The meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15 was about as successful as the flight 90 years earlier by Wiley Post and Will Rogers. The difference is no planes crashed and no one died.

But Trump learned the deep-down honest truth about Putin: He is a ruthless, brutal, uncivilized Communist dictator. He smiles, and can utter nice words, but it’s a coverup. Unlike Trump, who wants to end the war against Ukraine to save lives, Putin places no value on a human life. He doesn’t care if he has lost a million soldiers fighting Ukraine. He cares even less about Ukrainian lives. The more Ukrainians who die or leave the country, the better. Putin wants to take over ALL of Ukraine, and if the remaining 35 million people leave, that means Putin will have fewer enemies and can repopulate Ukraine with Russians.

Will Rogers had insight about Hitler, and a good understanding of Russia. As you will see near the end of this series of quotes, Will predicted World War II.

          “Russia is starving her own people in order to feed propaganda to the rest of the world. A guy named Hitler has Germany like Capone has Chicago.” (DT #1320, Oct 16, 1930)

           “Well, we just wake up in the morning to see who will get the headlines. ‘Mussolini is moving into Abyssinia,’ ‘Stalin builds up the Red army to one million,’ but today Hitler took the play away from not only the dictators but away from St. Patrick.” (DT #2687, March 17, 1935)

        “Hitler broke out on me and tore up the Versailles Treaty. It wasn’t a good treaty, but it was the only one they had.  And he tore it up.  And they had been about a year fixing it all up, all these nations. We got in on the signing of it.  We got nothin’ out of the treaty, outside of the pen that we signed with. And last week England sent a delegation over to talk with Mr. Hitler, and see if they couldn’t get some other understanding with him. But England didn’t get to say a word.  Hitler talked all day, and it wasn’t in English, and England didn’t know any more when they went home than they did when they got there. What they was tryin’ to do was to see if they couldn’t get him to make some other arrangements about the treaty.  So now, another man named Mr. Eden from England has gone on to talk to Russia. No nation don’t like Russia, and they don’t like communism and all that, but they would use them in case a war come around. Well, they’ve told Russia, ‘Now, you’re communistic, and you believe in dividing up everything.’  And they said, ‘Ordinarily, we don’t. We don’t believe in it.  But it looks like we’re going to have a war over here and we would like to split it with you boys.’ So they’re going to let Russia in on a good thing in case it shows up.” Radio, March 31, 1935

So, Putin is today’s Hitler. He has been in power in Russia for 25 years, which is longer than Stalin. He expects to stay in power as long as it takes to restore the old USSR. No matter if he only wrangles 20% of Ukraine today, he will eventually capture the entire country. And then Poland will be in his gun sights.

Tomorrow, Trump will meet with Zelensky and several European leaders at the White House. What can they do to stop or slow down Putin’s invasion of Eastern Europe? Will economic sanctions work? Can they cut off Putin’s access to the international banking system? Can they eliminate the export of Russian oil and gas, except to China?

Speaking of China, watching all of these negotiations is Xi Jinping. If Putin is rewarded with 20% of Ukraine, he may launch an invasion on Taiwan. Grabbing 20% of the island would give him a foothold. Like Putin, he doesn’t care about the lives of his own people. Even if an invasion cost him two million of his own military (highly unlikely), he still has over a billion people. And if all 20 million on the island die or leave, like Putin in Ukraine, Xi would be thrilled.

Let me close by admitting I don’t have any special insights on Putin, Russia or China. This Will Rogers quote is a good summary, “If I wanted to start an insane asylum that would be 100 percent cuckoo, I would just admit applicants that thought they knew something about Russia.” (DT #1291, Sept. 12, 1930)