Had enough yet

[buffy]

A few things I thought about...

Why did he turn over functional control of the government over to Anthony Fauci

What would the press do to him if he hadn't brought in the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and asked what he thought? Nevertheless, Trump disagreed with Fauci plenty of times - on banning flights from China - if you remember, Biden called him a "hysterical xenophobe". If you remember, Trump had other medical advisors who urged him to promote medicines and therapies, such as Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, etc - the media mocked everything Trump said and censored even mentioning them! You couldn't criticize Fauci - the media exalted him - look at his awards during the pandemic! The narrative was that Fauci was Science.



RE: January 6th

Moreover, Has Trump, with all of his extensive wealth, supported his incarcerated faithful?

The narrative is that it was an insurrection instigated by Trump - would it make sense for Trump to give them money? How would that look? Instead...he's doing this (and still getting blasted for it).


https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/polit...und/index.html

[mark blazejewski]

The narrative is that it was an insurrection instigated by Trump - would it make sense for Trump to *give them money? *How would that look? *Instead...he's doing this (and still getting blasted for it).

Buffy, I write this respecting your opinions, but Good Heavens, are you serious?

Are you actually agreeing that the January 6 protesters are truly "insurrectionist?"

Strange, it appears they are being treated as such, but have not been charged accordingly, eh?

Are you a traitor if you stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6?

Maybe not, at least legally Federal prosecutors have charged more than 500 people for participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and none of those people have been accused of sedition or treason

By Jeff Parrott Jul 13, 2021, 11:51am MDT

Reference: https://www.deseret.com/u-s-world/20...eason-sedition

Absent the specific charges of Treason and Sedition, I have various concerns attendant to the 6th, and 8th Amendment rights of the accused, what say you?

In that connection, Trump is not a shy actor, and constantly complains about his own treatment by the Leftist press and revolutionaries.

Ergo, why does he not speak-out more prominently and forcefully, or otherwise, personally and tangibly support, the January 6 actors who demonstrated on his behalf?

A few things I thought about...


What would the press do to him if he hadn't brought in the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and asked what he thought? Nevertheless, Trump disagreed with Fauci plenty of times - on banning flights from China - if you remember, Biden called him a "hysterical xenophobe". If you remember, Trump had other medical advisors who urged him to promote medicines and therapies, such as Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, etc - the media mocked everything Trump said and censored even mentioning them! You couldn't criticize Fauci - the media exalted him - look at his awards during the pandemic! The narrative was that Fauci was Science.

Regarding the very questionable Fauci, I am sure that his knowledge could have been sought, and where appropriate, applied.

However, your TIME magazine illustration, along with your posted comments, would seem to justify Trump's deference to an unwarranted Fauci elevation from the elitist Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an agenda-driven, Deep State bureaucrat if you will, to the flawless embodiment of science itself; a very thin and shallow defense for the so-called anti-Globalist Trump, especially when considering the company Fauci has historically kept.

(Click On Attachment To Enlarge)

image - 2022-02-19T164243.669.png

Was Trump that threatened by Fauci?

If he, as the elected President of the United States was, you may have proven my points, eh?

[buffy]

Buffy, I write this respecting your opinions, but Good Heavens, are you serious?

Are you actually agreeing that the January 6 protesters are truly "insurrectionist?"

No, I thought that was clear when I said “The narrative is that it was an insurrection. These days, it seems there is truth and then there is the main stream media narrative, which comes from spin city. Discussing things like this are so much clearer when done in person - don’t take that the wrong way either - I’m not suggesting we get together. ;.)

Have a nice weekend.

[mark blazejewski]

No, I thought that was clear when I said “The narrative is that it was an insurrection. These days, it seems there is truth and then there is the main stream media narrative, which comes from spin city. Discussing things like this are so much clearer when done in person - don’t take that the wrong way either - I’m not suggesting we get together. ;.)

Have a nice weekend.

Okay, whatever.

You have a nice weekend too.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Mark / Buffy:

While appreciating and respecting your exchange, this is precisely what Americans are tiring of, the ‘he said / she said blame game’ played by both political parties, the media, and their political party minions.

There is infighting in both political parties, polling indicates voters by a large majority are dissatisfied with the Biden’s administration, and he is becoming as ‘disliked’ as Trump.

Moderates in his own party are expressing their displeasure with Biden’s proclaiming to be a ‘moderate’ and find him steadily moving to the left to placate the radical far-left socialists. In doing so he has lost touch with his base and the rest of the country as well.

And then we have Trump, so hated by the left when in office and continuing to piss-off his own base by being as toxic today and as unpresidential when in office.

The focus should be on the Ukraine invasion threat by Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky forcefully demands stronger actions from world leaders as the threat of full-scale attack by Russia intensifies amid increased shelling in the eastern separatist regions of his country.

Zelensky’s sharp rebuke of Kyiv’s allies comes as the United States sounds its most dire warnings yet about the likelihood of a resumed Russian invasion of Ukraine

Some European allies questioned the United States’ conviction that the Kremlin will launch hostilities, saying that they have not seen direct evidence suggesting Putin has committed to such a course of action.

Zelensky, too, urged Western leaders to spend less time warning Kyiv about the number of Russian troops on Ukraine’s doorstep, and to instead break their “silence” about how their nations planned to respond. Speaking to CNN in Munich, Zelensky called on the United States and Europe to articulate what sanctions they would impose on Russia, to serve as a deterrent.

“We don’t need your sanctions after the bombardment will happen and after our country will be fired at, or after we will have no borders and after we will have no economy or part of our country will be occupied,” Zelensky said. “Why would we need those sanctions then?”

Zelensky asked for greater commitments, daring Western leaders to “be honest” about when they planned to incorporate Ukraine into their alliances and step up to its defense.

“If not all the members are willing to see us there [in NATO], or all members don’t want to see us there, be honest about it,” Zelensky said, committing to defend his country with or without help. “Open doors are good, but we need open answers, and not the years and years of closed questions.”

Comment

So, what’s my point? Hoping that this crisis will be resolved peacefully. That this is not another crisis manufactured and conflated for political gain - but will further divide the country instead of uniting it.

Much can change by election 2024, but the country is pissed at both political parties and are equally concerned that toxic candidates like Trump, Biden, Harris, and ‘crooked’ Hillary will become endorsed presidential candidates.

Regardless, it is good that we can still freely share opinions on this website. Cancel culture may be on the way out.

[mark blazejewski]

Mark / Buffy:

Some European allies questioned the United States’ conviction that the Kremlin will launch hostilities, saying that they have not seen direct evidence suggesting Putin has committed to such a course of action.

Why does the name "Saddam" and the term "Weapons of Mass Destruction" pop into my mind?

Zelensky asked for greater commitments, daring Western leaders to “be honest” about when they planned to incorporate Ukraine into their alliances and step up to its defense.

Lee,

You and I both remember October, 1962.

Most Americans were, and I remain, highly supportive of President Kennedy when he opposed Khrushchev's deployment of offensive nuclear-armed missiles to Cuba. Cuba was, and remains, a Communist nation located only ninety miles off of America's southern coast.

Relying on the full support of NATO, and citing the U.N. Charter, the OAS Charter, and America's own Monroe Doctrine, Kennedy vehemently opposed that Soviet missile deployment, and demanded that Khrushchev withdraw the missiles.

The world's consensus was that President Kennedy's demand was righteous, and I believe that his approach to the crisis was wise and prudent.

Concerning Ukraine, it is an independent nation which directly borders Russia. It exists, rightly or wrongly, in challenge to the Putin regime, and through Russian eyes, perhaps can be strategically seen as its American equivalent of Cuba in 1962.

Would not a Ukrainian NATO membership bring it under the NATO umbrella; an awning which perhaps would include offensive weapons, including those of the nuclear variety?

In that connection, it seems to me that NATO and the United States, which stood united in purpose in 1962, should be more introspective regarding their thinly-veiled hypocrisy.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Mark:

In 1962, I was a young man raising a family and terrified for them with the impending threat of an invasion by Russia. Not terrified then as much as now because we had a united country under the apt leadership of a young president equally concerned with the wellbeing of his family.

Today we have a divided country with forces within weaponing any means to weaken it further by telling us it is not the great country it is made out to be. They have no concept of how dangerous this situation is today when America’s threat may appear to be thousands of miles away, but with nuclear capabilities and cyber warfare, the threat is greater than 1962, as close as our doorstep.

I found the following report the best analysis yet of what is at the heart of this crisis.

In Ukraine crisis, the looming threat of a new Cold War

MOSCOW – Vladimir Pozner was an English-language Soviet propaganda editor in Moscow in 1962, a job that gave him rare access to U.S. newspapers and magazines. That allowed him to follow the Cuban missile crisis outside the Soviet media filter and sense a world at the brink of war.

Pozner, a longtime Russian television journalist, said he now feels something similar.

“The smell of war is very strong,” he said in an interview Friday, a day when shelling intensified along the front line in eastern Ukraine. “If we talk about the relationship between Russia and the West – and in particular, the United States – I feel that it is as bad as it was at any time in the Cold War, and perhaps, in a certain sense, even worse.”

Unlike 1962, it is not the threat of nuclear war but of a major land war that now looms over Europe. But the feeling that Russia and the United States are entering a new version of the Cold War – long posited by some commentators on both sides of the Atlantic – has become inescapable.

U.S. President Biden hinted at it Tuesday in the East Room of the White House, pledging that if Russia invaded Ukraine, “we will rally the world to oppose its aggression.” Russian President Vladimir Putin drove the matter home Saturday, when he oversaw a test launch of nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles that can evade U.S. defenses.

“We are entering a new stage of confrontation,” said Dmitry Suslov, an international relations specialist at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “After this crisis, we will naturally be much more explicit and open in acknowledging that we are enemies, we are adversaries, with all the ensuing consequences.”

For now, no one knows just how the world will emerge from the crisis – whether Putin is staging an elaborate, expensive bluff or is truly on the verge of launching the biggest military offensive in Europe since 1945. But it does appear clear that Putin’s overarching aim is to revise the outcome of the original Cold War, even if it is at the cost of deepening a new one.

Putin is seeking to undo a European security order created when his country was weak and vulnerable after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and to re-create the sort of geopolitical buffer zone that Russian rulers over the centuries have felt they needed. He is signaling that he is prepared to accomplish this by diplomatic means but also through the use of force.

The crisis has already brought Putin some tactical wins as well as perilous risks. Since first mounting a threatening troop buildup on Ukraine’s borders last spring, he has managed to seize Washington’s attention – a goal for a Kremlin that, as in the Cold War, sees confrontation with the United States as its defining conflict. But his actions have also spurred anti-Russian attitudes and further united Europe and the United States against Russia – something that should worry the Kremlin given the West’s still far greater global economic and political might.

Daniel Fried, a retired American diplomat who dealt with Moscow both during the Soviet era and the Putin era, said he had a message for Russians who long for the Cold War days when their country, in their telling, was respected by the United States. After all, the Soviet Union lost the original Cold War. “You may just get that back,” Fried said in an interview. “And it will not go well for you.”

Unlike the Soviets, Putin is not trying to wage a global ideological struggle, nor is he – for now – bankrupting his country in a costly arms race. Russia is far more intertwined in the global economy, a reality that some still hope will help the world avoid as deep and long a confrontation between East and West. And to the U.S., it is China – not Russia – that now looms as the more serious strategic adversary in the long term.

But to Putin, the fight to roll back his country’s defeat in the original Cold War has already lasted at least 15 years. He declared his rejection of a U.S.-led world order in his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, warning of “unexploded ordnance” left behind from the Cold War: “ideological stereotypes” and “double standards” that allowed Washington to rule the world while crimping Russia’s development.

This weekend, in one of the many ominous developments of recent days, Russia is skipping the Munich conference – an annual meeting at which Western officials have been able to sit down with their Russian counterparts throughout the prior tensions of Putin’s rule.

Instead, the Kremlin released footage of Putin in the Kremlin’s situation room, directing test launches of its modernized arsenal of nuclear capable missiles from bombers, submarines, and land-based launchers. It was a carefully timed reminder that, as Russian television recently told viewers, the country can turn U.S. cities “into radioactive ash.”

And Putin has amassed a monumental force to Ukraine’s north, east and south in order to signal that the Kremlin sees the former Soviet republic’s pro-Western shift as such a dire threat that it is willing to fight a war to stop it.

Some Russian analysts think Putin could still de-escalate the crisis and walk away with a tactical victory. The threat of war has started a discussion in Ukraine and in the West about the idea that Ukraine may disavow NATO membership. And the United States has already offered talks on a number of initiatives that Moscow is interested in, including on the placement of missiles in Europe and on limiting long-range bomber flights. But Putin is making clear he wants more than that: a wide-ranging, legally binding agreement to unwind the NATO presence in Eastern Europe.

The intensity of the crisis that Putin has engineered is evident in the harsh language that the Kremlin has deployed. Standing this month alongside French President Emmanuel Macron at the Kremlin, Putin said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had no choice but to carry out a 2015 peace plan that Russia was pushing: “You may like it, you may not like it; deal with it, my gorgeous.” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in a joint news conference with his visiting British counterpart, Liz Truss, said their discussion had resembled that of a “mute person with a deaf person.”

“Sometimes discussions were rather heated between Soviet and American leaders,” said Pavel Palazhchenko, a former Soviet diplomat. “But probably not to that extent and not as publicly as now. There is really no parallel.”

Palazhchenko, who translated for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in his summits with American presidents, describes that language as an outgrowth of a Russian frustration with the country’s security concerns being ignored. During the Cold War, Washington and Moscow came together over landmark arms-control agreements. During the Putin era, little of that has happened.

“This is a clear emotional and psychological reaction to the years and even decades of the West and the U.S. being rather dismissive of Russian security concerns,” he said.

Doug Lute, a former American ambassador to NATO, rejects the notion of past disrespect for Russian interests, especially given that Russia’s nuclear arsenal is “the only existential threat to the United States in the world.” But like Palazhchenko, he also sees lessons in the Cold War for emerging from the current crisis.

“It may be that we settle into a period where we have dramatically different worldviews or dramatically different ambitions, but even despite that political contest, there’s space to do things in our mutual interest,” Lute said. “The Cold War could be a model for competing and cooperating at the same time.”

[mark blazejewski]

Lee,

I remember Pozner from the 1980s; English language shortwave broadcasts on Radio Moscow, appearances on the Phil Donohue Show, and numerous interviews on Nightline were all part of his American repertoire.

I never truly trusted Pozner, because during the Brezhnev, Andropov, and Cherenkov years, he was a hardline Marxist with merely a well-spoken, softened edge. I assume his pleasing English voice and calm demeanor, served to counter what some (not me) considered to be the harsh Reagan rhetoric.

It was only after Glasnost and Perestroika did Pozner transform himself into a figure who favorably represented the more "liberal" views articulated by Gorbachev.

To my point, I take issue with this Pozner assessment:

Unlike 1962, it is not the threat of nuclear war but of a major land war that now looms over Europe.

Just my opinion Lee, but such words are nonsense.

Shortly before the Potsdam Conference, it is said that Ambassador Averill Harriman told Stalin, "Marshall, it must be a great satisfaction to you to be here in Berlin to determine post-war Germany."

Stalin is said to have replied "No. Czar Alexander made it all the way to Paris."

Such was Stalin's thinking, but that thinking was related to Governor Harriman less than a month the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nuclear weapons were developed, deployed, and have always existed, to confront superior conventional military might. As such, for 72 years, those weapons, with their potential for "mutually assured destruction," it would seem, avoided a major European land war, and oddly, rather significantly preserved world peace.

It is my position and opinion that Pozner's focused confidence on limiting such a war to ground action is thoughtless, and that such a disregard for the potential of a nuclear calamity, is not only naïve, but reckless.

Specifically, Pozner's more optimistic comments may have some validity if there existed a concrete assurance that the hostilities will be confined to the Russo-Ukraine region. As a practical matter, no such assurance exists, nor can exist; the consequence of the unforeseen consequences must necessarily be considered.

It should be noted that Russia remains a very potent world nuclear power, and does so in a world with many potential flash point areas. To wit:

(1) What if the tensions between Turkey and Russia intensify and spin out of control?

(2) What if there is a confrontation between NATO and Russian naval assets in the Black Sea?

Reference: https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news...aine-conflict/

(3) What if there is an inadvertent air battle over the Baltic or Black Seas; the unforeseen consequences of such a crisis?

Reference: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...wider-conflict

(4) What of the wild card that is the Russian-Iranian coziness in general, and in regards to Syria in particular?

Reference: https://www.csis.org/analysis/evolut...peration-syria

(5) What unspoken understandings does Russia have with Communist China?

A good read concerning the overall dangers attendant to the stampede toward war with Russia over Ukraine is encapsulated in this read:

https://warontherocks.com/2021/12/st...-over-ukraine/

[Lee Chowaniec]

Mark:

Although I appreciate your historical analysis, this is a different time in history, with different characters, potential devastating nuclear and cyber warfare use and a disengaged America more concerned about transforming its identity – so much so it is only now that the majority of Americans polled are identifying problems like inflation, surging crime, a border crisis, clearly indicating they have had enough of the current socialist administration and the ‘woke’ cancel culture movement. It is a sad time when the left in America is more focused on the gender of Mr. Potato Head than the crises facing our country. Mr. Putin, and the world, are seeing an America weakened from within, which was predicted by our adversaries years ago. And we are too stupid to see that we are complicit in the process!

Too many uninformed individuals fail to realize the world, and direct threat to America, from this crisis. And equally troubling is the current administration at the wheel. Obama’s former Defense Secretary Robert Gates aptly put it when he declared he couldn’t remember one time when Biden was right on foreign policy.

The following are today’s reports on the seriousness and implications of the Ukraine crisis:

The White House released a statement on Sunday night that Mr. Biden had accepted “in principle” a summit with Mr. Putin after the meeting between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Lavrov, again specifying that it would only take place in the absence of an invasion.

Mr. Biden has openly declared that American intelligence agencies had just learned that the Kremlin had given the order for Russian military units to proceed with an invasion.

The debate has now shifted to how Mr. Putin will do it: in one massive nationwide attack; a series of bites that dismantle the country, piece by piece; or a pythonlike squeeze. That last option is made all the easier with the news Sunday morning that Belarus is allowing Russian troops to remain indefinitely, where they can menace Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Mr. Putin might be betting that he can shatter Ukraine’s economy and oust its government without having to immediately roll in tanks.
Mr. Putin’s strategic choices over the next few weeks may make a huge difference in how the world reacts.

Mr. Putin presumably wants to achieve his goal — a halt to Ukraine’s drift toward the West — as cheaply and with as few casualties as possible. All he sought was a friendly, pliable government like the one he has in Belarus, He wants NATO to pull back from the region and guarantee that neither Ukraine nor any other countries there will ever join the alliance.

Russia could also cripple the Ukrainian power grid and communications systems. Mr. Biden recently sent the deputy national security adviser for cyber- and emerging technologies, Anne Neuberger, to brief the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on what that might look like — and for the possibility that the cyberattacks could spread to Western Europe and the United States.

Both Russia and the West see Ukraine as a potential buffer against each other. Russia considers Ukraine within its natural sphere of influence. Most of it was for centuries part of the Russian Empire, many Ukrainians are native Russian speakers, and the country was part of the Soviet Union until winning independence in 1991.

[mark blazejewski]

Mark:

Although I appreciate your historical analysis, this is a different time in history...

The White House released a statement on Sunday night that Mr. Biden had accepted “in principle” a summit with Mr. Putin after the meeting between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Lavrov, again specifying that it would only take place in the absence of an invasion.

Mr. Biden has openly declared that American intelligence agencies had just learned that the Kremlin had given the order for Russian military units to proceed with an invasion.

Lee, you are entirely correct, this is a different time in history.

Unlike the immediate post-World War Two, Cold War era, this Ukrainian crisis is developing during the revolutionary time of the Great Reset; an age of irrationality, puzzling logic, corruption, declining western values, and in terms of United States leadership, waning respect and broad incompetence.

With that said Lee, obviously no one knows what is going to happen, and these comments reflect my thinking at the moment, but kindly indulge this writer, and let me push back a bit on your insightful comments.

A different time in history indeed, but may I suggest that this may be an instance where history is confirming Santayana?

As I see things, this Ukraine crisis is an issue very similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, The only significant difference in 2022 resides in the world of role-reversal. In fact, the reverse-roles similarities seem to be uncanny.

As I have written, Putin may well be justified in his concerns regarding a possible admission of Ukraine into NATO. Such a NATO membership, potentially, brings with it the exact same sort of threat to Russia in 2022, that Khrushchev's introduction of nuclear missiles into Cuba brought to the United States in 1962.

To wit, my comparison:

In response to Khrushchev, President Kennedy ordered a "quarantine," aka "blockade" of Cuban to prevent the deliverance of further missiles, troops, and other offensive equipment into Cuba.

In 1962, Saturday, October 27 was marked by ominous events suggesting that war was imminent. Russian SAM missiles shot down an American U2 aircraft, and the Russian Embassy in Washington began to burn its sensitive documents. Clearly, events started to spin out of control.

As a result, the EXCOM dispatched Robert Kennedy to deliver to the USSR Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, the unambiguous message that unless the Soviet Union promptly, publicly and authoritatively, committed to disarm and remove the missiles, that the United States would attack Cuban missile sites beginning on Monday October 29.

On Sunday morning, October 28, Radio Moscow announced that the missiles would be disarmed and removed from Cuba.

(Reference: Thirteen Days, by Robert F. Kennedy, W.W. Norton Company, Inc, 1969)


In this current crisis, Biden and NATO seem to have committed a NATO membership, or at the very least, some sort of protective military guarantees attendant to Ukraine's "enhanced opportunity partner" NATO status.

In response to NATO and Biden, Putin surrounded Ukraine with 150,000 Russian troops, tanks, and artillery pieces, along with the deployment of naval assets in the waters surrounding Ukraine.

This weekend, Ukraine underwent significant artillery bombard, and according to the President, U.S. intelligence assets are suggesting that Putin has ordered the invasion to proceed,

Pre-invasion fatalities, and a strong communication of an intent to invade; kind of like October 27, 1962, eh?

Last night, Biden has accepted in principle, a Macron-brokered invitation to meet with Putin, sans invasion.

I'll sum this up with Dean Rusk's words during the Cuban Crisis: "We were eyeball-to-eyeball with them, and I think the other guy just blinked."

This time it was an American iris.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Role reversal indeed.

Zelensky’s words were profound when he questioned whether the Ukraine would be accepted into NATO, or not. “Don’t screw with us.”

Our allies are upset with Biden and the intelligence he is receiving but not sharing with them.

What kind of BS is that to tell an oppressor that he will pay a heavy price in sanctions should he attack, kill who knows how many, and takes over the country? Refuses to be proactive and refuses to tell the nature of the ‘devastating’ sanctions – after the fact.

How much faith and trust should our allies put in leader who has screwed up his own country and further divided it – after promising to unite it.

We don’t know what Biden knows, but then again, does he?

[mark blazejewski]

Role reversal indeed.

Zelensky’s words were profound when he questioned whether the Ukraine would be accepted into NATO, or not. “Don’t screw with us.”

Our allies are upset with Biden and the intelligence he is receiving but not sharing with them.

What kind of BS is that to tell an oppressor that he will pay a heavy price in sanctions should he attack, kill who knows how many, and takes over the country? Refuses to be proactive and refuses to tell the nature of the ‘devastating’ sanctions – after the fact.

How much faith and trust should our allies put in leader who has screwed up his own country and further divided it – after promising to unite it.

We don’t know what Biden knows, but then again, does he?

Lee,

Don't you just love the Great Reset?

Martial Law in Canada; so-called "Insurrectionists" in America; the Chinese running rampant in the Pacific, with Putin in the role as the single heir to the combined personalities of Stalin and Hitler.

To be sure, it is a cluster thingy in a world where is America being led by a declining, hair-sniffing, corrupt, senile old man, who can not handle the Marxist extremists in his own Party, let alone being capable of remembering, or activating, the nuclear launch codes.

A historian may see that much of 20th Century western history is being consolidated and replayed-out in this Ukraine crisis.

This afternoon, this crisis has moved from a re-visitation of "The Missiles of October," to the possible resurrection from the dustbins of history, further words, which may become analogous with this Ukraine calamity.

Those words may be "Sudetenland," "Danzig," "Anschluss," and perhaps "Quisling."

Depending on NATO's reaction, there may also be room to consider "Munich" and "Appeasement," eh?

Russia-Ukraine: Putin to recognize independence of Ukraine breakaway regions:

The Kremlin, in a statement, said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin in the "near future" will recognize the independence of the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic regions in eastern Ukraine.


LIVE NEWS
Published February 21, 2022
Last Update 4 min(s) ago

Reference: https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/ru...amps-u-s-warns

[Lee Chowaniec]

History repeating itself

The first 12 minutes of today’s ‘The Five ‘explains what Putin is looking for and why, the positions of our feckless president and our clueless vice president.
Putin sees Ukraine as part of Russia, considers NATO as a threat, Zelensky asks NATO whether Ukraine is in or out, and some even go as far as to question Russia’s importance to Europe and the world.

Russia's economy is "incredibly unimportant in the global economy except for oil and gas," Jason Furman, Harvard economist and ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama, told The New York Times. "It's basically a big gas station," he said.

But then Furman notes that Russia's oil and gas exports are significant to the world.
The European Union imports around 80% of the natural gases it uses, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and Russia accounts for 41% of the natural gas imports and 27% of the oil imports in the continent, per Eurostat.

Compounded with energy prices in the EU surging in price from 20 euros to 180 euros a megawatt-hour over the last year, the disappearance of those gas and oil imports could spell disaster for the region and the interconnected global economy. Meanwhile, in the US, gas prices have hit a seven-year high, climbing to around $3.50 per gallon, while inflation burgeons at its highest rate in 40 years, at 7.5%.
On the other hand, Ukraine has also been a major supplier of grain to other regions, sending 40% of its wheat and corn exports to the Middle East and Africa, The Times reported.

So along with nuclear power and cyber technology to disrupt the world grid, maybe, just maybe, they should be considered important and dangerous. Oh yeah, Russia does have a sparkling of rare earth minerals.

The Five

https://www.fox.com/watch/25ce870f64...d50c4b74cd7c3/

I know you think you have Putin in an awkward position, Mr. Biden, that it is a FOX report, but it’s worth a listen.

[mark blazejewski]

I don't like Putin. I think he is a dictator and an aggressive militarist thug who wants to restore the USSR.

With that said, the Western (NATO) Allies appear to be clueless idiots.

The Germans, with the approval of Biden, pursued the Russian-controlled Nord Stream Two pipeline. That made Germany and some of Europe reliant on Russia for its energy needs.

Concurrently, President Biden deliberately made the United States less energy independent.

Simultaneously, Putin has told the U.S. and NATO to stop all of the talk about making Ukraine a NATO member.

"Just as we would not want Russia to come in and put tanks and missiles on our borders, whether with Mexico or elsewhere, Russia says 'Hey, I don't want the U.S. and NATO coming in and making their military outposts on our borders within Ukraine."---Tulsi Gabbard, "Sean Hannity Show, February 21, 2022

Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lui3zKZTGvY

The U.S. and NATO defied Putin's request, and recently deployed increased military assets in support of Ukraine and their vague strategy regarding Ukraine NATO status.

Yesterday, Putin recognized parts of eastern Ukraine as independent states, and sent Russian troops into those "independent states" to preserve their independence; Russian protectorates if you will.

This morning, the Germans are in the process of stopping approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Reference: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/...eline-approval

How much sense did it make for the Germans, et al, to make themselves dependent on Russia for energy?

How much sense did it make for Biden, simultaneously, to deliberately make the U.S. to less energy independent?

How much sense did it make for the United States and NATO to then piss-off the Russians, and then as a reactive penalty, for the Germans to sanction the very source of its dependent gas, and to do so at a time when American-produced energy is in such short supply?

Talk about self-abuse, eh?

[Lee Chowaniec]

Ukraine: Different perspectives

By entering eastern Ukraine, Russia officially became the aggressor and declared war on Ukraine. Russia has deceived the whole world and yet the world does not seem to care enough.

Much now depends on the scale and scope of Russia's invasion, which is still being assessed. Washington and its allies have repeatedly publicly committed to an "ironclad commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," though this commitment does not extend to fighting side-by-side with Ukrainians, only equipping, and training its military and imposing financial and economic sanctions on Moscow. But they've sworn off direct fighting in Ukraine.

There are justified Concerns that Russia's invasion will prompt a refugee crisis across Europe have had world leaders worried for months.

There is concern Putin 'won't stop' with Ukraine. The invasion could also lead to an increase in defense spending by the U.S. and NATO, effectively bolstering an alliance whose eastward expansion has long troubled Putin. The Pentagon has already announced it put 8,500 forces on "heightened alert" in the event they are needed as part of a 40,000-strong NATO Response Force and Biden has sent 3,000 soldiers to Poland to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank.

Russia is one of the world's largest suppliers of energy, and it could seek to withhold supplies to Europe while attacking Ukraine or in retaliation for sanctions. The U.S. does import Russian oil and gas. Why, because of Biden’s energy policies that have shut down the Keystone XL pipeline and denial of permits for gas and oil development.

Sanctions? "The Kremlin is well positioned to survive (any targeted sanctions). "The U.S. and Europe have been careful since 2014 to impose sanctions on people and companies close to the Kremlin, but to minimize the direct impact on ordinary Russians and on the Russian economy as a whole."

How is Biden really looked at by our allies when he has failed to unite our country, rather weaking it by failed social, economic policies. Was Putting motivated by a country engrossed in a culture war, more concerned by snowflake emotions, and easily offended.

Should we trust our country’s leader when too often he has been the cause of crises occurring in our own country – speaking condescendingly to his own citizens, demonizing them, and calling them terrorists in the process.

Is he not embarrassing as Hannity claims in report tonight?

The left now deferring blame for Ukraine crisis on Trump. Biden warning Americans to expect further escalating energy costs should Putin cut off oil and gas supplies to America and European allies.

Is he not embarrassing the U.S. as Hannity claims in his report tonight?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...edgdhp&pc=U531

70% of Americans polled declared they believe our country is headed in the wrong direction. I wonder what percentage of Americans trust Biden in handling this foreign crisis. What is Biden's game plan if Putin invades further? What will the resolve of our European allies be when Ukraine is not in NATO, and they are expected to bear the brunt of the social-economic costs?