Oh boy, it was worse than expected.
As President Biden limped out to address the nation – 37 minutes late and over five hours after news broke that Russian pro-democracy dissident Alexei Navalny had died in his squalid prison cell – my expectations were already low.
He began his remarks Friday in typically anemic fashion – platitudes about Vladimir Putin and his ‘thugs’ being ‘responsible’ and how this is yet ‘more evidence of his brutality’.
Perhaps the Leader of the Free World hadn’t wanted to upstage the Latvian president, who earlier savaged Putin, stating firmly that Navalny had been ‘brutally murdered by the Kremlin’.
The icing on the stale cake however was not what Biden said but what he didn’t – or rather, what he apparently couldn’t.
Cue a Mitch McConnell-esque brain freeze, a blubbering 10-second blank in the middle of one of Biden’s most important addresses to date.
As President Biden limped out to address the nation – 37 minutes late and over five hours after news broke that Russian pro-democracy dissident Alexei Navalny had died in his squalid prison cell – my expectations were already low.
He began his remarks Friday in typically anemic fashion – platitudes about Vladimir Putin and his ‘thugs’ being ‘responsible’ and how this is yet ‘more evidence of his brutality’. The icing on the stale cake however was not what Biden said but what he didn’t – or rather, what he apparently couldn’t. (Pictured: Navalny)
Cue a Mitch McConnell-esque brain freeze, a blubbering 10-second blank in the middle of one of Biden’s most important addresses to date. (Pictured: Putin smirked on Friday as he toured a factory in Russia).
My God, Vlad must be laughing into his blood-soaked Borscht and celebratory vodka.
In 2021, Biden made a bold promise. He said he had personally told Putin, in no uncertain terms, that should Navalny die in prison, there would ‘devastating consequences’ for Russia.
Yet when pressed by journalists on Friday after his stuttering speech, this was Biden’s gobsmacking response: ‘That was three years ago. In the meantime [Russia] has faced a hell of a lot of consequences.’
In all fairness to Old Sleepy, perhaps he’s confused. He has been incredibly busy with presidents Sisi and Mitterrand, after all. Perhaps he’s thinking of Ukraine, where nearly 400,000 innocents have lost their lives in recent years thanks Putin’s illegal war.
What a demented horror show this administration is.
Putin – more grotesque and emboldened than ever – is calling our bluff, daring us to throw down the promised cards of retaliation. But of course, Biden’s deck has long been depleted.
Is it any surprise that Joe saved the last spittle of fury in his rusty corvette tank not for the murderous Kremlin, but for House Republicans and, you guessed it, Donald Trump?
The exact details of Navalny’s death are largely irrelevant. I doubt we will ever learn the truth from Russia.
But we all know that a fit 47-year-old – seen laughing and cracking jokes just 24 hours ago, whose own mother reported him to be ‘healthy’ and ‘cheerful’ on Monday – doesn’t just drop dead.
We also know that Putin had tried to assassinate Navalny before.
In 2020, a Novichok nerve agent attack left Navalny fighting for his life. In 2017, he was hospitalized after being soaked in a noxious green liquid.
Make no mistake, Putin is a modern-day Stalin, a veritable Hitler – with his pudgy fingers hovering over the nuclear button.
A monster who shows no signs of stopping his depraved war against Ukraine. Who has happily seen at least 360,000 of his own countrymen slaughtered in the process.
At home, he rounds up and often kills gay people, Muslims, any and all political dissenters.
In America, he has launched botched assassination attempts. In Britain, he has succeeded. In space, he’s planning a devastating nuclear attack.
In December, Navalny – held on fabricated charges – disappeared for three weeks as he was transferred to a penal colony 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
In 2021, Biden made a bold promise. He said he had personally told Putin, in no uncertain terms, that should Navalny die in prison, there would ‘devastating consequences’ for Russia. What a demented horror show this administration is. (Pictured: Navalny with his wife in Germany following the Novichok assassination attempt).
Rape and torture of prisoners are reportedly commonplace. They are often left outside in freezing conditions, blasted with water canons, and have their meals withheld.
Navalny would have been confined to a tiny concrete cell, with a hole in the floor for a toilet, as guards regularly submitted him to electric shocks.
He was taken to a so-called ‘punishment cell’ 27 times, with Putin demanding live footage of what unfolded.
So, yes, I can think of more words than ‘brutality’ and a brain freeze to describe such rank inhumanity, Mr President.
Earlier this week, Putin appeared to ‘endorse’ Biden over Trump, saying he was ‘more experienced, more predictable… a politician of the old formation.’
Of course he did!
None of the world’s bullies liked life under crazy, unpredictable Trump. But thanks to America’s protracted nursing-home stay, the baddies have come out to play.
Putin, Xi, the Taliban and Ayatollahs of Iran – they’ve been green-lighted to do as they please.
And as bird-brained Biden continues fumble one international crisis after another – from Afghanistan to October 7 – things will only get worse.
So at what point do we say enough? The invasion of NATO land? The fall of Taiwan?
The bar should – must – be higher.
Biden warned on Friday that ‘history is watching.’
Indeed it is. Time to go, Joe. Otherwise, who knows whose scalp will be next.