[DIRTYSECRET]

The guy got around didn’t he?

[Leaning Right]

Nicholas II was a fool, a complete incompetent. I suspect that the monarchy would have collapsed even if there had been no Rasputin.

A quick story:
The British ambassador met with Nicholas after some serious rioting in the streets.

Ambassador: Your majesty, you must regain the trust of your people.
Nicholas: No. They must regain my trust.

Hopeless.

[Bratch]

Antony Beevor publicly stated that President Trump shows signs of dementia.

That makes me skeptical of his conclusions on any subject. 🙄

[Capn Hayek]

Interesting!

Thanks for sharing. I’ve read a number of Beevor books - his prior book on the Russian Civil War following 1917 is great and I highly recommend.

I wasn’t aware of this new one — but I just ordered it. I find the period fascinating and looking forward to getting it.

[sauropod]

.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Everyone in that story was in the wrong job. Nicholas II would, like George III, have been far happier as a simple country gentleman. (Sergei Witte, Nicholas’s one-time minister of finance, waspishly remarked that the Tsar was a ‘well-intentioned child’.) Alexandra was better suited to fretting over imperfectly polished silver spoons than helping to direct the fate of an empire at war. Rasputin himself should have remained a hard-drinking, philandering holy man (he was never actually a monk). But that’s not how history works."

Some things never change, do they? --> Harris, Crockett, Buttigieg, Schumer, AOC, Hakeem Jeffries, Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Mamdani, et al

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Vwey, very interesting figure in history.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Rasputin - Boney M

[minnesota_bound]

We see this everyday with the corrupt news media about the corrupt democrats and peaceful muslims and the gay mafia and trannies etc.

The Emperor New clothes 1837
The phrase “the emperor has no clothes” has since become a popular idiom to describe situations where people are afraid to point out an obvious truth.