Hi everyone it's Michael Schurmer this is a special edition of the Michael Schurmer show

unfortunately I have to post this shortly after

uh... Putin invaded Ukraine

this will be an audio edition of my sub-stack skeptic column which I

posted yesterday called Putin's Problem. So I'm going to read what I wrote yesterday

which is still quite relevant today, unfortunately.

And I'll make a few comments as I'm reading this just after President Biden gave his speech about upping the number of sanctions

that we and the EU and the UN and our allies are going to impose on Putin and Russia. The subtitle of this column, Putin's problem, is The Outlawry of War has forced

tyrants to concoct excuses for invading other countries, how should we respond?

Evidence shows that outcasting in the form of economic sanctions beats armed conflict. of Economic Sanctions, Beats Armed Conflict.

After amassing nearly 200,000 troops and war material along the Ukrainian border and coastline the past few weeks itself a follow-up to the

2014 annexation of Crimea. The former KGB officer and now president for life

Vladimir Putin, on Monday, February 21st, officially

announced his recognition of the independence of two separatist groups in the eastern regions of that sovereign nation.

They are the Donusk People's Republic and the U-Hunk's People's Republic,

not to be confused with the People's Republic of

Donisk and the People's Republic of Luhensk.

U.S. intelligence announced that Putin was planning on staging false flag operations as an excuse

to launch a full-scale defense by his police forces of these poor beleaguered peoples being threatened by the West.

And this morning that's exactly what he did and announced that's what he was going to do last night.

The Russian Dissident and former world chess champion Gary Kasperov recognized

the ploy immediately and tweeted an old Soviet joke regarding Nazi forces massing on the Czechoslovakian border in 1938.

...