Well, duh . . .


Dumbest mainstream media headline of the day, Ukraine division:

So Far, U.S. Sanctions Over Ukraine May Be Inflicting Only Limited Pain on Russia

It's in the NYT, of course; don't waste your time reading the story. On the other hand, Anne Applebaum published this in Slate:

 . . .the West needs to rethink its military strategies in order to counter new tactics—paramilitary and psychological—that Russia has begun to deploy. But we could also begin to think even more strategically about the threat to both the eastern and the western halves of Europe that is posed by Russian influence on international energy markets in general, and on European natural gas pipelines in particular. I don’t mean the immediate threat to turn off the gas, but the long-term threat posed by companies such as Gazprom, state entities in everything but name, and their monopolistic practices. The danger they pose is both political and economic. Gazprom goes out of its way to hire senior European politicians, including former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, and spends millions trying to influence political decisions across the continent. Meanwhile, Europeans pay more than double what Americans pay for natural gas, not least because so many of them are buying from a supplier that is deliberately pushing prices upward. 

Story.