Ferocious sanctions continue: U.S. freezes Putin's Netflix account:



In what was described as a major ramping up of sanctions, Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Tuesday that the United States had frozen Russian President Vladimir Putin's Netflix account, effective immediately.

"Unless and until Mr. Putin calls off the annexation of Crimea, no more 'House of Cards' or 'Orange Is the New Black' for him," Mr. Kerry said. "The United States will not stand by and reward the annexation of another sovereign nation with a policy of streaming as usual."

While all of the sanctions Mr. Kerry announced on Tuesday were Netflix-related, he warned Mr. Putin that "nothing is off the table."

"I'm sure I don't need to remind the Russian President that 'Game of Thrones' is about to come back for another season," he said. "As I have said, this thing could get very ugly, very fast."

"There is ancient Chersonesos there, where Holy Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual struggle - an appeal to Orthodoxy - predestined common cultural values ​​and civilizational framework that will unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus," says the head of the Russian state. "In the Crimea, there are graves of the Russian soldiers, with whose courage the Crimea was taken into the Russian state in 1783. The Crimea is Sevastopol, a legendary city of great destiny, a fortress city and the birthplace of the Russian Black Sea Navy," said Putin.

"During all these years, many citizens and many public figures have raised this issue, saying that the Crimea is a native Russian land and that Sevastopol is a Russian city," Putin said.


http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/18-03-2014/127129-russia_crimea_unite-0/


The Reconquista ("reconquest"), also Greater Mexico, is the characterization of the increased demographic and cultural presence of Mexicans in the Southwestern United States, an area that was part of Mexico before the Texas annexation (1845) and the Mexican Cession (1848), as a trend leading toward territorial losses by the United States. The characterization, and the term itself, was popularized by contemporary Mexican writers Carlos Fuentes and Elena Poniatowska.[1][2][3][4]

The characterization was originally a jocular analogy to the Spanish Reconquista of Moorish Iberia, as the areas of greatest Mexican immigration and cultural diffusion are conterminous with the territories the United States gained from Mexico in the 19th century. However, certain groups that identify themselves with the modern Hispanic Mexico, such as the National Will Organization, see the losses of northern territories after the Mexican War as illegitimate and seek a restoration of the earlier borders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista_%28Mexico%29

A little off topic.
Mecha has nationwide groups who have been working towards the reconquista.

La Presedenta Nacional was busted and deported a couple years before Barry took office.

She still holds power.

They move most of their agenda via college campuses.

I'll do a thread on that tomorrow.

I've done extensive research on them. Got sidetracked when I realized there are more than just a few extremist factions who want the power.

Just a matter of move's till new state borders are made and renamed.

Invasion isn't necessary.

Emigrate Russian loyalists by the thousands.

After a while, they are are the voice. Russia has the power.

Work it from the inside out.

I but wish it were that funny, but unfortunately it is not. Putin has made it perfectly clear that things could get serious very quickly and it has.

While the possibility for immediate physical hostilities in the Ukraine have diminished somewhat, they are the straw that has started the breaking of the proverbial camel's back.

This has now accelerated into an economic war, one in which the US and Europe is easily defeated. China has stated many times that they will side with Russia and have been doing so.

Here is a video that says this so much better than I can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO_M_utJoeU

And for the Petro dollar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9VLp0FcJ6I

We have deleted a few post and edited a few... Keep the insults and attacking off the forums...


Site Mod
Kristi

Ran across this a few days ago and it’s still cracking me up:

So I guess if Romney is elected we can get ready for a new cold war with Russia. #justwhatweneed

— Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) August 31, 2012

Self-assured liberals always know best.

And this one’s self-explanatory:

Congratulations to US President-elect Barack Obama http://t.co/wi0upVQB

— Vladimir Putin (@PutinRF_Eng) November 8, 2012

Putin was happy Obama won the election kind of in the same way Michael Moore is thrilled when a new Outback Steak House opens in town.

I pray for Pu$$y Riot.

And what does this have to do with anything, there are two totally different schemes at hand, the first a democratic choice of the peoples of an automous sovereign entity making a demotratic choice and the second being an invasion of a sovereign territory.

Their are similarities but not what is mentioned. The similarity be Texas and California became a sovereign republics unto themselves and the people democratically chose to become a state within the United States just as Crimea has done with Russia.

And the "Reconquista: Mexico" source is seriously flawed and extremely contested. This is the best of the arguments against the argument:

Is America ready to fight a war with Russia ? So far away and so expensive !!! The people voted in Crimea who were
not scared , and
they voted to
hold hands with
Mother Russia !!!
Russia has ties
to the Crimea
through history !!
Make a new defensive border
for the remaining Ukraine and stop
Russia playing
the Super Power
in the East !!!
Democracy or
Force should be the next step ?

Ukraine is more like Ohio than Texas.
Crimea is more like Hawaii than California.

The name Ukraine is new (post '91). It was always called The Ukraine. It means "The Frontier" in Russian, an early mediaeval term for the Russian borderlands. After the soviet collapse and independence it called itself herefore simply, Ukraine as a national name.
Over time it had become the Imperial/Soviet hinterlands, it becamse known as the "breadbasket of Russia" and the primary provider of foodstuffs for the whole empire. It gained sense of identity here.
In early ancient times it was more asiatic than slavic due to ancient greek trade onwards, a different path of evolution to isolationist slavic lands northeast of the Don Valley.
Due to regional conflicts, the Don Valley wound up becoming the immediate frontier to Russia itself in the black sea region, "the ukraine" or "old frontier" became more a buffer state from overland invasion south of the pripet marshes (ie. through the balkans or hungary).
Due to the greek/asiatic influence the ukraine had long since developed its own regional dialect, one of the primary justifications of independence from Russia, since they speak/write a different language for thousands of years now and have quite their own regional culture as apart.
It's really the same argument places like Georgia and Moldava used for independence. Enough isolated cultural development and exclusive outside influence to constitute different national identities.

Belarus is a weird one. It's a shortening of b'elorussia, which means "white russia", or monarchist/czarist russia, very pentacostal orthodoxy over there, they were never really very communist but are very czarist and isolationist so preferred the reds in favour of the west or asia, even though they effectively lost a war against the party. The main push against the early bolsheviks from western europe happened through here.
So they're more russian than ukraine considers itself, but funny part is the russians consider them less russian and whilst totally devoted to the kremlin, pretty much forced their independence out of distaste.

That whole corner of the world is really none of the west's concern. NATO's only interest in it is what advantage they can take out of it.

Texas was a province that was ruled by Spain from 1690 to 1821 when Mexico won its independence.

American settlers filled Texas during the Mexican rule and then fought for their independence and was annexed by the US in 1845 to protect the English speaking American residents.

Or as you would say.. an autonomous sovereign entity.. LMAO..

Crimea was never part of Russia until Catherine the Great waged war versus the Ottoman Empire. The Khanate of Crimea existed from 1441 to its annexation in 1783. The Tartars were always the majority in Crimea until Stalin forcibly removed them and began filling it with Russians.

Then it was given to Ukraine by Khrushchev.

Your whole autonomous sovereign entity argument is really quite preposterous..

The money for the Black Sea base that Russia paid for went to Ukraine not Crimea. Therefore, Crimea was never a sovereign entity as you claim, otherwise, the contract negotiations(Kharkiv Pact)for the base located in Sevastopol and others throughout Crimea would have been done by Crimea and not Yanukovych. It would have been signed and ratified by the leaders of the sovereign Republic of Crimea not Ukraine's.

Crimea was autonomous NOT sovereign.. I could post the words definitions so you could clearly understand the difference if need be.


Now back to my idiotic analogy..


You had two regions that were filled by foreign immigrants of a neighboring country, didn't like their overlords and demanded independence.. then were annexed by their home countries looking to protect them.

Yeah... You are right...

There is not even a single thing Crimea and Texas have in common..

Except as a hijack, your analogy is not within the context of the OP but in response to a question:


It had nothing to do with Mexico trying to reclaim Texas or California. Still doesn't.

Additionaly:

sov�er�eign
noun
1. a monarch; a king, queen, or other supreme ruler.
2. a person who has supreme power or authority.
3. a group or body of persons or a state having sovereign authority.
4. a gold coin of the United Kingdom, equal to one pound sterling: went out of circulation after 1914.

adjective
5. belonging to or characteristic of a sovereign or sovereign authority; royal.
6. having supreme rank, power, or authority.
7. supreme; preeminent; indisputable: a sovereign right.
8. greatest in degree; utmost or extreme.
9. being above all others in character, importance, excellence, etc.

Autonomous was a decision delivered by Ukraine, not what Crimea wanted. But I guess they have proved to the world their definition was correct after all, the sovereign right to determine their own fate, now as a republican state of the Federation of Russia, just like Texas and California.

if the shoe was on the other foot...Russia would definitely advise Crimea to do just that...

SIMFEROPOL, Crimea (AP) — Within days of Crimea being swallowed up by Russia, the lights began flickering out.

Officials in the peninsula accused Ukraine of halving electricity supplies in order to bully Crimea, which voted earlier this month in a referendum to secede and join Russia.

"Cutting supplies is an attempt by Kiev to blackmail Russia through Crimea," Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov wrote on his Twitter account.

Aksyonov's combative reaction reflects a sobering reality for Crimea: the strategic peninsula's overwhelming reliance on electricity and water supplies from mainland Ukraine. The Kiev government, which has been unable to prevent the Russian annexation, still wields a weapon it can use to bargain with its aggressive neighbor.

Crimea currently gets about 80 percent of its electricity and a similar share of its water needs from Ukraine.

But Ukraine also needs to be careful not to hit Crimeans too hard over electricity and water. It cannot afford to be seen hurting ordinary people as it argues that the region remains part of its territory.

Analysts say that Ukraine will likely be able to charge higher prices for power and water supplies to Crimea, but won't get any leverage on political and security issues.

Ukrainian authorities have described power cutoffs to Crimea this week as simply the result of technical maintenance and insist they would do nothing to harm residents. Russian officials have rushed to the rescue with hundreds of diesel generators and started drafting plans to connect the region's electrical grid to mainland Russia, which is separated from Crimea by the Kerch Strait. They said a possible water shortage could be offset by more efficient use of existing resources.

Those reassurances have provided little comfort to Filipp Savchenko, the 29-year-old owner of a refrigeration and logistics business in Simferopol, the Crimean capital. Savchenko said Tuesday that the power had been out for two nights at his warehouse, where he stores about $9,000 of produce daily for his clients.

"With the help of the generators we have, we were able to survive," Savchenko said. "But if they turn (the electricity) off in the future or for longer, we won't be able to cope. We'll lose our produce and business owners will have legal issues with us."

Regardless of the intention behind the recent blackouts, they have underscored Crimea's dependency on mainland Ukraine. They also highlight its lack of a real contingency plan if Kiev does decide to pull the plug. Russia's long-term projects could eventually snap Crimea's reliance on Ukraine for good, but that could take years.

Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said this week that a quick solution for the power problem could be to use a transmission cable to hook up the peninsula to Russia's power grid across the Kerch Strait, which is 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) wide at its narrowest point.

Russia has dispatched diesel generators, including some big units used as a back-up during the recent Sochi Winter Games. Russian Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov said Tuesday that his agency had already delivered 1,400 diesel generators to Crimea.

For the longer term, the Crimean regional government has pushed the idea of building two power plants on the peninsula. Ambitious infrastructure projects in Russia are typically blighted by major overspend and corruption.

Irrigation has long been a headache for Crimea, and could become so again, should Ukraine choose to apply pressure by closing off the Soviet-built canals fed by the Dnipro River, a major waterway that streams through the heart of the country. The canal system that feeds Crimea was built only after the peninsula was transferred in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to his native Ukraine.

Deputy Crimean premier Rustam Temirgaliyev has grimly acknowledged that the peninsula has not to date found any alternative to water supplies from the Dnipro.

But Dmitry Kirillov, the head of water resources department at Russia's Natural Resources Ministry, said that Crimea's potential water problem isn't that threatening. He argued that the agricultural sector accounts for the bulk of the region's water consumption, and a possible water shortage can be overcome simply by stopping the cultivation of some crops, such as rice, and focusing on traditional winemaking.

Adversity for the peninsula may prove an opportunity for Ukraine, which is already signaling its intent to withdraw some of the state subsidies for essential resources that have kept prices relatively low.

Sergei Sobolev, head of the parliamentary faction of the Fatherland party, whose leading members now dominate the government, has argued that special tariffs should be established for power and water supplies to Crimea.

The need to raise funds for Ukraine's cash-strapped treasury will prove particularly acute against the backdrop of reported Russian plans to increase the price of natural gas to $405 per thousand cubic meters. Late last year, Russia agreed to help prop up the teetering government of now-ousted President Viktor Yanukovych by selling Ukraine gas at $268.50 per thousand cubic meters, but it has recently announced a decision to scrap the discount.

"We have no intention of subsidizing citizens of the Russian Federation: the occupiers that have now deployed their armed contingents on temporarily occupied territory," Sobolev was cited as telling parliament this week by the UNIAN news agency.

Sobolev said that prices for gas and electricity in Crimea are priced four times below market cost and that water is provided at one-seventh of its real value.

Vladimir Omelchenko, an energy analyst at the respected Kiev-based Razumkov Center think tank, said Ukrainian companies will now charge prices that would bring a profit. He said it would be unrealistic to expect that Ukraine could win security guarantees from Moscow or persuade it to return the Ukrainian military equipment seized in Crimea.

Alexander Konovalov, the head of the Institute of Strategic Assessment and Analysis, an independent think-tank, said that Ukraine could potentially profit on its current monopoly on providing power and water supplier to Crimea. But he added that Moscow's refusal to engage in a dialogue with Ukraine's new government was hampering any meaningful dialogue.

"To start bargaining, you have to sit down for talks," Konovalov said. "And Russia has said the (Ukrainian) government is illegitimate."

Either way, many of the Crimeans who have supported the Russian annexation remain confident Russia will come to the rescue if matters get any more serious.

"We've lived through this before, I'll just go and buy some candles," said Olga Dusheyeva, an 81-year-old former math teacher. "I'm not scared, I know that Russia will always help us."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=294835780


like I stated...it seems the Russians are much better chess players...that doesn't surprise me with whose in the White House...Kerry is laughable...Hillary is a tougher man than him...there were so many options to stop Russian expansion...the only thing I agree with Obama on is that Russia should NOT get to take territory by force...one thing for sure...it will be a cold winter in Ukraine for awhile...

And anything that happens in Ukraine/Crimea/Russia concerns us how exactly..... in regards to our National Defense?

Aren't we tired of fighting others wars for them yet because the Rothschilds world and central banks want control of another nations currency, enslaving its people in debt for generations to come, and stealing it resources to prop up its worthless fiat paper?

The power of the printing press!

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws." ~ Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Haven't we killed enough of our children, been taxed and bankrupted enough, in wars for banker/corporate profits and the corruption of our own political power seekers....our career politicos and their crony capitalist corporate supporters?

Idiot voters will believe anything if they see it on Fox or CNN!

Always addressing the issue, NEVER the cause, then acting shocked when nothing changes

Typical lunacy of the uninformed

Smedley Butler on Interventionism
-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

As I said..... nothing much changes, only the faces, places, and names

"Ukraine could....."

be ignored, but that wouldn't fit the war machine/banker/corporatist agenda..