The video above and the story below say it all:
Ukraine denounces ‘armed invasion’ as suspected Russian forces raid Crimea airports
Ukraine’s interior minister claims Russian forces have now taken control of two airports in Crimea.
Eyewitnesses in the regional centre of Simferopol say the group was dressed in the same clothing as those who seized the parliament in Crimea yesterday.
One man in uniform told euronews: “We want the people of Crimea to understand that we will stay here for a long, long period of time and that it’s a place not only for Russians and Tatars, but also for Ukrainians, Germans, Jews and they want to live here in peace.”
An airport spokesperson said the attackers eventually abandoned their plans and apologised.
But shortly afterwards a military airport near the port of Sevastopol was seized. There are no reports of any bloodshed or clashes near where the Russian Black Sea fleet has a base.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has described the raid as an armed invasion in violation of international accords.
The United States has not looked this weak since the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The truth is there isn’t much Obama could do at this point, and Vladimir Putin knows it. A POTUS with balls would have made moves weeks ago to prepare for this – moving troops and ships into position to counter Russian aggression.
Obama did nothing. Other than make speeches filled with empty threats, Obama will do nothing.
We are so fucked. Looks like I’m gonna start drinking early today.
This is fucking embarrassing.
Very much so.
Ho.Lee.Fuk.
Was that really our POTUS and VPOTUS in that video?
Just nuke us all now, Vlad. I’m begging you. It’s too cruel letting us live like this.
Cringe worthy, even.
backtrack is the best thing to ever happen for Putin
Besties!! 😦
#smh
We have no leader. Or maybe worse, we have a crazy, narcissist, fruitcake leader. So anything goes. The Dem party in ’08 chose this loser over the person that won the primaries. And we’re supposed to forget that and stick with them. They’re actually dangerous.
… and evil.
Worse, we have no LOYAL OPPO in Congress grabbing him by his Unicorn tail. Instead they bash the Whacko Birds trying to stop the bleeding. And a media who keeps rolling over to have their bellies rubbed.
You know this political atmosphere is eerily similar to the state of the State of Alaska when Sarah was voted in as Gov to field dress the corruption, including her own party ?
Idiots.
It means “we don’t know what to do” is what it means. Putin is playing a very different game than Prezzy Tiddlywinks.
Russia was never, ever going to give up access to that Black Sea port. Any idiot knew that. The USA could have pressured EU to leave Ukraine alone, stop meddling. What Russia is doing was entirely predictable, and COULD have been headed off. Don’t poke the bear unless you are willing to follow through when they inevitably react. This is not rocket science. Now, if your whole goal was to cut them off, then fine. But you’d better be fucking prepared to back that up. Because Russia WILL react to that. What did the morons THINK Russia was going to do faced with prospect of losing their only Black Sea port? We have IDIOTS in office.
Russia has been invaded from West multiple times in history. She is nervous about that. I don’t blame her. But WE need to be savvy about it. Reagan understood Russia on an intuitive level. That’s why he promised Gorby that the former USSR satellites would never be allowed to join NATO (a promise that the West has now broken, multiple times.) Reagan understood that Russia needs that “buffer zone” to her west, or she’s going to go batshit aggressive. Sure as the sunrise, she will. Reagan would have NEVER been so stupid as to expand NATO and the EU to the point of making the bear feel trapped. He was smart. Maybe not in everything, but in how to play the geopolitics game re: Russia? Yes, the old geezer was savvy.
I’m not saying Russia is justified in rolling tanks to Ukraine, or landing troops. I’m saying it was entirely predictable/avoidable, for anyone who has the least freaking clue about Russia’s fears and concerns.
The worst part about Obama’s ineffectualness re Ukraine is knowing that every two-bit tinhorn despot in the world is watching and plotting his own moves.
Two weeks after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut Ronnie Raygun invaded Grenada just so nobody got any big ideas.
Yep. And he was smart enough to pick a quick, easy win to flex muscle on – not a fucking protracted quagmire. The man understood power symbols and posturing.
We may not be strong enough to take on Russia or China by ourselves, but we can pretty much bitch-slap anyone else if we need to. It really makes a difference when the rest of the world understands that we’re not gonna take any shit.
So Zero sez to Putin there’ll be a “cost” if Russia reenters Ukraine? Who knew he’d been billing Vladimir for all that red paint?
Yep. It’s open field. And this is why I can never get on board with the whole “No Superpowers” bullshit. I’d love nothing more than for that to be the way the world worked. In theory, I wish with all my heart it could work that way.
But it DOESN’T. If the Big Dawg on the world stage crawls under the porch, Big Dawgs don’t cease to exist. You just get the rest competing for who gets to be the next Big Dawg.
There is GOING TO BE a Big Dawg. The only real question is which country.
That promise was kept throughtout the Bush Senior Administration. It was broken during the Clinton Administration.
If I was Poland I would be feeling very nervous right now.
Some black conservatives on Twitter are getting attacked nonstop for talking about issues in black community. How dare they SHAME their people!
I’m beginning to view anything other than very very early abortion the same way I view torture of enemy combatants. Might it sometimes be necessary? Yes. Those rare circumstances do happen. But if you make a very broad law saying it’s legal, then pinky swear that it’s only really going to be used for extenuating, rare circumstances, people end up abusing it.
My thinking is make torture illegal with no exceptions, and if someone really believes it is necessary they should be willing to accept the punishment.
That’s my position on torture. And if it really is a doomsday scenario, you either do it and take your lumps afterward, or try to do it in secret and God save your soul.
HAHAHAHA!
backtrack to make a speech in about 15 minutes. per Fox News
Guess What??/ Prezzy giving a Speech, 🙂
Putin and his henchmen are sitting around a television, getting ready for a vodka drinking game. “He drew a red line – DRINK!”
Stole it.
http://weaselzippers.us/177396-flashback-sarah-palin-mocked-for-saying-russia-could-invade-ukraine/
Sarah was right again
stole it
My go to for gays: Gay Patriot
My go to for “I’m Not African-American, I’m a Black American” : Kevin Jackson/Blacksphere
My go to for “Every Other minority” : Souper
There, the field is level 😀 All the others are just idiots, blog pimps or OFA 😉
http://weaselzippers.us/177483-budapest-memorandum-treaty-signed-in-1994-may-commit-u-s-britain-to-defend-ukraine/
OK what will backtrack do. Honor the treaty or backtrack?
How many guesses do we get?
per backtrack…there will be costs if Russia invades Ukraine.
has anyone checked backtrack’s schedule” Does he have any fund raisers to fly to in the next couple of days?
http://weaselzippers.us/177526-obama-punts-on-ukraine-then-goes-off-to-dnc-fundraiser/
he really goes to a fundraiser. there are no words
Skunks do what skunks do. This is his talent! His full time occupation. Beg for money he really doesn’t need.
have a question. I read somewhere today that the people who took over the Crimean airports were Russian contractors. Like our use of blackwater. so is it a violation of the treaty if contractors and not troops are used? Would Putin be lying if he said no Russian troops were on the ground in Crimea?
Probably not if it is a short term thing. Apparently they apologized and left.
As far as the rest of the world is concerned, our POTUS is not much more than a “concern troll ” Putin knows what a coward he is …. Good Goddess …
Report Crimea’s main airport closed, several Russian military transport planes seen arriving – @BillNeelyNBC
Played with the coolest toy ever today. About the size of a Zippo . A computer. Projects screen onto a flat surface. Everything was beet red or black but had no problem checking email and responding. Far cry from a techie so I might be wrong but the developer told me its all cloud based. Have to connect to do anything. Goal is to make it the size of wrist watch. Lots of kinks but still cool as all hell.
Golden oldie:
The Sources of Soviet Conduct
By “X” (George F. Kennan)
From the July 1947 Issue of Foreign Affairs
Again, Reagan understood that balance, and how to deal with the Russian temperament. They are very much a face-based culture. They react badly to losing face with their people in the public eye. They also react aggressively to weakness. The trick of containment is to allow them to keep face, but never show weakness yourself.
Reagan was used to dealing with egomaniacal Hollywood studio heads. Prepared him perfectly for dealing with bullies from other places.
So I’m thinkin’ that maybe the next Obama play is that he is going to change gender and run again as a woman. He and Michelle will become the first gay couple in the White House.
Haha. Wait, that could happen. Damn.
Obviously I picked a good day to retreat into a Justified marathon.
Every day is a good day for a Justified marathon.
I’m up to ep 3 of season 5 now.
Is season 5 the last season or will there be one more?
They will go six and stop.
Oh look, Obama is ON it!
A day old but still relevant.
She mis-spelled dick.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
You definitely picked the wrong time to think about staying away from politics. Just when it’s getting funny. As in, we’re all going to die funny. Yeah, it’s drinking time…
I’m watching Braveheart. It’s from Mel Gibson’s pre-Jew-hating days.
Uncle Argyle was a badass.
He invented socks.
Good pick.
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Vladimir-Putin-The-World-s-Greatest-Fool
Putin the world’s greatest fool.
interesting article. not sure if it is whistling in the dark or true
Putin is many things but a fool isn’t one of them.
We could use a POTUS with a backbone right now.
Compare and contrast:
What a reader!
If I had enough digits, I would have cc’d this to @crawdadhole. myiq was my inspiration for this faux media war post on HRC. It was a response to Jake Tapper if that didn’t show up……
Ruh roh!
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. Or maybe those are mostly the same things. Either way, pass the popcorn.
I keep my bottles safely off to the side. I have broken too many with my head when I pass out.
These are clearly all lies. Just like all those lies about people having trouble with Obamacare. Evil FoxNews.
“CNN airing new image of Russian tanks in Ukraine”
*******
CNN, the 24/7 comedy channel….Those are Russian 122mm self propelled howitzers “Gvozdika”; leftovers from the good old Cold War days.
Todd Starnes:
off topic
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2569919/Shocking-pictures-California-drought-reveal-extent-dry-spell-relief-way.html
California drought
Those pictures aren’t shocking, they are typical.
If those views are “shocking” apparently no newsperson has ever driven past San Luis Reservoir on Hwy 152 in late November before. Or seen Don Pedro in any fall month.
Before we started building hydroelectric dams in the Sierra Nevadas it was not unusual for those rivers to flood in the Spring and then run dry by early Fall each year.
In those days about 40% of the valley was unusable because during wet season it flooded, then turned to swampland and bogs, then dried up and blew away for a couple of months until the cycle began again. The first reservoirs, except for Hetch Hetchy, were for flood relief.
Then they discovered a use for the stored water to help pay for everything, and went to high water requirement crops because they paid much better. Most farmers can adapt unless they’ve mortgaged too much – and that could be the case due to short memory syndrome.
I’ve been told this one made Twitchy:
Oh yay here it is!
congrats!
http://twitchy.com/2014/02/28/russian-troops-enter-ukraine-president-obama-and-democrats-declare-happy-hour/
http://theulstermanreport.com/2014/02/28/world-snickers-as-u-s-president-runs-around-white-house-like-a-girl/
OUCH
those little wrists have a hard time holding a drink let alone a job
No shame. Stunning.
God Damn the democrats for inflicting this useless load on this country
So they got us into this mess and now they’re getting drunk. Perfect.
Change “they” to “you” and you sound exactly like my 10th grade English teacher.
Maybe I AM your 10th grade English teacher.
Now sit up straight and finish get started on tomorrow’s essay.
Should I put my clothes back on first?
*adjusts glasses*
By all means. Otherwise one is tempted to use a steam iron.
I was getting drunk too.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/372298/krauthammers-take-obama-tells-world-we-arent-going-do-anything-about-invasion-ukraine
krauthammer on backtrack’s speech
http://weaselzippers.us/177580-ukraines-acting-head-of-state-reminds-u-s-russia-great-britain-supposed-to-be-guarantors-of-national-security-of-ukraine/
reminder
Watching Casablanca. Again.
Never seen it.
UNCULTURED HERETIC!!!!!!
{{burp}}
😀
Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!
It’s the Marseillaise!
But I dunno the words.
Or the tune.
I think it has lots of bloody-minded chopping of heads and slaughter in it.
Does it have a beat? Can you dance to it?
not sure how to make the picture show
It is really easy to get a Twitter account, and Twitter makes it super easy to post pictures.
So the NRA went to England…….
This young man did a fine job.
http://weaselzippers.us/177658-while-russian-artillery-rolls-into-ukraine-obama-takes-more-selfie-shots/
While Russian artillery rolls into Ukraine, backtrack takes more selfies
Don’t think that’s water that Obama and Biden are drinking. I’d guess it’s an afternoon vodka toast to Putin!