Putin doesn't look great

Video clips and still images of Putin's conference with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu have been making the rounds on social media. While the Kremlin indicated that the two met to discuss Russia's military strategy in Mariupol, a strategic port city in Ukraine where Putin has declared "success," onlookers from afar have focused on how the president looked.

In the images, Putin can be seen gripping the table between him and Shoigu, as well as slouching down in his chair. Speculation soon spread that he could be in bad health, though rumors have previously surfaced in recent months that the leader could be suffering from an illness. The Kremlin earlier this month denied that Putin had undergone surgery related to thyroid cancer, online outlet The Moscow Times reported on April 1.

"Is this just me or Putin really looks less healthy and sound with each and every day of the war?" Illia Ponomarenko, a reporter for the website The Kyiv Independent, tweeted. "I can see a drastic difference between now and late February."

  Newsweek

In the footage posted online by the Kremlin, the 69-year-old Russian president grabs hold of the corner of the table with his right hand as soon as he sits down for the meeting, and keeps hold of it for the entirety of the 12 minute clip.

Mr Putin can also be seen intermittently holding the edge of the table with his left hand

  UK Independent

He may be sick, because there have been lots of stories about him sitting at a table that appeared to be over 6 feet long for his meetings with people seated at the other end, and in this video, the two men are practically in each other's faces across a small table. Putin, like Trump, is all about appearance. I think he wouldn't put out a video like this unless he wanted to show himself as strong at a time when he's weak. Like Trump on the balcony at the White House when he got out of the hospital from Covid and obviously wasn't recovered.

There's this article from November 2020 (keeping in mind that the source is not a particularly reliable one):

VLADIMIR Putin is planning to quit early next year amid growing fears for his health, Moscow sources claimed last night.

  The Sun

If that's true, he may have been planning to take Ukraine in a flurry of photo ops (as the story is that he thought they'd take it in a few days and is furious about the reality), and then step aside in glory.

Observers who studied recent footage of Putin noted his legs appeared to be in constant motion and he looked to be in pain while clutching the armrest of a chair.

His fingers are also seen to be twitching as he held a pen and gripped a cup believed to contain a cocktail of painkillers.

Speculation that his 20-year-reign - second only to that of Stalin - could be nearing an end grew earlier this week when laws were drafted to make him a senator-for-life when he resigns.

[...]

However, the president’s staff have repeatedly played down rumours that he is paving the way for a political exit.

And the Kremlin today insisted Putin was in "excellent health" and "everything is fine with the President".

They created a monster, and the monster is loose

Florida passes the "Stop Woke Act"

The bill, passed by the state legislature on March 10, specifically targets discussion in both K-12 and higher education that “espouses,” “promotes,” or “advances” prohibited concepts. The bill, formally titled “Individual Freedom,” is described by Gov. DeSantis as targeting “critical race theory” and preventing students — including those at universities and colleges — from having to “engage with discriminatory content” or “rhetoric.” The Florida House of Representatives staff’s analysis of HB 7 explains that it prohibits “instruction” or any “required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” someone to “believe” prohibited concepts.

  The Fire

"Prohibited concepts".

Fascists on the quick march.

DeSantis will be running for president in 2024.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He asked for Biden; he got Blinken and Austin

I honestly don't think Biden should go, but I do think he should offer more weapons and planes.

He's toast

Madison Cawthorn fucked up big time when he let slip that his Republican colleagues have orgies and do drugs.  They're after him now.

Cawthorn acknowledged the photos in a tweet Friday, saying they were from a vacation on a cruise and were taken before he ran for Congress.

“I guess the left thinks goofy vacation photos during a game on a cruise (taken waaay before I ran for Congress) is going to somehow hurt me?” Cawthorn said.

  The Hill

'Fraid so, Skippy. You're not Brett Kavanaugh.  

His comments about “the sexual perversion” in Washington made on a podcast, which he later admitted were exaggerated, drew the public disapproval and disavowal of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as well as other Republican leaders including those in his North Carolina congressional caucus.

[...]

Cawthorn, who was paralyzed from the waist down as a passenger in a car accident in Florida in 2014, in recent months has called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug,” suggested teetotaling Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has a drinking problem, and racked up a collection of traffic transgressions including speeding, driving with expired tags and driving with a revoked license. He has court dates in May and June.

[...]

Cawthorn, 26, was raised in a conservative Baptist community in Henderson County, North Carolina, and has staked his political persona on arch-traditional Christian principles and the insistence of the importance of a kind of hypermasculinity.

  Politico

You could have bet your life on it.

“I subscribe to Judeo-Christian beliefs,” he continued. “I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I think if you think about my political ideology, where it really stems from, you know, my ethics and my morals and what I think is right and wrong, you look to ancient Jerusalem, you got ancient Judeo-Christian values. So right and wrong,” he continued. “I also cling to a lot of traditional values and a lot of traditional ideas, because they’ve worked in the past.”

Yes, the Bible is full of stories about Jerusalem parties in panties.

“I think that we have bred a generation of soft men and that generation has created a lot of problems in our society and our culture,” he said in March 2021 on a podcast “designed to reclaim and restore masculinity in a society that is ever more dismissive of what it means to be a man.”

Nothing says manliness like a photograph of a guy in ladies' lingerie.

POLITICO could not independently verify the photos, which are screenshots of original images. They were provided to POLITICO by a person formerly close to Cawthorn and his campaign. A second person formerly close to Cawthorn and his campaign confirmed the origin of the photos. The date the photos were taken is unclear, though they appear to show Cawthorn sitting in a wheelchair, indicating the event happened after his accident. In the photos, he is wearing a distinctive pendant necklace that has appeared in other images and videos of Cawthorn. The photos have started to circulate among political rivals.

He'll have more "vacation" time once he gets dumped from Congress (also in May).

After this story published, Cawthorn tweeted that the photos were taken of him during a game on a cruise before he was elected to Congress. “I guess the left thinks goofy vacation photos during a game on a cruise (taken waaay before I ran for Congress) is going to somehow hurt me? They’re running out of things to throw at me... Share your most embarrassing vacay pics in the replies.”

I'd laugh, but there are some ignorant MAGAts out there who are stupid enough to do it.

Also, I wonder if someone will ask Cawthorn what game he was playing?  (Maybe he does take cues from Brett Kavanaugh.)

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 5/4:  There's more.

Kudos to Estonia and Latvia

Google headlines:

Estonia has become one of the first countries in the EU to label Russia's actions in Ukraine as genocide.

The country's parliament, the Riigikogu, voted in favour on Thursday of recognising Russia's war as a "genocide against the Ukrainian people", calling on other governments and international organisations to "do the same."

  EuroNews

Yes.

Genocide is defined in international law as the targetted killing of people from a particular national, ethnic, racial or religious group, with the intention of destroying that group.

[...]

Latvia echoed Estonia's declaration on Wednesday afternoon, also recognising Russia's actions in Ukraine as a "genocide."

Estonian investigators say [Jevgeni Agnevštšikov] was one of 19 people on Danske Bank Estonia’s foreign banking team who they believe laundered more than US$1.6 billion of illicit funds for their clients.

The money allegedly originated in eight schemes in Russia, Azerbaijan, the U.S., Iran, Switzerland, and Georgia, as well as a scam that defrauded Facebook out of nearly $100 million. It flowed through Danske Bank Estonia accounts between 2007 and 2015, when the bank was at the center of one of Europe’s largest ever money laundering scandals.

[...]

“To date, a total amounting to 10 million euros in assets of suspects and third parties enriched by the proceeds of crime have been seized to secure the confiscation requirements of the state,” she added.

[...]

Investigators say the system was so effective that several of the bankers continued to use it after Danske Bank Estonia closed its foreign banking division, when they took clients with them to other Estonian banks or switched to working with Latvian banks. Some allegedly continued to launder money even after they were questioned by investigators in December 2018.

  OCCRP

Guess who was using Danske bank in Estonia? That's right. Vladimir Putin. And here's a name you might have heard:

Close to $150 million that they are accused of laundering allegedly came from a huge Russian tax fraud scheme known as the Magnitsky case. It was named after the lawyer who discovered it, Sergey Magnitsky, who worked for a U.S asset manager that had been inadvertently used in the fraud. But when Magnitsky reported it to Russian authorities he was thrown in jail, where he died of mistreatment.

"Mistreatment". Otherwise known as torture. And guess who was involved in negotiations to possibly repeal the Magnitsky Act? That's right: Donald Trump Jr, in that infamous Trump Tower meeting.

All the criminal authoritarians are connected.

This month's good news article

A coalition of small-town mayors in the Kansas City area banded together to figure out ways their governments could take action against climate change and make their towns more livable and environmentally friendly.

Damien Boley, mayor of Smithville, Mo., has a vision for a walkable community with abundant green space. It may seem risky to go all-in on climate action in a conservative-leaning county, but Boley says there's plenty of room to make real change. Mike Kelly, the mayor of Roeland Park, Kan., agrees. “One of the things we heard on the doorsteps during our campaigns is this existential dread," Kelly says. "Like, we have 10 years to save the planet, and nobody’s doing anything about it.”

[...]

Kelly and Lindsey Constance, a councilwoman from Shawnee, Kansas, got the ball rolling.

[...]

By the end of 2018, Constance and Kelly thought they detected enough interest to invite elected officials to a small meeting in the basement of Village Presbyterian Church. About 135 people showed up. They represented city councils, school boards, water boards, county commissions, even the offices of a governor and local Congressional representatives.

  KCUR

Continue reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem

source

It's a statement, I guess

If everyone would have joined, that would have been a STATEMENT.

The Dems need more like her

Preach, Mallory!

UPDATE 7/30:

Less than $300 ....  $235 actually.