For those who are buried by all the news happening all the time all at once this year, Russian opposition leader Alexander Navalny was poisoned two nights ago on a flight from Siberia back to Moscow. The poison was in his tea. His plane made an emergency landing and he was immediately taken to a hospital in Siberia for treatment, which then led to all sorts of shenanigans involving them not letting his wife in unless she could prove she was his wife with a marriage certificate. Once that got resolved, they then tried to deny his wife permission to immediately fly him to Germany allegedly to let the toxin break down to the point where it couldn’t be determined what it is so that Putin’s GRU wetwork toxins and poisons unit couldn’t be blamed. The good news is that Navalny is now aloft in a specialty aircraft, which is basically a flying ICU, en route to Berlin.
It’s a five-hour flight. You can track it here: https://t.co/bpyb20COyp
— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) August 22, 2020
Open thread!
Updated: Friday Night Open Thread: Hope Is On The Ballot
Villago Delenda Est
Let us hope that Russian air defense is as incompetent as it was when Mathias Rust landed on Red Square.
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est: I have a hard time believing that they won’t just shoot it down.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes.
dmsilev
Thanks, Adam.
The proofreader in me couldn’t help but notice this:
Mai naem mobile
Putin is just such an evil POS. He’s up there with Stalin and Pol Pot.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: @Suzanne: The jet is registered in Germany. I guarantee you there is a NATO CAP on station just on the NATO side of the Russian border waiting for that flight and NATO has full ELINT tracking it. If that flight goes down, things are going to get real sporty.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: You missed the typo in the title, which I’ve already fixed. Thanks for catching that.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Some typos and such just jump out, others remain stubbornly hidden even after careful and repeated rereads.
I hate copyediting.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: You fixed it, but the internet is forever, it’s in Cole’s tweet.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It is. And it is not going to keep me from sleeping tonight.
dmsilev
Open thread?
Behold Martha McSally’s innovative campaign fundraising pitch:
Subsole
So is this incompetence or something else? Because if Putin has as iron-clad a grip on Russia as I understood, and if he wanted this guy gone it seems like he’d be gone. Why the mucking about with poison? Why not something more overt? Is his grip shakier than I assume?
Also, a couple qanon questions if you’re up to it. Have been reading a few articles on these guys and they are on my mind.
It seems the guy behind it might be the guy who owns octo-chan? Is that accurate, or has he been pushed aside?
Also have read that Russia is pushing it hard in Germany and our other European partners. I assume if Biden wins Putin is gonna activate these crazies and hope the violence keeps us tied down while he pursues his objectives. Full asymmetric offensive. How damaging do you see this being? Like, I doubt we’re gonna see mass violence unless Trump wins and they realize they need not fear the US Federal Government. Then all bets are off. If we win, I see assassinations, bombings, lone-wolf attacks, kidnapping, kind of an American IRA. Is that pretty fair, or am I off?
Gin & Tonic
Get your story straight, Adam, he wasn’t poisoned, it was a metabolic imbalance. The doctors in Omsk said so, and they examined him. Very unfortunate.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Slacker.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: I just saw that and my reaction was: “what an asshole!”
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole: As I wrote below, the person we think is now doing the drops, or the vast majority of them, is not the original shitposters who created this, nor the guy who owns the chan site.
Martin
Boy, I hope they’re smart enough to not put him on the 6th floor of the hospital. Would hate for him to accidentally fall out of the window while in a coma.
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole: And yes, I am aware of what Russia is doing with their active measures campaigns.
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: That was my first thought, that they’d just shoot it down.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: “Desperate asshole” is a bad combination.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I have to get my rest so I’m ready for the hurricoronacane at the beginning of next week!
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: I still think it’s a bunch of entrepreneurial libertarians making money off of the merch sales.
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: Dueling hurricoronocanes, no less.
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks for the reply. Assumed downstairs thread was dead when the new one went up.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: You have email.
opiejeanne
@Martin:
While carrying a bathtub.
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole: You’re welcome.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. Will digest tomorrow, as it’s horizontal time now.
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah. I guess I was asking more what the next steps were for us and our allies. I mean, our available responses here seem pretty limited, even assuming we sweep the elections.
cain
I wouldn’t go that far. The amount of death Stalin and Pol Pot have caused is staggering.
Chetan Murthy
@Subsole: Adam’s written about this in the past, and I’m guessing that a search backwards thru his articles will find you series on “The Maskirovka Slips” and “Psyops” (or something like that). And I’ll bet he has a bunch of suggestions for what we can do to combat Putin.
My guess is, it starts with taking away as much of his money as we can find. Systematically, and world-wide. That, and make his oil-export businesses as unprofitable as possible. E.g. by taxing the fuck out of imported oil in every Western country (and using that to pay for climate change work).
trollhattan
Dissident Russian on Canadian plane with German doctors headed to the EU. Is great country, Russia.
piratedan
@dmsilev:
her ads are as deceptive as they get. She’s been trying to pass herself off (in ads aimed at women) as a protector of pre-existing conditions (just like she did in her campaign against Sinema) and the DNC ran some ads in response that indicated that she’s lying… again and that her voting record doesn’t match the words coming out of her mouth now.
She has run ads stating that Kelly is in the pocket of the Chinese and implying he’s no true patriot, yeah mission commander for Space Shuttle missions has “divided loyalties”. Her latest ads now target Kelly as a greedy businessman due to his being on the board of directors for an unnamed medical transport company that is accused (not indicted, not convicted, not charged) with price gouging . With the implication that he’s simply a grubby bidnessman out to make a buck.
Frightening array of shit being tossed, but thus far, the polling has been consistent, but who knows, you tell enough lies…
trollhattan
@cain:
No, he’s not on their level but by god, if it turns out he orchestrated the “terrorist” massacres of Russians (the theater, the school, etc.) in order to gin up a cause to go to war with Chechnya then he’s effectively no better. His zeal for murdering his enemies, real and imagined, is plenty by itself, but sadly appeals to the pervasive “Leader Putin is tough, like bear’ mentality. We heard the same garbage in praise of Trump from the Russian ex-pat community here in ’16.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: No worries.
Kay
This is a strange and disturbing story:
Adam L Silverman
@Subsole: There are a number of options. The first is to use forensic cyber tools to actually determine who it is, then map that person’s network, then decide whether it makes more sense to leave him and it in place or take it down. Some of that will be determined on whether the person or persons running things are US citizens operating on US soil, which would create 1st amendment issues. But there also has to be the will to do something and because of who the president is and who and what his political appointees are, there is not a lot of will to do so.
Mai naem mobile
@piratedan: there’s two anti Kelly ads i keep on seeing constantly. One about the Chinese company one where it says Kelly sold out the Americans or something to that effect and another one that he was on a medical air transport co that ripped off people with surprise bills. I have a feeling they’re both effective and they’re on constant rotation. I do not think Kelly has it in the bag and I see way too many people thinking that way. Also I don’t know why Kelly is running so few ads.
Subsole
@Chetan Murthy: Well, guess I have my weekend reading planned, then! :) Thanks, to both of you.
Chetan Murthy
@Subsole: Can I just say, Adam’s series of posts on this subject have been enormously educational. Don’t read ’em all in a single weekend — there’s a lot there, and at this point, a lot of -history- there that you’ll have to dredge out of cold storage, to properly digest it all. But it’s really worth reading. We’re at war, as Adam put it. Just …. too many of our countrymen and leaders don’t know it yet.
Mary G
@Kay: That kid is the next Stephen Miller, but with guns. Realizing your lifelong dream of visiting Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest? Yuck.
About Navalny, ISTM the point of these poisons Putin uses isn’t so much to kill opponents outright, but to inflict long months of suffering. More like torture than murder? Or really cruel murder?
I read “A Very Expensive Poison,” by Luke Harding, about Alexander Litvinenko’s poisoning in England and his long, horrible death, and it struck me how sadistic it was. He suffered. A lot.
Seems like it may be meant to deter other people from crossing Putin, in addition to revenge? Being strangled in a few minutes before your body is cut up with a bone saw seems a kindler, gentler assassination.
Subsole
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah. I kind of figured any action will take place when/if we win November.
I understand Putin has to play asymmetrically. We have to break his rhythmn and get our feet back under us before he just wears us to nothing. I am mot sure how we do that. I assume if we actually hit him with both barrels (economic and cyber) we can do enough damage to rock him back on his feet at least.
Would shutting down Moscow’s traffic grid, water, heat and power etc. be acceptable? Or would that pretty much be an act of war best avoided?
piratedan
@Mai naem mobile: I am seeing Kelly ads down here in Southern AZ, but a good many of them are character, introduction ads. Soothing spots where they speak to common goals and shared values. Maybe those are playing as a juxtaposition to the McSally attack ads, because at this point, I tend to tune out the attacks ads, but unsure how everyone can.
I will say that McSally is using the same tactics that she employed with Sinema and I thought/think that Sinema was an easier target, someone who’s sexuality and previous political record could be cherrypicked and in the case of Kelly, it’s all hearsay using the same GOP dogwhistles that had a history of being successful, unsure how they play in the margins these days.
Like you, I understand its not a done deal and McSally has a record with those on the margins as having established herself as more than willing to lie about her voting record. I expect that this campaign will get even nastier with claims that Kelly will take away your guns because of his marriage to Giffords or that he’s actually Giffords puppet (or the like) or whatever else they might toss out that they believe might stick.
Calouste
@Chetan Murthy: Easiest way to run Putin into the ground (and Mr. Bonesaw etc) is to push hard for renewables and drop the bottom out of the market for oil. Can’t run a petrostate if you can’t sell your oil. Of course that means that a couple of US states (Alaska, Oklahoma) are also going to be hard hit.
Chetan Murthy
@Mary G:
Omnes Omnibus
This kind of thing could put me off tea.
Subsole
@Chetan Murthy: I am starting to really see that. The qanon shit I read this evening was…illuminating. It’s clear Putin is setting the tempo. As long as that holds we can only play to a draw.
I dunno. After the last 4 years I doubt people are gonna want to go to iWar.
Then again, if they’re as fed up with ALL of this shit as I am, going over Russia with a rake might be downright cathartic at this point…
Subsole
@Calouste: Here in west TX we have a LOT of windmills. Seems OK would be a great spot for it, too. Alaska, I’m not sure about how to offset.
James E Powell
@piratedan:
It’s situations like this where an independent group running attack ads can be useful. Just one after another pointing out McSally’s record. Go at her like the Lincoln Project and let Kelly talk about all the good he and Uncle Joe are going to do next year.
Martin
@Kay: Eichmann was one of those young up-and-comers.
West of the Rockies
I hope Putin dies badly, in misery and humiliation.
Martin
@Calouste: Alaska doesn’t produce shit for oil any longer. AK and CA are roughly even. CO produces about the same as OK.
The reason you think of AK and OK is they don’t do anything else. What’s the 2nd largest industry in Oklahoma? Hobby Lobby is their 2nd largest company.
joel hanes
I expect that Navalny is probably seriously and permanently damaged, so I don’t expect any further actions against him. The message has been sent — getting in Putin’s way is likely to cost you your life, and there’s no safety and no recourse.
I’m not surprised that Manafort chose prison over telling what he knows.
Timurid
Shit is about to get real in my hometown…
(warning: violent, disturbing video)
mrmoshpotato
Not giving Pooty Poot (Fuck you, W!) the benefit of the “Broskovich! Poison!? What poison?!” ?
Ian
@Martin: In ten years time VSP will tell us it was the evil liberals on their computers who push good G*d fearing Amurikans into understandable acts of violence in the name of saving children.
Much like abortion bombings, these guys will be normalized and their actions will be blamed on the victims.
AJ
@Adam L Silverman: do you mean in your last full post or a comment?
Want to find and read and wasn’t sure when I tried searching your posts (pls accept my apologies if 430am brain on mobile is not helping me see what should be obvious)
Ken
On reading the post title, I thought “The Germans have a hospital that specializes in treating people Putin has poisoned?”
Geminid
@Martin: The collapse in oil prices will punch a big hole in New Mexico’s budget. Aside from other revenues generated by the oil and gas industries the state receives severance taxes from the Permian Basin, which extends into southeastern New Mexico. But Michelle Lujan-Griffen won the governorship in 2018 on a clean energy platform, and legislation passed last year will generate jobs and revenue from new wind and solar power infrastructure. U.Mass. economist Robert Pollin estimates that three jobs are created for each job lost in a transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.
The Pale Scot
@Subsole:
Fuck no, we will be on the other side. What I’d expect is an American Ulster Special Constabulary type force, Cracker white supremacist fuckers ethnic cleansing their rural territory. until the Feds say fuck you and turn off the banking system.
That’s what the these goobers don’t get, it’s not 1864, you can’t pay for 21st century devices with gold, you need a bank account
The Pale Scot
@Kay:
He’s in a fucking wheelchair, the Reich is vey explicit about what should happen to those types
HeartlandLiberal
I have been binge watching the show “The Blacklist” on Netflix. Amazed with every episode how over the top the conspiracy theories and violence committed by people in power worldwide are.
Then I read this news report.