- Everyone who's anyone is either sanctioning someone today, or getting sanctioned themselves. First, the Obama administration announced new sanctions on Russia, including 20 Russian officials and a Russian bank.
- Muttering "You spit in my borscht, I spit in yours" under his breath, Vladimir Putin imposed his own sanctions on American officials, including a few diplomats and an oddly-chosen group of lawmakers. He kindly included John McCain on the list, probably understanding that it would break McCain's heart if he was left out.
- In an interview from prison, Bernie Madoff says, "I don't feel that I betrayed the Jews." Excuse me? The man not only stole money from a bunch of Jewish organizations, he not only stole from Elie Wiesel, he stole from Sandy Koufax. A god among men, the very definition of class, quite likely the greatest Jew who ever lived! Sandy Koufax, for pete's sake! If there is a higher betrayal of American Jews, I can't imagine what it would be. Prison is too lenient a sanction for this dirtbag. They ought to set up a program where anyone who grew up in Brooklyn, or whose parents grew up in Brooklyn, gets to go to the prison and smack him in the face with a baseball mitt.
- The Army general on trial for various forms of misconduct, the highest ranking soldier ever tried for sexual assault, received the mildest of sanctions from the court: a $20,000 cut in pay and the dreaded "letter of reprimand." So basically, no biggie.
- Meanwhile, Marissa Alexander, the Florida woman who fired a shot over the head of her abusive husband as he was coming to assault her, faces a prosecutor bent on giving her a 60-year sentence in jail as a sanction for her behavior. As a study by the Urban Institute shows, "Among cases nationwide where a woman killed an adult man, white women who killed black men were most likely to be found justified, at 13.5 percent of the cases, the data found. By contrast, just 2.6 percent of white women who killed white men, and 5.7 percent of black women who killed black men were found to be justified."
- Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps, who defined the nuttiness of the anti-gay fringe for years, has passed to the great beyond, just after his church sanctioned him with excommunication because he was apparently going soft on the gays. We're sure he and God will work the whole thing out.
Daily Meme: Sanctions; So Hot Right Now
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