Thousands of stunned Russians laid flowers and lit candles on Saturday on the bridge where opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead near the Kremlin, a murder that showed the risks of speaking out against President Vladimir Putin.
Nemtsov, 55, was shot four times in the back by killers in a white car late on Friday as he walked across the bridge over the Moskva River in central Moscow with a Ukrainian woman, who was unhurt, police said.
Police sealed off the blood-stained bridge close to the red walls of the Kremlin and Red Square for two hours overnight, then hosed it down as people came to pay tribute to one of Putin's biggest opponents over Russia's role in Ukraine.
Russia's Investigative Committee, which answers to Putin, said it was following several lines of inquiry, including that the opposition may have committed the crime to rally support for a march against Kremlin policies on the economy and Ukraine.
Flowers were piled at least a meter (three feet) high, about two meters deep and two meters wide. A piece of white paper saying "We are all Nemtsov" stood among the flowers.
"People are afraid to support our movement. Opposition activists receive threats every day and Boris was no exception. But they won't stop us," said opposition activist Mark Galperin.
On the contrary, Mr. Galperin, Putin is doing an excellent job of stopping his opposition.
Leading international condemnation of the murder, U.S. President Barack Obama called for a prompt, impartial and transparent investigation to ensure those responsible were brought to justice for the "vicious killing".Political murders often go unsolved in Russia. Police said they were investigating whether the murder was aimed at destabilizing the political situation in Russia or was committed by radical Islamists against Nemtsov, a Jew.A car suspected of being used by the killers, and identified as coming from the mainly Muslim Ingushetia region, was found abandoned in central Moscow. Some Russian news outlets said surveillance footage showed two men leaving it.Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev cautioned against jumping to conclusions but some opposition figures blamed Putin directly. Others said Russian society was in decline, describing an environment where Putin demands total loyalty and supporters go to great lengths to do what they think may please him."In Putin's atmosphere of hatred and violence, abroad and in Russia, bloodshed is the prerequisite to show loyalty, that you are on the team," another opposition leader, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, said on Twitter."If Putin gave (the) order to murder Boris Nemtsov is not the point. It is Putin's dictatorship. His 24/7 propaganda about enemies of the state."
This is what an actual tyrant looks like. So odd that Republicans scream at Obama over tyranny, but worship Putin.
Oh wait, that makes perfect sense too.
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The things that Republicans accuse President Obama of doing are the things the Republicans have on their "To Do List" if they get elected.
Ain't that the truth: It's all about projection with them.
I have to point at tragedies like this, and the murders in Mexico and the Disappeared in Argentina and Brasil, whenever some goober at the Daily Kos or Firedoglake starts to whine about the police state because he got a speeding ticket on the interstate or he's hyped up on some paranoid fantasy about the NSA cracking his laptop to watch him masturbate. "In a real police state some dangerous agitator like you would be dead," I have to tell him, "or at the very least rotting in a cell next to Bart Gellman and Glen Gleenwald."
As none of this is in fact happening, certainly not on a regular basis, I chose to drop this American Police State fantasy into the wastebasket that holds Harvey Wasserman's invisible cloud of Fukushima radation that death murdered half a million innocent babies in California. A truly horrible, horrible story - or so it would be if it were actually true.
Wasserman's back to peddeling the Fukushima stories again huh?
And to the paranoia persons on Kos, Smirking Chimp, Crooks and Liars, and other sites I use the same words of Chez Pazienza--you wouldn't know what the f@$& a "police state" is. Interesting to see just how they give Russia and Putin regular tongue baths though.
Loons can be astoundingly persistent. There is this one guy at the Daily Kos who made a back of the envelope estimate that the Fukushima release could be as bad as four time Chernobyl - which might have been reasonable on March 12, 2011. Of course, that figure latched onto his brain and choked off all incoming information. Measured isotopes indicate about 0.1x, which is bad enough, but if you mention that to this joker he starts screaming about industry stooges and the poor dead babies you so brutally ignore.
And Eric Zuesse at the Smirking Chimp is stuck in some kind of time warp, where it's still 1924 and all good leftists simply adore Mother Russia and the peaceable intentions of her wise leaders. It's really kind of nauseating, and I say that as someone who has been a dedicated political brawler since the seventies.
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