Constitution Doesn't Have A Preamble. Not. Nope. Stop it. - Rachel Maddow

Putin and his siloviki] operate in accordance with the simple principles of Joseph Goebbels: Play on the emotions; the bigger the lie, the better; lies should be repeated many times….Unfortunately, it works.

The Donbas was a heavily populated and productive manufacturing area, with Donetsk alone accounting for about 12 percent of Ukraine’s gross domestic product. The area nearby also accounted for something near 90 percent of Ukraine’s oil and gas production, and fracking technology promised to open new fields. Grabbing the Donbas was a twofer. Russia could cripple the teetering economy of Ukraine and scoop up a healthy supply of oil and gas. Novorossiya!

We aren’t concerned with moral issues,” he had explained in one public debate. “The idea of fascism is to make the show run. In other words, any problem is small if you set up the right machinery to meet it.” That a very large number of people might get chewed up in the works of that machinery was either beside the point for Lawrence Dennis, or exactly the point.