Maria Butina, Running For Russian Parliament, Is Accused Of Being US Agent https://t.co/uQjKurfO3H via @TPM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 18, 2021
Russia is wrapping up its national elections, about which I have not posted because, frankly, there’s enough depressing news on my remit already.
So here’s a space for y’all to vent, about that or anything else.
Baud
I wonder if Putin will win.
Chetan Murthy
@Baud: ROFL!
mdblanche
@Baud: I suppose there’s a chance.
VOR
The idea that Butina is now a US agent is definitely a reflection in a fun house mirror.
banditqueen
WaPo reports that Putin’s party will maintain its death grip. Also, Google and Apple declare another victory for Putin with zero precincts reporting and no opponents running against Putin this time. barf emoji
Starfish
If she and Elizabeth Holmes were only born ten years later and could have chosen “influencer” as a career over “aspire to greatness through criminality.”
trollhattan
This seems on point.
“Laggards!” They should try harder.
prostratedragon
Back and forth, back and forth.
Ken
@VOR: Maybe it’s an attempt to rehabilitate her reputation so that she can resume her attempts to influence American conservatives.
To which some might respond, “They’d have to be idiots to — oh.”
MomSense
@trollhattan:
Wait what? That was his answer? Did Tapper follow up or did he just leave it there?
Baud
@trollhattan:
Who has the 1st?
Chetan Murthy
@Ken: IIUC, the reason she was judged to be a “foreign agent” was that she got donations (heh) from the Overstock CEO guy. And had some foreign investments. If anything, it’s a reason to think that the Overstock CEO guy is a Russkie stooge.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@trollhattan: “Unfortunately”? Does he mean that MS would be first but the death are lagging?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: I think Molly Ivins used to propose as the state motto of Texas, ‘At least we’re not Mississippi!’. Maybe Tater can campaign on “Better Than Alabama!”
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Meaning that no matter the number of deaths, Biden forcing vaccines on Americans is far more heinous. //
Ken
@Baud: According to the NYT interactive pages, Peru at 612 per 100K population. statista.com agrees, but that may only mean they’re running from the same data.
hells littlest angel
@MomSense: Tapper followed up repeatedly until he gave up in undisguised disgust. He did TateR no favors.
Butina won her election — to a district hundreds of miles from her home. Now she can fight for gun rights for Russians!
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think the governor means that cases have started going down, but deaths lag cases by a couple of weeks.
Someone should have told him that six weeks ago, when cases started going up. (Narrator: Someone did.)
Chetan Murthy
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I had two thoughts:
I don’t give him credit for thinking up #2, but even if he did, it doesn’t really answer the question of why they allowed the situation to get so awful in the first place.
Honestly, I think it’s all #1. bafflegab and bullshit.
VOR
@Ken: Wikipedia points to an AP article saying her Republican target got a pardon from Trump on his way out the door. Hadn’t known that.
scav
@trollhattan: Finally, Mississippi finds its event where it shines international GOLD! If it just wasn’t for those meddlesome lagging statistics, it’d already be on that podium . . . .
Omnes Omnibus
@Starfish: People on the cutting edge seldom get the credit.
dr. bloor
I wonder if Butina is familiar with Al Stewart’s “Road to Moscow?”
Baud
I posted this LGM link below, but it fits here since we’re talking about low vax rates.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
For those like me who need a daily lava fix, here is the volcano report for today:
Volcano on La Palma, in the Canary Islands is erupting for the first time in 50 years. Live stream web cam
Iceland volcano paused or stopped again, but here is spectacular drone footage of the canyon the lava flow left behind from Traveller in the whole world.
zhena gogolia
Using up another of my Guardian hits to post this. Liberal candidate in St. Petersburg gets two rivals who have changed their names to his, and also changed their appearances to look like him.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/06/three-near-identical-boris-vishnevskys-on-st-petersburg-election-ballot
WaterGirl
@MomSense: My money is on no followup from Jake Tapper.
@hells littlest angel: Wow, color me surprised!
zhena gogolia
@banditqueen: Nice of Apple to help Putin by removing Navalny’s app.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I don’t think he’s on the ballot this time.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I don’t expect much from Google anymore, but I do expect better than that from Apple. What the fuck are they thinking?
Mike in NC
It was Putin who inspired our very own Kremlin stooge to try to install himself as unelected dictator-for-life. Putin is obviously not like Trump in the lazy, stupid, and incompetent department.
VOR
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): there is a theory that volcano is unstable and half of it could just slide into the ocean. The resulting tsunami would hit the US East coast as a 50 meter wall of water. So the eruption bears watching.
Starfish
@Baud: The preamble for this was so close and so far away. Every time anyone tries to unionize anything in the South, some company pours salt into the wound of the racial resentment that is never discussed openly between the races.
All of these states are also right to work states so all of the union busting will happen.
I hope that the Amazon union thing in Bessemer, AL gets voted on again even though I am not optimistic.
Ruckus
@VOR:
Let’s see, trump is protecting his Russian assets, the ones from Russia who actual worked for Russia.
Does that make him a Russian asset? I think it might. Not that this would bother any of his supporters…
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Certain types of conservatives are mentally “stuck.” They insist on holding onto an extreme belief in “individual liberty” and “personal responsibility” even if it leads to disaster for other people, or even themselves.
People like the Kochs, Murdoch, Trump, etc, helped set this madness in motion, but they can’t stop the madness or redirect it.
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
The government threatened to imprison Apple employees. What was Apple supposed to do?
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@VOR: I knew about the Azores potentially casing an Atlantic tsunami, but I didn’t know this one had the potential too.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator:
They claim they can resist government pressure. Apparently not.
https://www.vox.com/recode/22680010/russia-apple-app-store-smart-voting-monopoly
Another Scott
@Brachiator: They could let people “side-load” apps that are banned in certain places, by letting people bypass the AppStore. But they want complete control (for good and bad reasons) so they get tarred (for some good reasons) when they take actions that help repressive regimes.
Apple could change their policies anytime they want…
Cheers,
Scott.
karen marie
@trollhattan: I’ve got no fucks to give for Tapper. What was the point of having Reese on? It certainly wasn’t to better inform the public. The only reason for that bullshit performance was clickbait.
Tapper can get stuffed along with Chuck Todd
@Chetan Murthy: Which is why Tapper had him on as a guest. Tapper isn’t doing anyone any favors here.
Starfish
@Brachiator: “Individual liberty” unless you want to unionize or have an abortion. Then, the answer is “no.”
Baud
@Another Scott:
Google got tarred more and they allow side loading.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I doubt it is that simple.
And the government could take the next step and outlaw all Apple products.
sdhays
@VOR: They’re saying it will collapse in the next few thousand years. Not likely in the next few weeks, at least according to the BBC:
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: People are really no good, are they?
Starfish
@Brachiator: It really is that simple.
Apple’s app store is locked down tight. The legitimate part of this is that apps go through a review process to make sure they are not dangerous. The illegitimate part of this is that the app store that Apple has created is a monopoly where they get a significant chunk of any money made through the sale of an app or through any in-app sales.
Okay, some judge said they were not a monopoly, but any business that makes its money selling an app can easily be blown up by Apple saying “Hey, your app can’t be in the app store anymore.”
zhena gogolia
@prostratedragon: Really not much.
Sure Lurkalot
@karen marie: Correctamundo. I haven’t watched the Sunday shows in over a decade but I think it was Aron Rupar’s Twitter feed that noted that Fuck Turd had all Republicans on AGAIN this week. And I’m with you, what’s the point? Weeks of throwing softballs to these jokers and one or two instances of a real interview for which they expect and unfortunately get lavish praise.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
I saw that this morning. Crazy!
NotMax
How did I miss this until just the other day?
;)
Steeplejack (phone)
@Ruckus:
Now that Russia is identified as a white Christian nation ? it’s all good. Better than the godless Demoncrats!
eddie blake
this bullshit framing had me seething. posted two days before insurrection 2: q-anon boogaloo.
it’s the democrats escalating attacks on the poor, helpless gop snowflakes who tried to (checks notes) overthrow the government a mere nine months ago.
i mean, FFS.
do BETTER, wapo.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-recall-strategy/2021/09/15/22115ef4-1634-11ec-a5e5-ceecb895922f_story.html
zhena gogolia
Okay, the mountain has moved. I’m halfway through a bullshit story in the NYT in which Briahna Joy Gray is given a platform to criticize Ocasio-Cortez for going to the Met Gala but also for her betrayal of the socialist cause.
Viva Ocasio-Cortez! F–k Briahna Joy Gray!
Mike in NC
@dr. bloor: I’m very happy to have had a sudden craving for vintage Al Stewart and asking Alexa to play some.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Brachiator:
On TV Kay Ivey looks like Aunt Bee on meth.
zhena gogolia
@eddie blake: WaPo is going downhill fast.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Is it possible to not like both? and NYT too?
Booger
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Steeplejack (phone): In person Kay Ivey looks like Aunt Bee on cheap vodka.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: The article criticizes Ocasio-Cortez precisely for doing the things we think she should be doing — getting with the Dems’ program. So in this case, I’ll take her side.
eddie blake
@zhena gogolia: SERIOUSLY.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
Welcome to the revolution, comrade sister! (Or should that be sister comrade?)
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Pfui. Common gossip that Aunt Bee was partial to the special nerve tonic she got from Floyd the barber.
Also too, a rerun re: Mayberry.
:)
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Nice fugue!
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Ah I see. I don’t read the NYT. Thanks for the explanation. Cheese Cheese is ridiculous.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Who is Cheese Cheese?
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Thread.
Kennedy is “investigative reporter for the NY Post”. And, apparently, a bald-faced liar.
(via BettyBowers)
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Briahna Joy Gray, her Twitter handle is @briebriejoy
mrmoshpotato
Must be a translation error because that definitely isn’t “Was a Russky spy in the US”
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Someone should catalog the musical genres in which this theme has been expounded. I’d heard this one, an in addition I know of opera, gospel blues, and the show tunes of the inimitable Randy Rainbow –all styles well-suited to people who have reached and surpassed their limit. We need some heavy metal and some free jazz.
Brachiator
I just listened to a radio commercial that began,
After more patriotic palaver, it turns out the ad is for Kaufman Funeral Homes. Some heavy irony happening here.
Another Scott
@Baud: Yup.
APK Mirror.
NOTE – I haven’t tried it myself. Caveat emptor.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@VOR: Probably not:
https://en.as.com/en/2021/09/19/latest_news/1632069096_343081.html
https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2017/07/14/la-palma-part-2/
Jay
@Brachiator:
if it’s the one I am thinking of, they have a truck wandering around with a big “Do not get vaccinated, we need the business” signs on it.
NotMax
Dialogue just now overheard during a medical program set in the 1890s:
Those were the days, my foot.
Steeplejack (phone)
@NotMax:
Checks out.
Villago Delenda Est
The Russians are the world champs of paranoia. Have been for centuries.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Scott:
The “investigative reporter from The New York Post” thing is rock solid proof that he’s a liar.
?BillinGlendaleCA
If you have any questions about what the Cole household was like when John was growing up…
Geminid
@Starfish: The Teamsters have made organizing Amazon a top priority, calling it a matter of long term survival. They recently began this effort at nine of Amazon’s Canadian facilities. The union’s plan is to get buy in from Amazon’s U.S. employees once they see the union succeed across the border.
Unionizing Amazon is a very heavy lift, but at 1.3 million members in North America, the Teamsters may have what it takes. Amazon drivers are already familiar with their Teamster counterparts at UPS, and know they have a much better deal.
With only 60,000 members, the Retail Worker and Department Store Union that’s trying to organize Amazon’s Bessemer facility is a very small David to be taking on Goliath. And the RWDSU’s decision to bring in Bernie Sanders to try to close the deal at their final rally had some people scratching their heads. Sanders may have a fervent following nationally, but he never made an especially strong showing in Alabama primaries.
Personally, I think Jeff Bezos and other Amazon owners would be better off in the long run if the company was unionized, so long as their competitors were in the same boat. A thriving working class would make for a more prosperous middle class, and then everyone would have more money to buy stuff from Amazon. But for some reason, Bezos has yet to ask for my opinion.
Suzanne
@NotMax: It always makes me laugh/horrified to see modern TV shows depict hospitals with shared patient rooms. We haven’t built hospitals like that for twenty years. Most infectious thing ever.
Dan B
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): There’s a documentary on the La Palma volcano. At one point a geologist walls along a crack in the earth that makes it very apparent that the volcano is splitting in half. The crack is tens of feet wide and deep and extends a great distance. Spookey visual.
Starfish
@Geminid: Thank you for explaining the details of the unionization battle to me.
The fight I kept getting into repeatedly with some Southern folks around Bernie Sanders was “Hey, you can’t talk just like a Republican and expect to win on ‘true progressivism.'”
The Southerners who were Bernie fans were tearing down Democrats with the same enthusiasm as Republicans. You can’t really do that where the a) party is not even organized or b) the party consists of a very small group of black folks who do not trust you at all. If you want anything remotely liberal to happen, you have to build up that second party in a two party system.
geg6
@Brachiator:
So what? Is that really going to hurt Apple’s bottom line all that much? I don’t think so. Fuck Apple and I say that as a devotee of my various iPhones over the years.
raven
Don’t miss the Burns “ALI”.
Mike in NC
The tale of Maria Butina proves that the Russians have deeply embedded themselves in the NRA, Wall Street, evangelical churches and schools, and all of the other organs of the GOP ecosystem.
Ken
I google to find the documentary, and the top hits are because the volcano started erupting earlier today!
NotMax
BTW, speaking of medical dramas, mentioning in passing for any who might be looking for something bingeable to pass the time which is not too stressful that all eight seasons of The Royal are currently available on Brtitbox, IMDb TV, Tubi TV, the Roku Channel and the FilmRise channel.
Follows a not quite struggling but far from flush small hospital in Yorkshire. Set in the 1960s, a pleasant surprise is the accompanying and often unexpected music scattered throughout (they do play a bit fast and loose with the music being exactly from each year depicted, but that’s a minor quibble). Large cast of characters, all as it progresses becoming realistically fleshed out individuals (the sole exception being one who on occasion slips back and forth into caricature).
Not TV to shout to the rafters about, it’s more akin to putting on a favorite pair of comfy slippers.
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
Google actually had mysterious armed men camped out in their office. Moscow does not fuck around with its “elections”.
Paywalled FT piece (Open in “private window” or other [technical means]); Apple and Google drop Navalny app after Kremlin piles on pressure – Tech groups report legal threats and visit from armed men as Moscow demands app is removed from online stores
debbie
@raven:
How is it?
Another Scott
Meanwhile, over at FTFNYT, …
I’m shocked, shocked.
(via dsquareddigest)
Cheers,
Scott.
Dan B
@Suzanne: I was in shared hospital rooms several times as a kid. One “roommate” had a broken kneecap. The football we tossed around landed directly on that kneecap. The poor guy was hustled off to x-ray. The football was 86’d.
It’s not just sharing germs.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bill Arnold: “Police officers”, “hired goons”. Like there’s any real difference between the two in Russia.
raven
@debbie: It sooooo good, the footage is great and the lengthy coverage of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm and Ali is awesome. Ali has always been my favorite and, is far, this is the best I’ve seen.
Edmund Dantes
Time to fire the parliamentarian.
ruled can’t include immigration in reconciliation even though it’s been included before in reconciliation under other presidents.
sab
@Suzanne: The shared room hospitals are still in use. Friend of ours just escaped from one yesterday. And now he is on chemo. Cleveland Clinic run hospital,
Another Scott
@Edmund Dantes: Made me look. RollCall:
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
James E Powell
@hells littlest angel:
Tapper didn’t do anyone any favors. How is giving that asshole a platform a good thing for anyone?
Ksmiami
@Edmund Dantes: the Dems need to buck up and start using their power goddamit or they will lose it
phdesmond
Just saw the Burns “Ali.”
i’ve been looking forward to it since i saw “One Night in Miami,” free on Prime.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
They don’t want to stop it. They don’t need to redirect it. Their money & bought judges will keep them from any harm.
piratedan
@sab: I think Suzanne indicated that they’re not building them that way anymore… for all of those still in existence… yeah, many of them won’t be replaced anytime soon. The point is, what used to be a fairly forgotten part of hospital departments (Infection Control) is now brought in to consult because of all things COVID. Time change, Hospitals used to be just as critical on rehab post illness or surgery and with COVID all things have changed.
debbie
@raven:
Thanks. It repeats tomorrow, so I’ll still have a chance to see the first episode.
By the way, how’s attendance been at your football games? Here, they are freaking out because only 75,000 attended vs. the usual 110,000.
gwangung
@Villago Delenda Est: Or certain parts of America?
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
North Korea: hold my empty cup of beer.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Not to mention further de-facto normalization of extra-national assassination as a political tool.
Yossi Cohen drove a lot of that, but with Netanyahu’s explicit approval. Also, as that piece said, the Israelis asked the Americans for approval of the Mohsen Fakhrizadeh assassination, which was given, by D.J. Trump.
These three men are now out of power, much to DJT’s and BN’s surprise, though all three maintain political ambitions, so they all continue to be a threat to Iran and by their own rules are legitimate assassination targets, including by remote control assassination robots. (Netanyahu has said that he would be OK with himself, or Yossi Cohen or Ron Dermer ruling Israel, so the target list is narrow.)
phdesmond
@raven:
caught that.
Anya
@zhena gogolia: Bri Bri is ridiculous. She’s Bernie’s Trump level low quality hire. Her tweets show up on my TL every now and then (despite muting her mentions) and I see her snarking with GG over how awful Dems are. What an asshole.
Layer8Problem
I and my better half have just wasted another 45 minutes or so watching another episode of Netflix’ Clickbait, only because a friend has a small role. The script is lame, the characters are mostly cardboard, the twists are obvious, with a “ripped straight from tomorrow’s headlines” presentation. The writers must have spent entire minutes researching articles on how Teh Interwebz and our shallow news media are “pandering to our worst impulses, with no one safe. Have we Gone Too Far?” Yeh, thanks for the heads-up guys.
We’ll tough it out, for our friend, but I’m not getting these hours back. Anyway, It’s a good idea to occasionally see a bad show or read a bad book so one can recollect the true value of the good stuff.
So, off to watch more Bordertown for a palate cleanser.
Anya
@Layer8Problem: I’ve been meaning to watch it since someone I know was raving about it but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to watch it.
phdesmond
@raven:
i concur.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Brachiator: There is a conspiracy theory that Putin is in fact group of clones made from some Red Army solider in the 1930s and periodically these clones go bad, are liquidated and replaced with a new clone.
Can North Korea match that?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
I’m voting for Anna Chapman (photo)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Another Scott: Huh, shades of Jewish Space Lasers.
Layer8Problem
@Anya:
I’d say your good judgement. :-)
Ken
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Rather than science-fiction, North Korea’s ruling family seems to have taken their inspiration from soap operas.
Poe Larity
So visiting fam is intertubes working and needs more time before watching Wu-Tang show and said “go find someone on the internet who is wrong for a few minites”
So I searched, but there isn’t an app for finding who is wrong on BJ and will only take a few minutes. Why doesn’t a top 10000 blog have a wrongness filter?
Ken
@Poe Larity: The blog does have a pie filter, so if you’ve ever used that you can scroll through old articles until you find pie. Though I guess you’d have to remove the filter if the relatives insist on seeing why the person is wrong.
Chetan Murthy
@Poe Larity:
uh, uh, …. twitter.com ?
mrmoshpotato
@Poe Larity:
Hahaha. “Surf the web some more” didn’t occur to them?
Or, find something else to watch for a minute?
Another Scott
The FBI, and Kavanaugh, have a lot of explaining to do, about this and lots of other things. The FBI has been incompetent in far too many investigations for far too long. The Senate needs to be competent before confirmation votes as well.
(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: What the…? Oh, fuck it!
Another Scott
That’s just crazy talk.
(via dsquareddigest)
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Layer8Problem
Netflix? Palate cleanser? If you don’t mind subtitles –
No car chases, no explosions, no zombies, no stone-faced detectives, just a refreshingly entertaining watch is the Spanish film Toc Toc.
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Every Kim in North Korea is an android.
SFAW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I was wondering what Weyoun was up to these days, thanks for clearing that up.
Yutsano
@SFAW: Leave Jeffrey Combs alone!!!
Seriously though. He’s slated to do a voice on Lower Decks and there’s a rumour he’ll show up on Discovery in season 4. I swear he’s going for the most franchises in Star Trek. The man is a fricking genius.
Layer8Problem
@NotMax: Hah, I’m all about the subtitles, I get all the car chases I want right outside my window in my peaceful outer borough, I’ve never had a yen for zombies, my last explosion was when I found out my favored ale was out of the lineup at the pub, and stone-faced? Leave DI Sorjonen and DCS Foyle out of this; I’ll have you know they’ve been known to curl half a lip sardonically! Occasionally.
Toc Toc? I will check that out, and thanks. Your screen recommendations have looked pretty intriguing.
Benw
@zhena gogolia: yay AOC!
Winston
@VOR: Whew! At 400 feet above sea level, here in Lakeland.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack (phone):
I wouldn’t mind if all those white christian republicans would actually go live in Russia. They might find that their choice of leadership, monetary starvation, bogus religion, likely doesn’t fit in there as well as they think it might.
Ruckus
@eddie blake:
I’m not sure they can. OK, that’s not true, I’m pretty sure they can’t.
Winston
@Winston: One of the reasons I moved from San Jose, was the projected collapse of Mona Lua creating a 1500 foot tidal wave on the west coast. Then I was 30 feet above sea level.
eddie blake
@Ruckus: “democracy dies in derpness.”
Winston
@Winston: Of course, Bermuda sits on the rim of a volcano. If that one erupts who knows?
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Yeah those were not all that great. Someone to talk to isn’t always the best plan. I was 7, in the hospital and they brought in a kid about my age who was getting a circumcision. His parents lied their asses off telling him how great this was going to be. And at 7, without the awareness that he was going to acquire by going through this, I knew lying to him was not going to make it better. After my tonsillectomy was a breeze compared to his after experience. I hope for their sake they apologized to him for the rest of his life. And think how much better my life would have been if I’d never had to be in that room with him.
Ruckus
@eddie blake:
Yep.
trollhattan
Sometimes, behaviors are as simple to explain as you first think. Joe Manchin, everybody.
Joe Manchin, climate plan, go together like anthrax and tire rims.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Yep.
Winston
@trollhattan: So grant him that for now in exchange for voting rights. We can catch up.
Winston
@Winston: He’s a drug store truck driven man, head of the Klu Klux Klan. We have to get from him what we can and then discard the SOB.