Midknight Review -- new and revised: All in all, Putin has won round one of the new Cold War. Next stop? Ukraine . . . . . . or is it South America?

(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signed laws completing Russia's annexation of Crimea on Friday, as investors took fright at a U.S. decision to slap sanctions on his inner circle of money men and security officials. (Editorial note: what does down, will come up, mark my words. The deed is done and Obama/EU look like the sitting ducks they are).

Putin promised to protect a bank partly owned by an old ally, which Washington has blacklisted, and his spokesman said Russia would respond in kind to the financial and visa curbs.

Russian shares fell sharply after President Barack Obama also threatened on Thursday to target major sectors of the economy if Moscow tried to move on areas of Ukraine beyond the Black Sea peninsula. The financial noose began to tighten as Visa and MasterCard stopped processing payments for a Russian bank owned by two brothers on the U.S. blacklist.

European Union leaders - who like Obama insist Crimea is still part of Ukraine - expressed their determination to reduce the bloc's reliance on Russian energy, and signed a political deal with the Kiev leadership that took over after Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovich's ouster last month.

Editor's notes: If the Russian markets are anything like ours, investors will recoup their losses, and begin investing once again, albeit in alternative stocks (perhaps). In other words, this ploy of the West and the EU will accomplish nothing. The notion that Russia can be broken via financial pressure from the West, is another LaLa Utopian myth - a "fact" only in the minds of those who can live outside of temporal reality.

Despite a slight downgrade of the Russian economy, there is no more reason to believe this is more critical than the downgrade levied against the American economy, during the first two years of Obama. Neither the downgrade or reprisals against a couple of dozen investors, who were warned by Obama more than two weeks ago, is expected to alter human events in the pro-Russian world. All in all, Putin has won round one of the new Cold War. Next stop? Ukraine . . . . . . or is it South America?

Big question? Has Putin already laid a foundation in Latin America that cannot be resisted by a do-nothing American foreign policy?

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http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-strategy/201305-putins-quiet-play-for-latin-america

The Stated Nonsense from the Left now includes these Progressive goals:

July 2, 2008, Obama had this to say: "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

MICHELLE OBAMA: "Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place as a nation."

“ . . . . . . they have become a generation of activists possessed with that most American of ideas – that people who love their country can change it.” -- Obama the Radical

On September 30, Van Jones told MSNBC "I think everybody should hold onto your seats. October is going to be the turning point when it comes to the progressive fight back."

Midknight Review -- new and revised

All in all, Putin has won round one of the new Cold War. Next stop? Ukraine . . . . . . or is it South America?

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