All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[CSTowle]

Probably too early to post anything but reckless speculation, but what happens if it's Ukrainian rebels who aren't Russian despite being "allies" of theirs, but can't really be considered Ukrainian (at least as far as their actions representing the interests of the government)? Who's to blame?

[worstblogever]

I had a pretty similar response to someone's listing of four instances of Democratic politicians making racist remarks. I was too lazy to list them, and I'd be way too lazy to look up the individual offenses, but if you pay attention it's not even close to equivalent.

I feel like we could profile a "Crazy Republican of the Week" easily, just based off of that list. And that's just the national ones. If we went to state legislatures, it would be "of the Day".

[Charles RB]

Given what the rules on the cross-examination of sexual assault victims allowed in the 1970's he was probably right about the second part. The kind of defense QC that Smith would have been able to afford would have shredded them in the witness box.

Hrm. There's a lovely thought.

[Pinsir]

Another Malaysian aircraft goes down killing 300 people, this time in occupied Ukraine.

EDIT: Well I'm late either way...

[worstblogever]

This probably isn't shocking, but... Todd Akin really can't stop talking about legitimate rape.

[Charles RB]

This story could be huge. And ugly for that matter. A Malaysian airliner with nearly 300 people on board has went down over the Ukraine. Initial rumors have it the aircraft might have been shot down, possibly by the Russians, or by Russian separatists.

The BBC's been talking to defence consultants and while only the separatists (mistaking it for a Ukranian jet) have a reason to fire, they haven't been seen with the firepower to do it. One of the experts has said on live TV that there's rumours of the separatists having more advanced anti-aircraft weapons which would have to have been sent to them, recently, by Russia. That would be a huge deal.

There's also issue about whose investigators will get their first. The police around the crash site are separatists but who would believe them even if it was an accident?

And live:

19:04:

The Malaysian airliner was flying normally without any problems until it disappeared from radar, the head of Ukraine's airspace regulation body says, as quoted by Reuters.

19:00:

A tweet (in Russian) from a key Twitter account used by pro-Russian separatists, in which they claim to have captured a Buk surface-to-air missile system, has now been deleted, BBC Monitoring observes. Ukrainians say the Malaysian plane could have been downed with a Buk, but pro-Russian rebels have now denied they have it.

And how to know this would be a big cock up:

18:36:

The route taken by flight MH17 was a well-flown route between Europe and Asia, a pilot tells BBC transport correspondent Richard Westcott. He said that any troops should have known the path was full of civilian aircraft.

And Obama has announced the US will provide "any assistance" on finding out what happened "and why".

[Pinsir]

Ukraine analyst blames Russia!

Of the over 300 victims there were 23 Americans on board, along with Dutch (it came from Amsterdam) and obviously some Malaysians.

[Jeff Brady]

IAnd please, by all means, if you want to really open up this can of worms, Mark... I'd be more than happy to elaborate, in detail, exactly how crazy any and all of those f***ing conservative kooks are.

I would love you for such a long time if you did. And then follow that up with whatever made-up BS people think is so bad about Alan Grayson.

"Grayson complained about something that hurts a lot of people! He's dangerous to democracy!"

[Kid A]

Fox News keeps trying to not so subtly insinuate that Russia did it because of US sanctions.

And this is why I hate the consolidated thread. We're still doing the inane "The democrats are just as bad" debate while there's a current event.

[Charles RB]

And this is a smoking gun:

Almost as soon as the plane was downed today, Russian state news agency ITAR-Tass boasted “Donetsk People’s Republic militiamen shoot down Ukrainian Air Force An-26”. That makes it a little harder for Russian propagandists to turn around and blame it all on the Ukrainians.

That means either they did shoot it down or they saw the plane going down & immediately went "let's claim WE did that!". If the latter, whoops

EDIT: BBC live talking to Charles Hayman of Jane's Defence Weekly, he's pointed out that separatist accounts tweeting that they've shot down a plane had done it last week,when a fighter plane came down

[Charles RB]

Fox News keeps trying to not so subtly insinuate that Russia did it because of US sanctions.

They're insinuating Russia shut down a Malaysian plane with Dutch passengers because of US sanctions?

[Michael P]

A bad thing happened. It's clearly Barack Obama's fault!

[Lightsabretooth]

They're insinuating Russia shut down a Malaysian plane with Dutch passengers because of US sanctions?

It's Fox News. I'm surprised they aren't saying Obama did himself it with a bazooka.

They are however already attacking his comments about it. With no information he said "it may be a tragedy(as in, accident as opposed to a terrorist attack). They are attacking him saying "MAYBE a tragedy?!!?! It IS a tragedy!!" "Get him!"

Ridiculous. They're almost giddy about it.

[UltraMagnetic]

You'll have a lot of dead babies in back alley dumpsters because of that law. Is that really what you want?

The law allows for the mother to avoid jail time by entering and successfully completing a drug treatment program. Isn't that what you want?

[the4thpip]

Is there a civil war/war the US could fix right now?

Just asking in general. To see if you are anti-war, or just "anti Americans being endangered to save the lives of other nationalities."