So the Pew poll of 2020 holds no relevance whatsoever to the fact that GOP-led states have since passed a title wave of bills that seek to subvert the will of the voters.

That means Cornyn is either daft, or he's grown accustomed to the idea that voters are stupid and will believe anything you tell them. That may be true of the GOP base and Trump cultists, but it isn't true for some 60% of the country.