Janet Yellen is visiting Ukraine.

That would be a great thing, except that she is coming back.

The only reason I can imagine she would go is that, as Treasury Secretary, she wants to visit with all that US treasure we sent over there. What other reason could there be?

Yes, it’s true. I am writing this post for the sole reason of making that lame dad joke. What can I say? I am of a certain age, and we do that.

Seriously, though: why on Earth is Janet Yellen in Ukraine? The President just visited the other day, and I cannot imagine a good reason why Yellen or any US cabinet secretary besides the Secretaries of State or Defense would visit there.

I suppose we could save the US some grief by sending Pete Buttigieg, although if we wanted to help the Ukrainians more we would send him to Russia to advise Putin on logistics. He is notoriously good at screwing up with planes, trains, and automobiles.

Axios did their best to provide an explanation for the trip, but for the life of me I couldn’t make sense of the explanation:

Driving the news: Yellen is expected to hold “meetings and engagements” and announce the transfer of $1.25 billion in economic and budget assistance to Ukraine, according to a Treasury official, as continued U.S. economic support has grown as a divisive political issue.

• The funds are the first transfer of a sum of nearly $10 billion in budget support that the U.S. has pledged to provide Ukraine over the first three quarters of 2023, per a Treasury Department readout.
• Yellen’s visit comes after President Biden made a similar surprise trip last week.
• State of play: Yellen will stress that the economic assistance from the U.S. and its allies helps the Ukrainian government continue providing critical services and ensures Ukraine’s economic resilience, in turn “bolstering Ukraine’s ability to succeed on the battlefield,” the official said.

“We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Yellen said in remarks during a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Monday, adding that, “the U.S. is proud to be Ukraine’s largest bilateral donor.”

“Meetings and engagements?” What is that supposed to mean?

Announce the transfer of $1.25 billion. How many times have we announced sending money to Ukraine? For this, we flew our Treasury Secretary halfway around the world.

I think it is time to get John Kerry involved in the planning process for these trips. He can lecture everybody about the climate impact of these visits and demand they take place by Zoom or something.

Except, no. He is a big fan of flying everywhere to lecture people about their own carbon footprint.

I am not in the camp of those who believe that supporting Ukraine in its war of defense is a bad thing. Russia is clearly the aggressor here, and the US has an interest in defanging Putin.

But this is getting ridiculous. We have a much larger interest in ensuring that Taiwan remains free and secure, yet we are pouring all our limited resources into the Ukrainian war. If we have to choose where to invest–and we do have to choose because our resources are limited–Taiwan rates higher than Ukraine.

Perhaps there is some masterful 4-D chess going on here that I am too stupid to see. Except this is the Biden Administration, so no, there isn’t.

As far as I can tell, the only strategy at play is distracting the American public from how awful things are at home by putting old men and women in photo ops with fake air raid sirens going off.

I am pretty sure that accomplishes nothing for anybody, including the people having their photos taken.