For The People With Half A Brain:

And you know who you are.

So do most other people, and we applaud your ceaseless willingness to do faceplants to entertain the entire internet. You have the right to remain silent, but you lack the ability.

In today's example, by cock-a-doodle-dooing over the speedy conclusion to the Prigozhin insurrection in Russia.

Believe me when I say leaving your mostly anonymous rants in the spam bin was an act of sheerest mercy on my part.

So as the tiny-minded among the population strut their lack of basic perception and geopolitical ignorance, a few pointers.

1) Putin won second place in yesterday's insurrection.

Everybody who can walk and chew gum at the same time knows this, because strong leaders winning wars and uniting countries behind their cause don't have armed insurrections marching on their capitols.

This can be disproven:

Remind the class how Washington was forced to turn around, and hang the Continental Congress because of Valley Forge.

Then tell us about the time Andrew Jackson surrendered New Orleans, because President Madison had left him with nothing to defend it from the British.

Recount for us the stirring tales of McClellan seizing Washington D.C. after the debacles in Virgina because of Lincoln's incompetence.

And that time Stonewall Jackson held Jefferson Davis hostage until he had properly equipped Jackson's Brigade with arms, food, clothing, and shoes.

Who can forget the rapid capitulation at the Alamo, when the defenders there, realizing Sam Houston had sold them out, captured Travis, Bowie, and Crockett, turned them over to the Mexican Army, switched sides, and declared their undying allegiance to Presidénte/General Santa Anna.

That time Teddy Roosevelt charged up Capitol Hill, and laid waste to the Congress for the disastrous Cuban campaign.

The Lost Battalion in France surrendering en masse.

Admirals Stark and Nimitz threatening to shoot FDR after Pearl Harbor.

MacArthur's mutiny after the fall of the Philippines.

The 101st Airborne's tragic surrender while surrounded at Bastogne.

The Marines who converted to communism at the Chosin Reservoir.

And on and on.

Oh, wait. None of those things ever happened.

Vlad has been sucking ass since he set off on this futile quest, and yesterday only underlined it in red ink.

"Vladimir Putin is far weaker than his propagandists in both Russia and the West would have us believe.

And how could he not be the target of withering scorn and derision?

He’s driven Russia off a cliff and has no idea of how to bring about a soft landing. Given the disastrous shape of his army, economy, and realm, it would be a downright miracle for no opposition to his self-destructive misrule to have emerged."

2) Putin negotiated with terrorists.

What else do you call such a 180° whiplash-inducing switch as was seen from Friday to Saturday?

QED

3) The Russian military is weak.

So weak they negotiated, rather than stand and oppose Wagner Group and its warlord.

They lost men, two helicopters shot down, and Wagner took a regional military HQ intact, with hardly a shot fired. Nobody was dying for Putin on home turf.

And Putin negotiated, because they genuinely didn't think they could stop Prigozhin before his forces got to Moscow. Nor were they entirely sure the military would fight Prigozhin to defend them, neither far away nor near to Kremlin HQ. (Being a dick-tater is all hell.)

When you're strong, you crush the opposition, and hang the traitors.

You don't cut them any slack, let alone cut them deals worthy of a Hunter Biden plea bargain.

4) Russia's Ukraine campaign is further weakened.

Russia only has about 500K ground forces.(Or did, before last February. Now, it's more like 300,000.) And now the 50,000 mercenaries of Wagner Group are no longer an option.

Supposedly, they'll be contracted directly into the Russian forces.

As. If.

If they remain as a group, they remain the same threat to state security they were to Moscow and Putin the minute Prigozhin decides to renege on the deal, and turn the insurrection back on.

If Putin breaks them up and parcels them out, he spreads unreliable elements into every command in the army to which they're detailed, sowing the seeds of a bigger mutiny next time. And guarantees a next time.

And if Putin tries to eliminate them and/or Prigozhin, and Russia reneges on the deal, the original causa revolutionis is restored, front and center.

Heads they win, tails Putin loses.

5) Prigozhin is a Russian rock star and folk hero.

Nobody was protesting him when he took the HQ in Rostov-On-The-Don. They were cheering the man who told the government where to head in. They were posing for selfies with him, FFS. Putin and Shoigu, by contrast, are the LBJ and McNamara of this war. People don't pose with them, they throw bombs at them if they get the chance.

Prigozhin:"The president is wrong about the betrayal of Motherland. We are the patriots of our homeland; we fought before and we are fighting now. All the fighters of the Wagner private military company. And no one is going to surrender at the request of the president, the FSB or anyone else. We do not want the country to continue to live in corruption, deception and bureaucracy....”

Average Russians are eating that shit up, with a ladle.

6) Every other Russian Federation republic, especially the troublesome ones, noticed 1-5.

Putin just invited the next dozen insurrections. When you give a mouse a cookie...

7) China saw how weak, fragmented, and dysfunctional Russia is. And Putin's precarious perch atop the crumbling edifice. And the Russian Army's inability to end the insurrection on the terms demanded early on by Putin and the Ministry of Defense. India saw it too. So did Iran. So did 160 UN member nations. Putin pulled his pants down, showed his ass, and slapped his bare ass cheeks in front of the world, and Prigozhin made him do it. Everyone knows Putin, the government, and the Russian army are paper tigers. (As if getting kicked in the dick daily for 16 months by a country and people a fraction of Russia's size and power wasn't enough proof in that regard.) 

8) There is no walking any of that back. Witless wonders think Friday's coup will be memory-holed by those of us who pointed it out, now that it's "over". As. If. 

Friday was Von Stauffenberg bombing Hitler's meeting. When you're winning a war, your own side doesn't try to take out your leadership.

And even Hitler didn't send the plotters on R&R, nor forgive and forget the attempt. Putin did. Because he had no other choice.

The only thing that'll be memory-holed is the Putards trying to pretend this isn't the glaringly obvious proof that Putin, the war, and the Russian Federation are a failed leader, a failed effort, and a failed state. 

Gaslighting that reality is what they do when reality pisses them off. 

"Putin's playing the Long Game." 

"Any Day Now™" Russia will show you!"

Recall, nota bene, that I told you on Friday this was the beginning of the Russian devolution. It's the biggest crack to date - so far - in a shattered pile of festering shite.

You will see this material again.

"Russia today increasingly resembles Russia in 1917, a comparison that even Putin made in his address. An unwinnable war, a collapsing economy, a demoralized population, a fragmented elite, an incompetent leader, and an ineffective and demoralized army led to regime collapse and revolution then, and are very likely to lead to similar outcomes today."

9) And knowing that is what has Putin, 100 toadies nearest him - including every military leader thereabouts - and ten other Russian sub-states and other sovereign nations at minimum now paying attention, and they'll be looking for ways to shake Putin's tree, like a chimp-out mob rocking a police car before they finally flip it over.

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

10) So for those of you who couldn't help half-wittedly creaming yourself over the speedy conclusion of the first bog-obvious and indisputable armed mutiny inside Russia, maybe stop thinking with your little heads, and use whatever stump you've got protruding from your collar as something besides a hat rack. Because if you don't, that stinging sensation down there is going to be you, the next time you jump all over your junk, with cleats on, like you're doing this time. And like beating your heads against a brick wall, it'll feel so good to stop.