Russian TV ratchets up rhetoric on Ukraine

"Mr Kiselev is well known for his anti-Western and homophobic outbursts. In December, a Ukrainian journalist and activist awarded him a mock Oscar for his "lies and nonsense" about the protests in Kiev that eventually led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych....

"Framed against the background of massed Russian flags at a pro-Moscow demonstration in Crimea and the caption "We don't give up our own", Kiselev said that it was "impossible not to respond to this challenge"....

"And Russian TV has been running other stories that could be used to justify further military intervention in Ukraine, both to its own citizens and world opinion. The Vesti Nedeli special suggested that "unknown armed people" had crossed from Ukraine into Russia's Belgorod Region."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26411396

What will Putin do?

Why are the Russian troops in Crimea without ensignia or otherwise identifying markings?

What is the point of that. Everyone knows who they are. The Russians know everyone knows it. What is accomplished by that?

So as long as a columnist has a DU account he can't be criticized

Pretty neat trick.

so what to do about this whole Ukraine business

I think the goal of the US and the international community should be to prevent Russia from strong arming the whole of Ukraine back into Russian satellite status. However, I am not so sure that Russian military muscle flexing is per se unhelpful. There is in fact a majority of ethnic Russians in the Ukrainian east. Maybe the Russian presence can stop them from going Kosova Serb on the ethnic Ukrainians there. I don't know. I despise Putin but this is a complicated situation and it may be completely out of our hands (it certainly is to a large extent). But those who would rattle American sabres and those who are for us doing nothing both ignore the complexities and nuances of this situation.

hope I am not violating any rules by posting this link to GD

just spent the afternoon phone banking for Wendy Davis

Purpose is to drum up interest in her candidacy, get voters to the polls for Tuesday's primary and fine tune our county database. Tomorrow I will be hitting the local soccer fields to register hispanic voters and get them into our County GOTV database. As precinct chair my goal is to double the number of raw votes the Democratic candidate got in my precinct in 2010. The Repubs will still win my precinct. But if my work pays off they will win with 55 percent instead of 72 percent. If that same ratio shift happens in every Texas precinct Wendy will win.

for gen X-ers. now that PS Hoffman is gone who do you think is the best male actor of our generation

Age wise I would put Dicaprio on the younger end and Sean Penn on the older end of the spectrum

Judge Stikes Down Texas Same Sex Marriage Ban. Booooya!

never thought I would say this but, here's to Wolf Blitzer

Wolf Blitzer: Ted Nugent used Nazi terminology, 'subhuman mongrel,' to describe President Barack Obama

CNN host Wolf Blitzer discusses Ted Nugent's comments about President Barack Obama.Ted Nugent may have made his name as a rock musician, but today he increasingly is known for his controversial comments about President Barack Obama. At a January gun expo in Las Vegas, Nugent described Obama as "a communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured, subhuman mongrel."Nugent now is campaigning with Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott. This led CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to question whether the Abbott campaign understands the history of such language. (Abbott has not distanced himself from Nugent.)"That’s what the Nazis called Jews to justify the genocide of the Jewish community," Blitzer said in a Feb. 18, 2014, interview. "They called themuntermenschen, subhuman mongrels. If you read some of the literature that the Nazis put out there, there is a long history of that specific phrase he used involving the president of the United States."

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/feb/18/wolf-blitzer/wolf-blitzer-ted-nugent-used-nazi-terminology-subh/