Your Latest #ObamaCare Delay du Jour

It's not like folks didn't see this coming.

From Elise Viebeck at the Hill, "New O-Care delay to help midterm Dems":

The Obama administration is set to announce another major delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act, easing election pressure on Democrats.

As early as this week, according to two sources, the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements.

Prolonging the “keep your plan” fix will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected this fall.

The cancellations would have created a firestorm for Democratic candidates in the last, crucial weeks before Election Day.

The White House is intent on protecting its allies in the Senate, where Democrats face a battle to keep control of the chamber.

“I don’t see how they could have a bunch of these announcements going out in September,” one consultant in the health insurance industry said. “Not when they’re trying to defend the Senate and keep their losses at a minimum in the House. This is not something to have out there right before the election.”

The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday both said they had no updates to announce.

I guess we'll wait for the shoe to drop then. At the rate this is going, the illegal individual plans will continue to be offered in perpetuity, because the polling just ain't getting better for embattled "you can keep your plan" idiots Dems.

Sherwin Nuland, the 'How We Die' Guy, Has Died

We all gotta go sometime, and it's rarely dignified. Frankly, this guy predicted his own undignified demise.

Kind of depressing, actually.

At NYT, "Sherwin B. Nuland, ‘How We Die’ Author, Dies at 83":

Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, a surgeon and author who drew on more than 35 years in medicine and a childhood buffeted by illness in writing “How We Die,” an award-winning book that sought to dispel the notion of death with dignity and fueled a national conversation about end-of-life decisions, died on Monday at his home in Hamden, Conn. He was 83.

The cause was prostate cancer, his daughter Amelia Nuland said.

To Dr. Nuland, death was messy and frequently humiliating, and he believed that seeking the good death was pointless and an exercise in self-deception. He maintained that only an uncommon few, through a lucky confluence of circumstances, reached life’s end before the destructiveness of dying eroded their humanity.

“I have not seen much dignity in the process by which we die,” he wrote. “The quest to achieve true dignity fails when our bodies fail.”

In “How We Die, ” published in 1994, Dr. Nuland described in frank detail the processes by which life succumbs to violence, disease or old age. Arriving amid an intense moral and legal debate over physician-assisted suicide — perhaps the ultimate manifestation of the concept of a dignified death — the book tapped into a deep national desire to understand the nature of dying, which, as Dr. Nuland observed, increasingly took place behind the walls of the modern hospital. It won a National Book Award.

Dr. Nuland wrote that his intention was to demythologize death, making it more familiar and therefore less frightening, so that the dying might approach decisions regarding their care with greater knowledge and more reasonable expectations. The issue has only intensified since the book was published, and has been discussed and debated in the medical world, on campuses, in the news media and among politicians and government officials engaged in health care policy.

“The final disease that nature inflicts on us will determine the atmosphere in which we take our leave of life,” he wrote, “but our own choices should be allowed, insofar as possible, to be the decisive factor in the manner of our going.”

Continue.

Turns out this guy was Victoria "f-k the EU" Nuland's dad:

Dr. Nuland’s first marriage ended in divorce. In 1977, he married Sarah Peterson, an actress and director. Besides his wife, survivors include two children from his first marriage, Victoria Jane Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Andrew; two children from his second marriage, Amelia and William; and four grandchildren.

During Live Shot, TV Reporter Nailed by Snow From Passing Plow

At LAT:

We all know TV reporters like to be close to the action during big storms. At times, too close - like the NBC "Nightly News" reporter who got stuck in waist-high mud while reporting on a mudslide in Azusa last week.

FOX 29's Steve Keeley joined the fraternity of imperiled correspondents Monday morning during a live shot in Woodstown, N.J., shown at the bottom of this post.

With yet another large snowstorm slamming the East Coast, Keeley stands by a rural road watching the plows pass and pointing out how quickly the snow re-covers the roads.

Keeley points off-camera and says, "There goes a couple plows, demonstrating what I --"

That's when he and his cameraman get blasted by snow from a passing plow, leading someone in the studio to whoop and briefly shriek before the camera pulls back to reveal Keeley, still upright.

Keeley, still live, resumes his commentary without missing a beat. "Four plow trucks, four plow trucks, and it's still snow-covered," he says, adding, "That is the beauty of breaking news."

Hannah Elizabeth for Zoo Today

Hmm, I'd say this is pretty hot, "Hannah Elizabeth rubbing her boobs with an ice cube in sizzling slow-motion!"

Economy Hits Dems, GOP 'Out of Touch' — Pushing Anti-Incumbency to 25-Year High

Amazing.

At ABC News:

Anti-incumbent sentiment has reached a 25-year high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, with economic frustration damaging Barack Obama’s Democrats while the Republican Party labors under a broad view that it’s out of touch with the concerns of most Americans.

The Republicans run evenly with the Democrats in congressional vote preference among registered voters, historically a strong position for the GOP given its advantage in midterm turnout. Perhaps more important, with control of the U.S. Senate at stake, the Republicans have a 50-42 percent advantage for Senate seats in the 34 states holding those contests...

The raw survey questionnaire is here.

All is proceeding along the lines discussed previously.

Russian Troops Fire Warning Shots Outside Air Base

Following up my earlier entry, "Staring Down a Russian Rifle in #Belbek."

The Wall Street Journal has the day's full recap, "Putin, Obama Talk Tough on Ukraine: Moscow Shows Little Sign of Backing Down":

The U.S. kept up a war of words with Russian President Vladimir Putin while hoping he will back down over Ukraine, but there was little evidence Tuesday he would.

Mr. Putin offered a full-throated defense of his use of force in the restive region of Crimea, rejecting Western demands to withdraw and insisting sanctions would be counterproductive. Russian troops occupying an air base there fired warning shots at Ukrainian counterparts, seemingly underlining Moscow's determination.

Keep reading.

Cold War Looms Over NATO's Talks on #Ukraine

This is particularly interesting, at the Washington Post, "Europe divided over Russia as NATO meets on Ukraine crisis":

BERLIN —NATO members held emergency talks about the crisis in Ukraine on Tuesday and pledged their “solidarity,” but there were signs of division in Europe over how to respond to Russia’s intervention in Crimea.

Among the biggest obstacles to consensus: Fears dating to the Cold War are running up against the economic clout of the new Russia.

In the former Eastern bloc, political leaders and the populace are seeing the ghost of the Cold War. A nervous Poland, where Lech Walesa stared down the Soviet Union in the 1980s, called Tuesday’s snap meeting of NATO members by invoking a rarely used lever available to members who believe their security or territorial integrity is under threat.

Like the United States, Poland is seeking a relatively aggressive stance against Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling for diplomacy but also preparations for economic sanctions and other punitive steps.

Other European powers have offered harsh condemnations of Russia’s military moves while keeping one eye on the economic interests they have cultivated with Moscow since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia is Germany’s fourth-largest trading partner outside the European Union and its largest supplier of energy.

Among the French companies with vast investments in Russia is Renault, which is partly owned by the French government. Through a partnership with Nissan, Renault is set to boost its ownership in Russia’s largest automaker to nearly 75 percent this year.

Among Russian oligarchs, London is affectionately known as “Moscow on the Thames.” Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, a close Putin ally, owns the Chelsea soccer club. In the City — London’s financial district, which drives a substantial portion of the British economy — Russian money is courted as king, with ice-cold vodka and caviar a staple on the menus of elegant restaurants.

Given that Europe has a much greater economic relationship with Russia than does the United States, securing its cooperation will be paramount to any effort by Washington to secure significant sanctions. Yet that relationship will not be lightly jeopardized, observers say, even in the defense of a fellow European nation under threat.

A briefing paper caught on camera as a British official walked into No. 10 Downing St., for instance, indicated that the British government is advocating rigorous diplomacy over sanctions.

“The European position is a mess,” said Kadri Liik, a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “I think it’s quite chaotic and hit-and-miss, and there’s no unanimity as to what to do.”

PREVIOUSLY: "Britain Rules Out Russia Sanctions in Secret Briefing Document Caught by News Photographer at Downing Street."

Putin's Seriously Lost It

According to Julia Ioffee, at the New Republic, "Putin's Press Conference Proved Merkel Right: He's Lost His Mind."

Staring Down a Russian Rifle in #Belbek

Some drama today, from Simon Shuster, at Time, "The Standoff at Belbek: Inside the First Clash of the Second Crimean War":

Our hero - Colonel Yuri #Mamchur, commander of the brigade of Tactical Aviation in #Belbek, #Crimea pic.twitter.com/Xb72MUFVDg

— ЄВРОМАЙДАН (@euromaidan) March 4, 2014

The Ukrainian troops kept the bonfires burning all night on Monday, kicking stones into the embers and waiting for the sun to rise over the Belbek air force base in southern Ukraine. Five days had passed since the start of the siege against them and the strain on the troops was starting to show. The previous day, the Russian forces surrounding their base had issued another ultimatum – surrender your weapons that night and sign an oath of allegiance to Russia or face an assault by 5:00 a.m. The commanders had refused. Some of the troops had defected. The rest stood around the garrison, smoking cigarettes and twitching when the logs popped in the fires. They only understood that the Russians had been bluffing when the roosters started to crow.

The next bluff came soon after, and it marked a turning point in the week-old conflict that has brought Russia and Ukraine to the edge of a fratricidal war. Just before morning reveille, Colonel Yuli Mamchur, the base commander, got word from one of his lieutenants that the Russian officer in charge of the siege, a lieutenant colonel of the special forces who only identified himself as Dima, had called again. His terms were the same, only the deadline was different – surrender by 4:00 pm on Tuesday or the Russians would cut off the power and the gas lines to the base. “What they’re trying to do is make us snap,” Mamchur told TIME. “It’s a mind game.” He decided to call Dima back. Without consulting his ranking officers, Mamchur told the Russian officer that the men under his command – Ukraine’s 204th Tactical Aviation Brigade – was about to march on the Belbek air field that the Russians had occupied. Then he hung up the phone.

The plan he had was reckless if not suicidal. He wanted his men to leave their Kalashnikovs at the base, get into formation and march behind him into the Russian checkpoint about a kilometer up the road. Practically all of them volunteered, but he left half his men behind to guard the base and took the other half with him in a column. He intended to answer the Russian ultimatums with his own psychological attack. His men would be unarmed, and leading their column would be a flagman with a Soviet relic – the banner of the 62nd Fighter Aviation Regiment that had been based in Belbek during World War II. Any soldier born in the Soviet Union would have heard the stories of its legendary pilots, the ones who had taken on the Nazi Luftwaffe in 1941 then went on to guard the skies above the Yalta Conference in 1945. Mamchur reckoned that no soldier with any respect for the heroes of the Soviet Union would shoot at a column carrying that banner.

He guessed right. As he approached the Russian checkpoint with his men trailing behind, three troops came forward and raised the barrels of their assault rifles. They ordered Mamchur to stop, and when he refused, they began firing bursts into the air, one after another, screaming that they would shoot to kill. They were the first shots fired since the Russian occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula began last week, so at the sound of the gunfire, the column wobbled. Some of the men ducked but they all kept marching. Only when Mamchur was a few paces from the Russian troops with a Kalashnikov pointed directly at his face did he order his men to stop.

What followed was a stand-off lasting well into the afternoon. Mumchar put forward a simple demand. “It is our duty to the constitution of Ukraine to guard this base,” he said. The Russians could remain in control, as no one had the fire power to evict them. But the Ukrainians insisted on taking their positions beside the fighter jets and radar stations of their occupied base. The Russians asked for two hours to consult with their commanding officers, and the Ukrainian brigade began to wait in the middle of the road. All around them, in the bushes of the surrounding fields, Russian snipers and machine gunners had taken up positions, training their sights directly at the Ukrainians...

Continue reading.

Also at London's Daily Mail, "The first shots of the Ukraine crisis were fired, but Colonel Yuli stands defiant: IAN BIRRELL reports from another dramatic day in Crimea."

ScarJo Pregnant!

Hey, I'm very happy for her --- even more so in light of her stand against the BDS Israel-haters.

At E!, "Scarlett Johansson Pregnant! Actress Expecting First Child With Fiancé Romain Dauriac."

PREVIOUSLY: "The Israel Project Celebrates Scarlett Johansson" (and here as well).

Some Illegals Fear Obtaining Driver's Licenses Since Government Might Establish Their Identities and Deport Them

You think?

Hey, uh, I might be a little worried too if I was in the country illegally.

At NYT, "California Driver’s License Program Hits an Unexpected Hurdle":

BELL, Calif. — The auditorium was packed. There were single mothers, day laborers, grandparents pushing infants in strollers and teenagers interpreting for parents. All of them faced a potentially life-changing prospect: Within a year, California will start offering driver’s licenses to immigrants who are living in the country illegally.

But one person after another stepped to the microphone and expressed fear that the licenses, far from helping them, could instead be used to deport them.

Last year, when California became the most populous state to pass a law permitting undocumented residents to obtain driver’s licenses, advocates for immigrant rights were thrilled, saying it would allow people to commute without fear while also decreasing rates of hit-and-run accidents and uninsured drivers on the roads. Now those advocates are confronting another formidable obstacle: the deep and longstanding mistrust of the American government among this population.

It turns out that persuading immigrants who have spent decades avoiding the authorities to willingly hand over their names, addresses and photographs to the government is no easy sell — particularly since the licenses will look different from regular ones, in ways that have yet to be determined.

“I believe this license process is not secure,” one woman, who declined to identify herself, told state officials at an informational hearing here hosted by the Department of Motor Vehicles. “Is this a trap?”

“It’s not a trap,” said Ricardo Lara, the state senator who represents this working-class city, where more than 40 percent of the population is foreign born. State law guaranteed that their information would not be shared with other government agencies, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said, adding, “Your information is protected.”

California, home to an estimated 2.5 million immigrants living in the country illegally, has been busy fashioning itself as the most welcoming state for immigrants, passing measures designed to reduce deportations, offering in-state tuition to all residents, and more. But skepticism among this population has grown since President Obama took office, as deportations have hit record highs and efforts to reform immigration laws have stalled in Congress.

Combating this mistrust, Mr. Lara said in an interview, is “the most significant challenge” of getting unauthorized residents — many of whom are already behind the wheel without licenses — to take road tests and buy auto insurance.

“People are skeptical, and rightfully so,” Mr. Lara said. “These are people who have been living in the shadows, living in constant fear. We have to work hard to ensure we really protect these folks.”

F-king Democrat morons. We don't have to assure illegals jack. They're right to fear deportation, for they have no right to be in the country. The Democrats are frankly un-American in their shilling for every open-borders initiative under the sun. Screw them. This state's gone to the dogs and it's going to keep getting worse. One of these days I'll get the hell out of here. Hopefully I won't have to learn Spanish before then.

"Julian's favourite activity was following what people — especially his 'enemies' — were saying about him on the internet..."

Well, I had to get a laugh out of that line. The author, Andrew O'Hagan, slams WikiLeaks paranoiac Julian Assange in his practically book-length essay at the London Review of Books, "Ghosting."

Last week everyone was saying how "interesting" the piece was on Twitter, although it's so long it took me a couple of sessions to read during office hours at work.

So, you're warned, heh. Personally, I can't stand reading long essays like this online. I'd rather be reclining in bed reading a book. But since O'Hagan might have been explaining the perverted psychopathy of my deranged troll-rights stalker, I can't resist the lulz: "Repsac3's favorite activity was following what people — especially his 'enemies' — were saying about him on the internet..."

It's true, of course. Although for Repsac I wouldn't refer to his "favorite activity" of stalking in the past tense. He's still as bad as ever. Worse even, since he's set his criminal stalking hate-blog American Nihilist to "invitation only" in order to plan his attacks out of the investigative purview of legal authorities. But yeah. Either way, the pathetic communist asshat's still at it. See, "Hi Donald Douglas: You Have a New Stalking Troll-Rights Follower Harasser @Repsac3 on Disqus."

Colorado Rep. Cory Gardner Announces Senate Run, Expanding 2014 Battleground in GOP's Favor

This is great!

The news up in Colorado has rocked the world like a political earthquake.

At USA Today, "Senate battleground expands in GOP's favor":

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Cory Gardner's entrance into Colorado's U.S. Senate race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall opens up a new front in the expanding 2014 battlefield for control of the U.S. Senate.

Democrats control the Senate 55-45, with the assist of two independents who caucus with Democrats, but they face strong challenges in the midterm elections with races clustered in conservative-leaning states that have stacked the political landscape in GOP territory.

While Colorado has tilted toward Democrats in recent elections — Barack Obama won it twice — Republicans see an opportunity to put Democrats on the defensive in a swing state.

"In 2008, Colorado led the nation in change," Gardner said Saturday at an event at a Denver lumberyard to kick off his campaign, in reference to Obama's nomination for president during the Democratic National Convention in Denver. "In 2014, we can change it again."

Chris Harris, a Udall spokesman, said the senator is ready for the fight. "The people of Colorado know that Mark spends every day working to protect Colorado's way of life," he said, "Despite what Republican leaders are trying to say about Gardner to try and cover up his reckless behavior and paint him as a mainstream candidate, that's just not true."

Democrats responded Friday with a new recruit of their own, former U.S. representative Travis Childers, who announced on the eve of the March 1 filing deadline that he is entering the U.S. Senate contest in Mississippi, where incumbent GOP Sen. Thad Cochran is running for re-election. Cochran first faces a June primary threat from state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party favorite.

Incumbents seldom lose re-election, but if McDaniel were to defeat Cochran in the primary, Democrats face potentially better odds in the general election contest, where recent elections have resulted in Democratic victories over Tea Party candidates in states like Indiana and Delaware. However, the Deep South remains an uphill climb for Democrats running statewide.

Overall, the 2014 landscape is tilting in the GOP's favor and the party is working to put more races in play to improve their prospects for a takeover.

Republicans are also touting the recent entry of Ed Gillespie, a prominent national GOP strategist, into Virginia's Senate race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Warner as another top recruit who could transform what had been second-tier races this cycle into potentially decisive races in determining Senate control.

Republicans are also not ruling out a run at Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., as well, but the party has yet to coalesce around a candidate. The GOP's top choice, former senator Scott Brown, R-Mass., recently switched his residency to the Granite State and has teased a potential Senate run in a new state, but he has yet to make a decision.

Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats' campaign operation, scoffed at the GOP's trio of recent and potential recruits. "Kudos to Republicans for landing people that can form coherent sentences, but it will not paper over the fact that they support a reckless and irresponsible Republican agenda that is wildly unpopular amongst voters," he said.

Democrats, however, have no additional states to expand the map in 2014, and they are defending more races overall...

PREVIOUSLY: "'The battle for control of the U.S. Senate is where the action is this year in American politics...'"

Charles Krauthammer: Obama Adminstration Calls Climate Change Greatest Threat, Shocked Russians Interested in Territory

From Erika Johnsen, at Hot Air, "Krauthammer: The admin that thinks climate change is our biggest security threat is shocked that Russia is interested in territory."

And listen at the clip, an amazing segment:

Edgar Martirosyan Delivers Pizza to Maria Menounos on Piers Morgan's Show

Talk about a life-changing turn at work.

On Sunday, the dude thought he was dropping off pizza pies to stage hands. And now he's a celebrity

At CNN, "Piers Morgan, Maria Menounos and the most famous pizza guy in the world."



More at LAT, "L.A.-area pizza company seizes Oscar spotlight, milks new fame."

'Realists' Misjudged Ukraine

From Jamie Kirchick, at the Daily Beast, "How the ‘Realists’ Misjudged Ukraine":

2014 will now forever be bound with the years 1956 and 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia, respectively. Then, as now, Russia used phony pretexts to violate other nations’ sovereignty. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union justified its sackings of Budapest and Prague by claiming to rescue socialism from “counterrevolutionary” forces. Today, Russia intervenes to “protect” Russian minorities from “fascist” elements in Kiev. In all these episodes, Moscow was confronted with popular, democratic revolutions against its domination.

The Russian invasions of the past and present share another similarity: defenders in the West. Whereas Soviet imperialism could only rely upon the support of orthodox communists (and not even then could Moscow depend on all of its adherents to follow the party line; the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia instilling a fatal disillusionment with the Soviet project among many Western communists), today’s apologists for Russian imperialism span the political spectrum. These foreign policy “realists,” identifiable by their abjuring a role for morality in American foreign policy and the necessity of US global leadership, locate the real imperialists in Washington and Brussels, not Moscow. For years, they have been proven embarrassingly wrong about Russia and its intentions, and in the unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine, their failure of analysis is now laid bare for the world to witness.

The most noxious of these figures is New York University professor and Nation magazine contributor Stephen Cohen. His recent opus, “Distorting Russia,” will go down in history as one of the most slavish defenses of Putinism. “Mainstream American press coverage of Russia,” Cohen writes, has been “shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory.” Western readers, he complains, have been subject to a “relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for facts.” Putin—a man who presides over a rubber stamp parliament, subjects his political opponents to show trials, dispatches riot police to beat peaceful protestors, and has restricted freedom of speech and association by banning pro-gay language and demonstrations—is unfairly portrayed as an “autocrat,” Cohen says (scare quotes original).

On the contrary, the Russian president is something of a hero. Cohen lauds Putin for granting amnesty to 1,000 prisoners in December, failing to note that some of those individuals—most famously members of the punk band Pussy Riot and opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky—would never have been jailed in a democratic country with an independent judiciary. Cohen cites Putin’s 65 percent approval rating as evidence of his legitimacy, as if such a metric is a valid indicator in a country where every major media outlet is state-run and political opposition invites harassment and physical abuse. Rather than isolate Putin and stand with these beleaguered Russian democrats, Cohen asks, “Should not Obama himself have gone to [the] Sochi [Olympics]—either out of gratitude to Putin, or to stand with Russia’s leader against international terrorists who have struck both of our countries?”

As for Ukraine, Cohen believes Russia is protecting a set of legitimate interests in that formerly sovereign nation and the West is engaging in imperialist meddling. To engage in such sophistry, he has to portray the criminal former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych—who ordered the murder, in broad daylight, of dozens of his own citizens—as a decent ruler. In January, without any public hearing or parliamentary debate, the Ukrainian legislature adopted, and Yanukovych signed, a set of 10 laws that collectively smothered freedom of speech, press and association, a draft of regulations that led Yale University professor and Ukraine expert Timothy Snyder to conclude that, “On paper, Ukraine is now a dictatorship.” Cohen furiously defended Yanukovych, writing that, “In fact, the ‘paper’ legislation he’s referring to hardly constituted dictatorship, and in any event was soon repealed.” Like Putin releasing the prisoners he should never have jailed, Cohen wants us to give credit to a dictator for (temporarily, and only to save his own skin) undoing a trapping of dictatorship. The dictator giveth, and the dictator taketh away.

For the realists, the seeds of today’s antagonism between Russia and the West are found not in Putin’s KGB mentality, but in the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to include former members of the Soviet-era Warsaw Pact. For the past 25 years, they have been warning that NATO is an outdated alliance with no purpose other than to “antagonize” a Russia that wants nothing more than peace and which deserves to have “spheres of privileged interests,” to use Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s phrase, in the lands it occupied for over four decades. Responsibility for today’s crisis, Cohen writes, can be laid at the feet of “provocative US policies,” namely NATO enlargement, a process that stalled, perhaps irreversibly, in 2008, when the body, caving to Russian pressure, voted against Membership Action Plans (MAP) for Georgia and Ukraine. Both of these nations, incidentally, are now home to Russian occupation forces.

For anyone paying the remotest bit of attention to Russia since Putin took office, the events of the past week should not have come as a surprise. Five years after he came to power in 2000, Putin remarked that the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Slowly but surely, he has gone about attempting to right that tragedy, the invasion of Ukraine—which, he remarked to George W. Bush in 2008, is not a real state—being the latest gambit. Demonstrating his utter credulousness about Putin’s intentions, Cohen scoffed last month that, “Without any verified evidence, [Snyder] warns of a Putin-backed ‘armed intervention’ in Ukraine after the Olympics.” Oops.

Russia and the West do indeed have competing interests in the post-Soviet space. The problem with the realists is that they fail to see the moral, tactical and legal disparities that exist between the aims and methods of East and West. When Brussels and Washington propose EU and NATO membership, they are offering association in alliances of liberal, democratic states, achieved through a democratic, consensual process. Russia, meanwhile, cajoles, blackmails and threatens its former vassals into “joining” its newfangled “Eurasian Union,” whose similarity to the Soviet Union of yore Putin barely conceals. The right of sovereign countries to choose the alliances they wish is one Russia respects only if they choose to ally themselves with Russia. Should these countries try to join Western institutions then there will be hell to pay.

Despite all this, Cohen complains of a “Cold War double standard” in the ways we describe Western and Russian approaches to the former Soviet space. The West’s “trade leverage” to persuade Ukraine is treated benignly, Cohen writes, while Putin’s use of “similar carrots” is portrayed as nefarious. A crucial difference, however, is that when a country turns down a Western diplomatic package, as Ukraine did at the November Vilnius Summit (thus sparking the massive protests in Kiev that ultimately overthrew Yanukovych), the EU does not invade.

It should not come as a surprise why countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and other former Warsaw Pact nations that lived under the heel of Russian domination for so long might want to join the NATO alliance, which, according to its charter, is purely defensive. NATO has no designs on Russian territory and never has. But in the fervid and paranoid minds of the men running the Kremlin (and, apparently, in that of Stephen Cohen and other opponents of NATO expansion), the alliance’s defensive nature is irrelevant. If Russia were a healthy, liberal, pluralistic society at peace with itself and its neighbors, it would have nothing to fear from America, the EU, or NATO. Indeed, as crazy as it may sound today, in the 1990s, some Russian and Western leaders spoke optimistically of Moscow joining the latter two institutions. But these hopes of a European Russia were dashed when Putin came to power.

In the world of Cohen and the other realists, it is “Washington’s 20-year winner-take-all approach to post-Soviet Russia” that has brought us to the present impasse. He describes NATO expansion in martial terms, writing of “the West’s ongoing, US-led march toward post-Soviet Russia, which began in the 1990s with NATO’s eastward expansion and continued with US-funded NGO political activities inside Russia,” civil society organizations, gay rights groups, and democracy promotion programs described as if they were the equivalent of CIA political assassination plots. Indeed, while Russia’s open meddling in the politics of its neighbors goes unmentioned by Cohen, he condemns anything the US and its Western allies do to promote democracy in the former Soviet Union. Commenting on a leaked telephone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the American Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, in which the two diplomats hashed out scenarios for the creation of a coalition government to replace the faltering Yanukovych regime, Cohen says that, “the essential revelation was that high-level US officials were plotting to ‘midwife’ a new, anti-Russian Ukrainian government by ousting or neutralizing its democratically elected president—that is, a coup.”

Washington’s alleged engineering coup d’etats has become an oft-repeated accusation of realist critics of robust American involvement overseas. “Is it the job of the American ambassador to act as a local potentate, choosing who does, and does not, get to serve in a coalition government?” Jacob Heilbrunn asked in The National Interest, the premier realist journal. In that same publication, David Rieff observed that Nuland was behaving like “a British resident agent in one of the princely states of India during the Raj” who “conspired with the US ambassador to Kiev to overthrow the current president of Ukraine.”

For many realists, American “restraint” now means not just withdrawing America’s overseas troop presence and drastically cutting the defense budget, but curtailing diplomacy itself.

This indictment of American meddling was also echoed by uber-realist Stephen Walt, a professor at Harvard. “Amazing thing re #Ukraine: US & EU colluded to help oust corrupt but pro-Russ leader, yet expected Moscow to do nothing about it,” he tweeted the other day. According to Walt, who in a single tweet distilled a week’s worth of Kremlin propaganda, it was not hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians braving the harsh Kiev winter and rooftop snipers who deserve credit for overthrowing Yanukovych, but rather their US and EU puppet-masters. (This paranoid and illiterate analysis of the situation in Ukraine, by the author of The Israel Lobby, is of a piece with his theories of a Jewish cabal controlling American politics).

Herein lies a paradox at the heart of foreign policy realism: that same, all-powerful US and EU octopus which is capable of overthrowing governments with the flip of a switch is somehow incapable of confronting Russian hard power. Any attempt at repelling Moscow’s aggression is quickly derided as “warmongering,” with requisite references to the mistakes of Iraq thrown in for good measure. Perhaps we should stop calling these people “realists.” “Isolationist” seems more apt.

Looks like Kirchick's settling some scores on this one, heh.

No matter. Stephen Walt's a vile Israel-hating asshole, and don't get me going about the Stalin-coddling idiot's at the Nation. (Keep reading here.)

And here's the Cohen piece --- he's even attacking the far-left New York Review for bashing Putin (and he loathes Julia Ioffe, my favorite Russia expert who is herself ethnic Russian).
Read the full thing at the link.

PHOTO: At Huffington Post, "Obama, Putin Tensions Signal Tough Times For U.S.-Russian Relations."

The Battle for Eastern #Ukraine Is Underway

From Matthew Kaminski, at WSJ:

Crimea was the appetizer. The real prize for Vladimir Putin is likely to be eastern Ukraine. Without this vast region of coal mines and factories, the Kremlin strongman won't be able to achieve his goal of either controlling, destabilizing or splitting Ukraine. Otherwise the takeover of the country's southern peninsula hardly seems worth the trouble.

The Kremlin's claims about the importance of ethnic Russian identity and language are just a sideshow in the struggle here. What's going on is a pure power play. Since Mr. Putin has nuclear weapons and no apparent care for world opinion, give him an edge. But eastern Ukraine won't be as easy to snare as Crimea, and the attempt could backfire on Mr. Putin...

Keep reading.

Review: 'The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century'

A review of Angela Stent's book, by Robert Legvold at Foreign Affairs.

Interesting and extremely timely:

Stent’s analysis proceeds chronologically, lingering longest over the issues that most roiled the relationship, such as the Iraq war, the 2008 Georgian-Russian war, missile defense, and, more recently, the civil war in Syria. The heart of the problem, Stent argues, is the asymmetry in the two countries’ economic power and military strength and the distance between their views of international realities. The relationship is also stymied by the inability of both sides to shake the legacy of the Cold War. Notwithstanding the genuinely important reasons Moscow and Washington have to cooperate, Stent contends that the relationship will remain a limited and troubled partnership as long as these obstacles are left in place.

Stent is Professor of Government at Georgetown University and Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies.

And order the book here, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century.

Hotties of Hollywood on the Red Carpet — #Oscars

At Egotastic!, "2014 Academy Awards — Oscar Red Carpet Hotties (Updating)."

I was digging on Kate Hudson last night, man.

Kate Hudson is yummy lol! #Oscars

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 3, 2014

. @KatrinaNation Kate Hudson yum lol! #Oscars

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 3, 2014

Russian Embassy Denies It Has 'Deployed Forces' in Ukraine in Twitter Exchange with Louise Mensch

I was on Twitter when she was having this exchange, and she posted it to Storify.

And see London's Daily Mail, "Russian Embassy denies the country has 'deployed forces' in the Ukraine in extraordinary Twitter exchange with Louise Mensch."

Britain Rules Out Russia Sanctions in Secret Briefing Document Caught by News Photographer at Downing Street

A pretty nifty scoop.

BuzzFeed features magnified images of the document, "Secret Document Suggests UK Government Will Not Support Trade Sanctions Against Russia."

And at Telegraph UK, "Ukraine crisis: UK prepares to rule out sanctions against Russia amid threat to global economy":

Downing Street document indicates British concerns over economic impact of Crimea stand-off as Russian aggression intensifies.

Britain is preparing to rule out trade sanctions against Russia amid fears that the Ukraine crisis could derail the global economic recovery.

Stock markets around the world fell sharply on Monday as Russian aggression intensified yet again following last month’s revolution in Ukraine.

There are growing international fears that Vladimir Putin is preparing to launch an all-out invasion of eastern Ukraine and Crimea after military bases were said to have been given an ultimatum to surrender on Tuesday morning.

Russia sought to justify its action in Crimea by producing a letter from the Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed Ukrainian president, asking Mr Putin to intervene.

The letter said: “Under the influence of Western countries, there are open acts of terror. I would call on the president of Russia, Mr Putin, to use the armed forces of the Russian Federation to establish peace and defend the people of Ukraine.”

Barack Obama and other senior American figures led a renewed round of international condemnation. However, the capacity of European leaders to react decisively has been hampered by the dependence of much of the European Union on Russian oil and gas. Any economic stand-off could derail Europe’s fragile economic recovery.

More.

More at the BBC, "Ukraine: UK rules out Russia trade curbs?"

Obama in Denial on Russia

From Jonah Goldberg, at USA Today:

In 1983, then-Columbia University student Obama penned a lengthy article for the school magazine placing the blame for U.S.-Soviet tensions largely on America's "war mentality" and the "twisted logic" of the Cold War. President Reagan's defense buildup, according to Obama, contributed to the "silent spread of militarism" and reflected our "distorted national priorities" rather than what should be our goal: a "nuclear free world."

Of course, it's unfair to put too much weight on anyone's youthful writings. Except there's precious little evidence his views have changed over the years.

In his first term, President Obama's biggest priority with Russia was to get the two countries on the path to that "nuclear free world." One of his — and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's — first actions in office was to betray our commitments to Poland and the Czech Republic on missile defense.

Indeed, across a wide range of areas, it has been Obama who has been, in the words of The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, in a 1980s-soaked "foreign policy time warp."

A wild-eyed leftist then as he is today.

You're not going to stand tall against Russian aggression if you think it's a justified response to U.S. hostility and provocation in the first place. But read the whole thing (at the link).

Huge Wave Crashes Into Moby Dick Restaurant on Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara

My wife and I used to eat at Moby Dick's periodically. The north side of the restaurant sits right above the water. The wave surges must have been 20 feet high. I doubt that's the best time for dining, heh.

At LAT, "Video shows huge wave crashing into Santa Barbara restaurant."

On YouTube here, "Wave breaks into Restaurant on Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara."

Kim Novak's 'Frozen' Appearance Sets Twitter Aflame — UPDATED AND BUMPED!

I just tweeted:

Kim Novak? I had no idea who that was, 'cause I was helping my son with some homework. "Vertigo" flashback it wasn't: http://t.co/4zCiyzWB1p
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 3, 2014

And see the New York Post, "Twitter erupts over Kim Novak’s stiff speech," and Twitchy, "‘Frozen’: Oscars show viewers criticize, defend 81-year-old Kim Novak."

Also at USA Today, "Kim Novak takes a beating on Twitter."

Still more, at E!, "Rose McGowan Calls Oscars Audience 'Self-Obsessed' After Not Giving Kim Novak a Standing Ovation."

ADDED: From Robert Stacy McCain, "Kim Novak’s Oscar Appearance Sparks Remarks About Age, Plastic Surgery."

Kim Novak: A legendary Hollywood bombshell @ColorMeRed @AmPowerBlog @BeccaJLower @lamblock @MelissaTweets pic.twitter.com/a38IxfyfYx

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) March 3, 2014

Kim Novak and Frank Sinatra, 1957 @AmPowerBlog @ColorMeRed @BeccaJLower @lamblock @MelissaTweets pic.twitter.com/WQI4EBPKzZ

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) March 3, 2014

Obama's Fantasy Foreign Policy

A hard-hitting editorial at the Washington Post, "President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy" (via Memeorandum):

FOR FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past. Secretary of State John F. Kerry displayed this mindset on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday when he said, of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, “It’s a 19th century act in the 21st century.”

That’s a nice thought, and we all know what he means. A country’s standing is no longer measured in throw-weight or battalions. The world is too interconnected to break into blocs. A small country that plugs into cyberspace can deliver more prosperity to its people (think Singapore or Estonia) than a giant with natural resources and standing armies.

Unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not received the memo on 21st-century behavior. Neither has China’s president, Xi Jinping, who is engaging in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and the weaker nations of Southeast Asia. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is waging a very 20th-century war against his own people, sending helicopters to drop exploding barrels full of screws, nails and other shrapnel onto apartment buildings where families cower in basements. These men will not be deterred by the disapproval of their peers, the weight of world opinion or even disinvestment by Silicon Valley companies. They are concerned primarily with maintaining their holds on power.

Mr. Obama is not responsible for their misbehavior. But he does, or could, play a leading role in structuring the costs and benefits they must consider before acting. The model for Mr. Putin’s occupation of Crimea was his incursion into Georgia in 2008, when George W. Bush was president. Mr. Putin paid no price for that action; in fact, with parts of Georgia still under Russia’s control, he was permitted to host a Winter Olympics just around the corner. China has bullied the Philippines and unilaterally staked claims to wide swaths of international air space and sea lanes as it continues a rapid and technologically impressive military buildup. Arguably, it has paid a price in the nervousness of its neighbors, who are desperate for the United States to play a balancing role in the region. But none of those neighbors feel confident that the United States can be counted on. Since the Syrian dictator crossed Mr. Obama’s red line with a chemical weapons attack that killed 1,400 civilians, the dictator’s military and diplomatic position has steadily strengthened.

The urge to pull back — to concentrate on what Mr. Obama calls “nation-building at home” — is nothing new, as former ambassador Stephen Sestanovich recounts in his illuminating history of U.S. foreign policy, “Maximalist.” There were similar retrenchments after the Korea and Vietnam wars and when the Soviet Union crumbled. But the United States discovered each time that the world became a more dangerous place without its leadership and that disorder in the world could threaten U.S. prosperity. Each period of retrenchment was followed by more active (though not always wiser) policy. Today Mr. Obama has plenty of company in his impulse, within both parties and as reflected by public opinion. But he’s also in part responsible for the national mood: If a president doesn’t make the case for global engagement, no one else effectively can...

More.

I like the forcefulness, although can we have some policy options? I think WSJ nailed it on that earlier, "Will Obama and Europe Let Putin Carve Up Ukraine?"

How Moscow Orchestrated Events in Crimea: Old Allies, Old Resentments Re-Emerge

At the Wall Street Journal (via Google):

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine—A week ago, Dmitry Polonsky was a fringe political activist in the Ukrainian province of Crimea, signing up middle-aged men rankled by the new authorities in Kiev to a small pro-Russia militia.

Today, as thousands of Russian troops swarm through Crimea, Mr. Polonsky's star is rising. He introduces himself as an adviser to Crimea's new prime minister. His Russian Unity party, though holding only three of 100 seats in the regional assembly, is the de facto authority in the Black Sea peninsula that has cut itself off from mainland Ukraine. On Sunday, the party's leader said he would be raising an army to defend Crimea against invasion from Kiev.

"The government of Crimea will be owned by Crimeans," Mr. Polonsky told a gathering Sunday, as Russian flags waved above the crowd.

The sudden rise of Russian Unity shows how the Kremlin, faced with a pro-Europe uprising in Kiev that emerged victorious, responded by helping push a once-marginal group of Russian nationalists into power—a feat of political stagecraft that played out like clockwork under the cover of chaos.

The turn of events in Crimea shows how adroitly Moscow has used old allies and long-simmering resentments to fill a power vacuum left by the Feb. 22 overthrow of Ukraine's Russian-backed president, Viktor Yanukovych . By potentially transforming Crimea into a dubious unrecognized republic and destabilizing Ukraine's east, Moscow has gained a crucial lever of power over the new, weak government in Kiev...

Keep reading.

More, "U.S., Europe Threaten to Punish Putin: Russia's Crimea Incursion Sparks Demand for Withdrawal, Talk of Sanctions; 'They Are Settling In'."

And at the Washington Post, "Ukraine Prime minister says country is ‘on the brink of disaster’."

BONUS: Julie Ioffie on CNN yesterday, "The Ukrainian Military is in a Very Bad Position Vis-à-Vis Russia Right Now..."

Governor Jerry Brown: 'How many people can get stoned and still have a great state?'

I was watching. He's a sensible guy, for all the flak I've given him in the past.

At LAT, "On 'Meet the Press,' Jerry Brown worries about 'potheads'."

Watch it: "Jerry Brown to David Gregory - Legalized Marijuana Could Create Too Many Potheads."

FLASHBACK: "California Über Alles."

The 'Tolerant' Left Freaks Out as Matthew McConaughey Thanks God During Best Actor Acceptance Speech

At Twitchy, "Matthew McConaughey rattles Oscar crowd, wins hearts by thanking God [video]."

#Oscars PHOTO: Matthew McConaughey accepts the Oscar for best actor (REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson) pic.twitter.com/7h9efbNoLE

— ABS-CBN News Channel (@ANCALERTS) March 3, 2014

And we're this f-ked up if someone's got to "explain" why McConaughey was prasing the man upstairs. At Time, "Explaining Matthew McConaughey’s Confounding Acceptance Speech."

More at Variety, "Matthew McConaughey Takes Oscar for ‘Dallas Buyers Club’."

Lupita Nyong'o Acceptance Speech Best Supporting Actress (VIDEO) — #Oscars

When her voice chocked up my eyes watered up. Just a little, but I couldn't help it. She's so genuine and loving. She's apparently been graceful and dignified throughout the entire awards season. She sure showed it.



And at the Washington Post, "Transcript: Lupita Nyong’o's emotional Oscar’s acceptance speech."

'American Hustle' Snubbed at #Oscars

I didn't even notice, really.

The competition was fierce, and the Academy had to give something to "12 Years a Slave" lest cries of racism ruin the evening's buzz and publicity. And "Gravity" really swept up the rest.

In any case, at Huffington Post, "'American Hustle' Oscars: Star-Studded Film Majorly Snubbed."

RELATED: At NYT, "A Landmark Oscar Win for ‘12 Years a Slave’."

What 'Free Palestine' Really Means

At Israel Matzav.

Jessica Biel Photobombed by Anne Hathaway at #Oscars

Crazy people.

Backstage at the #Oscars in the #ArchDigestGreenRoom with @JessicaBiel photobombed by Anne Hathaway pic.twitter.com/k3gusKxQ8o

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 3, 2014

'This Week with George Stephanopoulos': Crisis in #Ukraine

Scroll forward about a minute. This is an excellent background report with lots of first-hand video from yesterday morning at ABC News.



More: "John Kerry: ‘All Options on the Table’ to Hold Russia Accountable in Ukraine."

Screw John Kerry. The U.S. is all talk. The Wall Street Journal had an outstanding list of extremely firm and decisive moves the U.S. could take to sanction Moscow. Of course, none of those things will happen.

'12 Years a Slave' Wins Best Picture — #Oscars

"Gravity" pretty much carried the night, but it's like Ellen said at the beginning of the show, "you're all racist" if "12 Years a Slave" doesn't win best picture. Anti-climactic, sure. But that movie is simply astounding. A monumental achievement.

At LAT, "Oscars 2014: '12 Years a Slave' wins best picture."

Also, "Oscars: '12 Years A Slave,' the best-picture winner that can't win?"

More:

#Oscars 2014: Matthew McConaughey wins for 'Dallas Buyers Club' http://t.co/iTV7fwTjsi

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 3, 2014

#Oscars 2014: Cate Blanchett wins lead actress http://t.co/aMd47wv0H6

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 3, 2014

#Oscars 2014: Alfonso Cuaron wins best director for 'Gravity' http://t.co/uihKMIg1Zw

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 3, 2014

#Oscars 2014: Lupita Nyong'o wins supporting actress Academy Award http://t.co/hkIDxW1jEH

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 3, 2014

#Oscars 2014: Jared Leto wins supporting actor Academy Award http://t.co/UdeXanLFHp

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 3, 2014

Ellen Degeneres Selfie Most Popular Tweet of All Time — #Oscars

Actually, I couldn't tell if she was seriously trying to take a picture.

At Mashable, "The Moment Ellen Passed Obama for Most Popular Tweet of All Time."

If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014

More at Fire Andrea Mitchell, "ABC hypes Ellen DeGeneres Oscar selfie with a picture of the Obamas."

Don't Cry for #Ukraine

From Spengler, at PJ Media, "Ukraine Is Hopeless … but Not Serious":

There isn’t going to be a war over Ukraine. There isn’t even going to be a crisis over Ukraine. We will perform our ritual war-dance and excoriate the Evil Emperor, and the result would be the same if we had sung “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” on a road trip to Kalamazoo. Worry about something really scary, like Iran.

Ukraine isn’t a country: it’s a Frankenstein monster composed of pieces of dead empires, stitched together by Stalin. It has never had a government in the Western sense of the term after the collapse of the Soviet Union gave it independence, just the equivalent of the family offices for one predatory oligarch after another–including the “Gas Princess,” Yulia Tymoshenko. It has a per capital income of $3,300 per year, about the same as Egypt and Syria, and less than a tenth of the European average. The whole market capitalization of its stock exchange is worth less than the Disney Company. It’s a basket case that claims to need $35 billion to survive the next two years. Money talks and bullshit walks. Who wants to ask the American taxpayer for $35 billion for Ukraine, one of the most corrupt economies on earth? How about $5 billion? Secretary of State Kerry is talking about $1 billion in loan guarantees, and the Europeans are talking a similar amount. That’s not diplomacy. It’s a clown show...

Continue.

Letter Protesting Professor Lisa Duggan's Racist Anti-Israel Conference to NYU President John Sexton

In my post last Sunday, "Professor Lisa Duggan and the Academic Boycott of Israel," I mentioned that I'd be sending a letter to NYU's administration protesting the racist "Circuits of Influence" conference organized by Lisa Duggan, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis in NYU's Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

I just sent this to NYU's President John Sexton and cc'd to a number of other administrators at the university.

NYU Anti-Israel Conference

Dear President Sexton:

I meant to write earlier, but I see now that Professor Lisa Duggan's Israel-hating conference has now been concluded: http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/03/closed-nyu-anti-israel-conference-goes-off-without-a-hitch-or-a-dissenting-voice/

Professor Duggan sought to keep this event private and secret from public view. Why? Such behavior fundamentally contradicts the purpose of the academic mission, at both your university and across the system of higher education in the United States.

I can't see how your administration thought that no stain would be attached to this event for the reputation of New York University. Enough shame cannot be heaped on you for sanctioning or affiliating with such hatred.

I know you've dealt with many aspects of the whole ASA boycott controversy, so no need to rehash things.

I just wanted to be on record that your school now has a reputation for literally racist speech that normally would have no place in the academic setting and the discrimination promoted at such events has no constitutional protection. Indeed, there'd likely have been widespread campus outrage and approbation were it other minorities besides Israeli Jews (and Israeli scholars) who were being targeted.

Sincerely,

Donald K. Douglas, Ph.D.
Irvine, California

For related background, I refer readers to William Jacobson's entry from December, "Reader crowdsourcing project to fight American Studies Assoc anti-Israel boycott."

I recommend that readers considering similar letters to university administrators keep it simple and to the point, and also keep it explicitly professional and without ad hominem invective and vituperation. And if readers are contacting a university in which they are alumni, be sure to make mention of the withholding of charitable contributions to the university's foundation.

Be respectful but keep the pressure on.

About That Pesky Budapest Memorandum...

You know, I saw the buzz about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum a couple of days ago, at London's Daily Mail and especially at Telegraph UK, "Ukraine pleads for Britain and US to come to its rescue as Russia accused of 'invasion'":

Ukraine has called for Britain and the United States to intervene in its rapidly-escalating conflict, as the interior minister accuses Russian forces of staging an "armed invasion" in Crimea.

Deeply worried politicians inside Ukraine's parliament have pleaded with Britain and the United States to come to their rescue, after Russia was accused of launching a series of raids in the Crimea region.

The two Western powers signed an agreement with Ukraine in 1994, which Kiev's parliament wants enforcing now. The Budapest Memorandum, signed by Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma – the then-rulers of the USA, UK, Russia and Ukraine – promises to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.

Article one reads: "The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine ... to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine."

And Kiev is now claiming that their country's borders are not being respected.

Oleksandr Turchynov, the interim president, also told agitated MPs on Friday morning that he was convening the country's security and defence chiefs for an emergency meeting over the unfolding crisis.

Arsen Avakov, who was named interior minister on Thursday, said that the international airport in Sebastopol had been blocked by Russian forces. Sebastopol has for the past 230 years been home to Russia's Black Sea fleet – a key strategic hub for Moscow, as ships and submarines based there are just north of Turkey and can reach the Mediterranean to influence the Middle East and the Balkans.

Mr Avakov said Russia's actions amounted to "a military invasion and occupation".

He wrote on Facebook: "It is a direct provocation of armed bloodshed in the territory of a sovereign State."

And now? Well, the key thing there is how Ukraine gave up its nukes for a Western security guarantee. It's not a difficult answer to consider what would be more valuable today. Putin understands raw power.

Back in the summer of 1993 Professor of Political Science John Mearsheimer (yes that John Mearsheimer) argued that Ukraine should keep its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against Russian power and likely revanchism. See, "The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent":

Ukraine cannot defend itself against a nuclear-armed Russia with conventional weapons, and no state, including the United States, is going to extend to it a meaningful security guarantee. Ukrainian nuclear weapons are the only reliable deterrent to Russian aggression. If the U.S. aim is to enhance stability in Europe, the case against a nuclear-armed Ukraine is unpersuasive.

Well, it's interesting to see how the simple logic of political realism seems so compelling today. But back then, shortly after the end of the cold war, the demobilization mindset of Western elites was much too powerful for the cold calculations of realpolitik‎.

I think Mearsheimer's a pretty vile individual, actually. But there's something to be said for the parsimony and predictive power of the realist paradigm from which he develops his theoretical expectations.

Chronology of Latest Events in #Ukraine

I love this from AFP (via Instapundit).

INFOGRAPHIC: Chronology of the latest events in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/ommkCm6uIa

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) March 2, 2014

More at my Ukraine tag.

Roundup of the Roundups for #Oscar Sunday

At Director Blue, "Larwyn's Linx: Harry Reid, Liar" (with some Sarah Palin Rule 5). And hat-tip to Maggie's Notebook.

And all the good stuff at Bad Blue.

Check Right Wing News as well for lots of aggregating.

And at the Other McCain, "FMJRA 2.1: Technical Ecstasy."

Also yesterday at Maggie's Farm, "Saturday morning links."

At Moonbattery, "ObamaCare at Mardi Gras."

And from TCOTs, "Ten-Hut! – @ProteinWisdom Goes All Chesty Puller."

And American Digest, "The Academy Awards Live From Kiev."

Also at Wizbang, "War on Poverty Not Just a Failure, the Very Epitome of Pathological Altruism."

More from E.C. Hackett at Blackmailers, "Saturday Linkfest, Every Day Is Like Sunday Edition."

Don't miss the old-fashioned babe-blogging at Cousin Odie's, "Optical Illusions ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

More later. These roundups take a lot of time, lol!

(I'll be watching the Academy Awards, if for nothing but a break from the Ukraine crisis.)

Obama's Ukraine Démarche to Moscow!

LOL!

Obama and Putin talk about Ukraine http://t.co/yC3QTDpnkD #TCOT pic.twitter.com/9P7o7ZKF8u

— The People's Cube (@ThePeoplesCube) March 2, 2014

Elizabeth Marxs on Twitter!

Man, this lady is fabulous.

Check out her feed, heh.

A photo taken by my best friend. Good morning :) pic.twitter.com/wuHE8A1JwC

— elizabeth marxs (@elizabethmarxs) March 2, 2014

#FriskyFriday @PlayboyDotCom @PlayboyRadio @Playboy pic.twitter.com/QyDcFBjfXE

— elizabeth marxs (@elizabethmarxs) February 21, 2014

And check the Rule 5 roundup at Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup."

Will Obama and Europe Let Putin Carve Up Ukraine?

Yes, obviously.

But see the editorial at the Wall Street Journal, "Putin Declares War":

Vladimir Putin's Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean peninsula by force on the weekend and now has his sights on the rest of his Slavic neighbor. The brazen aggression brings the threat of war to the heart of Europe for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The question now is what President Obama and free Europe are going to do about it.

With a swiftness and organization that suggests the plans were hatched weeks ago, Mr. Putin is moving to carve up Ukraine after Russia's satrap in Kiev, former President Viktor Yanukovych, was deposed in a popular democratic uprising. Russian troops have invaded Ukraine's territory and now control all border crossings, ports and airports in Crimea. The Kremlin's rubber-stamp parliament on Saturday approved Russian military intervention anywhere in Ukraine, which is nothing less than a declaration of war. The new government in Kiev responded by putting forces on high alert.

***
This is a crisis made entirely in Moscow. Speaking the day Mr. Yanukovych fled his palace in Kiev, Mr. Putin lied to President Obama about Russia's actions and intentions. So did his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in calls with Secretary of State John Kerry. If the blitzkrieg succeeds, Russia's assault could end Ukraine's 22-year history as a unitary independent state. The peaceful European order that the U.S. has paid such a high price to establish after the collapse of the Soviet Union is also in danger.

Entering his 15th year in power, Mr. Putin has never concealed his ambition to recreate Russia's regional hegemony. He has replaced Soviet Marxism with ultra-nationalism, contempt for the West and a form of crony state capitalism. He bit off chunks of Georgia in 2008 and paid no price, but Ukraine's 46 million people and territory on the border of NATO are a bigger prize. His updated Brezhnev Doctrine seeks to entrench authoritarianism in client states and prevent them from joining free Europe.

More at the link.

A fabulous editorial!

In Moscow, Lone Orthodox Priest Protests Russia's Invasion of #Ukraine

And according to Black Sea research analyst Michael Cecire, he was promptly arrested.

#Russia: MT @mhikaric lone Orthodox priest in #Moscow protesting #Ukraine intervention. Moments later police took him pic.twitter.com/DHMa6mcIPT

— East of Brussels (@EastOfBrussels) March 2, 2014

ICYMI, Here's the #Russia-n priest protesting #Ukraine invasion being arrested. Horrifying. pic.twitter.com/jsEWuuIKWa cc @tvrain

— Michael Cecire (@mhikaric) March 2, 2014

Ukraine Forces Ill Equipped to Take Back Crimea

Following up on my entry a few minutes ago, "Pessimism Is Key to Understanding Russia in #Ukraine."

Recall from Julia Ioffe, Putin's gobbling up the Crimea (and most likely Eastern Ukraine) because he can. Who's going to stop him? Certainly not Ukraine's own feeble military forces.

At the New York Times, "Ukraine Finds Its Forces Are Ill Equipped to Take Crimea Back From Russia":

Surrounded #ukraine troops at Perevalne look young, frightened, hopelessly ill-equipped vs Russians. #crimea pic.twitter.com/DVuNoHvX4j

— James Mates (@jamesmatesitv) March 2, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine — The new government of Ukraine called an emergency session of its national security council on Saturday in the face of the Russian military’s seizure of Crimea, but the leaders are facing a grim reality: Their armed forces are ill equipped to try to reconquer the region militarily.

Crimea has always been a vital base for the Soviet and then Russian Navy, serving as the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, which has controlled the waters off southern Russia since 1783. After a period of tension following Ukraine’s independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia got to keep its base in Crimea on a lease, extended until at least 2042 by the now-ousted president, Viktor F. Yanukovych.

But the Ukrainian military has only a token force in the autonomous region — a lightly armed brigade of about 3,500 people, equipped with artillery and light weapons but none of the country’s advanced battle tanks, said Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London. The forces also have only one air squadron of SU-27 fighters deployed at the air base near Belbek.

A senior NATO official said that Ukraine’s small naval fleet, which was originally part of the Black Sea Fleet, had been boxed in by Russian warships.

The Russian takeover of Crimea was relatively easy, in part because the Ukrainian military was careful not to respond to a provocation that would excuse any larger intervention. The military — which has seen its top leader change constantly with the political situation — has also made a point of staying out of the internal political conflict in Ukraine.

The current military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Mykhailo Kutsyn, was named to the job only on Friday, after Adm. Yuriy Ilyin, 51, was relieved of his post after traveling to Crimea and, reportedly at least, having a heart attack. Admiral Ilyin had only been in the post for a short time himself, appointed by Mr. Yanukovych on Feb. 19 after Col. Gen. Volodymyr Zamana was fired for being unwilling to attack protesters in Kiev. All these changes have been an object lesson for the military to try to stay out of politics and civil unrest.

Even so, Ukraine had no realistic contingency plan for a Russian takeover of Crimea, given the size of the Russian forces legitimately based there, said Mr. Sutyagin, the military analyst.

Keep reading.

Pessimism Is Key to Understanding Russia in #Ukraine

I'm so silly.

I'm sure I've written before that Julia Ioffe's one of the very best --- if not the best --- analyst on Russian politics, but I nevertheless forgot about her when I was reading all the other crap at the top foreign policy journals I'm always reading (here's looking at you Kim Zisk).

Funny too, since I just tweeted an #FF for Ioffe on Friday. So WTF?

See her dead-on piece from yesterday, "Putin's War in Crimea Could Soon Spread to Eastern UkraineAnd nobody—not the U.S., not NATO—can stop him."

And here's the best passage (especially from the perspective of international relations theory):

To understand why #Russia declared war on #Ukraine, some things you need to understand: pessimism always wins: http://t.co/Nti1TuqNZo

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) March 1, 2014

Pessimism always wins. One of the reasons I left my correspondent's post in Moscow was because Russia, despite all the foam on the water, is ultimately a very boring place. Unfortunately, all you really need to do to seem clairvoyant about the place is to be an utter pessimist. Will Vladimir Putin allow the ostensibly liberal Dmitry Medvedev to have a second term? Not a chance. There are protests in the streets of Moscow. Will Putin crackdown? Yup. There's rumbling in the Crimea, will Putin take advantage and take the Crimean peninsula? You betcha. And you know why being a pessimist is the best way to predict outcomes in Russia? Because Putin and those around him are, fundamentally, terminal pessimists. They truly believe that there is an American conspiracy afoot to topple Putin, that Russian liberals are traitors corrupted by and loyal to the West, they truly believe that, should free and fair elections be held in Russia, their countrymen would elect bloodthirsty fascists, rather than democratic liberals. To a large extent, Putin really believes that he is the one man standing between Russia and the yawning void. Putin's Kremlin is dark and scary, and, ultimately, very boring.

The Israel Project Celebrates Scarlett Johansson

At the New York Times, "Countering Israel Boycotts, With Glamour."

Scarlett Johansson will not speak at Aipac meeting, but she will be there in spirit http://t.co/j7v1Z49JXN pic.twitter.com/A6ZZO2YaGh

— The Caucus (@thecaucus) February 28, 2014

And at the Israel Project, "Tell Scarlett Thank You!"

Obama, Ukraine and the Price of Weakness

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary:

The lessons of the tragedy unfolding in the Crimea are many, but surely the first of them must be that when dictators don’t fear the warnings of the leader of the free world and when America demonstrates that it is war weary and won’t, on almost any account, take firm action, to defend its interests and to restrain aggression, mayhem is almost certainly always going to follow.

RTWT.

Genuine Suspense Over 'Best Picture' at 2014 Academy Awards

I've seen more of the top films this year than I have in a long time. I'd like "12 Years a Slave" to win Best Picture simply because of its unparalleled historical significance and incredibly outstanding production. It's a fabulous movie on a matter of intense importance. But it's no shoo-in.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Academy Awards 2014: Best picture race is an Oscar tale of suspense."

And at the Washington Post, "For best picture, it has to be ‘12 Years a Slave’."