The Roundup
The Roundup
Finland has a new president, Vladimir Putin disses Tucker Carlson while Carlson falls in love with Moscow, Donald Trump portrayed on German Carnival floats, and more!
The Fallout From the Death of Alexei Navalny
This morning the Russian government announced the death of Alexei Navalny, which I wrote about in a previous post just a few hours ago. President Joe Biden spoke out on Navalny's death, saying “Putin is responsible.” Meanwhile some protests have broken out in Russia only to have the authorities quickly squash them.
Election News
Finland has just had its election last weekend and Alex Stubb will become that nation's next president. He's been described as being pro-Europe and an internationalist. Many of the tweets I've read on Twitter/X have said that he advocates Finland joining NATO, being tough with Russia, and he sides with Ukraine in the ongoing war.
Meanwhile in America Donald Trump has been hitting below the belt when it comes to his main primary challenger Nikki Haley. He poked fun at the fact that her husband, Michael Haley, who is serving in the military, has been deployed overseas. Nikki Haley responded to Trump’s taunts saying that he knows nothing about serving the country while saying that someone like him who continuously disrespects the sacrifices of military families has no business being the commander in chief.
Donald Trump has more problems than dealing with Nikki Haley on the campaign trail. A few months ago in a New York City courtroom the judge ruled that Trump had misrepresented his wealth when applying for loans and paying taxes. Basically Trump had overvalued his properties when it came to getting loans and undervalued them when it came to paying taxes. Today the judge has announced the penalties and they are incredibly devastating for Trump. He is ordered to pay a whopping $350 million fine while being prohibited from acting as company director in New York state for three years. Combine that fine with the earlier judgement that he must pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll for defaming her and he is now in a huge financial mess. He has claimed in the past to be a billionaire so he could easily pay those fines if he really is as rich as he claims to be. We will all find out soon if his claim of being a billionaire is yet another one of his many lies that he has told over the years. In the meantime check out this Substack post written by Donald's niece, Mary Trump, where she is lauding today's decision against her uncle.
The Latest Protests
Other protests have broken out in Europe for reasons beside Navalny's death. This past Sunday in Germany over 100,000 people marched in Munich against the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
Hungary is about to go through its own bout of protests this weekend. Today tens of thousands of Hungarians have hit the streets of Budapest to protest the authoritarian rule of Viktor Orbán, which was jump-started by a sex abuse pardon scandal and it's leading to mass-resignations in the government.
A Blast From Tucker Carlson's Past
I wished this clip had been released while I was writing my recent post on Tucker Carlson and that two-hour fawning interview he did with Vladimir Putin. One of Carlson's former employers, MSNBC, had recently released this compilation of clips from Carlson's old show on that network when he was far more skeptical and critical about Vladimir Putin. Watching this video makes me want to see the circa 2005-2008 Tucker Carlson in the same room with the 2024 Tucker Carlson and have them do a debate about Vladimir Putin.
As for Carlson's recent interview with Putin, there was one person who was not impressed with Tucker Carlson: Vladimir Putin. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up!
Despite Putin’s diss of Tucker Carlson, Carlson is still in Moscow releasing videos about the city that he has fallen in love with. So far he's impressed with a very fancy and arty Moscow subway station that was built during Joseph Stalin's time.
He also visited this Moscow grocery store that he says has radicalized him against US leaders.
He was speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai today when he received word about Alexei Navalny's death. This was his response: “Leadership requires killing people.”
And while we're on the subject of Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin, here's a Ukrainian comedy sketch skewering that interview. (English subtitles are provided.)
Donald Trump as Portrayed By Russian Propagandists
The Russian independent channel that's currently broadcasting in exile, TV Rain, has released this fascinating video showing how the Russian propagandists have portrayed Donald Trump in the Russian media along with the ups and downs of the Putin-Trump relationship over the years.
When Russia Isn't Such a Lovely Right-Wing Christian Paradise
There's a video that originated on TikTok that had spread on social media this week about a Canadian family who moved to Russia to get away from those pesky liberal values and LGBTQ people only to have it turn into a nightmare when their new Russian bank accounts were suddenly frozen. They are now unable to buy anything because they have no money because it is now frozen.
Apparently they now regret their decision to move to Russia but they won't be able to afford to move back to Canada as long as their accounts remain frozen. While I feel bad for the children (because they had no choice in the matter), I have zero sympathy for the parents. They could have just ignored the liberals and LGBTQ people and just live their lives in Canada. But they were so intolerant of the idea of living near people who have different values and lifestyles from them that they decided that they had to move to a part of the world where these people are far less tolerated without doing much research into their potential new country.
Had they simply spent an afternoon doing a few Google searches they would have learned about the oligarcy’s dominance of Russia, the people who died under mysterious circumstances simply for questioning the government (such as Anna Politkovskaya), the members of the opposition that are currently serving prison sentences on trumped-up charges (which included, until today, Alexei Navalny), and the continuing corruption in Russia. But, no, they let their intolerance of others who are different from them drive their decision to move to Russia and they are now learning about the dark side of living in Russia the hard way.
The 2024 German Carnival Floats
This past week was Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) followed by Ash Wednesday and we are now in the season of Lent. There are usually large-scale celebrations in places like New Orleans and Brazil. But it's the German Carnival celebrations that tend to be the most memorable because they frequently include parade floats that are full of political satire and 2024 was no different. Here are the photos of the most memorable floats that I found online.
My blog is free to subscribe but if you want to make a comment, you’ll need to take out a paid subscription. Click on the button below for more details.