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Without taking away from the fact that Russia is blatantly reaching for any flimsy justification for their actions, there is a grim sense that they are purposefully echoing the typical rhetoric we have seen the West use about war in the last 20-30 years. "The oppressed locals want us to intervene" - Kosovo 1999 "They're shielding and supporting terrorists" - Afghanistan 2001 "They have chemical weapons, we needed to act" - Iraq 2003 "They're hiding behind civilians, they are to blame if we accidentally kill any innocents" - Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, take your pick. Even if they can't put together anything like a cogent or believable rhetoric themselves, they seem to be purposefully touching on the right notes to at least try highlight the pervasive hypocrisy at play.

It seems like America has no serious economic-left, but a fairly vocal and visible social left which do dumb and polarising things like taking Abraham Lincoln's name off schools due to seeing him as racist. Bernie Sanders is proof there's public appetite for something more but the way he's ostracised suggests there's very little room for him in the democratic party.

Anybody excited or happy that a Russian oligarch is exiting for a Saudi oligarch is delusional. Sports clubs should be owned by communities and fans. Now they are tools and playthings by billionaires and regimes buying positive PR with western nations. Even American sports are more honest, they are just owned by people looking to make money, there is no smoke and mirrors, just revenue and that transparency is refreshing and honest.

The left does a terrible job in general of messaging while the right is far, far more effective. But to say left media outlets (CNN is even more central really) but id Include ABC, CNN and MSNBC spread propoganda? even if theres a modicum of truth in that statement it isnt in the same stratasphere as Fox news, Newsmax, OAN. They literally are not comparable. Il throw in a tad of background for Fox. They where the first to actually call Arizona for Biden and for a period of roughly 2 maybe 3 weeks that followed they tried reporting actual news and not just trump propaganda as I figure they probably guessed it was going to pass and not take over the entire GOP. Guess what happened? ratings plummeted and they quadrupled down on the election big lie bullshit because money and ratings are far more important then reporting news. Go checkout any of the text messages that have been handed over of any of the big fox personalities Hannity, Tucker fuckface and Ingraham in regards to Jan 6th. The direct correspondents with Trump or his inner circle on that day is all public knowledge now thanks to the Jan 6th commitee. They absolutely know what their doing, they arent dumb but guess what money. The US political system is a god damn mess. I know traditionally they take pride in their two party system but I think fundementally it doesnt make sense in this day and age, period, full stop. The other major issue is the bajillions of money involved corrupting both sides to the core. The route of all problems is always seemingly money and theres a very real chance it could tear that country apart if it already hasnt for that matter. Anyways I should have probably moved this into the American politics section so Ill try and leave it at this.

No Canadian but I follow American politics fairly closely because it is trickling into Canada as well. Nothing to do with gotcha moments but when idiots keep paroting garbage it triggers me. Im not a big MSNBC guy either way but if youre trying to compare them to fox thats laughable in itself. One at least attempts to report news the other only has a modicum of news and thats on sundays because thats not what their viewers want to see or listen to. Their viewers want to watch opinion propaganda machines that spread nothing but bullshit.

Yeah I really feel as if our eyes should be open to this. It's already pissing me off to be honest that people don't really seem arsed by Newcastle's owners. I'm poorly educated on the Saudi-Yemen conflict but it sounds like it's in a similar ball park to what Russia are doing to Ukraine. Like I said, poorly educated so I'm happy to stand corrected if needs be. But the question should be asked, what's the actual difference? For fans, the difference is a large part down to the fact that Newcastle haven't "stolen" any of the success reserved for the "established" teams or given anyone anything to be bitter about quite yet, which is a shame and very cynical of me but I really do think that's a part of it. I don't know whether Saudi Arabia's conflict with Yemen is more legitimate in some way, my understanding is that it isn't but again, I won't pretend to be an expert. I can't imagine any circumstance in which what they're doing is palatable though. Anyway, why aren't we treating Newcastle's owners the same as Chelsea's? Why were they allowed to buy a Premier League club in the first place? Is it because their actions in Yemen aren't as bad as Putin somehow? Is it because we want to buy oil from and sell arms to Saudi Arabia and there isn't enough public outrage about them to override this for our government? As an aside, I'm not necessarily calling for Newcastle to face the same sanctions as Chelsea, I'm not sure about the sanctions reaching as far as the rest of the football club when Abramovich is the only one personally responsible for anything related to Putin. I'd have thought there was a way to transfer ownership of the club without him getting a penny out of it and not having it impact on Chelsea's staff and fans. But I don't know, there's a lot of nitty gritty in there that I'm not overly interested in. What I'm generally interested in is the disparity between outrage and sanctions directed at Abramovich and the lack of outrage and sanctions directed at Newcastle's owners, because I can't find an angle to look at it without seeing some pretty massive double standards and some unpleasant truths about who Putin's victims are compared to who the Saudi regime's victims are.

Yeah, anyone doubting Abramovich's connection with Putin really needs to look into the facts. He personally interviewed every single cabinet appointee in Putin's first cabinet & that's after recommending Putin to Yeltsin. He also recommended Medvedev to Putin as his "successor" in that brief period where he wasn't allowed to be president so he needed a puppet successor. Abramovich is being targeted now because Putin has made his Russia a pariah state. Saying "well people used to not care" doesn't suddenly make Abramovich an innocent man - he's someone who's benefitted from Russia's corruption post USSR and is so closely tied to the most elite in Russia they're basically inseparable. The fact that some people used to not care should open peoples' eyes to what's happening in English football, not be used as an excuse to turn a blind eye to it for even longer. They probably think he's an "authoritarian" because of his "liberal overreach" - although I'm not sure the facts really paint a picture of authoritarian rule or overreach. Here's a world leader who let truckers converge on his capital and at US-Canada border crossings for weeks and bring a capital city to almost complete shutdown (while they attempted to prevent politicians from doing their jobs) and blocked imports/exports for several weeks costing over $21.1b in trade to be blocked. Was he authoritarian in letting them protest for several weeks with pretty light penalties? Because I've got family that actually live under an authoritarian regime and they've attended protests and they usually don't get weeks before they face arrest... it's pretty instant that the threat of arrest comes in and it's coupled with the threat of imminent violence against the protestors. So from where I'm sitting, I don't think what Trudeau's done looks very authoritarian. And is it liberal overreach to end a protest after weeks while it hurts businesses in Canada and the US to the amount where tens of billions are lost? Honestly, I think there's a case to be made that in the US or UK if business interests were threatened to the point of losing that sort of money by protestors... those governments would step in to act much quicker than we saw with Canada. Both examples are good examples of lazy & bad faithed arguments to try to highlight "western hypocrisy." It relies on people outside of Canada not knowing enough about what happened with the protests in Canada and perhaps being sympathetic to those who were given a choice of getting a jab or losing their jobs, in order to agree that "yes Trudaeu acted like a despot" when in reality... I don't think that's what Trudaeu demonstrated at all in his actions. He arguably acted with kid gloves considering the economic cost of those border crossings being shut down. And I think that's a bit weird, because you really don't have to try too hard to find evidence of western hypocrisy that's... pretty fucking legitimate. Our complicity with the Saudi coalition's invasion in Yemen, the Iraq war, etc... but I think highlighting that sort of hypocrisy might be shining a light on a problem in our society that they maybe don't actually want us to address, so that's probably why they don't bang that drum.

Netherlands are hardcore when it comes to cycling. I once cycled in Amsterdam, and when we were at a red light, at the milisecond it turned green I had someone literally bumping into me from behind (No, MUFC, not like that).

I'm confused. Is Trudeau an authoritarian or an example of "liberal overreach"? Because I've read both in the past week and I'm not even convinced it was from two different posters.

Abramovic was one of the few oligarchs to survive the post-Yeltsin Russia. He threw his lot in with Putin to survive and he has done so to this day. The economic climate of Russia post USSR was a vacuum, state assets, and land was up for grab and swallowed by what was to become the oligarchs. In the early days the oligarch state was heavily supported by Boris Yeltsin and the USA but when Yeltsin was winding down and KGB supported Putin was gaining power there was a divide in the oligarchs, Abramovic was one that supported Putin, many of the others are dead or exiled, Khodorkovsky and Gusinky are exiled, while Berezovsky was assassinated in London with the assassination having ties to Abramovic. Saying these men or Abramovic having political influence or proximity isn’t simply conjecture, it is a fact and it has been available to see since the Yeltsin era. Abramovic was the very first to endorse Putin for crying out loud. Denying this sort of transparent influence is like denying that Rupert Murdoch controls the papers, or that Comcast doesn’t control the cable networks, or that Amazon doesn’t control the delivery infrastructure.

There's hardly a left-wing in America... and it's certainly not represented by CNN or MSNBC, CNN is as "middle of the road" in America as a news-media company can be - in the UK political spectrum we'd probably think of them as pro-Tory news. MSNBC is corporate media masquerading as left-leaning, to sucker people from the left in to watching and push them further and further to the right. They're basically just like SkyNews. Same owners too. CNBC (one of their affiliates) is about as left-leaning as Fox - which isn't too surprising as it's catered towards business news. America is too conservative societally and so driven by corporate interests in every slice of society to really have much room for a left-wing. That's why even some left-wing politicians, like Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein periodically come out with some far-right nonsense to get some media time and "credibility" with US voters who are obsessed with the idea of centricism and "moderates".

Youre absolutely right to question him and I still dont personally agree with his or Cheney's politics at all they are very much conservatives to the core but its kinda funny that their the propped up saviours of the republican party as we used to know it. I remember early last year sometime where Kinzinger made public a letter from his family basically denouncing him and anything to do with him over his political fight and refusal to go status quo it was absolutely mental to read. Thats probably where he won me over, it gave some insight into the thinking of these people. There is no reason especially when you mix in religion Ill dig it up if you missed it its really something. Cant find the full thing anymore but this basically covers it: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9264005/Kinzinger-releases-letter-family-saying-joined-devils-army-backing-Trumps-impeachment.html

I think it's interesting Adam Kitzinger's developed something of a conscience since the coup attempt on January 6th - even stating that "he should have voted to impeach Trump over blackmailing Ukraine" which I think was obvious back then, but even more obvious now that this invasion of Ukraine has happened. But because he was unwilling to see the obvious when it was unfolding... it does make me doubt his sincerity now tbh. It's a bit like the Putin loving Tories that now have to play to public opinion shifting against the Russians so they want to seem tough on Russia now... it just doesn't seem sincere & things like the UK's one month loophole for Oligarchs to get their money out seem to indicate they aren't really sincere. So it makes me wonder how sincere Kitzinger is that his party's propaganda wing has gone so far off the rails. Where was this concern two or three years ago, when the party's propaganda wing was just as far off the rails? Is he only upset because they roused the rabble into demanding they hang Mike Pence? Or is he genuinely upset that they've openly embraced anti-democratic positions? Don't get me wrong, it's good for a republican to speak out against people like Tucker Carlson (btw: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/14/kremlin-memos-russian-media-tucker-carlson-fox-news-mother-jones) - but I do question their motivations, because Fox News slide towards authoritarianism and anti-democratic messaging really isn't new in the slightest.

Absolutely brilliant from one of the Republicans thats stood up to dear former leader and much like Cheney been outcasted by the party.

It's not that they're making money, it's everything else. And what we're talking about is whether the various rich people in the country are connected or complicit in those other things that the country is doing. The thing that makes Saudi Arabia a fairly unique country is that the entire economy is basically reliant on one sector - oil - and even the other sectors are also largely dependent on that sector. And the government is in almost total control of the oil. The point of mentioning this, is that even many nominally private companies or non-state entities, are connected and in effect owe their status to the government anyway. It is very difficult to draw a clear line between the Saudi government and Saudi private enterprise, because the whole economy owes its success to a state-controlled industry.

The thing with Saudi Arabia is that when a country's economy is overwhelmingly based on one resource, and that resource is largely state-controlled, it is very easy to connect almost any wealth in the country with the state and the government. Of course, the economic elite of all countries is in effect the ruling class, and in almost all countries have a large influence and inter-connection with the state, but the closeness becomes even more obvious the less diversified the economy is and the more heavily-involved the state is with the economy.

It could be anyone that gets the nod.... There are over 200 interested parties currently that would put the funds together to buy the club which is why the club won't go down and that's the most important part... What funds they might have or what model they operate under is yet to be seen when someone finally puts pen to paper and the deal is done.. If it's someone who just wants to make money then the days of splashing the cash will be gone and the model will be more frugal which may mean we may drop off being a top 4 side for a while while wages and expenses are brought into line. If on the other hand they have money to spend then they may continue to fund signings and spend money in the fashion we have been used to... I am fully expecting us to take a hit somewhere along the line but what does amuse me is all these other fans spitting venom hoping we would fold and crash and burn won't happen and it would amuse me if someone as rich as or richer took over... I have found the sanctions against the club to be a tad over the top.. I could understand it when Abramovich was still at the helm but having had those assets seized and being booted from the club why are sponsors continuing to play hard ball by pulling agreements.. It's not a Russian club and as long as the club has no connection to him in anyway I don't see why they can't carry on supporting the club.. If the Government has frozen his assets then any future money coming in from matchday tickets/merch and sponsors won't be going in his pocket.. The other thing I was reading the other day was that any sale of the club would be put towards the Ukraine cause or, and this is a tad concerning, that the money would go into a 'special account' What the fuck is that supposed to mean??? It should go straight to the Ukraine cause.. If this government try and set up a special account where those funds just disappear then 3Billion is not something I would trust our government being in control of...

Rubio is a walking sack of human garbage. Now go read about actual responses and instead of watching fox news to find out "information" this has been debunked and fact checked beyond question. Stop spreading bullshit.

Saudi Media Group pretty much answer to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. So yes, they are very representative of whatever human rights violations occur in that country. They are literally the propaganda arm of the government,. Guess what, they are infiltrating the British media, they already own the Independent, now they will sportswash with Chelsea. Are the British so weak they kowtow to the songs and pocket money of foreign powers? Why can a foreign investor even own a British football team? Brexiting right into Arabia. English football is a corpse.

What conspiracy theory did I post? Let's be honest. It's a bigger conspiracy theory to believe that the money that comes out of these countries is ever clean. The Saudi regime executed 81 people on Saturday and are also infamous for dismembering and murdering a journalist who said mean things about them. A Media Group that comes out of a country like that is, at best, silent on the crimes of said regime, else they wouldn't be allowed to exist in that state and they certainly wouldn't have accrued enough money to buy a football club. If you choose to believe that these guys are likely to be legit then fine, but you're the one doing the mental gymnastics here. As for the Abramovich thing. If you've already chosen your position on it then fair enough. I have nothing to add to whatever has already been said and left you unconvinced so I'm not going to waste my time going over old ground.

More Saudis. Good to see the Premier League learning it's lesson from the Abramovich embarrassment huh.

Well, I don't know how things are going to pan out obviously or who might have the winning bid in the end but I admit I would laugh my fucking arse off if someone came in with the same or even more spending power than Abramovich....

I love it. Makes it look and feel communal

Once upon a time in Hollywood. 8/10 Got more and more compelling as it went on, brilliant in spots (Di Caprios scenes as the bandit, Margot watching her own movie, Brad Pitt at the Manson ranch, and the ending) But lots of dead scenes. Not on par with Tarentinos best work (Inglorious Basterds, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill) But better than his worst (Jackie Brown)

If they threw Chelsea out of the league, it'll open up a massive can of worms regarding other owners and their wealth and set a precedent. They're juggling trying to seem tough on Putin's lackeys and not completely upsetting the balance of football by fully looking into these owners because Abramovich is not the only one who's obtained his money by questionable means.

Seen quite a lot of people reveling in the prospect of Chelsea folding as a club or something equally drastic. Fair enough if you want to revel in the downfall of Abramovich or those at the club who actually have a say and have done very well out of his ownership, but the wanton laughter at the fans is a bit much for me, they didn't sell the club to him in the first place and you'd be genuinely gutted if it happened to your club. Don't bother replying with the "plastics" shouts or trying to claim that the fans who sung his name during the silence the other day represent all Chelsea fans either. It just makes you a total bore. People didn't laugh at Bury or Wimbledon fans when their clubs went under. Regardless of Abramovich or the fact that Chelsea have ridden higher than those clubs for a long time, genuine fans hold their football club as a sincere part of their life and in that respect, Chelsea are no different. Maybe I've just gone soft but it seems to have strayed from banter to real nastiness in some quarters (not here from what I've seen).

I mean there've been sanctions on Russia since they invaded Crimea, perhaps the West should have taken a harsher stance in 2014 to make Russia think twice about further invasions rather than placating them to let them feel they could continue their expansion in Europe with nobody giving a shit.

Lol

So that’s Chelsea and Man Citeh now unable to sell tickets.

I can't remember which Liverpool fan it was, but one was absolutely INSISTENT Dinosaurs never existed. When confronted about it years later, he said it was a wind up, but there's no way it was.

Nice info, carbon intensity decrease in flights as distance increases. These short-haul private jets must be taking a huge toll then

Much different meaning in the North on a Friday night. Usually down a back lane.

This warms my heart ladies and gents it truly does. This girl

Pretty bad situation in terms of fit defenders. Toprak will potentially miss the rest of the season, while Friedl will be out for several weeks