A contrary voice from TPM Reader IL …
Under what metric are Putin and Russia “#winning” with the invasion into Crimea? The Russian Central Bank just raised interest rates 150 bps in response to weakness in the Ruble. The Ruble is now the worst performing currency in the world this year.
More from longtime TPM Reader JB on what may be the weakness of Putin’s position …
Thanks for the Ukraine coverage. I think, after the shock of finding boots on the ground, we are now waking up to the weakness of the Russian position. Some other food for thought: Based on the 1994 Trilateral Statement by the Presidents of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States where Ukraine was to destroy all nuclear weapons on its territory, Ukraine, Washington and Moscow reached an agreement in January that allowed Kiev’s formal ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Senate candidate Steve Stockman (R-Tea Party) threatens jail to anyone who publishes his mugshot. We published it here along with the whole bizarre story. Presumably we’ll soon be in the can.
1% entering period of crisis as people with too much money prove too stupid to know what to spend it on. Today’s edition, Twitter has purchased two 19th century Log Cabins from Montana and plans to install them in its San Francisco headquarters to serve as dining halls. Because, something.
(The following is the first in a series of guest posts on the on-going crisis in Ukraine.)
NATO Ambassadors will meet tomorrow for the second time in 48 hours, this time at the request of Poland, which invoked Article 4 of the NATO Treaty in order to convene the meeting. What does this mean? And what should the 28 NATO Allies decide to do?
The UN Security Council is currently meeting and Russian Ambassador Churkin read what he claimed was a letter from deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych okaying and arguably authorizing the Russian occupation of Crimea. (More information here.) To the best of my knowledge, we have not seen Yanukovych saying that publicly. The last we saw him on TV he denounced his ouster, said it was illegitimate (and of course fled into Russia) but, I believe, said clearly that Russian military involvement would not be acceptable.
I would strongly assume that if the Russians could get him on camera to say that they would.
I’m not sure I’d make too much of this yet. Perhaps we’ll see him shortly. Perhaps my information is out of date and he has appeared in public to say this. If so, please let me know.
Jon Stewart tells Putin: Olympic Gold doesn’t justify invading Ukraine. Watch.
I’ll believe Texas Dems are ready to turn the state blue when they get focused enough on Senate races to stop LaRouchies from sneaking in and grabbing their nominations.
If you follow the anti-gay, anti-marriage equality movement in its now rearguard fight against changing laws and norms across the country you’ll know they’ve been making a lot of hay about a study by University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus purporting to show that the children of same sex relationships experience more key social and life challenges. But on the stand in a trial in Detroit yesterday he was forced to concede some pretty major defects in his study. Actually unbelievably major, like no apparent effort to control for stable heterosexual couples versus broken homes where the mother or father ended up in a same sex relationship.
While it seems pretty unlikely that Congress will actually go through the work of passing a real budget this year, Sahil Kapur highlights how Paul Ryan is in a bit of a bind in his role as the GOP’s budget whiz kid — even slamming anti-poverty programs and claiming they’ve increased the poverty rate.