Phony Russia lies to its people same as the West lies to its people: Demand for payment in rubles starting tomorrow is just face-saving for Putin at home

Meanwhile Russia continues to sell natural gas which Europe desperately requires, and Putin continues to rake in the dough he needs to continue the war and undergird his regime. 

The headline is purely for Russian public consumption.

Putin signs order demanding gas payments in roubles from Friday :

The decree Putin signed on Thursday authorises the state-controlled Gazprombank to open foreign currency and rouble accounts for gas purchases. European buyers would pay in foreign currency and then authorise Gazprombank to make the conversion into roubles, which would then be used to formally purchase the gas.

I swear Joe Biden is going to get us all killed

 So far on this trip to Poland to rally NATO to the defense of Europe, Joe Biden has

1) threatened to respond "in kind" if Russia uses chemical or biological weapons;

2) told members of the 82nd Airborne they're about to deploy to Ukraine ("when you’re there, you’re going to see women, young people standing in the middle, in the front of a damn tank saying 'I’m not leaving.'");

3) specifically called for regime change in Russia (“For god’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”).

 

 

 

 

We're not supposed even to possess chemical and biological weapons.

Russia has stated NATO intervention in Ukraine is a cause for war with NATO.

Making removal of Putin the NATO objective is the existential threat Putin also says is a cause for war.

At least in 1984 when Ronald Reagan quipped in a sound check, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.", he was only joking.

The Reagan joke was deliberately leaked to embarrass him, which it did. But today's White House scrambles to correct all these Biden statements because none of them are jokes.

Joe Biden is the loose cannon on the ship of state. 

And they used to call this guy a dunce.

 

 

Look who's talkin', lady

  Mocked Putin as 'small, pale and almost reptilian' in final scathing op-ed... 

 

Even in death Madeleine Albright, who later in her life had said she was shocked to learn that she was Jewish, remains half-bright. 

 

Besides Alexander Solzhenitsyn, lots of people in America and elsewhere have been very friendly with Vladimir Putin over the years

 

Things were different in 2007, and Solzhenitsyn would live only until the next year, but he did support Vladimir Putin at the time

 https://archive.boston.com/news/world/articles/2008/08/05/toward_end_solzhenitsyn_embraced_putins_russia/

Here's the lede:

MOSCOW - In the last years of his long and stubbornly contrarian life, Alexander Solzhenitsyn finally found a political system he could embrace: Vladimir Putin's Russia.

"Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people," Solzhenitsyn told Der Spiegel in a 2007 interview. "And he started to do what was possible, a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately."

 

 

 

President Joe Biden is right to call Vladimir Putin a war criminal

There can be no going back to what was. Vladimir Putin must pay for his crimes, along with Russia.
 

Hi, I'm president Joe Biden and the buck stops with COVID-19, Vladimir Putin, and high fuel costs, not with me

 Joe just wants you to forget that his anti-fossil fuel policies pushed gasoline from $2.09 to $3.44 in one year from his election, that he did nothing to dampen the NATO connections with Ukraine which have inflamed Putin, and that he failed to shut down the virus.

He also omits that his ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan broadcast the very weakness which was later on display when he promised Putin that US and NATO troops would not get involved in Ukraine. 

"Step right this way, Vladimir!"

LOL, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates don't want to talk to Joe Biden about his self-imposed US oil problems

 From the story:

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the U.A.E.’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan both declined U.S. requests to speak to Mr. Biden in recent weeks . . .

Both Prince Mohammed and Sheikh Mohammed took phone calls from Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, after declining to speak with Mr. Biden.

I hate unnamed former senior White House officials

Defense One, here.

The official outlined a scenario in which Putin consolidates some gains in southern Ukraine but fails to install a new puppet regime. 

“Ukrainians may or may not cease and desist. The West may or may not continue to arm the Ukrainian insurgency and [Putin] might decide, ‘OK. I'm going to set off a bomb somewhere in western Ukraine to send a message that I have crossed the nuclear threshold, and you can follow me if you want.”

Remember when Pat Buchanan wanted to pull all US troops out of Europe, basically out of everywhere but Guam?

 Latvia yesterday:

In a press conference Monday, Rinkevics said that public opinion and policymakers’ decision-making had shifted with regards to military deployments, noting that now “we need a permanent stationing of NATO troops, including U.S. troops, on our soil” — something he had called for before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On the day Russia invaded Ukraine (Feb. 24), Biden ordered the deployment of an additional 7,000 U.S. troops to Europe, and moved forces already in Europe to NATO’s eastern flank, including to Latvia. ...

Even though the Baltic states have been a part of NATO and the EU since 2004, with all three using the euro as their currency, their geographic location makes them vulnerable. Like Ukraine, they all share a border with Russia. Latvia and Lithuania also share a border with Russia’s ally Belarus, which is widely believed to be supporting Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

More.

Buchanan with Hannity and Colmes, November 26, 2007, Putin's seventh year in office:

COLMES: You want — yes, you want us to get out of Russia, too. You want us to pull the troops back, get the troops out of all — wherever we have United States troops.

BUCHANAN: Look, the Russians got up and walked out of Eastern Europe. They moved their army behind the Urals. They let Eastern Europe go free. They let 15 nations break up. What did we move NATO into their face for?

More.

Like its beer, Germany is the cause of, and the solution to, all of Europe's problems

The Bundeskanzler, quoted here :

"That is why it is a conscious decision on our part to continue the activities of business enterprises in the area of energy supply with Russia," Scholz added.

Drudge is promoting Putin analysis by two women who spew psychobabble and illogic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fiona Hill at Politico https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340

and Amy Knight at The Daily Beast https://news.yahoo.com/russian-people-may-starting-think-092222195.html .

Fiona Hill can't make up her mind: "Putin is increasingly operating emotionally" but "there's been a logical, methodical plan that goes back a very long way".  Then she takes it all back at the end and says Putin didn't "initially set off to do all of this" despite the plan that goes back a very long way but his "feelings of loss, they've all been there" since the dissolution of the USSR, so he is operating emotionally. 

Got it? 

Amy Knight is similarly confused: "Hitler and Stalin were crazy by any psychiatric standard" but "Khrushchev—though volatile and impulsive—was apparently a rational actor, not consumed by the historical grudges and the need to show off his masculine credentials that seem to obsess Putin." Except dictators are all alike: "First of all, like any dictator, Putin does not feel confident of his hold on power".

Meanwhile the Russian people are just mind-numbed robots according to Amy, but they are our only hope: "Russians are conditioned to say they approve of their leader when there is no alternative" you see, but "hopefully, Russians themselves will take action and stop their leader".

And to underscore Amy's illogic, even though she references Putin's insane nuclear threat involving "consequences we have never seen in our entire history" which were made as the invasion began, somehow it was the subsequent "Ukrainian resistance stronger than expected" and crippling "Western sanctions" which are "probably why Putin resorted to the insanity of his nuclear threat".

"She's just pulling it out of her ass". -- Sigmund Freud

Trump's tone-deafness on Putin on the 22nd is no different than his dismissive COVID-19 response in early 2020, which he never understood frightened away America's older voters

Europe is finally uniting against Putin on the third day of the Ukraine invasion, passing restrictions and sending arms and support, and Trump is calling Putin's machinations to invade Ukraine "smart", "genius", "very savvy", and "pretty savvy".

He's clueless. Putin has clearly over-reached and is leading Russia into permanent pariah status on the world stage.

I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, “This is genius.” Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.

So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well.

By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened. But here’s a guy that says, you know, “I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,” he used the word “independent,” “and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.” You gotta say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? There was no response. They didn’t have one for that. No, it’s very sad. Very sad.

More. 

Republicans will pay a heavy price for backing this lunatic again.

 

And just like that we have a Russian invasion of Ukraine from every direction

 Vladimir Putin obviously cares less about the money he can make off oil exports than he does about reincorporating Ukraine into Russia.

Trump kicks off speaking tour vying for the Sean Penn vote, saying he got on best with communist dictators of China, North Korea, also with Russia's Putin

 Reported here.

Tone deaf, much?

My guess is Sean Penn still isn't impressed, try as Trump may.

Doug Schoen's 2016 book PUTIN'S MASTER PLAN makes more sense learning he's been on the Ukraine payroll for years

Republican Paul Manafort is not the only one who has been making millions off the Ukrainians for years. Democrats have also long been contesting that ground. 

The Wikipedia entry on Schoen says he was making $40k a month from Pinchuk starting in 2000. That's the almost $500k annually "to start" Schachtel mentions in his thread, so yeah, big money for nearly 20 years straight. Schoen, of course, is a Democrat and was closely involved with the Clintons in the past. The Clinton Foundation itself is said to have received as much as $25 million from Pinchuk.

Financial Times, 8/28/16: "Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, is backed by the pro-western government that took power after Mr Yanukovich was ousted"

https://www.ft.com/content/c98078d0-6ae7-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f :

The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine’s arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country’s biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev’s wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a US election.

"Financial Times" Editor: "Can't Find" What Article GOP Sen. John Kennedy Is Citing About Ukraine Election Interference

The editor isn't stupid. He just thinks you are.

That's right, Michael Bloomberg is really a Republican posing as a Democrat, recruited by Russia to blow up the Dem primary and re-elect Vladimir Putin's best friend, Donald J. Trump

Sickening Hillary sided with Russia's Vladimir Putin

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Reminder: Story from May claims DNC was actively working to gather dirt on Trump from Ukraine using Alexandra Chalupa

In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort’s dealings inside the country in hopes of forcing the issue before Congress. ...

Andrii Telizhenko, a former political officer who worked under Chaly from December 2015 through June 2016, told me he was instructed by the ambassador and his top deputy to meet with Chalupa in March 2016 and to gather whatever dirt Ukraine had in its government files about Trump and Manafort. ...

“She said the DNC wanted to collect evidence that Trump, his organization and Manafort were Russian assets, working to hurt the U.S. and working with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin against the U.S. interests. She indicated if we could find the evidence they would introduce it in Congress in September and try to build a case that Trump should be removed from the ballot, from the election,” he recalled.

After the meeting, Telizhenko said he became concerned about the legality of using his country’s assets to help an American political party win a U.S. election. But he proceeded with his assignment.

Telizhenko said that as he began his research, he discovered that Fusion GPS was nosing around Ukraine, seeking similar information, and he believed they, too, worked for the Democrats.

Read the whole thing from John Solomon, here.