the watcher

Outstanding article.
I have read two novels by Vladimir Sorokin..... Brilliant author.  Read them start to finish without stopping.

Day of the Oprichnik: 
 
"Day of the Oprichnik, translated into English by Jamey Gambrell, is no earnest retread of Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, even though Sorokin, a talented mimic of his fellow Russian authors, clearly intends the ironic echo. On the contrary, this short and savage offering puts the “dys” in dystopian in a way few novels bearing that label can claim. It’s an outrageous, salacious, over-the-top tragicomic depiction of an utterly depraved social order whose absolute monarch (referred to only as “His Majesty”) is a blatant conflation of the country’s current president with its ferocious 16th-century absolute monarch known as Ivan Grozny."
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/his-majesty-on-vladimir-sorokins-day-of-the-oprichnik/
 

An opinion piece on Putin
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/27/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-power

An opinion piece on Putin
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/27/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-power

An opinion piece on Putin
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/27/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-power

You can shove your thoughts and prayers and condemnation of Putin now, you had a chance to help Ukraine but sided with your Orange God, the only Republican to vote for was Mitt Romney.

The Netherlands is sending 200 stinger anti-aircraft missiles, sniper rifles with ammunition, helmets, fragmentation vests, radars and detectors to detect ground mines and naval mines to Ukraine +150 soldiers to Romanian/Ukraine border. I hope it arrives on time.stay strong!
 
729 41  

Gotta admit, this guy seems pretty badass.

my guesses:
a) It looks terrible for Trudeau if his cabinet declares an emergency and the elected government doesn't even review it.  The vote gives legitimacy to a legitimately controversial thing and was conducted in accordance with the law, which may be important for future legal action related to the occupation.  So Parliament has to vote.
b) off-camera investigations / actions may have been facilitated by the Emergency Act -- remember the government is extremely interested in the financing of the occupation.  Might have needed a couple of days to get those closed out.
c) with the Q-trucker occupation banished and its leaders defanged, Trudeau is the main character of this storyline.  "Ottawa calm but Trudeau Clings To Emergency Act" is not a headline the dude wants to own.  Now the headline is "Trudeau ends Emergency Act" which is the outcome that most Canadians want, I think.  Trudeau looks decisive; he rides to the rescue of the feckless Ottawa and Ontario authorities and then he dusts his hands, proclaims mission accomplished, and Canadians are free to tune out. For better or for worse, voters like decisiveness and clean endings.
d) the wingers were pumping a fever dream of a Castroist Trudeau unleashing a cultural revolution backed by Bill Gates, grandma-trampling RCMP horses and genderqueer BLM vaxx squads.  This is a hard storyline to work when your vile dictator has relinquished his emergency powers in accordance with the law.  Lots of winger spin rooms getting a workout today; the one I see most frequently on twitter is how the ending of the Act is a profound diss to Jagmeet Singh.  conservatives concern trolling about Singh is hilarious.
e) Senate vote was a big opportunity for opportunist senators to grandstand and give the Liberals more headaches. This has been defused.  I don't know if this was a credible threat given how sleepy the Senate is, but the right wing media was sure pumping the tires on this angle so maybe it had legs.  You need characters to do a storyline like this and the cons don't have anyone good; Lich and King and the rest of them were swivel-eyed goons, Candice Bergen is clearly in over her head and has no idea how to manage a story of this magnitude, Ford in Toronto isn't going to rock any boats with an election coming, Randy Hillier has strong "jerks off to the Handmaids Tale" energy, etc, etc.

So there Is factual evidence of knuckle draggers among us. Shocking. 

Well he discusses that..... 
 
"There are two uncomfortable facts here. First, a number of influential people, both in business and in politics, are deeply financially enmeshed with Russian kleptocrats. This is especially true in Britain. Second, it will be hard to go after laundered Russian money without making life harder for all money launderers, wherever they come from — and while Russian plutocrats may be the world champions in that sport, they’re hardly unique: Ultrawealthy people all over the world have money hidden in offshore accounts."

Deutsche bank executives losing a bit of sleep at the  moment.

Republished article by krugman explaining the effect of sanctions.
 
https://digbysblog.net/
 
"The sums involved are mind-boggling. Novokmet et al. estimate that in 2015 the hidden foreign wealth of rich Russians amounted to around 85 percent of Russia’s G.D.P. To give you some perspective, this is as if a U.S. president’s cronies had managed to hide $20 trillion in overseas accounts. Another paper co-written by Zucman found that in Russia, “the vast majority of wealth at the top is held offshore.” As far as I can tell, the overseas exposure of Russia’s elite has no precedent in history — and it creates a huge vulnerability that the West can exploit."
he mentions britain. 
uninformed opinion, wonder how much putin has stashed in Saudi Arabia. 
 

They are going to tell us not to believe what our eyes see but to believe what they say, just like the Mango Mussolini did when he was President, they are full of **** and are going to cause death and a humanitarian crisis as Ukrainians are fleeing in the millions

How many "freedom fighters" in Ottawa would be willing to do this? I think we know the answer. 

It takes some  brave people to protest in Russia. Putin has hunted down and murdered people who have criticised him in print and film.. 

It takes some  brave people to protest in Russia. Putin has hunted down and murdered people who have criticised him in print and film.. 

It takes some  brave people to protest in Russia. Putin has hunted down and murdered people who have criticised him in print and film.. 

It takes some  brave people to protest in Russia. Putin has hunted down and murdered people who have criticised him in print and film.. 

The Russian people need to be heard and need to protest, a small uprising can catch fire and change might happen
 

The West is to blame for taking his and fellow oligarchs money and laundering it. But, he's a dictator, invading a sovereign, democratic country.
If we were not beholden to the uber-rich, most peoples lives would be far better and Russia would not be murdering Ukrainians. 

Ukraine will fall and Russia will set up a pro Russian government, meanwhile millions are fleeing and thousands will die in a war that nobody not even the Russian people want. This is a war wanted by a crazy dictator who is living in a fantasy world of the past. The bigger problem is what happens if he decides that he wants parts of Poland and Lithuania 

It's everyone's business. 

It's everyone's business.