Sebastabear said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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Looks like Zelensky is banning 11 political parties for "Russian Collusion". Look I want Ukraine to win and us to send them weapons to defend them because Russia shouldn't be attacking sovereign countries. But we should probably stop saying Ukraine is a democracy. He also just signed a decree making all national TV channels onto one platform for unified information under martial law.

Zelensky bans 11 political parties

#Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a decree that combines all national TV channels into one platform, citing the importance of a “unified information policy” under martial law.https://t.co/DQvGRTc0GB

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) March 20, 2022

This is strange because most of eastern ukraine is russian speaking, unless he's planning on offering up the east to Russia.

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I'm not so sure members of the Vlad is Rad party deserve a seat the table.

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In a democracy we're suppose to beat bad ideas with good ones. Silencing the opposition is not a good democratic process. Now, granted, if they were committing treason, passing information to Russia that's one thing, but he's unilaterally making this decision.

MinotStateBeav said:

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Sebastabear said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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Looks like Zelensky is banning 11 political parties for "Russian Collusion". Look I want Ukraine to win and us to send them weapons to defend them because Russia shouldn't be attacking sovereign countries. But we should probably stop saying Ukraine is a democracy. He also just signed a decree making all national TV channels onto one platform for unified information under martial law.

Zelensky bans 11 political parties

#Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a decree that combines all national TV channels into one platform, citing the importance of a “unified information policy” under martial law.https://t.co/DQvGRTc0GB

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) March 20, 2022

This is strange because most of eastern ukraine is russian speaking, unless he's planning on offering up the east to Russia.

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I'm not so sure members of the Vlad is Rad party deserve a seat the table.

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In a democracy we're suppose to beat bad ideas with good ones. Silencing the opposition is not a good democratic process. Now, granted, if they were committing treason, passing information to Russia that's one thing, but he's unilaterally making this decision.

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I guess the point is we don't know what they're doing. Would be interesting to know more.

Sebastabear said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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Looks like Zelensky is banning 11 political parties for "Russian Collusion". Look I want Ukraine to win and us to send them weapons to defend them because Russia shouldn't be attacking sovereign countries. But we should probably stop saying Ukraine is a democracy. He also just signed a decree making all national TV channels onto one platform for unified information under martial law.

Zelensky bans 11 political parties

#Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a decree that combines all national TV channels into one platform, citing the importance of a “unified information policy” under martial law.https://t.co/DQvGRTc0GB

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) March 20, 2022

This is strange because most of eastern ukraine is russian speaking, unless he's planning on offering up the east to Russia.

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We always have to watch for political overreach and for those using a fig leaf "crisis" as a pretext to deprive their countrymen of their political rights. But in this case, I don't know. If your country has been invaded by a hostile foreign military that is dropping bombs on maternity hospitals and proclaiming your country doesn't even exist, I'm not so sure members of the Vlad is Rad party deserve a seat the table.

Somewhere the line between "opposition" and "treason" is crossed and any Ukrainian political party that supports the invasion is pretty obviously on the wrong side of that line. Do these specific parties qualify? No idea. But the facts here matter and I'd want to know more before I proclaimed a nation that looks like this as "not a democracy."

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Decisions made in the middle of a crisis, even if bad authoritarian ones, don't immediately make a country "not a democracy." Was the US not a democracy because of Japanese internment?

sycasey said:

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Sebastabear said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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Looks like Zelensky is banning 11 political parties for "Russian Collusion". Look I want Ukraine to win and us to send them weapons to defend them because Russia shouldn't be attacking sovereign countries. But we should probably stop saying Ukraine is a democracy. He also just signed a decree making all national TV channels onto one platform for unified information under martial law.

Zelensky bans 11 political parties

#Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a decree that combines all national TV channels into one platform, citing the importance of a “unified information policy” under martial law.https://t.co/DQvGRTc0GB

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) March 20, 2022

This is strange because most of eastern ukraine is russian speaking, unless he's planning on offering up the east to Russia.

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We always have to watch for political overreach and for those using a fig leaf "crisis" as a pretext to deprive their countrymen of their political rights. But in this case, I don't know. If your country has been invaded by a hostile foreign military that is dropping bombs on maternity hospitals and proclaiming your country doesn't even exist, I'm not so sure members of the Vlad is Rad party deserve a seat the table.

Somewhere the line between "opposition" and "treason" is crossed and any Ukrainian political party that supports the invasion is pretty obviously on the wrong side of that line. Do these specific parties qualify? No idea. But the facts here matter and I'd want to know more before I proclaimed a nation that looks like this as "not a democracy."

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Decisions made in the middle of a crisis, even if bad authoritarian ones, don't immediately make a country "not a democracy." Was the US not a democracy because of Japanese internment?

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The answer depends on if you were Japanese or not.

Was the US a democracy when only white men could vote?

oski003 said:

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Ukrainian media report that the wife of former MP Kotvytskyy tried to take $28 million and 1.3 million euros out of #Ukraine via #Zakarpattya.

The money was found by the #Hungarian border guards and forced to declare it. pic.twitter.com/ZCjDlIxdwB

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 20, 2022

Who is MP Kotvytskyy and why does his wife have so much money?

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Based on the article below, sounds like he is a rich business man who became a member of parliament.

https://www.unian.info/politics/1124421-ukrainian-mp-amends-his-declaration-adding-almost-uah-1-bln-he-says-he-forgot.html

I'm not sure why we should really care though. We know that Ukraine was rife with corruption for years. Trump's campaign manager was deeply involved in the corruption and Trump attempted to corrupt Zelensky lol. No amount of corruption would justify the invasion by another country, particularly when that other country was largely responsible for the corruption.

I would expect Tucker Carlson types and other purveyors of misinformation like Qanon to latch onto this "story" and use it to help Putin.

dimitrig said:

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sycasey said:

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Sebastabear said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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Looks like Zelensky is banning 11 political parties for "Russian Collusion". Look I want Ukraine to win and us to send them weapons to defend them because Russia shouldn't be attacking sovereign countries. But we should probably stop saying Ukraine is a democracy. He also just signed a decree making all national TV channels onto one platform for unified information under martial law.

Zelensky bans 11 political parties

#Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a decree that combines all national TV channels into one platform, citing the importance of a “unified information policy” under martial law.https://t.co/DQvGRTc0GB

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) March 20, 2022

This is strange because most of eastern ukraine is russian speaking, unless he's planning on offering up the east to Russia.

---

We always have to watch for political overreach and for those using a fig leaf "crisis" as a pretext to deprive their countrymen of their political rights. But in this case, I don't know. If your country has been invaded by a hostile foreign military that is dropping bombs on maternity hospitals and proclaiming your country doesn't even exist, I'm not so sure members of the Vlad is Rad party deserve a seat the table.

Somewhere the line between "opposition" and "treason" is crossed and any Ukrainian political party that supports the invasion is pretty obviously on the wrong side of that line. Do these specific parties qualify? No idea. But the facts here matter and I'd want to know more before I proclaimed a nation that looks like this as "not a democracy."

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Decisions made in the middle of a crisis, even if bad authoritarian ones, don't immediately make a country "not a democracy." Was the US not a democracy because of Japanese internment?

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The answer depends on if you were Japanese or not.

Was the US a democracy when only white men could vote?

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Good question! It was a flawed democracy, though by the standards of the time still a democracy.

Just awful first hand accounts collected from Ukrainian women. Putin deserves a very special place in hell. I can't listen to one more person defending this monster's war as "justified" because of "NATO expansion." I just wish these people would think for one second about the dozen obvious and demonstrable lies Putin has told just this month: ( "We have no plans to attack and the U.S. is just being alarmist"; "We're withdrawing our troops from the border"; "All the bombs falling on civilians are coming from Ukrainian forces", etc.). At what point do the apologists realize they are being fed crap and this guy isn't a "genius." He's a liar and a killer. And his justifications are just more lies so he can kill more. Disgusting.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/world/europe/ukraine-women-escape-stories.html?referringSource=articleShare

" The US exports oligarchy with a side of ethnic nationalism because that's what we have, and then we are surprised when it takes root and mutates abroad.

If we had a democracy, we'd possibly be able to export that by example, not by guns, but we don't, so we don't."

bearister said:

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Putin Quotes Jesus to Justify Invasion

https://theweek.com/russia/1011510/putin-quotes-jesus-to-justify-invasion-of-ukraine

St. Vlad the Nazi Killer

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It's because he knows that is all he needs to do in order to bamboozle American evangelicals in to supporting him and agreeing with trump that he is so smart.

Was watching a piece on Russians assets in Switzerland on DW (german), and one swiss banking reform activist guy mentioned how they probably have shell companies in the Cayman Islands that have Swiss Bank accounts. Why aren't we enforcing the Swiss and Cayman Islands to turn over banking information? He also mentioned that Russian Companies have the ability to essentially barter with other companies to bypass sanctions.

This was the piece

Russian forces, hampered by a lack of food and fuel are also suffering from frostbite, a SR US military official told @NBCNEWS "We've picked up some indications that some of their soldiers are suffering from frostbite because they lack appropriate cold weather gear."

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) March 22, 2022

bearister said:

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Russian forces, hampered by a lack of food and fuel are also suffering from frostbite, a SR US military official told @NBCNEWS "We've picked up some indications that some of their soldiers are suffering from frostbite because they lack appropriate cold weather gear."

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) March 22, 2022

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Is this a joke? Russia doesn't have cold weather gear. Russia? Home of "Siberia"? For a war being fought in late March?

Other than the war crimes and the slaughter of civilians and the atrocities I'd think Putin was engaged in some kind of war performance art thing here.

MinotStateBeav said:

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Was watching a piece on Russians assets in Switzerland on DW (german), and one swiss banking reform activist guy mentioned how they probably have shell companies in the Cayman Islands that have Swiss Bank accounts. Why aren't we enforcing the Swiss and Cayman Islands to turn over banking information? He also mentioned that Russian Companies have the ability to essentially barter with other companies to bypass sanctions.

This was the piece

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There are three wars ongoing in this campaign, the military war on the ground between Russian and Ukrainian forces, the propaganda war between Zelensky/the West and Russia, and the economic/financial war between the US/EU and Russia.

Russia is getting obliterated in the propaganda war. They are however going to win the military confrontation, unless there is a massive escalation with NATO intervening. Zelensky's main goal in his PR campaign is to translate his massive edge in the propaganda war into a NATO intervention. So far it hasn't happened, as there is a large opposition within Europe to such an escalation, as well as within the Pentagon, which is less ideologically driven than Congress or the State Dept.

On the economic war front, the main swing players are China and India, respectively the first and third largest world economies in PPP, and two of the largest fossil fuel importers (Japan is the 2nd IIRC). China is squarely on Russia's side, as a result of increasingly hostile recent US foreign policy that has pushed that country into Russia's arms.

India's neutral stance, which is effectively pro-Russian given that they are pursuing trade and have just concluded an oil deal with Russia, was less predictable. They are pursuing India's traditional non-aligned foreign policy.

The more surprising reaction IMO was Mexico's refusal to sanction Russia, which lines up with the other Latin American powers, Brazil and Argentina. So far, most of the world has not followed the West's sactions on Russia.

Russia has the tools to survive this type of limited sanction regimen from the US/EU, as long as they can trade with the rest of the world. They have survived the initial shock, with the Ruble stabilizing in the low 100/US$, after spiking to near 150/US$. In the short term, the economic damage of the sanctions on Russia will be more severe on Germany and France, leading EU economies, than on Russia, due to German dependence on Russian gas and French investment into the Russian market and banking system, with companies like Total (oil) and Renault (auto) possibly crashing without that market.

Germany has its weakest government in half a century, with Scholz looking like the least assertive German leader in decades, at the head of an unstable and disparate coalition. For a country with a large industrial base and export-based economy, a huge spike to their energy costs will be very difficult to sustain politically. France as well was already in the grips of a large Gilets Jaunes uprising back in 2018-19 spurred by high energy costs, things could spiral out of control if gas prices keep surging.

Cal88 said:

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The more surprising reaction IMO was Mexico's refusal to sanction Russia, which lines up with the other Latin American powers, Brazil and Argentina. So far, most of the world has not followed the West's sactions on Russia.

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Not sure why anyone who is in "tune" with what is going on geopolitically would be surprised that MEXICO refused sanction's on Russia. In 2016, they became part of OPEC+ along with Russia.

Sebastabear said:

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bearister said:

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Russian forces, hampered by a lack of food and fuel are also suffering from frostbite, a SR US military official told @NBCNEWS "We've picked up some indications that some of their soldiers are suffering from frostbite because they lack appropriate cold weather gear."

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) March 22, 2022

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Is this a joke? Russia doesn't have cold weather gear. Russia? Home of "Siberia"? For a war being fought in late March?

Other than the war crimes and the slaughter of civilians and the atrocities I'd think Putin was engaged in some kind of war performance art thing here.

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Yes, that's kind of in the Ghost of Kiev/Snake Island level war propaganda, it doesn't pass the eyeball test. Ukraine has milder weather than most of Russia, troops from main Russian regions like St Petersburg or Moscow come from colder climates, and are very unlikely to not have been prepared for cold weather. Second, the weather has been pretty mild in Ukraine lately.

Mild, rainy weather resulting in heavy mud conditions along the northern front favors Ukraine, blocking the advance of mechanized Russian divisions, as they are limited to traveling on paved roads. So far there hasn't been much rain, but the winter thaw alone guarantees muddy conditions. However if the weather stays dry the next few weeks, that could make the countryside passable for their tank divisions. Otherwise, they will have to wait till late April to move in broader formation instead of the more vulnerable road convoys.

I can't tell you how much enjoyment it brings me to hear Cal88 weigh on on a Russian propaganda war while spouting views that just happen to align perfectly with Russian propaganda, as always.

Bravo.

DiabloWags said:

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Cal88 said:

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The more surprising reaction IMO was Mexico's refusal to sanction Russia, which lines up with the other Latin American powers, Brazil and Argentina. So far, most of the world has not followed the West's sactions on Russia.

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Not sure why anyone who is in "tune" with what is going on geopolitically would be surprised that MEXICO refused sanction's on Russia. In 2016, they became part of OPEC+ along with Russia.

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Surprisingly, Mexico today is a net oil&gas importer, as a result of declining domestic production and increasing economic growth. Still though, the US is by far Mexico's largest trade partner, and that country has been, overall, a winner with NAFTA, their industrial base having expanded.

It appears that this is a politically-motivated decision, aligning with their identity as a Latin American people, with a North vs. South perspective. Very much the same cultural impulse as India.

Unit2Sucks said:

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I can't tell you how much enjoyment it brings me to hear Cal88 weigh on on a Russian propaganda war while spouting views that just happen to align perfectly with Russian propaganda, as always.

Bravo.

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This has been the genius behind Russia's propaganda operation: they don't actually have to deliver most of the message themselves. They can dupe fringe types in the West (on both the right and left wing) into thinking they came up with their "non-mainstream" views themselves.

Of course, the various Western government responses would seem to suggest that these are indeed fringe views at best so the propaganda hasn't been THAT successful. I think we've seen more than a few people here who have been influenced by it, though.

Unit2Sucks said:

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I can't tell you how much enjoyment it brings me to hear Cal88 weigh on on a Russian propaganda war while spouting views that just happen to align perfectly with Russian propaganda, as always.

Bravo.

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Well I for one just want to know what the Great Pumpkin is really like in person. I've been waiting for 18 months for the report.

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Seems Biden has two paths now:

A) win AZ, the NE and ME districts, and the rest of the midwest minus PA

B) Win the rest of the midwest + PA

— nxthompson (@nxthompson) November 4, 2020

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Clinton didn't do well in the Midwest and Biden is doing even worse. To quote the late great Chick Hearn, Biden's chances are slim and none and slim just left the building.

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It's really not clear, since mail-in votes haven't been counted and are expected to be heavily blue. So we'll have to wait and see.

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The Great Pumpkin is not going to come.

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"Numerous experts and current and former officials say Putin was emboldened by the Trump years. The former KGB officer turned president ably manipulated Trump into publicly backing his denials of having interfered to Trump's benefit in U.S. elections. And, according to former aides, Putin convinced Trump to accept his claim that Ukraine was part of Russia."

News Analysis: Trump delayed weapons to Ukraine and praised Putin. Did that trigger war?


https://news.yahoo.com/news-analysis-trump-delayed-weapons-110005981.html

A quick scan of Richard Medhurst's tweets and articles make it look like he's another guy who often repeats Russia's spin on world affairs.

This is his bio for his Press TV show (Press TV is Iranian state-owned media).

https://www.presstv.ir/aboutus/details/46

Many of his other credits are for Russian state-owned media (RT, Sputnik) or Syrian state-owned media (Alikhbaria). None of this automatically means he's wrong, but his credentials should make you suspicious about the slant of his reporting.