Obama: We brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine by SIGNYM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Among other hilarities, KPO also believes Iraq manufactured and possessed WMDs. You're not dealing with a rational, evidence-based mind.     1Kiki

Seriously???
Wow, I thought KPO was only twisted about Russia!    SIGNY

Ask him yourself. I'm sure he'll be happy to tell you.     1Kiki

So, what about those Iraqi WMD, KPO???    SIGNY

Kiki is unhinged.    KPO

No, I'm not unhinged, it's just that he's a liar.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=58499&p=7

KPO

Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:30 PM

I never said anything about importing them - no, it manufactured them and hid the evidence. However, now that you mention it, I did also hear a theory that Saddam DID import WMD - secretly from the USA back in the 80s; and then when the US captured them in 2003 they covered it up. Personally I don't know if it's true or not, but I'm guessing you can't disprove it...

Well done for providing a link for once Kiki! Now if only you had understood it properly...

By stating that maybe Iraq did have WMDs, and asking you to 'prove' otherwise, I was parodying you and Sig, and your refusal to believe in Russia's meddling in Ukraine. If you didn't get that at the time, you should have got it from my very next post, which was:

Quote:
Hey, I didn't say I believed any of these theories. Just in the absence of any PROOF, which you don't have, I refuse to rush to judgement...

There, you see how ridiculous I'm being? Demanding an impossible proof, and then hiding from a common sense conclusion (that there never were any WMDs) because of the absence of that proof? That's what you and Signy are doing.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Saturday, February 7, 2015 12:27 PM

Good lord. Could Kiki/sig try a little harder to be obviously a moronic liar? Trying to say kpo believes in Iraq and nukes, based on that thread? Jesus. Dumbass!

And he/she/it wonders why intelligent people only show up to mock lol! Why try a real conversation when the sig troll lacks basic comprehension skills.

Thanks for the laugh kpo lol!

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Saturday, February 7, 2015 12:28 PM

So funny I had to post twice. ;)

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Saturday, February 7, 2015 1:32 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"By stating that maybe Iraq did have WMDs ..."

"... no, it manufactured them and hid the evidence."

Do YOU see a maybe in there krappy?

Neither do I.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Saturday, February 7, 2015 3:45 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Let me rephrase: Then why aren't so-called Russian-affiliated security agents being investigated?

Last I heard the investigation against the SBU had stalled because:

1. They covered their tracks well (they're spies, this is what they do)
2. They're obstructing/not cooperating with the investigation (clearly some culpable people who participated or knew about the operation still work there).

Quote:
Where you will see the USA's hand quite often.

You see the USA's hand everywhere...

Quote:
There are also many stories (in western press) which discuss who they are. Many of them are coal miners, farmers, drugstore technicians... people from the area.

And many more of them are Cossack and Chechen mercenaries, Russian volunteers, and 'vacationing' Russian soldiers. Separatist leaders have publicly bemoaned the lack of local volunteers for the cause. You would know this if you didn't only consume pro-Russian media.

Quote:
Well, we did exactly the same thing in Venezuela.

You know that US mercs did the shooting in Ukraine because they did the same thing in Venezuela? And how do you know that it was US mercs in Venezuala? Because of your worldview of the USA as the great Satan, of course.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Saturday, February 7, 2015 4:00 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
But EVERYBODY'S poll numbers were low. It's not like Yanukovych was an exception.

The pro-Western vote was split between 3 or 4 candidates - that's the only reason Yanukovich was level with them.

Quote:
WHETHER UKRAINIANS SUPPORT EUROMAYDAN
Yes in general 45%

YOU claimed that Yanukovich had over 50% support at the time he was ousted. Showing polling numbers of support for the Euromaidan is not the same thing as polling of support for Yanukovich. Also the Maidan approval statistics you have chosen are not from the correct time period. Later statistics released in March, after the Kiev shootings and Yanukovich's flight to Russia, showed that support for the Euromaidan had risen significantly higher, to about 57% However you read it, Yanukovich did not have 50% support, or anything close to it, at the time he was ousted.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 1:09 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

KPO- You, MAL4, and GSTRING are so fucking childish it's pointless to continue this.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 8:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by G:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
KPO- You, MAL4, and GSTRING are so fucking childish it's pointless to continue this.

Look who's having a hissy fit.

Right. It's "childish" to point out how incredibly moronically wrong sig is. But rather than admit that, yes, she was way off base, she's gonna take her ball and go home in a huff.

This still is not my favorite, though. Kiki saying that I must be having a mental break-down is the hyperbolic "avoid understanding why people disagree with me" deflection of the year IMO. That was just awesome LOL!

Anything rather than admit you might be wrong, hey you two? Anything rather than actually having to *hear* what people are saying, rather than what you wish they were saying.

*-------------------------------------------------*
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http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57532
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Sunday, February 8, 2015 8:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

"By stating that maybe Iraq did have WMDs ..."

"... no, it manufactured them and hid the evidence."

Do YOU see a maybe in there krappy?

Neither do I.

Way to continue to quote out of context and again display your stunning lack of comprehension skills. Did you even read KPOs post? You do understand that the rest of us did, right?

Burrow your head deeper in the sand if it makes you feel good. The rest of us can still see your ass waving about in the wind.

*-------------------------------------------------*
What trolls reveal about themselves when they troll:
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57532
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Sunday, February 8, 2015 3:47 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

The pro-Western vote was split between 3 or 4 candidates - that's the only reason Yanukovich was level with them.

You ass. This wasn't an election where people had to choose one over the other. Each person was independently rated on their own merits. Unless you think an election with the candidates getting 260% of the votes is a valid one.

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 3:54 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

YOU claimed that Yanukovich had over 50% support at the time he was ousted.

And I've made that claim before, with links to back it up. But the internet, being the internet, doesn't always lead you back to the results you're looking for when you search again a year later.

But then - you never post actual, yanno, evidence. So, that you're quibbling over mine is just more of the usual hypocritical double standard you so thoroughly embody.

And yes krappy still = liar.

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 4:14 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1a06857a-ae60-11e3-aaa6-00144feab7de.html#ix
zz3RBo0zHPG

In the wake of turmoil, the role of Ukraine’s oligarchs is under scrutiny

By Yuri Bender

Victor Pinchuk has had a good revolution. Close friends with the Clintons and Tony Blair, and one of Ukraine’s four wealthiest and best-connected industrialists, Pinchuk’s charitable foundation is about to fly 70 demonstrators wounded during protests close to Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) for treatment in Germany. Prominent during the recent turmoil, he is keen to show his continuing commitment to the activists and the new government.

“Big business, like the entire country, has been given a huge chance by the Maidan heroes to participate in the building of a new country to a certain extent from scratch,” Pinchuk told me in early March. “It will be an honour to contribute to building the freshest, most surprising, most attractive country in the world.”

As Kiev responds to promises of aid from the International Monetary Fund and the EU, most of the country remains nervously glued to their smartphones for the latest news about Russian intentions in Ukraine.

But they are also starting to ask what role the oligarchs – some of Europe’s wealthiest people with fortunes made in steel, coal, gas and banking – played in supporting the pro-EU uprisings.

The unrest has given the oligarchs a further opportunity to shake off once-shady reputations and present themselves as concerned business leaders and reputable partners for investors from European and US markets. The most vocal voice coming from the oligarchs throughout the protests, in condemning the authorities’ (alleged) brutality, was that of metals magnate Pinchuk.

We meet in his palatial glass-panelled office on the 26th floor of Kiev’s Parus Business Centre, a headquarters he incidentally shares with controversial, recently-arrested rival tycoon Dmytro Firtash.

On his desk, on top of a pile of documents, Pinchuk has a signed photograph of boxer Wladimir Klitschko – younger brother of former world heavyweight champion and presidential contender Vitali. The logo of Pinchuk’s Interpipe metallurgical mill was embossed on the younger fighter’s trunks in his title bout with Russia’s Alexander Povetkin last October. “I made the mistake of sponsoring a boxer in a fight for Ukraine versus Russia,” jokes Pinchuk, a proud supporter of the Ukrainian boxing brothers as well as a major exporter to Russia.

Crucial to delivering a future based on “European values” is Pinchuk’s hand-picking of future Ukrainian leaders, educating them in western universities and seconding them to London banks and law firms at the “right moment”, before they are seduced by the system. “I hope the people we have sent abroad will increasingly take responsibility,” he says.

Pinchuk himself had several head-starts in life. He grew up the son of art-loving parents, well connected in the metallurgical industry of Dnipropetrovsk. This Soviet powerhouse city was closed to outsiders due to its secret rocket research facility. “We used to hear our walls shaking and we didn’t know why it was,” says Yura, a weather-beaten driver in his 50s who ferries guests to Pinchuk’s environmentally friendly Interpipe factory, built on the banks of the Dnipro river, complete with art installations from Danish-Icelandic sculptor Olafur Eliasson. “Then we found out it was rockets being tested at the factory where Leonid Kuchma was a director.”

Kuchma later became president of Ukraine and soon after his daughter Olena became Pinchuk’s second wife, catapulting his businesses and personal standing from regional to national and eventually international prominence.

“Maybe I am influential, but it is the power of influence, not the influence of power,” Pinchuk says. “I don’t hold any governmental position.” “But I can establish certain benchmarks and I can share my vision about how to be more efficient in different areas.” (Ah, the unelected oligarchs at work running a supposed democracy. How quaint.)

Despite these occasional displays of chutzpah, Pinchuk is prepared to admit his mistakes, such as overplaying family connections in a run-in with former Dnipropetrovsk business partner Yulia Tymoshenko, who has recently been released from prison. Most Ukrainians believe she was jailed on trumped-up political charges, but few trust her implicitly.

Tymoshenko turned on her fellow oligarchs following the Orange revolution of 2004. After she was appointed prime minister, she reprivatised the Kryvorizhstal steel factory, bought for the knockdown price of $800m by Pinchuk and Ukraine’s richest man and coal king Rinat Akhmetov. The enterprise was later sold to London-based Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal for $4.8bn.

“From a legal point of view, everything was OK,” says Pinchuk, who, unlike some tycoons, is not tainted by allegations of links with organised crime. “But as a member of the family of the president [Kuchma], I made a mistake.”

Bridges are clearly being built with Tymoshenko, expected to run for president in May, while “Chocolate King” Petro Poroshenko, a vocal backer of the protests and potential rival presidential candidate, has been a guest at Pinchuk’s high-profile meetings in Davos.

During an encounter at Kiev’s Ukraina hotel, which was used as a field hospital during the recent uprisings, Poroshenko accused me of “offending the country” when I asked if the role of oligarchs in politics should be reduced.

“There are various rich people in Ukraine. There are those who use their state position for their own personal enrichment,” says the greying businessman and television mogul, whose Roshen chocolate exports suffered when Russia specifically targeted him for import restrictions in 2013. His businesses in Russia have more recently been raided by police. “And there are those who build honest and transparent businesses that bring investment to Ukraine, create jobs and declare and document every kopek.”

Sipping espresso in the O’Panas restaurant in Kiev, Vadym Karasyov, formerly an adviser to Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president after the Orange revolution, takes endless calls from journalists and clients in both Ukraine and Russia, concerned about the precarious state of the relationship between the two countries.

Under recently ousted president Viktor Yanukovich, the oligarchs’ interests were threatened by his “Family” of owners of interlinked companies. These interests are now likely to be shared out among the remaining tycoons. “Today they can say they are Ukrainian patriots who are making sure the country stays united,” says Karasyov.

Guarded praise for the involvement of the oligarchs comes from the unlikeliest of sources, such as Oleksandra Kuzhel, the formidable head of the parliamentary committee for entrepreneurship and regulatory and antimonopoly policy and a long-time critic of big business.

While chastising various business owners during a meeting at Kiev’s Intercontinental hotel, she turns to answer my question about the role of oligarchs in society and breaks into a disarming smile. “I thank [Donetsk governor and industrialist] Mr [Serhiy] Taruta and [Dnipropetrovsk governor and Privatbank owner] Mr [Ihor] Kolomoisky for coming to help us in this difficult time and for working towards the rebirth of the regions,” she says, referring to the government’s appointment of key oligarchs to run restive eastern regions. They won’t need to seize control of the markets and kiosks, like most new people do. These are serious people, with reputations in business. But we will be monitoring them closely.”

“I know all these oligarchs well,” says Vitali Klitschko, leader of the Udar political party (the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, the acronym being Ukrainian for “punch”) and the man many think could be a serious presidential contender. Speaking after a press conference at a fortified opposition building, deep in the Kiev suburbs, he says: “They want a declaration of the rules of the game, so things don’t keep changing. They too are scared of living in a country with no laws.” The imposing yet affable 6ft 7in former boxer had also spoken about the oligarchs during a previous encounter in London, when he told me he would not be expropriating any assets or reversing any deals if he became president, preferring to “sit down with all of them round the table, when we discuss the nation’s future”.

Prime minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has also confirmed that renationalisation is off the agenda.

According to his aides, Akhmetov is an admirer of both Yatseniuk and Klitschko. “All of the oligarchs were financing the protests. European association suits them well as it expands the metallurgical quota for Pinchuk and Akhmetov, both of whom have already done so much to legalise their capital in the west,” says Karasyov, who is also Ukraine’s best-known TV political pundit.

Pinchuk may not be happy about the governorship of his native Dnipropetrovsk region being handed to his rival Kolomoisky. The need to transfer his flagship Yalta European Strategy conference from the now occupied iconic crimean resort city to Kiev in September will also be a blow. But he proclaims himself ready to serve Ukraine. “It goes without saying that we [the oligarchs] are all ready to defend the unity of the country,” Pinchuk says. “By whatever means it takes.”

Unlike the intellectual Pinchuk, who grew up buried in books among the technocratic elite of Dnipropetrovsk, coalminer’s son Rinat Akhmetov hails from a down-at-heel industrial area on the fringes of Donetsk. “He loved boxing and ran his street football team. Even then he was a leader, who could bring people together,” says Ludmila Dmytriuk, headteacher of School No 63 in the Kubushevsky district. She also recalled Akhmetov’s “phenomenal memory”, and the oligarch, whose picture adorns her office wall, has certainly never forgotten his roots. His Foundation for Development of Ukraine, employing 40 of its 80 staff in his native Donetsk, refurbished the school with state-of-the-art cinema and workshop facilities, plus an artificial football pitch. He also finances the nearby tuberculosis hospital, to fight a disease that once afflicted his brother Igor.

“The Donbass region is always first in Rinat Akhmetov’s thinking,” says Anatoliy Zabolotny, head of the foundation. Many staff at the Donbass Arena, home to Akhmetov’s Shakhtar Donetsk football club, believe their own “president” could do far better running Ukraine than the recently ousted Viktor Yanukovich.

“Business people here are demonised, not held up as civilised role models,” says Jock Mendoza-Wilson, a director of Akhmetov’s SCM holding company. “There is always a question of how they got there. Ukraine should stop looking backwards and judge people by how they behave today.”

With his once reddish fringe well on the way to grey, Akhmetov appears almost statesmanlike, waving to fans from his seat high in the Donbass Arena during Champions League matches.

“A customs union [with Russia] would mean 20 or 30 years of rule by Vladimir Putin and spells the end for all of the oligarchs,” says political analyst Vadym Karasyov. Akhmetov has been criticised for not doing enough to prevent his former friend Yanukovich’s bloody crackdown, though his aides confirm he refused to yield to threats from the security services to his KievEnergo group, which supplied electricity to the anti-Yanukovich protesters.

“Akhmetov has not even reached 50 yet and he plans to live for a long, long time,” says Karasyov.

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 5:30 PM

JONGSSTRAW

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 6:46 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

You sure are jongsie.

Somehow, you can't quite seem to discuss reality without posting knee-jerk tv/ movie tropes that reside in your head in place of actual brains. Talk about lazy. And stupid. And without any shame. Yep, you smear yourself with the same old crap. Try firing up whatever neurons you have left in your booze-pickled noggin, for a change, and think. Yeah, I know, it's painful for you. But maybe you can squeeze out an actual thought. Hell, you might even find you're proud of yourself.

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 7:43 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
"The pro-Western vote was split between 3 or 4 candidates - that's the only reason Yanukovich was level with them."

You ass. This wasn't an election where people had to choose one over the other. Each person was independently rated on their own merits. Unless you think an election with the candidates getting 260% of the votes is a valid one.

The only poll I've seen you link comparing candidates is one asking people who they are likely to VOTE for. Unless you have another link that you've been holding back?

Quote:
"YOU claimed that Yanukovich had over 50% support at the time he was ousted."

And I've made that claim before, with links to back it up. But the internet, being the internet, doesn't always lead you back to the results you're looking for when you search again a year later.

Well at least you admit you can't back it up now, that's something.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 8:49 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

You dolt. This is YOUR poll.

http://www.ifes.org/Content/Publications/Press-Release/2013/2013-Publi
c-Opinion-Survey-in-Ukraine.aspx

Meanwhile - the great skepticism over Euromaydan? Crickets. The great favorable reaction to the Yanukovich agreement with Russia? Crickets. The at least 40% popular support for Yanukovich? Crickets.

Your complete delusion that the country rose as one because it could no longer stand Yanukovich and craved en masse to be as one with the EU? Still addling your brain.

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Sunday, February 8, 2015 9:12 PM