BULLETIN:  A SLAP IN THE FACE – AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  Less than a day after President Obama warned Russia about military intervention in Ukraine, Moscow just gave its answer...a slap in the president's face.  From CNN, just published:

Russia's upper house of parliament voted Saturday to approve the use of military force in Ukraine. The vote was unanimous.

Here is the original story, published just a short time ago:

(CNN) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked the upper house of parliament for approval to send Russian troops into Ukraine's Crimea region to normalize the political situation there, the Kremlin said Saturday.

Due to the "extraordinary situation in Ukraine," Putin said, there are threats to the lives of Russian citizens and Russian military personnel based in the southern Crimean region.

It comes on the same day that the new pro-Russian leader of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, asked Putin for help in maintaining peace in the Black Sea peninsula -- where Russia has a major naval base at Sevastopol.

International concerns are mounting that Moscow may intervene militarily in the crisis, despite warnings from the United States and other Western powers that it should respect Ukrainian sovereignty.

In response to Putin's move, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted: "Russian military intervention in Ukraine is clearly against international law and principles of European security."

I'm sure Putin really cares what the Swedish foreign minister says.

The newly appointed interim government in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, is seeking to prevent tensions in Crimea, which has a majority-Russian population, escalating into a full-blown bid for separation.

Ukraine suspects Russia of fomenting separatist tensions in the autonomous region.

Amid the uncertainty, about 300 gunmen wearing Russian Special Forces uniforms attempted to take over the Sevastopol unit of the Ukrainian Coast Guard, a senior official with the Ukrainian Border Service said Saturday.

COMMENT:  No one expects the U.S. or NATO to intervene militarily in the Ukraine.  We didn't intervene militarily during the Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union in 1956, nor did we intervene during the Czech uprising in 1968. 

However, there are economic and diplomatic alternatives.  But Obama is a pathetically weak and intellectually corrupt president, and I doubt if we'll do anything serious.  Putin understands who Obama is.  He is laughing.

March 1,  2014