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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / This (Open Thread)

This (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  February 24, 202210:31 am| 113 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics

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While those of us who are old enough to remember the Cold War sometimes feel a disorienting dissonance when Republicans suck up to a Russian autocrat, the explanation is pretty simple:

Note to Max Boot: they aren’t apologists as much as authoritarians who want a Putin like autocrat to lead this country. Thats what they liked about you know who and this is why they’ll continue to destroy our democratic institutions https://t.co/7prYx0JE7B pic.twitter.com/so2m63EMB0

— Look here, Jack (@realworldrj) February 24, 2022

This isn’t new. Tucker Carlson was broadcasting from Budapest last summer. From an 8/7/2021 NYT article:

The visit by Mr. Carlson, the top-rated host on the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News, bolsters Mr. Orban’s mission to establish Budapest as an ideological center for what he sees as an international conservative movement.

For Mr. Carlson, the Hungary trip was an opportunity to put Mr. Orban, whom he admires, on the map for his viewers back home, a conservative audience that may be open to the sort of illiberalism promoted by the Hungarian leader.

Open to it? The hard right in the U.S. have been lapping this shit up at home and abroad for decades!

The choice is authoritarianism vs. democracy, and they’ve picked a side. The question is will their fellow citizens see it.

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Reader Interactions

113Comments

  1. 1.

    germy

    February 24, 2022 at 10:34 am

    There’s a flurry of commentary this morning arguing that new economic sanctions introduced by the EU, European states individually and perhaps soon the United States in response to yesterday’s events are too weak and show NATO and the EU are somehow going soft. I’d suggest some skepticism with these arguments and a bit more patience. History doesn’t have many one and done moments. Thinking every moment is Munich and Neville Chamberlain mostly makes people dumb. The U.S./EU/NATO powers here need to find a balance between having a response to yesterday’s events while yet keeping some deterrent in reserve for further escalation.
    – Josh Marshall

  2. 2.

    Baud

    February 24, 2022 at 10:35 am

    @germy:

    Twitter can’t wait!

  3. 3.

    narya

    February 24, 2022 at 10:36 am

    Gonna again recommend Lincoln’s Bible’s podcast, The World Beneath. In addition to being a fascinating history of codebreaking, it’s also a detailed, deep dive into money laundering then and now. Very useful in the context of the current conversations.

  4. 4.

    germy

    February 24, 2022 at 10:37 am

    https://www.gawker.com/politics/what-has-putin-ever-done-to-me-anyway

    [Carlson] asks, rhetorically, “Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a world-wide pandemic that wrecked my business that kept me in doors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?”

    And Carlson is right about Putin. He doesn’t seem so bad.

    Has he ever called me funny when really I wanted him to say I’m beautiful?

    Has he ever showed up to a party with a bottle of wine and taken it back home with him at the end of the night?

    Does he tweet about how he misses the Old Gawker?

    Does he ever fail to respond to my text messages even though I can see him reposting memories from 8 years ago on his Instagram story?

    Is his iPhone always on dark mode, like some sort of sick sex pervert?

    Has he asked what that weird smell in here is?

    Is he the one who contaminated my drinking water supply with microplastics?

    Does he adhere to the FODMAP diet, which makes dining out together tedious and difficult?

    Does he pay only freelancers a $200 flat fee for reported features?

    No? Putin’s not done any of that? Then I’m not seeing the problem here.

  5. 5.

    terraformer

    February 24, 2022 at 10:38 am

    The question is whether big press and media will help educate citizens so they can see who Republicans are and what they’re doing, or will they merely report what Republicans say and what Democrats say free of context or nuance? Given how the press and media have been operating for the past 5 years or so in particular, I’d be surprised if it’s anything but the latter option

  6. 6.

    TheOtherHank

    February 24, 2022 at 10:39 am

    Here’s the thing I don’t understand: from what I’ve heard, Russia’s economy is about the size of Italy’s and it’s based on extraction industries (oil, gas, mining, etc). If sanctions kick in, and the Ukrainians engage in guerilla warfare, what is the Russian plan for actually being able to conduct the war and continue to be a functioning country?

  7. 7.

    Eggbert

    February 24, 2022 at 10:40 am

    Just think how much better things would be if the US had followed the advice of some technocratic war monkeys and had inserted troops into Kiev!!!

  8. 8.

    germy

    February 24, 2022 at 10:41 am

    It’s not like Hillary didn’t warn us…. pic.twitter.com/9xxPMiaFXP

    — TBogg (@tbogg) February 24, 2022

  9. 9.

    germy

    February 24, 2022 at 10:43 am

    Don't forget: AFTER he lost election, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, giving Putin cover to withdraw too. Ukraine begged us not to, because it would rob the west of the best surveillance should Putin invade. Now we don’t have it. Another gift from Trump.

    — Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) February 23, 2022

  10. 10.

    Aziz, light!

    February 24, 2022 at 10:43 am

    Their fellow citizens will see only the prices of gasoline and beef.

  11. 11.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    February 24, 2022 at 10:44 am

    This really that different that Anti-Vaxxers, Flat Earthers and Q-anon. Carlson is charismaless, annoying, twat with a punchable face that the only way he gets ratings is by trolling. It’s not like Carlson going to do a comedy monolog or sing a song.

    Come to think of it Tucker Carson being punched and beaten by a trained MMA fighter would be something I would pay to watch. Not that I am that upset by the man, just watching Carlson be tortured would be a guilt free experience. The guy is begging for it.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 24, 2022 at 10:46 am

    Mitt Romney is apparently taking a victory lap from that thing he said in 2012. I’ll let the Ragnarok Lobster speak for me, because I’ve got to log off and go do things

    Ragnarok Lobster @eclecticbrotha 1h

    I’m sure Romney has plenty to say about his GOP colleagues steady Conga line to Moscow to kiss Putin’s ring after the 2012 election. No? Crickets? Bueller? Bueller???

  13. 13.

    germy

    February 24, 2022 at 10:46 am

    MOSCOW, Feb 24 (Reuters) – A boy was killed in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region after shelling struck an apartment building, emergency services said on Thursday.

    An adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office said more than 40 Ukrainian soldiers were dead and dozens wounded.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    February 24, 2022 at 10:48 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’m sure he’ll defeat Obama next time!

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    February 24, 2022 at 10:48 am

    @TheOtherHank: The only thing I can think of is that Putin has convinced himself that (a) Ukraine won’t have the stomach for guerrilla warfare and/or kicking out whatever puppet government he puts in place and (b) the West won’t do anything serious and long-term. In other words, he’s assuming he won’t have to deal with any long-term problems.

  16. 16.

    zhena gogolia

    February 24, 2022 at 10:49 am

    A clear essay on Putin’s historical claims by historian Victoria Smolkin:
    https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/02/24/fantasy-is-not-history

  17. 17.

    dmsilev

    February 24, 2022 at 10:49 am

    In case people haven’t heard yet, Biden is planning on a national address at 12:30 Eastern.

  18. 18.

    satby

    February 24, 2022 at 10:52 am

    This is why the upcoming elections are the most pivotal in our history: because the kind of people who take up the cause of a monster like Putin while vilifying and condemning Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau are telling us who they are, how little regard they have for democracy, and how much contempt they have for America, its laws, its people, and its place in the world. https://johnpavlovitz.com/2022/02/23/when-americans-support-murderous-foreign-dictators/

  19. 19.

    Andy

    February 24, 2022 at 10:53 am

    @TheOtherHank:

    You’re 100% right. Keeping a military in the field is EXPENSIVE. Our plan should be to lay back, help the Ukrainian guerillas and wait for Putin to be removed by his circle of oligarchs.

  20. 20.

    West of the Rockies

    February 24, 2022 at 10:54 am

    I’d sure love it if the 1/6 committee began its televised hearings and started putting all ugly Trumplings on the ropes already.  Shut them up, make them uncomfortable, start them turning on each other, and reduce their ability to inflict further damage on this country. 

    Until then, Trump and Cruz and squinty Tucker and every other motherf#*%er keep babbling lies.

  21. 21.

    germy

    February 24, 2022 at 10:57 am

    2 Prosecutors Leading N.Y. Trump Inquiry Resign, Clouding Case’s Future

    The resignations came after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was said to have expressed doubts about the case.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/nyregion/trump-ny-fraud-investigation.html

  22. 22.

    Hildebrand

    February 24, 2022 at 11:04 am

    @TheOtherHank: I’m with you on this.  Just how long will Putin be able to sustain any kind of war footing?  Pair that with any of the sanctions biting and you’ve got a real economic disaster on the home front blowing up pretty quick.

    Yes, yes – the oligarchs.  Of course they will do fine.  But what happens when you’ve got a serious worker problem because they have all realized that their lives can’t get much worse if they decide to rebel?  Even oligarchs need the peasantry to do their work.

    Beyond that – this is going to turn into a war of occupation for Putin (because I just can’t see the Ukrainians deciding to just live with new Russian control).  There is no way this turns out the way Putin is fantasizing.

  23. 23.

    Spanky

    February 24, 2022 at 11:05 am

    The visit by Mr. Carlson, the top-rated host on the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News, bolsters Mr. Orban’s mission to establish Budapest as an ideological center for what he sees as an international conservative movement.

    Goddammit, every time they use “Mr. Carlson”, I flash back to WKRP.

    Everything Tucker touches turns to shit.

  24. 24.

    The Moar You Know

    February 24, 2022 at 11:07 am

    wait for Putin to be removed by his circle of oligarchs.

    @Andy: this is unlikely.  He’s got more money than all the rest of them.  He is not ruling Russia from a position of weakness, unlike Trump.

    I suspect, regardless of what happens in Ukraine, the fucker is going to be around, causing trouble for the West for quite a while unless Xi decides he’s more trouble than he’s worth.

  25. 25.

    BruceFromOhio

    February 24, 2022 at 11:07 am

    The choice is authoritarianism vs. democracy, and they’ve picked a side. The question is when will their fellow citizens see it pick up arms and openly start a civil war in favor of it.

    No longer a matter of if.

  26. 26.

    Xavier

    February 24, 2022 at 11:08 am

    Peter Thiel has said he doesn’t believe in democracy. He believes that people like Peter Thiel should be running this country, not people like you and me. That’s why he’s on a crusade to elect Republicans.

    TBF, I don’t think people like you and I are great shakes at running a country. But I support democracy unconditionally because I don’t believe people like Peter Thiel can be trusted with your and my interests.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    February 24, 2022 at 11:09 am

    @TheOtherHank:

    Credit!

    IDK, suspect Russia is run like the mafia and so long as the folks actually in charge are getting their “taste” of every single transaction they will always be rich and thus, bidnez as usual.

    Raytheon must be having mixed emotions watching cruise missiles being lobbed into Ukraine and yet, they have no contracts ready to replace the expended stockpile.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    February 24, 2022 at 11:11 am

    @dmsilev: i have a Biden speaking live post scheduled to go up at noon Eastern.

  29. 29.

    trollhattan

    February 24, 2022 at 11:12 am

    @Spanky:

    Such a punchable face and the capacity to live on for decades, further perfecting his nasty, nasty persona. Tucker is right alongside Ted Cruz as candidates for Worst Possible American.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    February 24, 2022 at 11:13 am

    @germy: To be sure, he has nothing to Bragg about here.

  31. 31.

    Alce_e_ardillo

    February 24, 2022 at 11:18 am

    @Baud: We need a new half-thought through opinion to generate our hot takes!

  32. 32.

    Ohio Mom

    February 24, 2022 at 11:19 am

    Yeah, yeah, I understand why the Righties love Putin and Russia and why Lefties like me have discovered how deep our patriotism for the U.S. of A. really is.

    But I don’t think this thought will ever make me not dizzy.

  33. 33.

    Alce_e_ardillo

    February 24, 2022 at 11:20 am

    @The Moar You Know: unless that money somehow makes him invulnerable to bullets, he can always be replaced.

  34. 34.

    Dan B

    February 24, 2022 at 11:20 am

    @Xavier: Peter Thiel is gay.  He married his longtime boyfriend.  He also associates with white supremacists and Federalist Society members.  I don’t know how he’ll feel when the Federalist Supremes annul most same gender marriages and make it easy to remove their children, Thiel has two.  The white supremacists may have fun adventures with a little off-brand gay harassment (bashing).  Money can buy you a lot of protection.  But it may not prevent armed nuts from living out their revenge fantasies.

    Gay activists are horrified at his actions.

  35. 35.

    MisterDancer

    February 24, 2022 at 11:27 am

    @Dan B: Money can buy you a lot of protection.

    THIS. As I noted the other day, no less than Strom Thurmond not only had a kid with a Black woman, way back in the day, he financially supported her through college, and no one said a peep about it.

    Thiel thinks he’ll never have to worry about anti-gay legislation, and the power he’ll have means no one will ever target him when that stuff passes. Worst comes to worst, he’ll just move overseas while pouring more money into making America a hell hole.

  36. 36.

    MisterDancer

    February 24, 2022 at 11:28 am

    @WaterGirl: thanks! I’m hoping to hear it live, if I can get a break.

  37. 37.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    February 24, 2022 at 11:30 am

    @MisterDancer: Anyone who thinks gay rights are secure should take a look at abortion rights. We thought they were secure too

  38. 38.

    West of the Rockies

    February 24, 2022 at 11:30 am

    @trollhattan:

    I think Ugly Tucker is worse than Cruz.  He lies to three million pinheads five days a week, causing themto believe bullshit is chocolate pudding.  Cruz doesn’t have three people who genuinely care what he says.  YMMV.

  39. 39.

    Kropacetic

    February 24, 2022 at 11:31 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mitt Romney is apparently taking a victory lap from that thing he said in 2012. I’ll let the Ragnarok Lobster speak for me, because I’ve got to log off and go do things

    Cklearly he knew more about the state of his party than the public did in 2012.

  40. 40.

    Chris

    February 24, 2022 at 11:33 am

    @Xavier:

    The point of democracy isn’t to pick the people who are best at running the country in any case.  There’s no political system that can guarantee that, and the world’s tried pretty much all of them.  The point of democracy is to ensure that the person who is running the country can’t ignore the people he’s governing.  (The point of liberal democracy, “real” democracy with universal suffrage, is that he can’t completely ignore any of them).

  41. 41.

    Eolirin

    February 24, 2022 at 11:33 am

    @Dan B: He’ll flee back to NZ. He’s insulated from things going to hell here.

  42. 42.

    West of the Rockies

    February 24, 2022 at 11:35 am

    @Ohio Mom:

    Remember when Republicans adored Red Dawn (in which plucky American teens defeated the wretched Red Army)?  That was 40 years ago, pre-Limbaugh and Fox News.

    Rightwing enraged argutainment has destroyed the all-too-susceptible  minds of tens of millions.

  43. 43.

    Dan B

    February 24, 2022 at 11:37 am

    @MisterDancer: New Zealand!  He has citizenship and property.  Pray for Jacinda.

  44. 44.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    February 24, 2022 at 11:37 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Better yet, make the MMA fighter a diminutive woman.

    As she beats him senseless, inject that shit straight into my veins.

  45. 45.

    Chris

    February 24, 2022 at 11:40 am

    @Ohio Mom:

    Yeah, yeah, I understand why the Righties love Putin and Russia and why Lefties like me have discovered how deep our patriotism for the U.S. of A. really is.

    Conservatives’ patriotism is always inch-deep.  They only love their country because they perceive it as keeping them at the top of the pecking order.  The second that’s gone, they turn on it.  See also, Southern slaveowners throwing a revolution the second they were no longer winning elections in Washington, or French aristocrats begging the Prussians, Russians, and Austrians to invade France and save them from this republic the crazy rabble had just established.

  46. 46.

    Dan B

    February 24, 2022 at 11:41 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Griswold goes and almost every right to privacy and autonomy falls. Sodomy!  It’s the new black.  Birth control!  It’s the new disobedience.  Punish!

  47. 47.

    Cris (without an H)

    February 24, 2022 at 11:41 am

    I just saw the news that DougJ has a new daughter! Warm wishes and congratulations to Doug and family!

    https://twitter.com/DougJBalloon/status/1496567810188849153

  48. 48.

    Brachiator

    February 24, 2022 at 11:44 am

    The visit by Mr. Carlson, the top-rated host on the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News, bolsters Mr. Orban’s mission to establish Budapest as an ideological center for what he sees as an international conservative movement.

    So why does Rupert Murdoch, and other conservative moguls, have such a hot desire to see authoritarian governments spread? It’s not like they will get much richer than they already are.

    Tucker Carlson, Hannity and the other Fox News morons are ultimately creatures of Rupert. They would not dare squeak unless he fed them their cheese.

    And the Republicans who encourage and protect idiots like Trump (and apparently the up-and-coming DeSantis and others) are fools if they believe that they can contain and control any authoritarian that they put in place. History is not on their side when it comes to this.

    But around the world, we have leaders who find that a large chunk of their citizens are willing to reject democracy if it tries to include all the people. In India, the Hindu nationalists have demonized Muslims. In the UK, BREXIT succeeded on the empty promise that screwing over immigrants would bring prosperity to ordinary Brits. And in the US, the right wing promises that white supremacy with a helping of sexism and anti-gay, anti-transgender bigotry will make America great again.

  49. 49.

    VeniceRiley

    February 24, 2022 at 11:44 am

    I stole this comment
    This morning we are watching Russia attempting to bomb Ukraine into the last century. Innocents are going to die to today. Ukrainians will be fighting for their lives and homeland.

    Meanwhile, here in the States, we have a convoy of crybaby truckers headed to the Capitol because they can’t be bothered to wear a mask or get a shot and mouth-breathing troglodytes cheering Putin on in conservative media and social media.

    All I can say is fuck anti-vaxxers, fuck anti-maskers, and fuck MAGATS.

  50. 50.

    VOR

    February 24, 2022 at 11:45 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Congresswoman Sharice Davids (D) is Native American, openly gay, and was an MMA fighter. According to Google, she’s 5’3″. Would that work?

  51. 51.

    Eolirin

    February 24, 2022 at 11:47 am

    @Dan B: God, if Griswold goes down we better never lose control of the federal government again. They will (at least attempt to) restore anti-miscegenation laws in addition to recriminalizing being gay and banning all contraception.

  52. 52.

    Miss Bianca

    February 24, 2022 at 11:47 am

    @Ohio Mom:

    Yeah, yeah, I understand why the Righties love Putin and Russia and why Lefties like me have discovered how deep our patriotism for the U.S. of A. really is.

    But I don’t think this thought will ever make me not dizzy.

    Yeah, I’m right there with you, panting for breath as my head spins.

  53. 53.

    Dan B

    February 24, 2022 at 11:50 am

    @Brachiator: The folks (27%) who are rage junkies will not be happy if they get their authoritarian betters.  They will need more things to rage at.  There will be a good chance of mob violence and the authoritarian leaders who turn the police on the mob will find they have problems.

  54. 54.

    Miss Bianca

    February 24, 2022 at 11:51 am

    @VOR: I might, indeed, pay good money to watch Sharice Davids beat up Tucker Carlson.

  55. 55.

    Dan B

    February 24, 2022 at 11:52 am

    @Eolirin: Shhhhh!!!!  Don’t tell Ginni.

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    February 24, 2022 at 11:53 am

    @Dan B:

    Guessing it’s like all the rich ladies in anti-abortion circles who know if their loving daughters turn into teen sluts they can still get that abortion with the minor cost of a plane ticket. Either group thinks they can buy their way out of any pickle.

    (Do Log Cabin Republicans still exist?)

    Similarly, Steven Miller thinks the complete chant at Charlottesville was, “Jews will not replace us, except for that Miller guy, he’s one of the good ones.”

  57. 57.

    hueyplong

    February 24, 2022 at 11:56 am

    @Miss Bianca: I’d also pay, and would be happy to cover your ticket as well.

  58. 58.

    Dan B

    February 24, 2022 at 11:57 am

    @trollhattan: Log Cabin Rpublicans are still making pronouncements.  They’ve been a bit quieter lately.

    The analogy of the anti-abortion ladies is apt.

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    February 24, 2022 at 11:57 am

    @Brachiator: So why does Rupert Murdoch, and other conservative moguls, have such a hot desire to see authoritarian governments spread? It’s not like they will get much richer than they already are.

    Once you have more money than you can possibly spend, you turn to acquiring power and coincidentally, crushing anybody who has more money than you. In Murdoch’s case, he believes (probably rightly) that he’ll be on the ins with most freshly minted dictators and maybe even get the keys to their national media.

  60. 60.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 24, 2022 at 11:57 am

    interesting (if true, as ever)

    Pjotr Sauer @PjotrSauer 6h

    The war will come as a shock to not just to the average Russian but also to the elites. Just on Monday, after Putin recognised the republics, Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch close to Putin wrote on his telegram channel “That’s it, war has been averted.” He has since deleted the post

  61. 61.

    Chris

    February 24, 2022 at 12:00 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Once you have more money than you can possibly spend, you turn to acquiring power and coincidentally, crushing anybody who has more money than you. In Murdoch’s case, he believes (probably rightly) that he’ll be on the ins with most freshly minted dictators and maybe even get the keys to their national media.

    “What you are about to witness, Miss Lin, is not so much a missile attack, but the launch of a new world order.  In precisely five minutes after your countrymen have attacked the British fleet, I shall retaliate for dear old England by sending this missile into Beijing, where General Chang has just called an emergency meeting of the Chinese High Command. Unfortunately, General Chang will be delayed in traffic, arriving just after the missile has killed your leaders, and too late to stop the air force from sinking the entire British fleet.  But he will be just in time to take over the government, negotiate a truce, and emerge as a world leader, with the Nobel Peace Prize.”
    “… And what do you get?”
    “Me?  Oh, nothing.  Just exclusive broadcasting rights in China for the next hundred years.”

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 24, 2022 at 12:00 pm

    Brave souls

    max seddon @maxseddon. 34m

    Some Russians are protesting Putin’s attack on Ukraine despite a total ban on protesting and immediate heavy crackdowns from riot police. Here’s a gathering of about 200 in St Petersburg

    I think it was Michael McFaul who said last night that Putin will probably come to regret this, but it will take years, not months, for him to realize it was a mistake.

  63. 63.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    February 24, 2022 at 12:02 pm

    @West of the Rockies:

    Can we talk about what an asshole the Harry Dean Stanton character is? Rather than saying “boys, keep your heads down and see if you can make your way clear out of this”, he starts screaming “AVENGE ME”, as if he weren’t a giant piece of shit.

  64. 64.

    Chris

    February 24, 2022 at 12:03 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    It really is remarkable how much his own inner circle seems to be just as much in the dark about this as the rest of us.  He’s running the whole thing alone.

  65. 65.

    Dan B

    February 24, 2022 at 12:03 pm

    An announcer on Newsmax, Peter Stinchfield (please respect the proper spelling of his name) stated that the invasion is fake news and “Putin is running circles around weak Joe Biden.”

    Cognitive dissonance any?

  66. 66.

    Miss Bianca

    February 24, 2022 at 12:03 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I truly wonder if Putin’s got years, rather than months, at his disposal.

    Then again, I’ve wondered the same thing about Trump for…well, years.

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    February 24, 2022 at 12:05 pm

    Interesting look behind the curtain at far-right manipulation of Facebook (thread):

    1. A far-right website that LAUNCHED 36 DAYS AGO is already more popular on Facebook than the Washington Post.

    The DC Enquirer has executed an audacious scheme to manipulate Facebook’s algorithm and ad platform. And @Meta is letting them get away with it.
    https://t.co/gzZ7AZFxXt

    — Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 24, 2022

    Non-Twitter version here.

  68. 68.

    Hungry Joe

    February 24, 2022 at 12:06 pm

    Only slightly OT: Does anyone know just how close Russian is to Ukrainian? I know that they’re both Eastern Slavic, and I think they’re mutually intelligible — or at least, a Ukrainian can get the gist of what a Russian is talking about, and (of course) vice-versa. But are they as close as, say, Swedish and Norwegian? Or is it more like Spanish and Italian?

    It’s hard for a native English speaker like me, who, decades ago, at my best, could barely stumble around in high-school-level Spanish and Hebrew, to get my mind around having another language so close to my own. English’s closest linguistic neighbors are German and Dutch, and we can maybe pick up a word every now and then.

  69. 69.

    Brantl

    February 24, 2022 at 12:07 pm

    The target market for *ucker Failson can’t even spell authoritarianism, much less understand what it means, they just want Zombie Rayguns back. Who was zombie the 1st time

  70. 70.

    Eolirin

    February 24, 2022 at 12:07 pm

    @Steeplejack: Facebook needs to be regulated out of existence.

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    February 24, 2022 at 12:08 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Guessing it’s like all the rich ladies in anti-abortion circles who know if their loving daughters turn into teen sluts they can still get that abortion with the minor cost of a plane ticket. Either group thinks they can buy their way out of any pickle.

    Often they can. Along with authoritarianism comes a big side of hypocrisy.

    I remember a friend once pointing out a property here in Southern California, formerly run by the Catholic Church. Middle class and upper class people from back East would send their daughters here to give birth to unwanted children, and then return home free of the stain of having had children out of wedlock.

  72. 72.

    Geminid

    February 24, 2022 at 12:09 pm

    The various responses to this conflict, both on the left and the right, interest me so I’ve been checking out leftie rag Common Dreems. Most comments to their Ukraine articles run along the lines of, “sleepy Joe is letting the Defense companies have their war, the CIA trains the Azov batttalion.” etc. A minority, maybe 20%, were forthright supporters of Ukraine’s side, and a few were emphatic about the site being infested with Russian propaganda.

    On the other side, I happened to tune in ultra-conservative Mark Levin’s evening show yesterday. The perpetually angry Levin was hollering about Putin the way he hollers about H. Clinton. I was interested to hear him line up so adamantly on the side of Ukraine and NATO.

    A little bit of Mark Levin goes a long way, though, so I moved on to 740AM out of Toronto. They come in after sunset and play oldies, 60’s music in the 6 o’clock hour. I got to hear “Like a Rolling Stone” for the first time in a while.

  73. 73.

    Mallard Filmore

    February 24, 2022 at 12:10 pm

    @Eolirin: 

    They will (at least attempt to) restore anti-miscegenation laws

    Does Polish-Italian count as miscegenation? How about English-Irish?

    God put the different peoples on their different continents. If He wanted them to mix, He would have created invading armies and slave traders.

  74. 74.

    trollhattan

    February 24, 2022 at 12:12 pm

    @Hungry Joe:

    More prosaically, when I hear Russians chatting at Costco I constantly wonder, “Russian, or Ukrainian?” Now, I’ll be watching for fistfights in the flat screen teevee aisles.

  75. 75.

    Mike in NC

    February 24, 2022 at 12:14 pm

    @Geminid: I read somewhere that of all the scumbags at FOX News, the one who influenced Trump the most was Levin.

  76. 76.

    Brantl

    February 24, 2022 at 12:16 pm

    @Geminid:  Mark Levin has the most grating voice in radio, and it’s truth in advertising. That SOB could get lightning-struck by St. Valentine.

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    February 24, 2022 at 12:16 pm

    O/T after a promising and soggy December, it simply stopped raining and we have had nary a drop, since. So this isn’t a huge surprise.

    By the Sacramento Bee, 2/24/22.  Farmers in California’s Central Valley are in for another brutal summer of drought. The federal government announced initial 2022 water allocations Wednesday for customers of the Central Valley Project, and the figures were dismal: Most irrigation districts in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys can expect to receive no deliveries from the project’s vast network of reservoirs and canals.

  78. 78.

    Marmot

    February 24, 2022 at 12:16 pm

    @Miss Bianca: With respect, this is a classic of information warfare, this speculation about the health of one’s enemies.

    With TFG, it was always clear he is a narcissist—at least, to everyone who’s tangled with one. It’s not dementia, but I can’t blame anyone for thinking that—the simplistic, overriding motivations of a true narcissist are very hard for sane people to understand.

  79. 79.

    Gin & Tonic

    February 24, 2022 at 12:18 pm

    @Hungry Joe: They are fairly close, but I’m not familiar enough with the other examples you provided to put it on a spectrum. Ukrainian seems to have more in common with Polish and Slovakian than with Russian, though. The “mutual intelligibility” is more in one direction – a Ukrainian is more likely to be comfortable in Russian than the other way around. Part of that is due to the fact that anyone old enough to have been in school before 1990 was likely taught in Russian. But much of the country is bi-lingual. If you watch Ukrainian TV, talk shows like MTP, it’s at first a little jarring to hear, say, a host ask a question in Russian and a guest to respond in Ukrainian, but it happens all the time and everyone is used to it.

  80. 80.

    Citizen Alan

    February 24, 2022 at 12:20 pm

    @Eolirin: I’ve said for years that if the issue ever came before him, Clarence Thomas would vote to overturn Loving v Virginia, secure in the knowledge that he and Traitor Ginni lived in D.C. which would never pass an anti miscegenation law. This is the guy who smugly described Georgia’s law sending gays to prison for ten years over anal sex was “silly” but within the state’s power to criminalize.

  81. 81.

    Kattails

    February 24, 2022 at 12:21 pm

    @Eolirin: and that would leave Ginny and Clarence where? Re: anti-miscegenation laws. Hummm. Edit, Citizen Alan beat me to it.
    I will not write the Ukrainian people out of this equation. We can talk about the Russian populace revolting on Putin but Ukraine already did it and have had a solid taste of what their counterparts never have. I refuse to doom talk on them.

  82. 82.

    cain

    February 24, 2022 at 12:22 pm

    @Eolirin: Don’t forget white washing history, burning books, and going after education.

  83. 83.

    Citizen Alan

    February 24, 2022 at 12:22 pm

    @Chris: Rupert Murdoch: The only living person to have been the inspiration for a Bond villain.

  84. 84.

    Hungry Joe

    February 24, 2022 at 12:22 pm

    @trollhattan: I have a good friend who is Bulgarian. He is, shall we say, not fond of Russia. He has a hilarious story about how, as a conscript in the Bulgarian army, he was assigned to guard a gigantic ammo dump and got so angry when the Russians jammed the BBC World Service on Punk Metal Night (or something like that) that he almost (or at least, he considered) setting off the ammo dump and starting WWIII.

  85. 85.

    Matt McIrvin

    February 24, 2022 at 12:23 pm

    @Chris:

    Conservatives’ patriotism is always inch-deep.  They only love their country because they perceive it as keeping them at the top of the pecking order.  The second that’s gone, they turn on it.

    They “love America” in this odd abstract sense that, as many have observed, allows hating most of the people in it, or waving US and Confederate flags at the same time. Whatever they favor at the moment gets redefined as the true America.

  86. 86.

    Matt McIrvin

    February 24, 2022 at 12:25 pm

    @Citizen Alan: I recall the character as being an odd cross between Murdoch and Bill Gates.

  87. 87.

    RaflW

    February 24, 2022 at 12:27 pm

    BTW, it appears the mopheaded UK P.M. is looking to get the G7 to block Russia from SWIFT. Apparently Putin’s threat that blocking the global financial clearing mechanism would be a ‘provocation of war’ loses it’s sting after launching a massive war in Ukraine.

  88. 88.

    Citizen Alan

    February 24, 2022 at 12:27 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: This is why I am filled with such contempt for filth who protest mask mandates by pinning homemade yellow stars to their clothes and comparing themselves to Anne Frank. As if every single one of these swine wouldn’t proudly turn in their neighbors for a pogram if they lived under the fascist regime they long for.

  89. 89.

    Matt McIrvin

    February 24, 2022 at 12:27 pm

    @Citizen Alan: Members of marginalized groups who support tyranny always think the “one of the good ones” exception will keep them safe.

    Sometimes they’re right.

  90. 90.

    ian

    February 24, 2022 at 12:28 pm

    @Hungry Joe:

    If you ever have time, look into Frisian.  It is a not very widely spoken language in the Netherlands.  It is a half-way Dutch, half English.  I can understand it passably, and I don’t speak Dutch

  91. 91.

    Geminid

    February 24, 2022 at 12:30 pm

    @VOR: Representative Davis has a real fight on her hands this coming election. Republicans gerrymandered her Kansas 3rd District so it’s close to 50-50, a true battleground.

    Sharice Davids is one of the talented House Class of ’18. That year she knocked out Republican incumbent Kevin Yoder and became the first Democratic member of Congress from Kansas in many years. Davids hasn’t made much of a splash on the national stage, and hasn’t tried to. But she is a smart, hardworking, personable woman with a promising future, especially if she can hold the Kansas 3rd in November.

  92. 92.

    Chris

    February 24, 2022 at 12:32 pm

    @Citizen Alan:

    Technically, not the only…  There’s also Francois Duvalier (Live And Let Die), Julian Assange (Skyfall), and the bad guy from Licence To Kill seems to be a mishmash of Pablo Escobar, Carlos Ledher, and Manuel Noriega.

    But definitely one of the proud and the few!

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Supposedly, the writers were also aiming at Robert Maxwell (hence the shady death at sea), but most people didn’t get the reference and zeroed in on the Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates similarities instead.

  93. 93.

    Chris

    February 24, 2022 at 12:33 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Hard to get more symbolic than the assholes tearing the American flag off of the Capitol so they could put up the Trump flag instead.

  94. 94.

    JanieM

    February 24, 2022 at 12:34 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I had a dream in the nineties, when we were having one of a long series of gay-related referenda in Maine, that I was in a line with all the other gay people, waiting to be loaded onto boxcars.

    I have never thought our progress was irreversible. There is nothing some people would like more than to, in effect, erase us.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    February 24, 2022 at 12:36 pm

    @ian: I think the thing that keeps it from being too close is the legacy of the Norman Conquest and the amount of French vocabulary that got imported into English. Some linguists consider Middle English an Anglo-Saxon/French creole, though that classification is disputed.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    February 24, 2022 at 12:39 pm

    @Mike in NC:  I wonder. Trump certainly would have liked what he heard from Levin. Hannitty and Carlson may have had more  influence, though.

  97. 97.

    Wapiti

    February 24, 2022 at 12:39 pm

    @Brachiator: In an Oligarchy, the Oligarchs are the nobility. Murdoch could buy his way in and might not have to pay tribute to more than a few people above himself.

  98. 98.

    lowtechcyclist

    February 24, 2022 at 12:40 pm

    @germy:

    Kurt Eichenwald: AFTER he lost election, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, giving Putin cover to withdraw too.

    This is one of those legal things I’ve never understood, going back to when Dubya did it.

    If it’s a treaty, with our participation agreed to by 2/3 majorities of Congress, the United States of America is a party to it, not the President himself.  Where the fuck does the Constitution allow the President to withdraw us from a treaty all by himself?

  99. 99.

    Miss Bianca

    February 24, 2022 at 12:43 pm

    @Marmot: Uh…okay.

  100. 100.

    Miss Bianca

    February 24, 2022 at 12:44 pm

    @RaflW:

    Apparently Putin’s threat that blocking the global financial clearing mechanism would be a ‘provocation of war’ loses it’s sting after launching a massive war in Ukraine.

    This.

  101. 101.

    Chris

    February 24, 2022 at 12:48 pm

    @Wapiti:

    @Brachiator: In an Oligarchy, the Oligarchs are the nobility. Murdoch could buy his way in and might not have to pay tribute to more than a few people above himself.

    There’s also the fact that…

    I read the book “McMafia” about modern organized crime about a decade ago, and one of the parts that really stayed with me was describing how during the Balkans wars of the 1990s, gangsters and oligarchs in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia alike were all working together to make money hand over fist from the war and its fallout, at the same time that they were also working closely with the genocidal political elites in all three countries that were trying to wipe each other out.

    This is the future people like Putin and Murdoch want: a world balkanized into hyper-aggressive nationalist regimes that are at each other’s throats and don’t cooperate on anything, and a small transnational elite of oligarchs who’re on good terms with all of them, safe in the knowledge that they have friends on every side and that the international cooperation that would be needed to hold them accountable to any law will never happen.

  102. 102.

    lowtechcyclist

    February 24, 2022 at 12:51 pm

    @Brachiator:

    But around the world, we have leaders who find that a large chunk of their citizens are willing to reject democracy if it tries to include all the people. In India, the Hindu nationalists have demonized Muslims. In the UK, BREXIT succeeded on the empty promise that screwing over immigrants would bring prosperity to ordinary Brits. And in the US, the right wing promises that white supremacy with a helping of sexism and anti-gay, anti-transgender bigotry will make America great again.

    Now I’ve got Tom Lehrer’s “National Brotherhood Week” running through my head.

  103. 103.

    artem1s

    February 24, 2022 at 12:56 pm

    The choice is authoritarianism vs. democracy, and they’ve picked a side.

    IMO it’s always been a choice between a fascist serfdom ruled by oligarchs vs. democracy (or even a republic as they are so fond of screeching about). The GOP was never idealistically opposed to the actual Soviet Union style government. Their opposition was to labor unions who were inspired by communist and socialist ideas. And fair labor and civil rights laws that would undermine the dominance of capitalism as a driving force for all policy decisions. Long story short, they want us to shut up and be serfs for them. Almost all the Soviet Union states are still thinly veiled serfdoms with a monarchy of oligarchs instead of the Romanov’s holding all the power money. They admire Putin for laying out the roadmap to their wetdream future for the USA.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    February 24, 2022 at 12:56 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: The treaty might have an op-out clause. Some treaties do, with a provision for giving notice. That could within the authority of the President.

    But this is just a guess. There probably are articles from when we left the treaty that treat this subject. At the time the story did not get as much attention as it deserved, but it was well reported.

  105. 105.

    UncleEbeneezer

    February 24, 2022 at 12:57 pm

    Former United States Attorney and Co-Chair of the Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee of the AG’s Advisory Committee in the Obama Administration, Barb McQuade has written a long, detailed Prosecution Memo arguing that Trump’s attempt to push Pence to subvert the 2020 election, does qualify as a crime that should be prosecuted by DoJ:

    The following memorandum is a model “prosecution memo” analyzing potential charges against former President Donald Trump for his efforts to pressure Mike Pence to abuse his authority as vice president in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecution memos are prepared by attorneys in criminal cases at the Department of Justice to summarize the evidence and their legal theories for prosecution. Prosecution memos enable supervisors and others in the chain of command to review the evidence, anticipate defenses, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of a criminal prosecution. The Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election[1]prepared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, for example, was a kind of prosecution memo, though it refrained from reaching a conclusion as to whether a crime was committed and charges should be filed. Prosecution memos generally do so explicitly.
    Report on the Investigation into the 2020 Presidential Election: Pressuring Vice President Mike Pence
    Public reporting, including governmental documents, indicate that following the 2020 election, President Donald Trump exerted pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certificates of electors from certain states won by Joe Biden and declare Trump the winner. Under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution[2] and the Electoral Count Act,[3] the vice president, as president of the Senate, is responsible for opening the certificates and counting the votes on the sixth day of January following a presidential election. While facts are still being uncovered, public reporting and some of the evidence obtained by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol show a relentless campaign to coerce Pence into helping Trump retain the presidency. This effort may have been only one of many schemes within a larger strategy to overturn the election.

    Looking solely at this aspect of the strategy, at least two federal criminal statutes may have been violated in this episode alone: conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding. Depending on the facts that emerge, other statutes may also have been violated, such as the federal voter fraud statute and seditious conspiracy. Publicly available information also indicates potential violations of state law. This report focuses solely on potential violations of federal law.

  106. 106.

    J R in WV

    February 24, 2022 at 1:01 pm

    @germy: ​
     

    2 Prosecutors Leading N.Y. Trump Inquiry Resign, Clouding Case’s Future

    The resignations came after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was said to have expressed doubts about the case.

    I am left to wonder how much it cost Trump to get DA Bragg to doubt the case? If many people around DA Bragg all told him the case was weak, would that get Bragg to doubt the case?

    If I was a LEO in NYC I would be looking at banking records, property records, travel records of everyone remotely connected to Alvin Bragg, who must not plan to run for election again in NY.

    Maybe I’m just paranoid and suspicious when a DA changes course 180 degrees like this… A shame indictments weren’t handed up before the office changed hands. How much would that cost?

  107. 107.

    trollhattan

    February 24, 2022 at 1:02 pm

    @Hungry Joe: The renowned Bulgarian sense of humor. :-)

    Poor Bulgaria, whipping child of both Russia and Turkey, who as best as I know both treat it as a less-than.

    Once worked with a Turk who had a sackfull of Bulgarian jokes.

  108. 108.

    leeleeFL

    February 24, 2022 at 1:07 pm

    I am sitting in my house, grateful that my Parents aren’t here to see this.  Trump being President would have devastated them on it’s own.  Seeing a former US President, and many of his Party, cheer on the bastards they hated for decades because they knew what Authoritarianism  was and why we fought against it, would have killed them.  They knew Stalin was like Hitler, and vice versa.  Power at any cost, control above all, the lives of millions in their hands, like toys.  Trump and his shitty minions need to be tried and convicted and sent to prison.  Simple.

  109. 109.

    Tazj

    February 24, 2022 at 1:12 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mitt Romney can go take a seat. I appreciate his yes vote for impeachment but other than that I don’t care what he has to say, especially something from 2012. But I know like you I’m hearing about how right he was all over the place.

    The biggest threat to the US at the time was terrorism. No one was ignoring Russia, just because Obama didn’t agree that was the biggest threat at the time. HRC was the SOS at the time but whenever she said something tough about Putin she was a war monger.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    February 24, 2022 at 1:19 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Now I’ve got Tom Lehrer’s “National Brotherhood Week” running through my head.

    “And Everybody hates the Jews….”

    The MAGA crowd are right on form.

  111. 111.

    Hungry Joe

    February 24, 2022 at 1:28 pm

    @trollhattan: If something, anything, went askew — we’d miss a green light, one of us would spill some coffee, whatever — my Bulgarian friend would say, “Goddam Turks!”

  112. 112.

    Soprano2

    February 24, 2022 at 1:29 pm

    @Miss Bianca: Me too, I know why they love Russia and Putin and I still can’t get my head around Republicans praising Russia as it invades one of our allies.

  113. 113.

    Leumas

    February 24, 2022 at 4:44 pm

    Local news station in Tulsa, where I live, has announced that

    Senator James Inhofe will resign.  KJRH, Channel 2

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