The impact of the West’s sanctions just seems to be getting worse and worse for Russia.
Now, 98% of Chinese banks — even small regional ones — are refusing to accept direct Chinese payment transfers from Russia, Alexey Razumovsky, the commercial director of the payments company Impaya Rus, told the pro-Kremlin media outlet Izvestia.
Such issues appear to have intensified over the past three weeks, as smaller Chinese financial companies were still processing Russian payments in May and June, Izvestia reported.
Last month, the Russian outlet Kommersant reported that about 80% of bank transfers made in the Chinese yuan were bouncing back with no explanation after being stalled for weeks while banks decided whether they could transact.
Razumovsky told Izvestia the payment challenges with Chinese banks could contribute to supply-chain difficulties and inflation in Russia.
Between that, his US lap dog Trump looking like he’s going to lose the elections badly, and Ukraine taking control of more Russian territory in a week than they have been able to take from Ukraine in months, Putin is definitely not sleeping well right now.
The latest national numbers I saw was Harris 48 / Trump 47. That’s not “Trump looking like he’s going to lose badly”.
Well, there’s no way he’s going to lose gracefully
(I know that’s not how you meant it)
I’m honestly quite concerned that his cronies might actually succeed in stealing the election this time around.
They learned from their mistakes.
Last time, Donnie was at the helm, knew it was coming, and deliberately did and did not make certain phone calls that day.
This time, the opposition will be at the helm. And this time, we are expecting it.
If “what they learned” didn’t include diet and exercise (it didn’t), I’m honestly not too worried about how it’ll turn out.
Can we agree on him not being capable of doing anything gracefully? 😁
To be fair, his air accordion act, playing along to the circus music is his addled head, is fairly on point.
Nobody thought Trump would win the first time, Ukraine is still in rough shape, and this could be a new way to avoid sanctions. I like the optimism, but there are reasons to be skeptical.
Indeed, Russia still has some currency reserves, the shadow gas fleet, huge increase in domestic production of arms, and has some how kept it’s GDP growth up. Not that it doesn’t have issues on it’s horizon, but time is still there to wiggle around them. Also you are correct about Ukraine, many reasons to be enthusiastic, but Winter still looks like it might be rough.
And Trump, well yea still many days to the election and he may yet pull Vance’s thumb out of his ass. Can’t say I don’t like the nice poll numbers from swing states though, seems like Harris has some good appeal to the swing voters.
Thanks for keeping it real. We can celebrate the wins but absolutely cannot become complacent.
This is emphatically false. I knew Trump had a chance, and so did countless others. I voted for Hillary despite really disliking her because of this.
Only idiotic democrats were overconfident enough to think he couldn’t win.
I also thought there was a good chance he could win. I hoped he wouldn’t, but I sure didn’t think it was even close to an impossibility.
As long as the Electoral College exists, there remains an almost 1 in 5 chance that the will of the American people will be overturned.
Sure, I’ll admit it. Of course I voted and encouraged anyone to, but the guy was a long time real estate con man known for not paying his vendors and for questionably complex tax avoidance. He bankrupted a casino, twice, and was known for a gold toilet. His biggest claim to fame was a huge misplaced ego. Have you listened to his speeches? How could anyone have taken his candidacy seriously, voted for him, expected him to win?
I prefer to think of it as giving a naive amount of credit to my fellow voters. They must have been “breaking shit” out of frustration and would vote seriously in the actual election. Nope
Eh, we’ll see. Trump’s “crushing defeat” of Hilary came down to 80k votes in three states. Biden’s “decimation” of Trump was an even-thinner 40k votes across a slightly different mix of three states.
Dems love to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Just ask OG Tankie Michael Dukakis, Professional Wife-Kisser Al Gore, and Future First Woman President Hilary Clinton. All three gave up wide margins in the last few weeks of the race.
Would be nice to see Dems run up Reagan/LBJ-esque margins in 2024, but even the best polls still have Kamala in an electoral dead heat despite being miles ahead in the popular vote. She could very easily get Bush v Gore’d in some swing state with a red governor like Georgia or North Carolina or Nevada.
I doubt the Georgia governor would let Trump win because Trump hates him
GA passed laws that gives them the option to ignore the results, just N Carolina did a couple years ago
Yes, DO NOT GET COMFY, VOTE NO MATTER WHAT.
Now that I got that out of the way, yes yes yes, it can always be close and I think it will be just like it was close even in 20 goddamn 20, but here’s the thing.
Since the 2020 election:
I’m happy to provide sources on any of the above points :)
It’s not just that Dems have to win by +5% to make sure the Electoral College matches the popular vote, either. Now it almost has to be +7% to +10% to keep Republican election officials from contesting the result and it mattering in the end.
The Electoral College was bad enough. Its only justification is “whelp, them the rules”. Now Republicans made up a new set of rules and expect us to follow them.
I was too young to have memories of the Dukakis run. Was he actually a tankie in the Hexbear sense, or are you just referencing that picture of him riding a tank?
That, yes
Although, it’s curious to see people draw the line between “Neoliberal/Neocon warhawk” and “Guy on the Internet who likes Stalin”.
Get under the hood, and the real distinction is economic policy, not military policy. They’re both big fans of kicking people’s teeth in to get their way.