Oh No, Russia Just Sanctioned Hillary Clinton, Whatever Will She Do
No more Siberian beach vacays for you, Madam Secretary!
This afternoon President Joe Biden announced $800 million in new aid to Ukraine, which as CNN notes brings us up to a grand total of a full bill announced this week. There will be more Stinger missiles, more Javelins, more of what Ukraine needs. There will also be armed drones and 20 million rounds of ammo and a whole bunch of other shit. It won't be the no-fly zone or the fighter jets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is begging for, but it's more. There may be more help coming with the S-300 anti-aircraft systems Zelenskyy wants, which NATO allies in Eastern Europes have. But that's still unclear.
Meanwhile, the European Union has announced a whole new passel of sanctions, involving Russian energy investments, luxury exports, steel imports and more.
But did you know Vladimir Putin can also too do sanctions, and just totally did? Guess who's crying now!
I want to thank the Russian Academy for this Lifetime Achievement Award.https: //twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1503744554444505093 …
— Hillary Clinton (@Hillary Clinton) 1647357579
As the original tweeter points out, all of these people are now banned from using their very valuable Russian bank accounts or their Siberian beach resorts. These restrictions could make it more difficult next time Hillary tries to do a false-flag Russian collusion to steal an election from herself.
The list is pretty hilarious, though. It's not just Hillary plus Joe Biden and other members of his administration. It's also Hunter Biden, because we guess Russia watches too much Fox News (or whatever clips of Fox News their media is playing 24/7 ), therefore the powers that be in the Kremlin are under the mistaken impression that Hunter Biden is some big important guy in America.
Good luck scoring deal on new laptop from Leonid's House Of Laptops, Hunter! Thriving Russian retail market closed to you!
The Russian Foreign Ministry whined in a statement that it had to do these sanctions because the White House is being "extremely Russophobic" lately, we guess by not being OK with Russia indiscriminately murdering Ukrainian babies. And they say they're gonna do some more sanctions! Oh no, will all our Russian credit cards stop working? Will we even be allowed to buy sexxxy Russian cars?
The Biden White House responded to the sanctions by laughing at them:
“I’d first note that President Biden is a ‘junior,’ so they may have sanctioned his dad, may he rest in peace,” [press secretary Jen] Psaki said.
Shit.
“None of us are planning tourist trips to Russia and none of us have bank accounts we won’t be able to access, so we will forge ahead.”
We are trying to come up with an American this might upset and all we can come up with is "maybe Donald Trump?" We dunno, does Michael Flynn have a free checking account at Sberbank? We're just asking.
The Washington Post attempts to contextualize this, explaining that "The probably ineffectual nature of the Russian sanctions underscores," but we're just going to cut off that sentence in the middle, because what it underscores is that Russia isn't a real country. The entire nation is a Potemkin village, a gas station with its own zip code. Literally just now on MSNBC they noted that the Russian stock market hasn't even opened in the past three weeks.
That's why everybody is laughing at these sanctions.
As the old expression, goes, if Russia sanctions a bear in the woods, does the bear even notice, or does it just keep shitting next to the tree that just fell on the pope?
That's what we thought.
OPEN THREAD.
[ Washington Post ]
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Delayed reply, sorry.
A. I don't think the standard for a SC justice is managing to avoid criminal conviction.
B. The exact same thing that was gained by impeaching Trump. Putting a huge spotlight on his misconduct, documenting the misconduct for posterity and forcing the GOP to openly embrace it. The shadow over Thomas-era rulings might also give some ammunition for a future court to ignore bad precedents currently being set. Increased pressure also might result in Thomas recusing where he wouldn't if everyone just goes "meh~"
C. By the same token, why should anyone who isn't a Democrat take stock in any Democrat? Ironically, as a party, it often seems Democrats put more stock in what the mythical middle-American independent wants than they do their own base.
But I don't see it as partisan. I think legislature, led by any party, should impeach his ass. But we've only got Democrats and Republicans ... and the Republicans sure aren't going to do it.
The reason this is coming up is because Ginni Thomas is in the news doubling-down on the shady ass crap, the team's bad behavior has escalated. The reason people are venting towards Pelosi is because she is the person with the power to get an investigation that might lead to impeachment rolling. It's not like it would make sense to go bitching at AOC.
The thing that strikes me is how quickly everyone circled the wagons around minimizing the full-on fucked up shit Thomas is doing ... basically to knee-jerk protect Pelosi from a bit of negative pressure/criticism that (rightfully) goes with her position.
I mean, seriously. Take this guy going over the top at Pelosi out of the equation for a second.
Thomas is a fucked-up GOP stooge ruling on cases his wife is raising money to send to his court. Not to put too fine a point on it ... but she's setting up cases on stuff like voting rights, redistricting, and abortion access. Turns out, not only Democrats/progressives care about those things.
An investigation (which is always the first step to anything) doesn't feel like a *crazy* thing for someone to push for to me. It's not my crusade at the moment ... but it rightfully should happen.
I’ve been screaming about the Thomases for many years now. I’ve called for impeachment til I was hoarse. Their behavior is criminal, and surely not befitting a SC Justice.
That said, this new rush has just been sounding like more of an accusation of failure towards Pelosi rather than a condemnation of Thomas, and that sets my ratfucking antennae all atingle. Astroturfed outrage to sow dissent on the left if no impeachment comes, and if it does, to make it a rallying cry for the right. Ginni being marginally more brazen about her corruption just doesn’t strike me as a sea change that moves this to the forefront as an issue. It feels like it’s being driven by those whose interests do not align with the Democrats.
As to your particulars,
A. As I said before, impeachment is a political rather than a judicial solution. While it might be nice if it were different, I’m pretty sure a Justice can retain their seat even if they are convicted of a crime. In many ways, impeachment is a considerably higher bar.
B. A large part of impeaching Trump was to keep him from being re-elected. This is not a factor for Thomas. The GOP embracing him might be more feature than bug for them. They’d spin the hell out of it, and the media would play it as a witch hunt. This, again, is even assuming there is quantifiable proof of misconduct. Yeah, we all know it, but if it ain’t on paper, it’s not much good. As to recusal, I have to laugh. There’s no way in hell he’d change his behavior one iota when he knows full well he won’t be convicted.
Not quite sure what C means.
Again, I’ve been yelling my head off about this for a long time. The timing and flavor of the escalation just gives me pause.
Launch an investigation? Please! Well worth the price of admission there. Tar and feather Pelosi for not having attempted a futile gesture? Color me skeptical.