Yesterday, Press Secretary Raggedy Ann McCircleback, announced that Biden lifted some of the sanctions against Russia in regards to the Nordstream 2 Pipeline.
As Ron Burgundy would say, this is “kind of a big deal”. Why? Because the United States capitulated to Russia (on this round of sanctions, at least). In fact, if you look at what Raggedy Ann said last February regarding sanctions and what she said yesterday, it’s a complete one-eighty.
Now, the question is “why?”, as in why did Biden reverse himself?
Several factors spring to mind.
First, the Germans have sunk close to eleven billion dollars into the project. It’s possible that Merkel (who is close to Putin) told our State Department that this has to go through. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say. If not, Germany will be tied up with lawsuits for several years. That’s a scary prospect, one that might cause the Germans to revisit the whole Atlanticist project.
Second, it’s possible that Biden’s handlers are worried about the long-term prospects for the American nation. If you live in a Blue city, all you have to do is take a look outside your window and see daily rioting and rampant criminality. The United States has many strengths, but the chaos that is presently engulfing us makes it impossible for us to project a united front against any foreign adversary. This can’t be said enough: the entire world looks aghast at what is happening to America, much of which is self-inflicted.
Third, it’s within the realm of possibility that certain rogue elements sympathetic to the Russian Federation caused one of our pipelines to shut down. Thousands of gasoline stations were shut down for a little over a week. And the price of gasoline skyrocketed. A five million dollar ransom had to be paid to these jokers. Be that as it may, it highlighted the tenuousness of our power grid. A few more incidents like that in some of our bluer cities (which are already on the edge of anarchy) could cause swaths of America to descend into an Escape from New York hellscape. .
Think of where we were just six months ago; under Trump we were independent energy-wise. (Why do you think those Arab nations signed the Abraham Accords?) But Biden stupidly reversed course. He shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, he got us back in the idiotic Paris Accords and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (among other things).
Now we’re back to Welcome Back Carter. Inflation is rearing it’s ugly head and the employment numbers are abysmal. And rather than punishing Russia, the increase in oil prices has had the exact opposite effect. Russia’s budget, which is heavily dependent upon the energy sector, is now flush with money.
Because of this, the Russians now have a cushion which they did not have earlier. It’s quite likely that the Russians told the Germans that if the pipeline doesn’t go through, they could absorb the hit while looking for other customers. Like China. Or Iran.
Now, what are some of the implications of this reversal?
There are many but right now I’m thinking Ukraine is going to take a financial hit. No longer will Russian LNG have to pass through that unfortunate country and thus be forced to pay transit fees to Kiev. Worse, this is going to take another arrow from the geopolitical quiver of the Ukrainians; simply put, they have lost another front in their usefulness to the West, especially to Germany. I’m sure that there are other implications which will become apparent in due time but for now, it looks like Putin won this round against the Atlanticists.
Still, I can’t escape the ironic fact that Biden is doing precisely what Trump would have done had he been allowed to govern. Biden did another Trumpian thing in that he has caught the Fake News Industrial Complex completely flat-footed. He has exposed their hypocrisy (can you imagine the non-stop screaming that would be going on right now if Trump had lifted these sanctions?). This has the added benefit of degrading their already abysmal credibility.
Still, at the end of the day I have this question: why can Russia have a pipeline America can’t?
Given the law and order policies, the economic policies
and the military recruitment policies of the current administration,
not only is it quite possible that the United States might cease to be a Great Power,
but it might cease to exist as a Federal Republic (or exist at all)
within a few short years.
Remember how quickly the Soviet Union evaporated?
And Russia became a basket case?
Remember George Soros and the Great Reset?
[Of course, under Boris, the UK is equally likely to disintegrate.]
Very perceptive analysis, Brendan.
The US has been fighting a losing war against Russia for world influence, specifically, European influence. It is a bit of an artificial situation that the US has dominated Western Europe economically since there is an ocean that separates us. Russia is right there on the continent. Being the largest, strongest European country, it is naturally the one to be dominant, especially in consideration of its rich natural resources. From time immemorial it has been a conviction that whoever dominates Central Europe dominates the world.
NS2 was always going to go through. The only question was whether we were going to have a hissy fit with Germany about it. They have been committed. They seem to see Russia as a more stable partner in energy than the US, given our political instability and rising “America First” style nationalism.
This is all just part and parcel of the Christian Nationalist wave overtaking Europe. It is fueled by Russian power. Whether election/propaganda ops or creating energy dependence or controlling its near abroad, it’s all forms of asymmetric warfare. They know the American Establishment wants regime change in Moscow and they’re playing hardball.
Sleepy Joe is no match for Vlad.
And Russian gas is just cheaper. The U.S. has been holding a gun against Europe to buy our expensive, coolant and ship transported gas.
This is all just part and parcel of the Christian Nationalist wave overtaking Europe. It is fueled by Russian power
I hadn’t thought of this, it seems to be more noticable in Eastern Europe rater than in western Europe, unless I am missing something. But, Madrid just elect a nationalist leader so that’s something.
Though Boris is no traditionalist, Brexit did prevail in the UK. Le Pen is ahead of Macron in France and he is tacking headlong to the right. Germany insists on becoming dependent on Russian natural gas. Spain is also moving right, as you observed. Poland, Hungary, Austria, Italy and lately even Sweden (of all places) are seeing rightward movement:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/the-far-right-is-ready-to-claim-a-slice-of-real-power-in-sweden
What is happening, essentially, is that the Liberal Establishment is hitting a political wall much like it did an economic wall under Carter. In the late 1970’s, it became clear that high taxes and regulation were no longer sustainable if economic growth was the objective. The Left had hit an economic wall in that the electorate hates recession and stagflation, regardless of other concerns, and their policies seemed tailored to produce just that.
Now, instead of just the economic wall, the Left is hitting a cultural wall as well. Native populations do not want to be inundated by a deluge of immigrants either in Europe or here. That is the chief issue. But other social issues are also salient. Cancel culture is really popular with no one at this point. But it is identified with the Left.
Social media censorship, trannys in women’s bathrooms and in women’s sports, Critical Race Theory in the schools – all of this is a bit shocking to normal sensibilities. The French in particular seem to be on the verge of civil war (judging by the sentiments of their generals) due to CRT, et al. Everyone saw the riots last summer and the attempt to raise the Capitol incident to that level of seriousness have failed miserably. Billions of dollars in damage, murders, assaults, autonomous zones – terror in the streets in some blue states.
Kamala Harris famously remarked that they won’t stop and they shouldn’t. They don’t like ChiCom Joe any better than Trump. This has an effect on normal people. It may be a blessing in disguise that Biden was installed as president. Four years of this circus should really polarize the vast majority rightward. Then Trump can move in with a free hand since he doesn’t have to consider reelection. He can land as hard as he cares to on the Left. And his VP, if he/she continues the mojo, could rule for 8 more years after that.
They want us to believe that a 200 year old technology was shut down by a computer? Is that serious?
For an excellent analysis of this by Alexander Mercouris,
see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j2_FSIKfMo&t=1s
[Video – 29:32]
He pinpoints the Machiavellianism of Mutti Merkel
and the complete silliness of the American ‘policy’.
It’s crazy. Biden shuts down the Keystone Pipeline as soon as he becomes President, crushing thousands of American jobs.
Then he supports the *exact same thing* between Germany and Russia?
I’m not faulting Germany or Russia. As Misha states, Russia should be dominant in Europe — they are right there. (After all, the classic “fear of the Russians” is why New York and London financiers financed the Bolshevik revolution 100 years go — to help topple the Russian government, to ensure that Russia could not dominate in Europe in the wake of WW1. Without their financing, the Bolsheviks – who never amounted to more than 5% of the Russian population – would have fizzled out like nothing. There’s plenty of data on this topic. It’s worth looking up.)
What I am faulting is Biden’s and the Left’s reflexive caving to woke-ism, “greenness,” “environmentalism,” which invariably cripples our country. I love pristine lakes and green countrysides as much as the next guy. But in America, apparently our government thinks that pipelines and jobs are bad. But in Central/Eastern Europe and in Russia, they are a-OK?
Everyone has known for decades that Biden is a narcissistic bully who never had any business running anything — indeed, he never has run anything! (One doesn’t govern anything in the Senate.) Those of us from the mid-Atlantic have known about him for decades. The primary thing that interests Biden is Joe Biden and his puffed up sense of himself. He appeals to people who don’t know anything about him and who project onto him what they want to see, not what is real.
The sooner Joey B fizzles out and retires to a golf course somewhere, the better. At least with Kamala Harris, she’s even more unlikeable than Joey B (believe it or not), and there’d be far fewer handlers working toward (or interested in) propping her up. Her constituency is as close to zero as you can get. I imagine that her crash and burn will be quick.
There are many but right now I’m thinking Ukraine is going to take a financial hit. No longer will Russian LNG hav Well, a lot of Olympic athletes are convince that a Urbane billionaire con Putin in getting rid of the Olympics. In fact I have my suspension on this since Putin had the Olympics in Russia in 2014, but ex-Olympians like Michael Phelps are convince of this. A lot of young people dislike Russia because of the anti-Trump proganda. Anyways, a lot of the young track stars or swimmers are not religious. In swimming only Michael Andrew whose parents were from South Africa is evangelical and Katie Ledecky is cathodic. So, naturally, the kids being non-religious hate Eastern Orthodox Russia.
Cynthia, as far as I’m concerned, the Olympic spirit is long past. Having sports like water polo, baseball, even soccer (which I love), is silly. In ancient Greece, the Olympics (as well as the Nemean and other games) were there for athlete/warriors to express their physical prowess. There were no team sports, just individual agones.
Just my opinion.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/20/regime-vs-regime/
This deserves a read. Wasn’t sure where to post it.
Codevilla is a no holds barred writer and is frank in his assessment of the events of Jan. 6th. What I would have added is just that the most aggressive activity that day, apart from the police murder of a Trumpista, was the vandalism and intrusion led by Antifa/BLM imposter types bused in that has been documented on film.
It was an attempt at manufacturing a false flag if ever there were one. The “insurrection” began before Trump’s speech ended. As is par for the course, the Keystone Kops on the Left couldn’t even get the timing or optics right. That’s why they are withholding the Capitol video tapes which recorded the whole thing.
All of these lies and plots are destined to fail because of modern technology. The election fraud, the Capitol Stunt, the Plague Hoax, etc. What you have is old Wag the Dog types (like Carville on the left and Rove on the right, for example) who have failed to factor in the technology and resolve of the MAGA/TeaParty folks.
One day, someone will write an account of the lies from the Left/MSM borg starting perhaps after WWII all the way forward. This would be along the lines of an Ann Coulter effort and include Rather and Cronkite and the big three networks’ lies throughout the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Jr., Obama and Trump. It would pull the curtain back on the Wizard of Oz who has given us a totally false reality for all of my lifetime (I’m 53) and has propped up liberalism, feminism and cultural Marxism which otherwise would have sunk under the weight of their own lies and contradictions.
We call ourselves traditionalists but really we are just normal people living rather open eyed in a vale of deceit.
You know, Misha, I still can’t get over the fact that Pelosi’s laptop was stolen from her office. As were several other laptops. I don’t want to put on the tinfoil hat here but it kinda makes you go “hmmm….”
And now, thanks to Cocaine Mitch, the so-called “Bipartisan 1/6 Commission” is DOA.
This all leads me to wonder when the next shoe will drop.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/search-for-pelosis-laptop-leads-feds-to-alaska-and-wrong-home-woman-claims
It’s with Jimmy Hoffa.
Seriously though, hard to say. What happened with Mitch and Nikki Haley was that they thought that the Left had finally managed to sink Trump’s battleship and attach disgrace to him over the riots. The base held firm and they had to backtrack.
Trump will own the Republican Party when it’s all said and done. Traitors are being primaried and Mitch, though in for another six years unless he retires, could’ve seen his power erode before his eyes if he’d kept p*ssing against the wind.
You may see the Feds do something to stem the tide of the audits. The Arizona audit may be replicated in Georgia and other states. There is a movement to expand them to the other battleground states or even nationwide. As Arizona gains steam and moves toward completion, Biden’s people have to be looking at it with horror given the prospect of it all discrediting his election with verifiable results. I mean, you assume the auditors are smart enough to have images of every ballot and to both film and keep electronic records of their interaction with the machines – unfalsifiable evidence.
If so, it could become crystal clear to anyone who believes in cause and effect that the Dems stole the election. Biden and the Dems can’t have that. That’s one of those things they have to stop at any cost because in that event, the war, not just this or that battle, is probably lost. So they have to deal with that as well as fight for their political agenda, all the while watching Europe slip sliding away and the red states effectively embracing home rule.
Couldn’t ‘ve happened to nicer people.
It sleeps with the Hunters…
See? I told y’all we were a vassal-state to China!
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/05/25/f9-john-cena-could-have-cost-nbcuniversal-wwe-billions-without-apology-to-china/
New FBI Documents Reveal Seth Rich May Have Been Assassinated In Murder For Hire Plot After All:
For years, officials in the US government have held that Democratic National Convention voter expansion data director Seth Rich was killed during a random robbery in July 2016. Nothing was taken and there are currently no suspects in the case.
Julian Assange and others have suggested that Rich was in fact the source for the Wikileak’s dump of DNC emails and that foul play from political actors was involved in his death. Debate on this matter has been suppressed through high powered litigation and dismissed as a baseless conspiracy theory.
Now, lawyers representing the Rich family have been able to obtain 68 pages of heavily redacted FBI documents on the case that reveal Assange and others may have been right after all.
While the FBI has repeatedly asserted over the years that it was not involved in the investigation into Rich’s death, the documents show that they were lying.
New information shows that Rich’s homicide was in fact the subject of a Department of Justice meeting in 2018. In another document, it is speculated that “given [redacted] it is conceivable that an individual or group would want to pay for his death.”
Most pressing is the revelation that an individual, whose name is also redacted, had snatched Rich’s laptop and taken it home. The FBI is currently in possession of the laptop but will not say if anything was altered or deleted from it. The FBI revealed this information earlier this year, but has stated it has not investigated a pertinent piece of evidence in the case.
According to the narrative spun by the Metropolitan Police Department, Rich was killed in a failed robbery after leaving a bar in Washington DC.
Rich was still alive when the police reached him, but was supposedly “too drunk” to describe his attacker before his death. Journalist Joe Hoft reported in 2017 that the police body camera footage from the encounter has mysteriously gone missing.
Countless pages of the FBI’s records on Rich are redacted in their entirety. The FBI’s FOIA office has been battling in court for more time to meet the rest of their Rich FOIA obligations (hundreds of more pages) citing the need to fully censor information in the interest of “privacy.” As others have pointed out, the FBI and DoJ don’t have any problem releasing totally unredacted files on people they dislike.
Ultimately, its clear that the FBI and DoJ agree with skeptics that the Rich murder wasn’t just a mugging gone bad. The explosive story appears to be heavily suppressed by Google search algorithms. Suspicions of Rich being a victim of a US government sponsored or otherwise politically motivated assassination will only rise the more the FBI drags its feet and covers for the suspects.
See: https://national-justice.com/current-events/new-fbi-documents-reveal-seth-rich-may-have-been-assassinated-murder-hire-plot-after
Putin has something on Biden. There is probably a very corrupt backstory that has yet to be revealed.
Killer drone ‘hunted down a human target’
without being told to
https://nypost.com/2021/05/29/killer-drone-hunted-down-a-human-target-without-being-told-to/
‘ … “an autonomous weaponized drone hunted down a human target last year” and attacked them without being specifically ordered to, according to a report from the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Libya, published in March 2021 that was published in the New Scientist magazine and the Star. … ‘
Looks like Asimov’s First Law of Robotics has been repealed…
[First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or,
through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.]
Biden U Turns Vindicate Donald Trump
https://theduran.com/biden-u-turns-vindicate-donald-trump/
[Video – 34:42]
Alexander Mercouris with a thoughtful discussion on how policies that
were excoriated under Trump are now the ‘New Normal’ under Biden.
I don’t think Macron will last til April 2022. He was bitch slapped the other day in front of God and everybody. Public sentiment is with the nationalist generals. Tick, tok, tick, tok . . .
. . . there is simply too much time for another Islamoterrorist incident(s) to occur which could light it all up like a bonfire.
I’d say the smart money is on a military coup.
Ahead of G7, Biden demands UK
get back in EU single market
https://theduran.com/ahead-of-g7-biden-demands-uk-get-back-in-eu-single-market/
[Video – 22:37]
Bidenfight at the Not OK Corral?
When Oceania is squaring up to Eurasia and Eastasia,
is it a good time to be attacking Airstrip One as well?
UK’s Johnson Defies US & EU,
Says Prepared to Scrap Northern Ireland Protocol
https://theduran.com/uks-johnson-defies-us-eu-says-prepared-to-scrap-northern-ireland-protocol/
Looks like Airstrip One is kicking back against The Big Guy,
just as The Big Guy is about to rattle his wallies at Eurasia…
[PS: In Glaswegian, ‘wallies’ are dentures.]
Dmitry Orlov: Putin Fully Agrees With Me
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/06/dmitry-orlov/putin-fully-agrees-with-me/
‘ … The following quotes (translation mine) are from Vladimir Putin’s address and the currently running St. Petersburg World Economic Forum:
“We are hearing threats coming out of US Congress and elsewhere. This is happening in the course of internal political processes within the USA. The people who make these threats are assuming, it would seem, that the power of the USA, its economic, military and political power, is such that this isn’t serious, that they will survive this. That’s what they think.” …
“But I’ll tell you what the problem is, as a former citizen of the Soviet Union. The problem of empires is that they imagine themselves to be so powerful that they can allow themselves small miscalculations and errors. Some they’ll bribe, some they’ll scare, some they’ll make a deal with, some they’ll give glass beads, some they’ll frighten with warships—and this will fix problems. But the number of problems continues to grow. There comes a moment when they can no longer cope with them. The United States are making sure-footed strides directly along the path of the Soviet Union.”
It is one thing for such thoughts to be expressed by a little-known blogger; it is quite another for them to be voiced by the long-standing leader of a world superpower at a very prestigious and well-attended international forum. … ‘
Build Back Better?
Better than what?
Brendan,
Yes. Putin actually said in Russian, “As a former citizen of the former Soviet Union . . .” I would have preserved both “former”s in the translation because he was hammering the point that the empire in which he served passed away as a result of similar foolishness. That was his point.
Good point Misha, but it was Orlov’s translation;
hence the round brackets. Had it been mine,
I would have used square brackets.
Brendan,
Yeah, I wasn’t criticizing you (or anyone, really). I had to go back to Orlov’s article to get the original Russian so I know it was his.
This doesn’t belong here but it looks like non-homeownership is going to be the new normal:
https://www.unz.com/anepigone/inflation-wins-and-blackrock-knows-it/
Wasn’t sure where to post this:
https://100percentfedup.com/tucker-carlson-claims-january-6-capitol-incident-was-planned-by-government-fbi-operatives-were-organizing-the-attack-on-the-capitol-video/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/rep-matt-gaetz-calls-dirtbag-chris-wray-fully-disclose-role-fbi-operatives-played-jan-6-protests/
So it seems we were right about something being rotten in Denmark regarding the 1/6 incident. There were some BLM/Antifa types associated with it to be sure. However, it turns out the whole thing was an FBI psychop. There are scores of “uniindicted co-conspirators” at the tip of the spear of the “rioters”, the vanguard. All most likely FBI undercover agents or collaborators.
Keystone Kops.
Most secure election in history.
Banana republic.
It just gets worse and worse for the Demsheviks and the DeepState. And they think they can hold on despite it all.
Let us review:
They formed a “resistance” based on the false notion that Trump somehow colluded with the Russians to steal the 2016 election.
They mercilessly harassed and persecuted him and everyone close to him for four years relentlessly asserting his illegitimacy as president.
They staged hoax after hoax: The initial Russia Hoax, the Mueller Report, Impeachment 1.0, Covid, the Election . . . all in order to expel him from Washington and consolidate as much power as possible. And finally, they orchestrated an “insurrection” at the Capitol on January 6th in order to frame the MAGA crowd as traitors and disrupt the Congressional investigation in progress regarding the certification of electors for the presidency. When that started to fizzle, they actually attempted Impeachment 2.0 as a last desperate attempt to permanently evict the Golden Don from their precious Swamp.
And now it’s all public knowledge . . . at least to those who frequent conservative media and believe what their eyes and ears and gut tells them.
This much is certain: The DNC and the Deep State are terrified of being displaced as the main power in the West. Terrified. There is no other explanation for them going to such sloppy extremes to greedily clutch onto their present status. They can see the wave coming. And they will do anything to avert it. And that makes them dangerous.
Yet the pieces are deployed as they are and there isn’t much they can do to avert it other than to overtly seize power and impose a police state. If they think they can get away with it . . . no, . . . if they think there’s any way they can possibly get away with it, they will try it.
And that’s because the alternative is unthinkable for them.
https://www.turleytalks.com/videos/cnn-is-trump-staging-a-coup
Recall the WP piece where the writer quoted an email from her correspondent:
“Does she understand — really understand — that . . . the United States is on track to become functionally an authoritarian White Christian nationalist state in the very near future? And if the answer is ‘Yes,’ what is she prepared to do about it?” – https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/sally-buzbee-editor-woman/2021/05/14/c982bece-b44d-11eb-a980-a60af976ed44_story.html
This is very quickly getting very real for these people and you should not put anything past them. If they feel they need to create a police state in order to hold power, they are not at all above trying.
Now, whether they can succeed is an entirely different question . . .