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From Vox
Comedy’s existential crisis -
Aziz Ansari performs at the Comedy Celler in New York in a new Netflix special. | Courtesy of Netflix
The Joe Rogan debate underscores comedy’s ongoing conversation about morality, cancel culture, and how to be funny.
On Sunday, in apparent response to the Joe Rogan Spotify controversy, comedian Whitney Cummings broke out a much larger conversation that has preoccupied culture recently: the question of what comedy itself should be.
“Comedians did not sign up to be your hero,” Cummings stated in a viral tweet, casting popular podcast host Rogan as a comedian first and a cultural commentator second. “It’s our job to be irreverent and dangerous, to question authority and take you through a spooky mental haunted house so you can arrive at your own conclusions. Stay focused on the people we pay taxes to to be moral leaders.”
Setting aside Joe Rogan — his spreading of misinformation as well as his debatable (according to Twitter) status as a comedian — the issue Cummings raised has become a recurring theme throughout comedy culture in recent years. Is the point to be funny or to teach moral lessons?
Even in her “spooky mental haunted house” formulation, Cummings doesn’t claim that the goal of comedy is to be funny — as many, including another comedian-turned-podcaster, Marc Maron, were quick to point out. Comedians love to claim just about any territory for comedic fodder, from the morally neutral (think Jackass) to the transgressive, which is arguably where Joe Rogan’s commentary lives.
But comedians often wind up taking on the role of truth-telling, in highlighting the absurdity of a society where officials often seem to be driven by personal agendas and are prone to obfuscate rather than embrace morality or accountability. Many of those comedians are increasingly trying to grapple publicly with the moral role that such comedy foists upon them — and whether to lean into or away from it.
“I have absolutely no agenda,” Moses Storm insists early in his new HBO comedy special Trash White. Over the hour, Storm shares his (hilarious) childhood experiences with homelessness, the welfare system, and food scarcity. Storm spends his whole show subtly explaining cycles of poverty and systemic classism to the audience (“Trying to get yourself out of poverty in this country is like trying to fix a scratch on your car by repainting it with a rake”), but he starts out by insisting he isn’t doing what he’s doing.
“If I was doing a modern comedy special,” he ventures, “you know those ones where it’s more like a TED talk? Your friend asks you, ‘Hey, how was that comedy special, was it funny?’ and you’re like, ‘It was … important.’ If I was doing one of those …” Except, of course, Storm is doing one of those specials — one that has just carefully distanced itself from the notion that it’s another Nanette.
Since Hannah Gadsby’s intentionally sober 2018 special Nanette elevated the idea of the non-comedic comedy special, many comedians seem to be scrambling to figure out where they fall on the scale between “just jokes” and “glorified lecture.” Storm isn’t alone. Rose Matafeo insists in her 2020 HBO special Horndog that the performance isn’t “one of those fucking comedy shows where it’s like, oh, there’s a lesson to be learned at the end of it. I hate that kind of shit.” Still, her special is gently political, referencing the Me Too movement, sexist double standards for men and women, and the capitalist-driven faux feminist “empowerment” that leads women to fragile self-esteem.
The fact that comedians like Storm and Matafeo have to issue such “not a TED talk” disclaimers reflects how fully the “standup or TED talk” debate has saturated comedy culture. Comedy, of course, has always been unapologetically political. But the apologies have now seemingly arrived, thanks to a mix of the backlash over Gadsby and the idea, relentlessly pursued by comics like Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, and Kevin Hart, that cancel culture has ruined the average comedian’s right to free speech.
Chappelle’s continued status in the comedy community proves this demonstrably untrue, but it has definitely driven a wedge between comedy audiences. In one corner: those fans who’ve adjusted to the new style of comedy, one that often mixes the personal confessional storytelling with salient sociopolitical commentary and hopefully a laugh or two. In the other corner: fans who’d prefer to keep the personal, the so-called identity politics, and the vaguely empowering speeches out of comedy altogether.
In the center, we find the comics trying to satisfy both impulses — the Moses Storms building very political narratives without the appearance of any politicized agenda.
Missing the center mark can mean backlash — even for fictional comedians, like And Just Like That’s Che Diaz. My colleague Alex Abad-Santos has argued that one sex scene involving the nonbinary comic (played by Sara Ramirez) embodies the Sex and the City revival’s ethos: a bleak slide into obsolescence.
Che has generated particular backlash among viewers, not just because of their fuccboi characterization, but because of their comedic style. During Che’s fictional comedy routine (or “comedy concert,” as the characters insist on calling it), they interweave humor and queer pride into something that feels closer to activism than anything else — if not a TED talk, it’s at least akin to a Brené Brown speaking engagement. In one of the show’s more cringey moments, the audience spontaneously snaps its praise for Che’s coming-out story — snaps of approval, not laughs of enjoyment. A real-life viewer, far from finding Che’s jokes funny, dubbed them “the worst character on TV.”
Che Diaz’s fictional “concert” reflects a growing criticism lobbed at comedy, harkening back to the rise of daily comedy news shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight: the complaint that modern comedy is too politically tinged, tailored primarily for certain audiences. If comedy’s aim is to garner claps, not laughs, as Che’s does, is it still doing its job as comedy?
The defense of Che, as voiced by Rolling Stones’ EJ Dickson, is that the character is meant to be a counter to the privileged viewpoint of the original series. Some also argue that they’re unfunny and annoying because today’s comedians are unfunny and annoying — not exactly the world’s greatest rebuttal, from a comedy standpoint. Che Diaz’s flat, humorless irrelevance embodies what many people feel is the worst-case scenario for comedy as long as comedians continue to reconfigure themselves as activists and moral arbiters.
Where this gets tricky is that comedians have always set themselves up as moral arbiters — if only as arbiters of what constitutes “good” comedy. Dave Chappelle, for example, despite decrying modern comedy’s moral bent, is so convinced he knows what qualifies as good comedy that he’s devoted no less than six Netflix specials in a row to decrying its demise. In effect, that’s not unlike a revivalist pastor on a circuit, with a mission.
The best standup, too, is arguably structured like a sermon, delivering a similar catharsis of understanding at the close, whether it’s through a personal anecdote that becomes elevated into a moment of understanding the world, or through repetition of a joke that finally transcends itself to become something much bigger. The experienced comedy audience anticipates that moment of elevation from the best comics. And even Chappelle knows the power of using his pulpit in order to make a larger moral point: He did more or less exactly what Hannah Gadsby did in his non-comedic 2020 special “8:46” after the murder of George Floyd.
Whether comedy is good at being a source of moral authority depends on your position — which comedy denomination you ascribe to, perhaps. There’s clearly an audience demand for the kind of comedy that injects moral and social concerns into the performance. Perhaps that’s because for many modern secular audiences, standup comedy is the closest thing many of us have to the experienceof going to church and being lectured for a while on the state of the modern world.
Of course, one enormous sticking point is the reality that comedians aren’t moral authorities and maybe shouldn’t claim to be. Even putting aside the obvious moral scandals, the Louis C.K.s and Daniel Toshes of comedy, the average comedian isn’t generally equipped with the training and set of life experiences that lead to good moral arbitration. The moral authority’s job, after all, requires setting themselves slightly apart from the world, while the comedian’s job is to be relatable — largely incompatible traits.
Still, comedians occupy a nebulous space between “authority” and “influencer” at a moment when many of our traditionally chosen moral figures no longer carry the authority they once did. Half of teens trust YouTubers and social media influencers over TV news, and traditional newspaper outlets see dwindling subscribers year-over-year. Cummings suggested as much in an earlier tweet about Rogan: “Don’t look to why so many people trust Joe Rogan, look to why so few people trust the mainstream media.”
There is something to the idea that a podcast host and a comedian (if, again, Rogan even counts as a comedian) both occupy similar spaces in our lives as cultural commentators. And after all, where else except either a sermon or a standup special will audiences hear about poverty, or sexism, or how, for example, disinformation culture is driving wedges between us? That was the menu for Aziz Ansari’s surprise December set at the Comedy Cellar, which landed on Netflix last month as a half-hour special, Aziz Ansari: Nightclub Comedian.
Ansari, who’s largely kept out of the spotlight since weathering a 2018 accusation of sexual misconduct, was demonstrably quiet during his set, talking less about himself and more about the modern-day anxiety we feel over everything from Covid to smartphone addiction.
Discussing the death of a relative who refused to be vaccinated, Ansari stressed the need for empathy above passing judgment, and blamed modern tech culture for the information and disinformation silos that increasingly divide us. “Unless we figure out how to talk to each other in real life again,” he told the rapt audience, “it doesn’t even matter what the problem is … this current strategy [of] just shaming people isn’t gonna work.”
Granted, Ansari did toss a conspiracy joke in between points one and two. This is comedy that’s both aware of itself as comedy and as an attempt to be ethical. In fact, Ansari’s hesitance, his apparent awareness of his lack of qualifications to act as a moral arbiter, seemed to make him that much more suited for the role.
Perhaps therein lies the bridge between comedy as TED talk and comedy as a self-contained vacuum into which no modern political sensibility is allowed to seep. Instead of trying to define comedy as either purely funny or a secular homily, the unease about how to proceed is itself the way forward. Ansari’s set, on the whole, was quiet, sad, resigned, and, as he noted, reflective of how “everything’s a little bit shittier.” It was also really funny.
There’s a reason that comedians — despite standing on a stage, holding a microphone to talk at people who ideally aren’t talking back — don’t like to think of themselves as lecturing. Speechifying often has a ring of self-importance that’s antithetical to good comedy; it can be alienating. Most comics are looking to give people something to relate to, not aspire to.
Maybe that’s why Cummings’s tweet kicked off so much conversation. Comedians, as she noted, want to be able to question authority, not be taken as the authorities. But comedians also possess a unique ability to get their audiences to see the world through their points of view — like seeing poverty through the eyes of a self-aware, self-deprecating comic like Storm, for example. If those viewpoints can lead their audience to a deeper moral understanding, shouldn’t that be celebrated rather than reviled?
After all, what’s so wrong with having something to say, and standing behind it? As long as it’s actually funny, and actually true.
The hate crimes trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers will put racism in the spotlight -
A demonstrator holds a sign at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Georgia, during the killers’ state murder trial last fall. | Sean Rayford/Getty Images
The three white defendants face separate federal charges in the killing of the unarmed Black jogger. Now the conversation about race’s role in the crime begins.
Twenty-five-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was Black, unarmed, and out for a run in a Georgia neighborhood near where he lived when three white men chased him down, and accosted, assaulted, and shot him dead nearly two years ago. Whether that all happened because the victim was Black, well, that’s something a lot of people feel they already know.
The effects of racism are often more visible than racist intent. Perhaps that is one reason the prosecutors dodged the topic of racial motives almost entirely in the state murder trial of Travis McMichael, now 36; his father, Gregory, 66; and William “Roddie” Bryan, 52 — the men who carried out what has been labeled a modern-day lynching in broad daylight. Each was convicted in November of an array of charges related to Arbery’s fatal shooting that day, including malice murder, felony murder, and false imprisonment. In January, all received life sentences in Georgia state prison, with the McMichaels having no chance at parole.
Racist intent is what the US government will now attempt to prove in federal court in a separate, second trial against the men that begins Monday with jury selection; this time, the three defendants will face federal charges alleging hate crimes, attempted kidnapping, and two firearms offenses.
The difference between the Georgia murder trial and the federal hate crimes trial matters, particularly since neither race nor racism was raised as a factor by the prosecution in the murder trial, save for a mention in district attorney Linda Dunikoski’s closing statement. Howard Law School professor Justin Hansford said that amounted to a “whitewashing of this trial,” telling Vox after the verdict that the tactic played to those afraid to talk about race.
The federal hate crimes charges make such avoidance impossible.
If the murderers have already been convicted, why will there be another trial?
Federal hate crime prosecutions, for those victimized, can offer not only a promise of additional punishment for offenders but also an acknowledgment of the role bigotry played in a crime. That can be a powerful thing.
The defendants are also all pursuing appeals of the life sentences they received in their Georgia trial. (While many states have their own hate crime laws, Georgia did not have one at the time of Arbery’s death.) If they are successful, whatever federal sentences they receive would not be redundant.
Federal prosecutors thought they’d sealed a plea deal for two of the defendants, the McMichaels, to avoid having to try the hate crimes case at all.
The terms of the deal would have required both of the McMichaels to plead guilty to one charge of the government’s multi-count indictment: the part alleging that it was “because of Arbery’s race and color” that they interfered with Arbery’s right to enjoy the use of the public road on which he was jogging.
Then, late last month, US District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood took the rare step of refusing a plea deal struck by the US Department of Justice. Because that proposed deal has gone away, so have their admissions of guilt.
According to the Associated Press, Wood rejected the government’s plea deal because it locked her into adding 30 years of prison time (atop the McMichaels’ existing life-without-parole sentences), and she felt that the Arbery family should have a say at the sentencing in whatever punishment is given.
Stephen B. Morton/Getty Images
Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, attends the murder trial of Travis McMichael, his father, Gregory, and William “Roddie” Bryan in Georgia in November.
Arbery’s family, which had previously objected to any plea deal being struck, disagreed with a provision allowing Travis McMichael to transfer immediately from state prison to federal custody — where, they argued, conditions wouldn’t be as tough for him or his father, were he to join him. “Please listen to me,” Wanda Cooper-Jones, who is Arbery’s mother, told the judge, per AP. “Granting these men their preferred choice of confinement would defeat me. It gives them one last chance to spit in my face.”
What will “justice” really look like in this case?
That hate crime prosecutions are uncommon, and grew even more so during the Trump administration, matters.
The Justice Department data is somewhat surprising. There were 647 “hate crime matters,” as they were termed, investigated by US attorneys’ offices between 2005 and 2009. Fewer reports — 597 — were investigated between 2015 and 2019, marking a decrease of 8 percent. In total, however, of nearly 1,900 suspects investigated between 2005 and 2019, 82 percent were not prosecuted. The overwhelming majority of those cases were not pursued for lack of evidence.
The rate of convictions increased by 11 percent during the latter period, and about 85 percent of defendants convicted of a hate crime were sentenced to prison, with an average term of more than 7.5 years.
If convicted in their federal trial, Bryan and the McMichaels are likely looking at considerably more time than 7.5 years; it could explain their willingness to plead guilty to committing crimes against Arbery because he was Black in exchange for 30 years’ imprisonment.
The offer and acceptance of the deal may be a strong indicator of the strength of the government’s case, and thus, for the viability of hate crime laws to administer criminal punishment and accountability. It sounds like a reason to argue that the system works.
Scott Hechinger, a former public defender, has a different perspective. “To me, the trials underscore how ill-equipped the criminal legal system, process, and punishment is to achieve accountability and healing,” said Hechinger, who is now the executive director of Zealous, a national advocacy and education initiative that uses media and the arts to combat systemic injustice. “Ahmaud Arbery’s killers were sentenced to life without the possibility of ever being released. Sentenced to death in prison. Yet still, his killers remain unrepentant and indignant. Meanwhile, even worse: Arbery’s family remains unwhole, unhealed, traumatized.
“I hope that this second trial, which may result in a verdict that their crimes were actually motivated by racial animus, brings some closure to the family,” Hechinger added. “I fear that it won’t. I fear that the worst possible outcome may be new expansion and harsher application of federal criminal laws and sentences that we know from experience, always disproportionately get enforced against Black and brown people and people of lower socioeconomic statuses.”
A guilty verdict and additional prison time may help give the Arbery family some peace, and that is significant. The more central question of this federal trial, amid continuing debates about the effectiveness of hate crime laws, is whether such laws have a deterring effect on racist violence. (Research suggests they don’t.)
The challenges of proving racism inside a courtroom
If the three men are acquitted of these hate crimes charges, meaning that a federal jury rules that they didn’t violate Arbery’s civil rights by chasing him down and killing him with a shotgun at close range, what is a hate crime prosecution supposed to prove? And who is it even protecting?
Bryan Adamson, a professor of the First Amendment and civil rights at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, noted that a second trial can be necessary when the deprivation of someone’s civil rights results in death.
Adamson told Vox that federal prosecutors will have a much different hill to climb than their counterparts in the state’s trial. However, the burden of proof is, in a sense, also on the defense this time around.
“Prosecutors are going to have to demonstrate, by direct or by circumstantial evidence, that the defendants were motivated by the race of Ahmaud. That brings in some nuances and issues regarding proving motivation, which can be a challenge,” Adamson said. “The prosecution has to put it front and center, but the defense then has to attempt to present a case that shows that there was anything else but race that motivated them to do what they did.”
Stephen B. Morton/Getty Images
Travis McMichael during his sentencing in Georgia on January 7.
Stephen B. Morton/Getty Images
Greg McMichael at his sentencing hearing on January 7.
Racial bias may not be difficult to prove, if history has any role to play. Bryan and the McMichaels claimed in state court that they were attempting a citizen’s arrest for a series of alleged burglaries for which they suspected Arbery, though they had no evidence. They argued their encounter was legal based on a Georgia code, since repealed, that dated back to 1863 — a law that “was basically a catching-fleeing-slave law,” Cornell University criminal law expert Joseph Margulies told NPR in October. Even the excuse that the men hoped would absolve them was stained by racism.
Adamson thinks the defendants may try recycling elements of that failed criminal defense: They have argued that they were concerned about the crime in their neighborhood and the safety of property in the area. This is because many of the defense’s efforts leading up to this hate crimes trial, Adamson said, have been directed toward keeping evidence out of the case — including testimony from Bryan that Travis McMichael uttered a racial slur after fatally shooting Arbery, as well as racially offensive texts allegedly sent from Bryan’s phone. No ruling as to their admissibility in court has been made.
Whether or not it’s proven that the defendants used racial slurs in the past or during the murder itself, proving the violation of Ahmaud Arbery’s civil rights shouldn’t rely on someone using the “n-word” in his presence as he lay bleeding to death. The racism isn’t just about what they said.
Will a jury determine that the act of chasing Arbery down and shooting him dead with a shotgun constitutes an interference with his civil rights?
If they don’t, then what do we as a country call that, exactly?
How to punish Russia for Ukraine -
Russian President Vladimir Putin, after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Moscow on February 7. International efforts to defuse the standoff over Ukraine intensified with Macron in Moscow, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington to coordinate policies as fears of a Russian invasion mount. | Thibault Camus/AFP via Getty Images
But, what, exactly those sanctions might look like — and how punishing they might be — will depend not just on what Russia does, but on the costs the United States and its allies, especially in Europe, are prepared to withstand.
This is the dilemma facing the United States, which has ruled out deploying forces to Ukraine. The most aggressive sanctions, like making it extraordinarily difficult for Russian financial institutions and state-owned banks to trade in US dollars, could inflict a lot of hurt on Russia, and very likely, its people, if the sanctions sparked inflation or other economic crises. Other dramatic options exist, like blocking Russia’s biggest exports, oil and gas.
But the more far-reaching and destructive to the Kremlin, the more potent the potential reverberations in the West. The most severe sanctions, like cutting off Russia from all or parts of the global financial system, may hurt other economies intertwined with it. The US and Europe are not exempt. Russia may take counter or retaliatory measures, too. The most feared scenario would be Russia cutting off natural gas supplies to Europe, in the middle of winter, when gas prices are already spiking.
“The problem is where it hurts the most — for example, to cut the import of Russian gas or oil — that fires back on the EU and the US,” said Maria Shagina, a visiting fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
These calculations are not new. The United States and its allies made similar ones in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine. The United States and Europe placed targeted sanctions on Russia, including on certain individuals close to the Kremlin, and within certain sectors, like financial and defense. But they did not take the most dramatic steps — like really going after Russia’s energy sector, or going after the biggest financial institutions — because of what it might unleash.
Now the US and its partners are again staring down this question: How to punish Putin, without punishing themselves, at least too much. Russia has also taken steps to help insulate its economy from future sanctions, but it does not, experts said, make Moscow immune. The West has options, powerful ones.
Exactly where NATO allies and other European countries stand on these measures is less clear; a lot of these discussionsare happening as quietly as possible to avoid any disagreements spilling out into the open and spoiling efforts at Western unity.
“What’s the least bad alternative?” said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “There’s no costless way to try to deal with the threat of Russian aggression.”
Sanctions: The good, the bad, and the backfiring
What sanctions might mean for Russia depends on the size, scale, and scope of any imposed. But figuring out what those economic penalties should look like is complex.
“The problem of Western policymakers is that Russia is just too big an animal in the global economy,” said Alexander Gabuev, senior fellow and chair of the Russia in the Asia- Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a joint news conference with President Joe Biden at the White House on February 7. This marks Scholz’s first official visit to Washington; he is expected to be pressed on Germany’s stance on sanctions against Russia.
This reality makes it much harder to take seriously some of the “nuclear option” approaches — like cutting Russia off from SWIFT, the electronic messaging service that allows entities to communicate about global financial transactions — even if everything is still theoretically on the table. This also makes something like broad sanctions on Russia’s energy sector improbable. “If you really wanted to punish the Russian economy, that’s what you would do,” said Rodney Ludema, an international trade expert at Georgetown University. “Nobody has the appetite for doing that, at least not in Europe. And that’s really going to be the big political fault line.”
Experts did say there were more surgical ways to go after Russia’s energy sector, building upon the 2014 sanctions, particularly when it comes to future projects. There is also the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is awaiting approval and would bring Russian gas directly to Germany. Both the US and Germany have said the project is in jeopardy if Russia invades.
But short of those things, the US has options to impose the most devastating penalties yet levied against the Kremlin. Right now, the Biden administration is reportedly considering financial sanctions against Russia’s largest banks, and export controls on technology and other components that might target Russia’s critical industries. These options could inflict real pain on Russia — but could have unintended consequences for Russia, the US, and Europe.
Take the former option:“If you’re forbidden by sanctions from trading dollars, then life is very hard for you because you’re cut off from the global financial system,” Gould-Davies said. This is not quite Iran-level “maximum pressure” sanctions, but the power of the US dollar is such that it makes it very hard for any targetedRussian banks to find workarounds, as the rest of the world’s banks and institutions don’t want to take the risk of running afoul of US sanctions.
The harsher these sanctions are — that is, if the US targets some of Russia’s major banks — there is the potential that such damage could trickle down to ordinary Russians. “It would certainly result, I think, in the living standards of Russians being affected,” said Richard Connolly, lecturer in political economy at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham. “It would cause a lot of disruption.”
This could generate discontent within the broader Russian public, putting pressure on Putin’s regime. But historically, even if you’re playing the very long game, that hasn’t tended to work out the way the US hopes. And it seems a lot less likely than Putin trying to use this as a rallying cry against the West.
Another option the Biden administration is considering is an export ban on components for high-tech products — things like microchips or semiconductors, especially those targeting critical industries. This would effectively bar any company from sending Russia a product if it has US-designed or licensed components in it, cutting the Kremlin off from a critical supply chain. This is what the US used, to pretty strong effect, against Huawei.
Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said some of the biggest questions are still around what an export ban on technological components might look like. “How extensive would the coverage of the controls be? Would it be particular companies? Would it be whole sectors of the economy?” he said. The broader the ban, the more countries you’d need to get in line — not just Europe, but likely partners in Asia, too. And China is a big wild card, as Beijing seems unlikely to go along with the West’s efforts to punish Moscow.
But even China doesn’t fully have the ability to make up for all the kinds of technologies Russia might need. And that would leave Russia without many options, and it could, over time, squeeze sectors like defense and cyber operations, the very things Russia wields to sow chaos.
Individual sanctions could include things like travel bans, or freezing assets outside of Russia. In response, the theory goes,these powerful people mightpressure Putin to change his ways, or even try to push him out.
Except that didn’t really happen after 2014, and it’s unlikely this time would be any different. This is largely because sanctioning oligarchs forces them to make a choice. “Either you stay in Russia, and throw your luck with the regime, or you try to sell most of your assets in Russia and diversify and basically move out,” Gabuev said.
And for the oligarchs who choose the regime, sanctions can have the unintended side effect of making them more dependent on Putin. Because if they can’t do business or park their assets in the West, then they need the regime to prop up their profits. “If they’re close to the leadership, they’ll find a way of circling the wagons,” said Connolly, of the University of Birmingham. “And then if they’re not, you’re not really having much of an impact.”
How much can Russia withstand — and how will it react to it?
Putin has been preparing for the likelihood of more sanctions since 2014. The penalties after that Ukraine invasion, and then for other things — from human-rights violations to election meddling — took a toll. Putin has responded by trying to insulate Russia from the harshest effects of whatever sanctions the West comes up with next.
Putin has tried to move away from the dollar, bothin how Russia trades and as the currency for its assets, shifting to euros or the yuan. In the meantime, he has built up massive cash reserves to the tune of $630 billion, which means he can offset some of the financial pain. Russia has decreased the amount of debt held by foreigners, something the US has targeted before. The Kremlin also has pursued a conservative fiscal policy in an effort to keep debt low and be able to weather possible sanctions. “I call it a ‘Kalashnikov economy’,” Connolly said. “And by that I mean that it’s durable.”
But durable isn’t impenetrable. The West’s financial hegemony, especially, makes that impossible.
“The worst is not sanctions, per se, but a limited ability of Russian businesses to do global business,” said Konstantin Kroll, a partner and the head of Russian corporate and M&A practice at international law firm Dentons. “Because there is much less trust. It’s harder to access international capital markets. Many international counterparts have worries about potential US sanctions, and therefore, Russia is becoming more isolated.”
And, of course, if the West really amps up the pressure on Russia, there is always the risk it will respond in kind. “Russia will almost surely consider counter-sanctioning as they’ve done in 2014, and there, Europe has much more vulnerability relative to the US,” said Daniel Ahn, former chief economist at the US State Department from 2014 to 2018.
Russia also has the ability to create chaos. It could launch cyber operations or disinformation campaigns. It could cut off the Russian energy supply to Europe. And those legitimate fears are likely to shape the response from the West.
Anatoliy Cherkasov/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Protesters with placards and Ukrainian flags demonstrate against Russia on February 7 outside the Russian consulate in Toronto, Canada. About 600 people were on hand to listen to speeches and to call attention to Russian military movements.
Sanctions are a serious step, but may not be enough
The sanctions the US and Europe have imposed over the last eight years have caused economic pain for Russia. But Russia’s military buildup along the Ukrainian border is a fairly big indicator they haven’t halted Russia’s aggression.
Even the the threat of “devastating” sanctions is unlikely to deter Russia, if it really wants to invade. “If you’re talking about a country that has already done something that’s deserving of sanctions, it’s probably because they knew that sanctions was a possibility, and they didn’t care,” Ludema said.
Sanctions, too, “are rarely a light switch,” as Gould-Davies put it. They can take time, especially when you’re dealing with a large and resilient adversary, which Russia is.
And yet, sanctions are the primary tool that the US and Europe has to work with.
According to the New York Times, the administration has held about 180 consultations with European partners since November — a sign, at least, that the White House is valuing unity and coherence in the response. The US is also working with other countries, including those in the Middle East, to try to divert gas supplies if Russia retaliates, though energy interdependence between Europe and Russia likely can’t be unraveled by the time of a Russian invasion.
This will mean trade-offs, exceptions, special carve-outs; anything to try to lessen the collateral damage. “To find this magic solution where you don’t lose, but Russia loses, is very hard,” Shagina said.
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Golden Lioness, Fashion Icon and King Of Katni show out - Golden Lioness, Fashion Icon and King Of Katni showed out when the horses were exercised here on Tuesday (Feb. 8) morning.Inner sand:600m: Arbitrage (
ICC women ODI rankings | Mandhana rises to 5th, Mithali maintains 2nd spot - Among the bowlers, veteran Indian pacer Jhulan Goswami retained her second spot with 727 rating points, behind Australia’s Jess Jonassen (773).
India vs West Indies | Rahul’s return set to lead to selection dilemma - Dhawan and Shreyas being highly unlikely to be considered for selection on Wednesday.
Usman Khawaja in Australia squad for 3-test tour to Pakistan - The Pakistan-born has been included in an 18-man squad for Australia’s first test tour to Pakistan since 1998,
From The Hindu: National News
INCOIS prepares Coastal Vulnerability Index - Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) has carried out coastal vulnerability assessment for entire Indian coast at states leve
Unrest over hijab: Karnataka CM orders closure of all high schools and colleges for three days - Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai appeals to everyone, including political leaders, to desist from instigating students or issuing provocative statements over the episode
Bodies of 7 soldiers missing after Arunachal avalanche recovered - They were found at an altitude of 14,500 ft
Hijab controversy: HC told that Karnataka’s dress code guideline is violative of fundamental rights - High Court of Karnataka commences hearing on petitions filed by Muslim girls questioning ban on hijab in colleges
ICMR got ₹171.74 crore in royalty from Covaxin sale, Rajya Sabha told - The Council has spent around ₹35 crore in research and development of the vaccine, says Health Ministry
From BBC: Europe
Ukraine crisis: Macron says crucial days ahead after Putin summit - Russia’s Vladimir Putin indicates some progress was made during talks with the French leader.
Ukraine crisis: ‘It’s like they stuck a knife in our back’ - Ukraine has been living with war for the past eight years, and people in Dnipro are dealing with past scars and the threat of more to come.
Sweden: Men steal students’ computers during lesson - The masked men threatened students and stole computers at a Swedish school on Monday.
Austria on high alert after series of deadly avalanches - Nine people are killed after more than 100 avalanches hit ski fields, with warnings of more to come.
World War Two: Guard of Nazi and his propaganda artefacts - Craig Lambert’s father guarded Adolf Hitler’s deputy during his life sentence in Berlin.
From Ars Technica
$66 billion deal for Nvidia to purchase Arm collapses - Arm owner SoftBank will instead spin the business off via an IPO. - link
Moderna’s omicron booster was only as good as current vaccine in monkey study - Boosting with an omicron-specific vaccine didn’t offer more protection against omicron. - link
Amanda Seyfried makes a winsome Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout trailer - Theranos co-founder Holmes was recently convicted of fraud and awaits sentencing. - link
Health sites let ads track visitors without telling them - Third-party tools grab personal information from medical, genetic-testing company sites. - link
IRS stops requiring selfies after facial recognition system is widely panned - IRS “will transition away from” ID.me selfie system after bipartisan backlash. - link
From Jokes Subreddit
Naked cowboy -
A sheriff of a small town is patrolling the town one night when he comes across a cowboy walking up Main St. The cowboy is wearing nothing except his hat, boots, and gunbelt. The sheriff is a bit surprised at first but gets over his initial shock and arrests the cowboy for indecent exposure.
The sheriff locks the cowboy in the cell with a pair of pants, then turns back and asks him, “How is it I came across you walking around naked like that?”
The cowboy says, "Well, sheriff, it went like this. I was out at a bar earlier tonight and I saw this gorgeous girl sitting at the bar.
We got to talking, danced a while, had a few beers, and next thing you know we’re making out in her trailer. She took off her shirt and told me to take off my shirt, so I did. Then she took off her shorts and told me to take off my jeans, so I did. Then she took off her bra and her panties and told me to take off my boxers, so I did. Then she went and lay down on the bed, spread her legs, looked at me kinda sexy and said ‘Now go to town, cowboy!’
John Smith was the only Protestant to move into the large Catholic neighborhood. -
On the first Friday of Lent, John was outside grilling a big juicy steak on his grill. Meanwhile all of his neighbors were eating cold tuna fish for supper. This went on each Friday during Lent.
On the last Friday of Lent the neighborhood men got together and decided that something just HAD to be done about John, he was just tempting them to eat meat each Friday of Lent and they couldn’t take it anymore. They decided to try and convert him to be Catholic. They went over and talked with him and were so happy that he decided to join all of his neighbors and become a Catholic.
They took him to church and the priest sprinkled some water over him and told him “You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist and now you are a Catholic”. The men of the neighborhood were SO relieved, now their biggest Lent temptation was resolved.
The next year’s Lent rolled around. The first Friday of Lent came and just at supper time when the neighborhood was setting down to their fish dinners came the wafting smell of steak cooking on a grill. The neighborhood men could not believe their noses! What was going on??? They called each other up and decided to meet over in John’s yard to see if he had forgotten it was a Friday in Lent.
The group arrived just in time to see John standing over his grill with a small pitcher of water. He was pouring small droplets over his steak on the grill and saying, “You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish.”
A rural farm wife called the local phone company to report her telephone failed to ring when her friends called and that on the few occasions, when it did ring, her dog always moaned right before the phone rang. -
The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog or senile lady.
He climbed a telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber’s house. The phone didn’t ring right away, but then the dog moaned and the telephone began to ring.
Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
The dog was tied to the telephone system’s ground wire with a steel chain and collar.
The wire connection to the ground rod was loose.
The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the number was called.
After a couple of jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate.
The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.
Which demonstrates that some problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning.
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