The German hospital treating Alexei Navalny says that he was poisoned by a cholinesterase inhibitor. That’s a poison in the same family as nerve agents, but not necessarily a nerve agent. Some insecticides have the same characteristic, and there are other compounds as well. Identifying exactly which it is may be difficult after the time that has elapsed since he was poisoned.
The good news is that they say he is in a medically-induced coma and likely to survive. But cholinesterase inhibitors can damage the body in multiple ways, and nobody knows what damage he will sustain.
So it’s likely another poisoning by the Russian government. Their use of poison seems bizarre, but it’s a reminder to people that the government can reach down very personally to people it doesn’t like.
The German government is speaking clearly, quickly, and firmly about Kremlin's responsibility to mount serious investigation of the Navalny poisoning. Will the Trump administration (finally) come out of hiding on this issue? https://t.co/lM8TjkvJXM
— Andrew S. Weiss (@andrewsweiss) August 24, 2020
Some wonkier bits:
Biomedical verification of nerve agent exposure in one poster #Navalny:https://t.co/sjoCz8CsCM pic.twitter.com/t1rcFz37ru
— Marc-Michael Blum (@blumscientific) August 24, 2020
Well. It may very well have been a nerve agent of some description that got Navalny. In which case, Omsk was negligent and should've picked up on it. Could be any one of a number of organophosphate or carbamate compounds, not just the military agents. https://t.co/JUkDdgCWgD
— Dan Kaszeta (@DanKaszeta) August 24, 2020
Open thread!
Martin
“Can we do that?”
Another Scott
I’m shocked, shocked.
:-/
Vlad is more than happy that the Germans found out it was poison – as everyone suspected. He will now have Lavrov put on his Grand Indignation face and go to the press and deny it all and demand to see the evidence, as he always does. And people in Russia (and elsewhere) who are demanding their civil and political rights will, yet again, spend time worrying and wondering if they’re next.
Mission accomplished. :-(
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
West of the Cascades
I’m expecting the Trump administration to announce that cholinesterase inhibitors are a promising, possibly revolutionary, treatment for Covid-19.
Gin & Tonic
“Omsk was negligent”? Looking at this Kaszeta’s CV, it certainly seems like he should know the score. I’m sure the medical staff didn’t want to be next in line for a cup of tea or a quick smoke on their 5-th floor balcony.
Ruckus
@Martin:
The Kremlin does one person at a time as a warning that they can do worse.
shitforbrains would want to do it to every person of color at once. Which seems what his COVID treatment plan is.
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: I’m surprised that he was allowed to leave the country, but as Scott at 2 said maybe it was deny and scare. Now his puppet will say, Putin denied it.
NotMax
“Coffee, tea or Round-up?”
//
Sloane Ranger
Open thread, so posting to ask why the hell Trump is fouling up my TV screen now? I turn to CNN to see what’s happening across the Pond, only to be faced with the Orange One in full flow.
It’s 6pm here so what time is it over there? I have to miss the live Dem Convention because of the time difference but I’m going to be afflicted with the Repuke one? Not cricket!
Roger Moore
@JPL:
My question is whether he’ll be allowed back when/if he recovers.
Ken
@Sloane Ranger: 6 PM British Summer Time, you mean? That’s 1 PM US Eastern Daylight Time, or 1837 Republican Time.
MattF
Fairly recent book by Joshua Yaffa about living in PutinLand. Not difficult, if you give up self-respect, etc.
Geoboy
“The German government is speaking clearly, quickly, and firmly about Kremlin’s responsibility to mount serious investigation of the Navalny poisoning. Will the Trump administration (finally) come out of hiding on this issue?” Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha….oh, you were serious? No. This has been another episode of SATSQ.
jl
Is it related to oleandrin? Just some covid-19 therapy research?
Maybe Trump will have a talk with Putin, and start touting it at the RNC convention. Deep state FDA and scientists smearing new Russian miracle cure. If you make Putin look bad, it’s disrespecting Trump.
MattF
@Roger Moore: Won’t matter much if he’s crippled. Putin & Co. wanted the information to get out, from a believeable source. So, no more tea, stay away from windows, balconies and elevator shafts.
jl
@MattF: It’s just a social distancing incentive, then?
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
I get the joke, but Round-up is an herbicide and nominally harmless, while the cholinesterase inhibitors are used as insecticides. There have been some suits claiming Round-up causes cancer, but the reason it was a big commercial success is because it didn’t have any obvious acute effects on humans even at quite high doses. In contrast, none of the cholinesterase inhibitors is really safe. Some of them are called insecticides because they’re a lot more dangerous to insects than to humans, but they will kill people if they get too much.
NotMax
@Geoboy
The only statement we’re likely to get: “Poisoners? Some of them are good people.”
//
bluefoot
The administration still hasn’t commented or acted with regards to the Russian bounties on American soldiers. I don’t expect any response for this.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Hey, the US has tried to kill people sometimes, so can we really criticize?
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Aware of the difference but for the sake of the quip went with what it is, as felt that ‘Coffee, tea or DDT?’ might not resonate with the young’uns.
jl
@Roger Moore: Trump doesn’t like the critics, so he can work the categorical imperative in there somehow using Trumpster logic, which the most terrific, top, logic, something like the world has never seen before.
Villago Delenda Est
Doctors in Omsk were lying.
Cheryl Rofer
And I think he’s scheduled for prime time too?
MattF
@Roger Moore: There was a chemical spray we used to keep around the house– the medical use was for spot-freezing kitchen burns– but it had the added feature that it would dissolve insect exoskeletons. Always reminded me of the old line about Kurt Waldheim, that his spinelessness wasn’t a problem because he had an exoskeleton
ETA: Ethyl chloride?
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
And, “Coffee, Tea, Chlorpyrifos?” just doesn’t roll off the tongue.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cheryl Rofer: What? Donald is lying? Say it isn’t so!
Sloane Ranger
@Ken: Not exactly prime time then!
evodevo
@Roger Moore: One of my dogs – a large one – started to show symptoms of organophosphate poisoning just by walking through some spilled Sevin powder…it doesn’t take much. (probably licked her paws)
“Sugar in your tea, comrade?”
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer: They just now noticed his limited range of tone?
Ken
@Villago Delenda Est: Is there any scientific consensus on whether someone who does not understand the concept of “truth” can ever be said to be lying?
Ken
@Barbara: That’s the morning meds, by this evening he’ll be on the ones that make him much more animated.
Roger Moore
@Ken:
This is a philosophical question, not a scientific one.
Jeffro
We’re apparently going to need a Falwell Jr thread.
That nutty swinger… 0_0
Ken
@Roger Moore: Ah, and there’s no philosophical consensus on anything, so I guess we’ll never know.
Perhaps there’s a legal consensus on whether such persons can be convicted of perjury?
NotMax
@Jeffro
Vote no, thanks.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT – It’s official – the Falwells are hotwifing. Jerry sits in a corner.
To each their own, but damn, don’t be a moralistic scold if you’re into the funky stuff.
I’ll add – it takes a special kind of little bitch to publicly toss your wife under the bus when you were part of the deal. I say she files the big D before September is out just because of it – he could have simply slinked off quietly.
Ken
I think they’re hoping for something like Inception‘s immensely-slowed-down use of “Non, je ne Regrette Rien,” where after five years of the first tone it shifts to the next one.
JPL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The only thing that was missing, was Jerry smoking a cigarette while watching.
NotMax
OT.
The closed captioning on the documentary currently playing in the background suffering an apparent nervous breakdown (or else sending out coded messages).
Dialogue: “Earth. Blue planet.”
CC: “Way. Blue booth.”
MattF
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Being a moralistic scold is an element of the paraphilia.
Another Scott
@MattF: Yikes!
I’m reminded of an old saw – “When do meat tenderizers stop working?” :-/
Apparently it’s used in lessons for patent attorneys…
https://www.hdp.com/blog/2016/10/01/when-does-meat-tenderizer-stop-working/
(I did not know that!)
Cheers,
Scott.
mad citizen
@MattF: Thanks for the book recommendation–just put it on hold at my library. I’ve always wondered why the Russian people don’t overthrow Putin, and can only conclude that they simply don’t want to. They like things the way they are. (Written from ignorance, so anyone correct and add as always. I tend to look at this from the lens of the Wizard’s speech in Taxi Driver: “Wizard : Look at it this way. A man takes a job, you know? And that job – I mean, like that – That becomes what he is. You know, like – You do a thing and that’s what you are. Like I’ve been a cabbie for thirteen years. Ten years at night. I still don’t own my own cab. You know why? Because I don’t want to. That must be what I want. To be on the night shift drivin’ somebody else’s cab. You understand? I mean, you become – You get a job, you become the job. One guy lives in Brooklyn. One guy lives in Sutton Place. You got a lawyer. Another guy’s a doctor. Another guy dies. Another guy gets well. People are born, y’know? I envy you, your youth. Go on, get laid, get drunk. Do anything. You got no choice, anyway. I mean, we’re all fucked. More or less, ya know.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jeffro:
There’s a closed-down Shoe Carnival’s worth of inventory out there waiting to hit the floor on that dude. I mean, the lady simply wanted decent dick that could go “bang” more than once a night before going to snoresville (and maybe somebody who could find a clitoris and was interested in it). She’s an attractive woman, repressed by evangelical upbringing. Am guessing Ol’ Jer figured out what she was doing and wanted in, and the whole thing spun out of control.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@JPL:
Thanksgiving at the Falwells promises to be awkward.
“Mom, I see that you spit roasted the turkey. Bring back any memories?”
mad citizen
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Man, this is wild. That last picture gets me–the press need to ask Pence for his thoughts about all of this. Will he deny knowing Falwell very well, or say it’s a private matter, blah blah blah?
Roger Moore
@Ken:
I think the law cares only that the statements are untrue and material.
Gravenstone
@NotMax: So the captions are appealing to the Doctor to help?
NotMax
@Gravenstone
Inopportune, programming-wise, because…
…Who’s on first.
:)
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: You’re going straight to Hell for that one.
Jay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
generally, the observed kink is the Partner controlling the encounters.
In a healthy relationship it is often fully consented, but I highly doubt that given their professions of faith and the tenets that promote, that the Fawell’s have equality in their relationship.
Remember the Manifort’s?
Hoodie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I could care less how Jerry gets his kicks, the more interesting part is that Trump’s people may have known and blackmailed him to get him to throw his support behind Trump. It’s cons all the way down – Bannon punking the xenophobes, Falwell conning the evangelicals. I think a lot of the “he’s a businessman” types now realize Trump can’t find his ass with both hands, so he’s managed a trifecta. Not surprising from a guy who could somehow go bankrupt running a casino.
Subsole
@NotMax: What does wrestling have to do with caffeinated beverages???
catclub
1. Those guys will STILL say that only Trump in power can save the economy – he’s a businessman – while Biden will collapse it. They are still sold.
Also, the casinos went bankrupt, the rubes lost everything, but Trump was not bankrupted.
Subsole
@Cheryl Rofer: If the tone doesn’t change???
Oh, son…
catclub
So how many lying cops have been convicted of perjury?
LuciaMia
So, how do they refute the fact that the economy was consistently good under Obama/Biden. Just 8years of random good luck?
Roger Moore
@Hoodie:
I don’t particularly mind how someone else gets their kicks. I do mind when someone sets himself up as a moral authority while doing all kinds of stuff they tell everyone else not to do. And yeah, the blackmail is an issue.
MoxieM
I can’t help noticing that Becki is wearing the special “flames of Hell” shirt in those pictures. Is she telegraphing a message to us? And what are the odds that she dots the ‘i’ in her name with a circle, heart, or cross?
Jay
@catclub:
Dumph’s pattern was to shift to a minority or paper stake in the various Dumph branded businesses that later declared Bankruptcy, leaving the others, ( Partners, Shareholders, Lenders, Employees, Creditors) to take the losses,
Often on the basis of inflated assets and understated liabilities and losses.
Basically, Fraud.
HehHeh
Maybe ol’ Vladdy is simply reminding Donny that this is what happens to people who don’t “play along”…(nudge-nudge, wink-wink)… .
Barbara
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It appears that the “pool boy” has receipts. I have learned through my kids that you do not fuck with digital natives about this kind of stuff.
catclub
She is also a high level ‘Women for trump’ officer, or somesuch. But I bet she will be underbussed far more than her soon to be ex-husband.
NotMax
@catclub
Underbused.
She’s already reportedly been underbussed.
;)
catclub
@LuciaMia: They will tell you with a straight face that the economy was a smoking ruin in 2016.
[There was actually a not very obvious slight recession or near recession in 2016 – which probably affected voters.]
MattF
@Jay: Speaking of which, NY is acting against the Trump Organization.
RaflW
@Martin: Mike Pompeo has a very important Christian dominionist speech to record on a rooftop in Jerusalem. So, no, we won’t be responding to Putin.
Roger Moore
@LuciaMia:
They will deny the claim. And the truth is the economy wasn’t consistently good under Obama. It showed slow but reasonably steady improvement, but that was moving from really terrible to mostly OK. We were never particularly close to full employment under Obama, and most of the improvement was in the form of people getting jobs, rather than improvements for the people who had jobs.
Now this doesn’t necessarily say anything bad about the economic policy of the Obama years. It makes more sense to judge an administration based on the degree of improvement, not on the absolute level the economy achieved, and by that measure Obama did well. We could have done better with more aggressive fiscal policy, but that was Congress’s fault, not Obama’s. And obviously, Trump has done far, far worse on the economy than Obama did.
Jay
@catclub:
the Colonialist White Supremacy Justice System is built on the basis of the Slave Catchers freedom to lie, the DA’s freedom to lie, and the Slave Owners sitting as judge and jury willingness to accept blatant lies as truth and fact.
pamelabrown53
@JPL:
No, the only thing missing was Jerry participating.
Subsole
@LuciaMia: Mostly they say he was coasting off previous Republucan frugality while also claiming the economy sucked worse than it ever has or will under his tenure.
These folks blame Obama for Katrina – logic don’t factor into it.
PJ
@Hoodie: Josh Marshall has also reached the conclusion that Trump had photos and blackmailed Jerry Falwell Jr.: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-owned-jerry-and-jerry-knew-it (behind a paywall, sorry). Also, Jerry Jr. will have some big problems with fraudulently inducing Liberty U. to pay off the pool boy and trainer.
I am also wondering if an extorted endorsement for President can constitute an illegal campaign contribution.
RaflW
@Cheryl Rofer: Only way Trump’s tone changes is if he’s high on a different drug this evening that he was on at mid day.
(emphasis added)
And really, it would be sort of perfect if in prime time he delivers one of his absolutely terrible, monotone and struggling thorazine-seeming teleprompter snoozefests.
MisterForkbeard
@Cheryl Rofer: Gotta love that they’re STILL pushing ‘tone’ as the problem.
No, assholes! It’s everything Trump does, not just how he says it. Lying about ballot boxes, treason and everything is not a tone problem, it is a huge substance and character problem. It has direct negative effects on our nation.
Ken
@MattF: And Eric Trump has said that he won’t be complying, invoking the 5th amendment. Which can only be applied if his testimony would reveal criminal acts….
(Sources: David Fahrenthold, citing Washington Post)
Roger Moore
@PJ:
I don’t know if it’s an illegal contribution, but the extortion required to get it would obviously be illegal. The problem is it will be hard to prosecute without Falwell’s cooperation, and it’s going to be very hard to get.
Subsole
@catclub: Yep. The sad part of all this is that they will forgive the utter hypocrisy of the cuckening. But if she divorces him?
If she divorces him, he will be an emasculated half-man, incapable of keeping a firm reign on his property. That will destroy him in those circles. Not his utter sanctimony, hypocrisy or other lack of character, but his wife claiming her due.
RaflW
@Ken: Speaking of stimulants that accelerate speech, I assume Jr’s dealer has backed a semi up to the arena.
Martin
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Also sets you up nicely to be blackmailed by the guy running to be President of the US.
Speaking of which, anyone heard from Lindsay recently?
Martin
@PJ: Wonder if Cohen has already added an addendum to the new book.
PJ
@Martin: I was surprised to see that Lindsay is not a scheduled speaker at the Republican Convention, given how much of a staunch defender of Trump he is.
Jay
@catclub:
btw, according to witnesses, Blake was the one who successfully deescalated the “domestic disturbance” disturbance, between the two women, which was done and over with, and when the Cops showed up, they targeted Blake, aggressively confronted him, along with physical assault.
And his three kids were in the Van, just feet away when they shot him in the back.
PJ
@Martin: If he didn’t already tell the feds about it, I doubt it. There was supposedly a lot of stuff Cohen refused to give up, supposedly regarding the Russian mob, but I wonder if there were other crimes he committed on behalf of Trump that he omitted.
RaflW
@Roger Moore: Besides of course the Covid infections at Liberty, there are probably quite a few students that are wondering why exactly they had to sign onto a code of conduct.
Other of the Liberty students will probably just be shouting ‘Satan got the liberals to destroy Jerry’ or some other such gibberish.
Ken
We’ll have to hope that he’s not overcome by the history and significance of the city. Or is he giving the speech because he’s already succumbed?
Jay
@Subsole:
I doubt that she will divorce him, He will probably divorce her, which is fine, good and manly in their circles and flocks of sheep.
RaflW
@PJ: Lindsey is a fallen, sad and terrible man. But he also still understands electoral politics. He can grandstand and preen on the Fox shows the next four nights, but he knows actually appearing at the RNC would help Jaime Harrison.
Subsole
@Jay: Yep. Used goods, doncha know.
PJ
@RaflW: You are probably right about this, given the closeness of the race there.
I wonder, if Graham loses, if he will try to regain a bit of his soul and start spilling the beans. That would mean losing out on the wingnut gravy train, so probably not.
Ken
@RaflW: Harrison should be asking whether Graham supports the just-announced Republican non-platform of “Do whatever Donald Trump wants”.
It probably wouldn’t hurt to note that, by not adopting a platform they have technically dropped the plank about banning abortion. “For the first time in X years, under Donald Trump, the Republican platform does not call for an abortion ban. Why?” Run that with images of headlines about Trump paying off pornstars with whom he’s had affairs and let the voters jump to whatever conclusions they want.
Hoodie
@catclub: Actually, banks and relatively sophisticated contractors, not rubes, took it in the shorts when the casinos went bankrupt. Trump’s skill seems to be convincing relatively sophisticated people that his “unconventional” approaches will deliver, and he reinforces this by marketing himself as ostentatiously and unapologetically wealthy and anti-elite. I was listening to an interview with Michael Steele and, though he is purely in denial about the racist nature of the GOP, he does have some insights as to why Trump appeals even to relatively successful and intelligent people. He takes advantage of fantasies of obscene levels of affluence and a caricature that liberals and other sophisticates look down on people aspiring to such wealth because they think they’re stupid. Frankly, a lot of liberals fall into that trap in terms of rhetoric. Trump takes advantage of that resentment and indoctrinated beliefs that unimaginable success is being stymied simply by tree-huggers, liberal mommy-statism, etc., when reality is actually the biggest obstacle to their fantasies.
A lot of the “he’s a businessman!” types are being killed by his rank incompetence in handling the pandemic, which is exhibit one that he’s not a management genius. Trump’s strategy amounts to do nothing while a half-million people die and, if you can get everyone to ignore that, the economy will recover. That’s about as likely to succeed as building 4 casinos in a shithole like Atlantic City.
Yes, there still will be many true believers who will still hang with him. However, the Falwell story is interesting because it’s another aspect of the Trump con. It looks that he used knowledge of Jerry’s foibles to help secure the evangelical vote and it will be interesting to see if there is blowback, such as some softening of evangelical support.
PJ
@Hoodie: Often marks refuse to believe they have been conned, and continue to support the con, because admitting that would be admitting to themselves that they had been fooled.
ETA: Evangelicals have had all the evidence in the world that Trump is a malevolent, unchristian con man, and they have supported him this far, so I don’t think the details of Falwell being extorted would bother them. It doesn’t mean that Trump isn’t still God’s instrument.
RaflW
@PJ: I think his desperation belies his knowledge that, when the large swathe of Republican elites who’ve studiously stayed c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶i̶c̶i̶t̶ silent begin their public repetitional rehab, he’s toast.
So a bit like Trump, Linds needs him to stay on office to avoid consequences.
Jay
@Hoodie:
Dumph’s “skill” used to be reading the bottom line, then using fraudulent financial statements to “sell out” his majority stake to others, leaving everybody else holding the bag when things collapsed.
Quitting while ahead and conning others were Dumph’s two big skills.
catclub
@NotMax: touche’ but not where I wanted to be touche’d
Aleta
From the press release by Charité (where he’s being treated in Berlin)
The link given by Dan Kaszeta above goes to max seddon on twitter:
Aleta
@Aleta: Treatment with atropine doesn’t mean a weapons-grade nerve agent was definitely used. It’s a treatment for organophosphorus poisoning which can result from certain insecticides as well as some nerve agents like sarin. (Atropine is used to treat certain kinds of mushroom poisoning too.)