3/11/2022

My dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

 Wouldn’t it be nice if there were easy answers - if the world were a simple place where it would be straight-forward to decide how to allocate resources & solve problems? Since it’s not, here at 2425 Rivendell Lane we immerse ourselves in college basketball & get high off the buzzer beaters. Yesterday there were several.

In the meantime, you are doing your best to discourage VVP from this fool’s errand he has embarked on. I wish I had confidence that the sanctions would work, but today’s brilliant piece in the NYT dashed my hopes. The article caught my attention because it showed Myanmar’s sanctions which have been going on since 1988.

The text ends with the sobering caution, “Sometimes sanctions can also have the counterintuitive effect of consolidating the power of an authoritarian government, according to Dursun Peksen, a political scientist at the University of Memphis…’Russia will become a lot …more isolated, and it’s the average Russian citizen that will incur the most cost,’ Ultimately when imposing sanctions ‘we have to strike a balance between political gain and civilian pain.’”

I’m sure you will discuss this with the Reps in Philly as they retreat to unify. Perhaps a moment of silence will help them to calm down & connect. They’ve had a rough week & arrived there at 2AM so they will need some time to chill.

I look forward to seeing photos of your trip to the elementary school today. I’m sure you will have a nice time.

            BYBS,