The annual presidential “State of the Nation” address to the Federal Assembly (upper chamber of the Russian parliament) is a big political show in Russia, which tells little about the state of the country but much about the mood in the ruling elite.

The address, delivered by President Vladimir Putin last week (2/20), revealed worries in the Kremlin about the spreading discontent and declining popularity of the leader who took charge nearly 20 years ago (Moscow Echo, 2/20).  His keen attention to particular social problems was supposed to restore the population’s confidence in the benevolence of the supreme ruler (Newsru.com, 2/22).

Putin made no clear attempt to present a coherent ideology purportedly underpinning his reign. Moreover, in his speech, the Russian president only briefly touched on foreign policy. It is, therefore, quite illuminating to note the international matters of major importance to Moscow that he specifically omitted.

And the one domestic issue that everyone except the ruling elite cares most about.

He helped conceive a hoax so outlandish that only the most gullible, craven, or witless person could believe it.

The attack, as he called it, allegedly was executed by mysterious and politically motivated thugs with the intent to inflict harm. It exploited the political climate of the moment given that the chief goal of the ruse—and of the perpetrator himself—was to sow division in an already-fractured American populace for his own gratification.

Lawmakers, journalists, and celebrities acted as accomplices, allowing themselves to be duped and conferring immediate legitimacy to the event. As authorities began to expose the hoax, the mastermind lashed out, blasting his detractors and making incendiary accusations.

No, I am not talking here about Jussie Smollett, the “Empire” actor who concocted an elaborate story about how MAGA-hat wearing hoodlums attacked him in the middle of a frigid night on an underground street in downtown Chicago.  I am talking about…

Democrats are fighting mad — at each other. For once, President Trump is not the prime target of their rage.

Amazon’s decision to scrap plans for an HQ2 campus in New York sent the circular firing squad into action. The blue-on-blue attacks pit the far left against the far, far left in yet another front of the party’s civil war.

In addition to sharp differences about a Green New Deal, taxes, socialism, Medicare-for-all and open borders, Dems are now split over how and whether government should work with the private sector to create jobs and boost the tax base.

But while the battle still rages and analysts study the entrails of Amazon’s decision-making, here’s a thought: What if both sides of the Dem battle are wrong? What if both sides are causing the epidemic of the blue-state blues?

During the Lunar New Year holidays this month, political circles in Beijing were abuzz with this question: “Who, or what, are ‘black swans’ and ‘gray rhinos’?”

This followed a major speech given by President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping at the Central Party School (CPS) last month, in which the 65-year-old leader raised the highest alert for Party officials to “be on guard against black swans and keep watchful for gray rhinos” (jingti hei tian’e, fangfan hui xiniu / 警惕黑天鹅, 防范灰犀牛) (People’s Daily, January 22).

Noting that China’s national security and stability were under multiple threats from within and without, the “core leader” warned: “We must keep our highest alert about ‘black swan’ [i.e., unforeseen] incidents and take steps to prevent ‘gray rhino’ [i.e., known risks that are ignored] incidents.”

At first, the Beijing buzz was these threats are external, coming from an increasingly successful Trump administration in confronting China.  Now comes the realization that Xi means internal threats to his power and that of the Chinese Communist Party.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think,” wrote the American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft in the opening to The Call of Cthulhu, “is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

In the Lovecraftian mythos, this refers to the occult world of the Great Old Ones, eldritch gods from outer space, as old as time itself who lie beyond our ken, dead but still dreaming. If we could only grasp their existence and see how fragile our imaginary world really is, we would go mad. Thus, we go on believing in an illusion and subconsciously hope Cthulhu and Azathoth never show us their true faces.

With the Democrat Party embracing full hardcore totalitarian Leftism, the secret to being a successful Democrat is very similar.

While President Trump was holding his Monday (2/11) rally in El Paso for a packed stadium, the hapless Beto O'Rourke was hosting his own pathetic anti-wall protest, his "March for Truth," a quarter of a mile away.

His little march attracted about three hundred people.  Beto spoke Spanish while his supporters waved  Mexican flags, and his gathering was close enough to the Trump event that the big rally's music could be heard.

It may be safe to say that Beto's potential run for president is over before it has begun.  He is a self-serving, anti-American intellectual lightweight like Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and every other Democrat who has thrown his hat in the ring for 2020.

There is a famous poem by Sir Walter Scott published in 1805 that perfectly describes people like Beto, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Schumer, Harry Reid , Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Left: