The current, and typical unhinged barking moonbat, leftist talking point is that Putin waited till Trump was out of office to invade Ukraine because it would have hurt Trump if he did it while Trump was in office, and Trump was controlled by Putin, right? These people are nuts, and, while their voices are loud and end up in the news a lot, most Americans are sane enough not too believe it. In reality, Trump held Putin in check
Russia-Ukraine crisis: Biden’s twin failures on energy and foreign policy gave Putin tools to invade
When it comes to both foreign policy and his liberal energy agenda, President Joe Biden has embarrassed our nation. I can sum up President Biden’s incompetence in these areas with one simple story: a tale of two pipelines.
On one hand, Biden blocked the crucial Keystone XL Pipeline, signaling to the world that American energy independence is no longer a priority. On the other hand, he green-lit the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, strengthening Russia’s energy hold on Europe. And in the process, he gave Russia the leverage to create the crisis that we are witnessing unfold in Ukraine. Let me begin with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Biden’s policy failure on that score.
Until last year, getting tough on Russia was one of the few issues that seemed to unite conservatives and progressives. When I served on the House Armed Services Committee, my colleagues all recognized the real threat that Russia poses to our nation. In 2019, Congress passed a bipartisan measure to impose sanctions on the Russian company that is building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany. The sanctions had strong support from both Democrat leadership and the Trump administration.
America was a net exporter of natural gas, so, European nations didn’t have to rely on Russian gas. American could sell it to them. And what happened next? Why, Biden waived those legally passed sanctions
Some theorize that President Biden simply reversed an important accomplishment of the Trump administration for spite. A more sinister theory suggests that because his son, Hunter Biden, served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, President Biden had, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest. To make matters worse, Hunter “received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow,” according to a Congressional report.
Doing it out of spite pretty much is par for the course with the Brandon administration.
It is impossible to say for certain whether such a conflict exists. But leaders of both parties were sure that blocking this Russian pipeline was the right thing to do. And by allowing it to move forward, the United States lost vital leverage over Moscow. Biden is now scrambling to regain this leverage he lost, but it is too little, too late. His new sanctions come after Russian troops have already moved into Ukraine. Unfortunately, it appears the damage is done.
Not to be too cynical, but, what will happen is the European Union will start relaxing their sanctions within a year, because they need Russian natural gas. And it is mostly the EU imposing sanctions, not individual European nations. Sure, a lot of those nations are condemning Russia and Putin, but, they aren’t really Doing Something. Regardless of who wins the 2024 presidential election, the sanctions will be relaxed. You might see them relaxed next winter. Parts of Ukraine will be controlled by Russia, and everyone will just move on. Remember Crimea? Are there any real sanctions with teeth for that Putin adventure in 2014, when Obama was president and Joe was VP?
What makes Biden’s approach to Nord Stream 2 so much worse is the fact that he took a completely opposite approach to the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have benefitted my home state of South Dakota and our entire nation. On his first day as President, Biden blocked Keystone XL from moving forward. This pipeline would have been able to deliver more than 800,000 daily barrels of Canadian crude to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Unfortunately, President Biden took a shortsighted approach to appease his liberal base. Americans are seeing the results at the pump. Gas prices continue to rise. And we have lost our ability to counter Russian energy policy because we are significantly weakened from an energy production standpoint.
Biden is doing everything he can, from day 1, to reduce the ability of America to have inexpensive fossil fuels. While using a lot himself.
Victor David Hansen has a long piece explaining just how weak Obama (with Joe) was and how weak Joe is now, contrasting with what Trump did to contain Putin’s aggression. It can sometimes be so, so simply.
CNN trots out a piece which is essentially the old trope of Putin being on “the wrong side of history.” History says he’ll get away with it, just like Georgia and Crimea. Sadly. And, with Biden being so weak and ineffective, Putin might even get more frisky.
Finally, there’s a thought in the back of my mind that Biden wanted this to happen. Why? Because the U.S. economy is not doing well under Biden.
Natural gas was coming down till Biden, then it skyrocketed. Everything is going up. The root causes are not Biden, but, China’s Wuhan flu, yet, most moves Biden has made make the situation much worse. Goading Putin into going into Ukraine, triple dog daring…remember, it wasn’t that long ago that the Ukrainian president was telling Biden to chill, to stop pushing Putin…Russia to invade. And now everything bad happening in the U.S. economy can be Blamed on Putin. The media will be happy to comply. They already are. A great way to deflect and allow Biden and Dems to blame Russia going into the mid-terms.
Read: Kristi Noem: Biden Empowered Putin To Invade Ukraine »