Once again, we start with a photo.

The photo is on a postcard sent to a feed I get of old postcards. The man on the left is Prince Felix Yusupov, who was in line to be one of the wealthiest men in imperial Russia. He was forced to leave Russia after the 1917 revolution, and moved to Paris with his wife, Princess Irina Alexandrovna, whose uncle Nicholas was the last Russian tsar.

Before I get to Felix, I want to show one more photo I found of Irina, maybe the most elegant portait I have ever seen. (I understand that it was later colored.)

Moving to Felix, he does look like a nice (if very rich) young man. Couldn’t and wouldn’t harm a fly, right?

Well, not so fast. Felix Yusupov was the leader of the group of young men who killed Grigori Rasputin in the lower level of the Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg. He wrote about that night in a book I have published in Russian in Paris, The End of Rasputin.

Wonder what the Yusupovs’ house in St. Petersburg looks like?

We visited it when we were in St. Petersburg and saw the exhibit of the Rasputin murder, as well as the palace theater. You have a theater like this in your house?

Of course, it was those damn socialists who forced the Yusupovs to move to France.

What is a socialist, anyway?

For a long time, I have complained about people using words like “socialism” without having any idea what the word means, so that the issue becomes really about “a word” and not about a word’s definition. I have always thought it would be difficult to prove that specific people were using a word like “socialism” to mean something other than what it actally means. But today, I heard our esteemed Vice President, Mr. Vance, actually tell us what he thinks “socialism” means. He said:

“I think, in reality, what it actually means in the American context is that you want to replace American workers with foreign workers, and you want boys to play in girls’ sports.” That, he said, is socialism.

Vance’s definition of socialism was so bizarre that the Trump administration had to come up with deflect attention. They have already used the threat of Iran bombing San Diego, so that wouldn’t work. So they came up with poor Cassidy Hutchinson.

Now, Cassidy is a talented young woman, who was lucky enough to get a White House job, and honest enough to testify at Trump’s second impeachment hearing. If you recall, she testified that someone who had been in the car with Trump told her that Trump, on Jan 6, lunged at the steering wheel when told by the Secret Service that he had to go back to the White House, and could not join the rioters.

The claim is that this was a lie, and therefore perjury. Simply put, this can not be proved. Period. The case will fail. But it will cost Cassidy a boatload of money. Thus, she will be poor Cassidy Hutchinson.

Let me end with this. I do have some concerns about the Senate races. Chris Papas is still struggling to beat the name Sununu in New Hampshire. Troy Jackson is clearly not a strong campaigner in Maine. James Talarico has not appeared in Texas for about two weeks. Recovering from flu, or something more? Jewish fear of El-Sayed in Michigan. Jon Ossoff becoming TOO aggressive in Georgia? All worries. Nov 3 may be right around the corner, but it is a long time away.