Newsmaker-upper of the Year 2022

Russia

If their lips are moving chances are they are espousing bald faced lies (or what some of their Authoritarian wannabees in the West refer to as Trumped up alternate truths).  Putin’s accusation that the West was engaging in “nuclear blackmail” and another that the Ukrainians are planning to explode a “dirty bomb” on their own people are some nutso subtle examples.

In a related story: Putin’s American understudy, Donald Trump was russian’ to launch his own assault on reality, a social media platform called Truth Social boasting absolutely no censorship and by extension zero fact checking. Truth be known, like its brainchild, it left lots to be desired. Fortunately, he no longer has the launch codes (we hope) to launch anything more dangerous than that.