The U.S. nuclear energy sector’s dependence on Russian uranium created during a failed Obama-era reset with Moscow is coming back to bite Americans as the Kremlin moves to block future exports of the vital fuel.
Read MoreTag: Vladimir Putin
Commentary: Trump’s Win Is a Victory for American Prosperity and Practical Energy Solutions
Donald Trump’s win is a big victory for the American energy industry and for all Americans. The climate crazed don’t want to recognize the fact that more than 80% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas. They don’t want to admit that the use of all three are at record highs and are continuing to grow. Or that a thriving economy needs reliable, affordable, and abundant energy. Because the cost of energy is built into everything that we do, consume or use, even watching Netflix.
Read MoreCommentary: The Biden Titanic
Joe Biden’s escalating dementia and the long media-political conspiracy to hide his senility from the public are the least of the Democrats’ current problems.
Biden’s track record as president may be more concerning than his cognitive decline. He has literally destroyed the U.S. border, deliberately allowing the entry of more than 10 million illegal aliens. His callous handlers’ agenda was to import abjectly poor constituencies in need of vast government services without regard for the current struggles of a battered American middle class and poor.
Read MoreAnalysis: 55 Percent of Democrats Think Biden Should Keep Running, 45 Percent Say to Step Aside After Debate
President Joe Biden continues to command the confidence of just 55 percent of Democrats in the most recent CBS News-YouGov poll taken June 28 to June 29 in the aftermath of Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, where Biden occasionally appeared confused and lost his train of thought and uttered unintelligible phrases.
45 percent of Democrats think Biden should definitely step aside. Catastrophically, so do 70 percent of independents, with only 30 percent saying he should keep running. Unsurprisingly, 75 percent of Republicans say Biden should step aside, with 25 percent saying he should keep running — likely because they think he’ll be easy to beat in his current state.
Read MoreCommentary: Stop the Ukrainian Meatgrinder
Nearly eleven months ago, in August 2023, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials had estimated that some 500,000 Russians and Ukrainians had been killed, wounded, or missing in the then 18-month Ukrainian War.
Both Russia and Ukraine underreport their losses. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties have followed in the 28 months of fighting.
Read MoreCommentary: Obama’s Intel Czar Rigged 2016 and 2020 Debates Against Trump
Just before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in their second presidential debate, then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper met in the White House with a small group of advisers to President Obama to hatch a plan to put out a first-of-its-kind intelligence report warning the voting public that “the Russian government” was interfering in the election by allegedly breaching the Clinton campaign’s email system.
On Oct. 7, 2016 – just two days before the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton – Clapper issued the unprecedented intelligence advisory with Obama’s personal blessing. It seemed to lend credence to what the Clinton camp was telling the media — that Trump was working with Russian President Vladimir Putin through a secret back channel to steal the election. Sure enough, the Democratic nominee pounced on it to smear Trump at the debate.
Read MoreCommentary: Democrats Have Been Complaining About Election Fraud for Years
How do the Democrats complain? Let us count the ways.
In January 2017, seven House Democrats (Jim McGovern, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, Raul Grijalva, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, and Maxine Waters) formally objected to the certification of state elections.
Read MoreCommentary: Stumbling into Nuclear War
In a story that deserves more attention, Ukraine recently attacked a Russian early warning radar facility designed to detect nuclear attacks. This insane action conferred no military advantage on Ukraine—the station monitored potential launches in the Middle East—but it carried with it the risk of igniting a nuclear war. From the perspective of the country being attacked, the only reason to attack an early warning system would be to blind one’s enemy as a prelude to a nuclear attack.
Nuclear war is the most dangerous game. It means the end of civilization. If this horror show ever comes to pass, it is likely more than half of the people on our planet will die. Many console themselves that they’ll die instantly and that most of the consequences will borne by others, but no one can be sure.
Read MoreCommentary: It Seems That No One Wants to End the Ukraine War Except for Trump
Next month, on June 15 and 16, a high-level peace conference will be held in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on achieving peace in Ukraine. 70 to 90 countries reportedly will be represented. Some heads of state will attend, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
However, there will be some notable absences—Russia and China. President Biden does not plan to attend and will send junior officials to the conference.
Read MoreCommentary: The Gloves Will Come Off in a Second Biden Term
If you believe, correctly, that the entirety of Joe Biden’s presidency has been one unmitigated disaster after another — not only for the American citizenry, but for the United States’ standing on the world stage and for our allies around the globe who have embraced the cause of freedom and religious liberty — fasten your seatbelts, because you haven’t seen anything yet.
Read MoreNewsGuard Attacks Tucker Carlson over Putin Interview
NewsGuard, the far-left, self-appointed arbiter of internet truth, released a blog post criticizing Tucker Carlson for his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Read MoreTucker Carlson Releases Interview with Vladimir Putin
Former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson on Thursday released his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he addressed his rationale behind the ongoing invasion of Ukraine and his view of diplomacy with the west.
Read MoreTucker Carlson Confirms He Plans to Interview Vladimir Putin
Former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson on Tuesday confirmed that he had traveled to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin, insisting that he had a duty as a journalist to inform people.
Read MoreCommentary: The Liberal Media’s Desperate New ‘Trump Will Be a Dictator’ Narrative
The leftwing media recently got its orders from the Biden campaign on a new narrative to smear Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign. Because their previous narrative of Trump colluding with Russia and Vladimir Putin has been discredited, they are promoting anew one: if Donald Trump wins the November 2024 presidential election, he will become a dictator similar to Hitler or Napoleon.
This fear-mongering theme appeared in similar articles within days of each other in The Washington Post and The New York Times. The Atlantic is promoting the theme in a January/February special issue with 16 essays where liberal elite authors warn how a dictatorial Trump presidency in 2025 would threaten America and the world on issues ranging from abortion, NATO, climate, the courts, immigration, etc. The Atlantic has posted online 16 of these anti-Trump essays and plans to add more.
Read MoreMob Storms Muslim-Majority Makhachkala Airport in Russia Yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ at Jews After Plane Arrives from Israel
A large mob in Russia appears to have stormed an airport Sunday in Dagestan, yelling, “Allahu Akbar,” while hunting for Jews after a flight arrived from Tel Aviv.
Read MorePence Says Trump and DeSantis Are Wrong on Ukraine and America’s Role as Arsenal of Democracy
Former Vice President Mike Pence says his “former running mate,” among others in the Republican Party presidential nomination chase, are missing the significance of the U.S. coming to the aid of Ukraine.
Pence said he recently paid a call on the war-torn European nation and its president to see firsthand “the results of the extraordinary, unprovoked invasion by Russia” as well as the “tenacity and toughness” of the Ukrainian military.
Read MoreGOP Presidential Candidates Hold Varying Positions on U.S. Involvement in Ukraine
Republican Party Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy recently laid out a plan that he says would end the war in Ukraine while breaking up Russia’s growing alliance with China.
Newly minted presidential candidate North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum says, “Support for Ukraine is important to stop empowering countries like Russia in the first place by selling US energy to our allies.”
Read MoreRepublican Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Lays Out Peace Deal to End War In Ukraine, Sever Russia’s Partnership with China
Speaking at a campaign event Friday in New Hampshire, Ohio businessman and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy laid out his plan for peace in Ukraine by opening up Russia. The 37-year-old political outsider, who has often said political leaders need to “think on the timescales of history, not on two-year election cycles,” believes a Nixon approach to Russia would curtail the looming threat of communist China.
Read MoreCommentary: China Builds the New World Order with Biden Asleep at the Wheel
China is rapidly growing economically, militarily, and influentially, and none of this is good for the United States. Since diplomatic ties with China were officially established in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter, each president has done a fair job (some better than others) of keeping China in check on the international stage, despite China’s growth. All with the exception of President Joe Biden, who has allowed China to lead a global coalition and a new world order against the United States of America, which has fulfilled our worst fears.
Read MoreCommentary: Why Not ‘America First?’
It’s challenging to say something original about the Ukraine war. It’s been debated now for more than a year, and it’s not over yet. But that’s bad news for those supporting the war. Most Americans’ interest in foreign policy matters is limited, and many expect quicker favorable results than are probably ever possible in war. A year of war in a far-off land – another war in another far-off land – is not something Americans are likely to support for long, especially if it’s led by a stumble-bum president who picks incompetents for cabinet secretaries, campaigned for a mentally challenged stroke victim, and may be compromised by his son’s business dealings.
Read MorePence Tells Iowans U.S. Must Continue to be ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ in Ukraine
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Taking a different position than his old boss on a key foreign policy issue, former Vice President Mike Pence told a gathering of Iowans Saturday that the U.S. must continue to help provision Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression. While he repeatedly trumpeted “Trump-Pence” successes, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate definitely differs with potential top presidential race rivals, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on U.S. involvement in the war-torn European country.
Read MorePoll: Plurality of Americans Believes We Are Heading for Next World War
As the war in Ukraine and tensions with China intensify, more Americans fear we’re on the brink of World War III, according to a new Convention of States Action poll.
The survey of more than 1,000 U.S. voters, conducted Feb. 22-26 by The Trafalgar Group, finds more than 43 percent of respondents worry that Russia’s continued war and threats against other European nations, as well as China’s aggressive actions, have put the world on the precipice of another global conflict.
Read MoreCommentary: The Biden Admin Has Been a Chaotic Disaster
Are you better off than were two years ago?
That’s the question asked every election – if the answer is yes, the people who take credit get rewarded. If it’s no, the American people take a chance on the challengers.
Read MoreCommentary: Net-Zero Is the Real Climate Catastrophe
Maybe Vladimir Putin SHOULD get the Nobel Peace Prize after all.
To be sure, Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine is an affront to humanity, given his targeting of civilians. Russia even fired upon medical and humanitarian aid convoys and is using a nuclear power plant as a shield for his military operations.
Read MorePutin Promises to Keep the Gas Flowing to Europe – for Now
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would continue to supply Europe with natural gas, but warned that deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline could become constrained if sanctions prevent further maintenance on the pipeline, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Putin asserted that the pipeline’s owner, the Moscow-controlled energy firm Gazprom, will honor and fulfill its responsibilities to Europe in remarks that he made late Tuesday after his visit to Tehran, reported the WSJ. Putin’s comments come amid the reduced flow of natural gas into Europe due to sanctions and other supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Read MoreCommentary: Electric Vehicles Are a Tool of Tyranny
First, don’t blame the vehicle. It is a tool that might be just what Los Angeles needs to cope with inversions. Electric vehicles are also very good as airport shuttles and for other locations where short, repetitive routes are the primary use. Some may even be fun to drive (except when they catch on fire).
Read MoreCommentary: Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain Fights for Taxpayers – and Common Sense
Congress has united in condemnation of Russia and in support of Ukraine. Now, a group of federal lawmakers led by Michigan Congressmember Lisa McClain (R-MI) is working to ensure that no more American tax dollars are sent to Vladimir Putin’s cruel and wasteful animal laboratories.
Read MoreCommentary: Stop Canceling Ordinary Russians
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now in its third month, the demonization of all things Russian continues in the West. Russian athletes are prohibited from participating in sporting events, Russian artists prevented from performing, and an Italian university even “postponed” a course on Dostoevsky. As Tal Fortgang observes, “cancel culture is directed not at Russia the violent invader, but at people who have been made into avatars for Russianism.”
Read MoreCommentary: Biden Needs to Take the Blame for Inflation
Last week, President Biden gave a speech listing everyone and everything allegedly responsible for record high inflation. His list included corporate greed and price gouging, Vladimir Putin, and “ultra-MAGA” Republicans. The president said that his policies, and the nearly $7 trillion in spending he authorized, have nothing to do with inflation.
None of this holds up under scrutiny. While President Biden claims that corporations are ripping off Americans, the costs of their supplies have been increasing at a record rate. In reality, many companies that Biden claims are stiffing consumers have actually lost money because they don’t want to alienate their customers by raising prices too quickly.
Read MoreCommentary: Russiagate Played a Role in the Invasion of Ukraine
That the fraudulent, media-hyped Russiagate fiasco was a colossal waste of civic energy is now beyond doubt to all but the most bitter partisans. But scant attention has been paid to the way it enabled the tragic Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The premise of “Russian collusion” was that Vladimir Putin was assisting Donald Trump in defeating presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Even though there was no evidence of collusion, the Left still clings to the narrative that Putin wished Trump to win.
Read MoreCommentary: Our Spanish Civil War
From 1936 to 1939, the civil war in Spain became a European laboratory of new tactics, strategies, logistics, wartime morality, and weapons. Right-wing nationalists under General Francisco Franco finally defeated loyal supporters of an evolutionary socialist republic—but only after much of the Western world had variously weighed in.
The cost to the Spanish people of such brutal and vicious strife was horrific. Over 500,000 Spaniards would die in a little over two-and-a-half years. The country was left in shambles.
Read MoreCommentary: Ukraine Has Few Options Against Putin
Even a truncated Russian Federation has four times the pre-war population of Ukraine. It enjoys well over 10 times the Ukrainian gross domestic product. Russia covers almost 30 times Ukraine’s area.
And how does Ukraine expel Russian troops from its borders when its Western allies must put particular restrictions on their life-giving military and financial aid?
The interests of Europe and the United States are not quite the same as those of a beleaguered Ukraine. NATO also wants Vladimir Putin humiliated, but only if the war can be confined within the borders of Ukraine.
Read MoreCommentary: The Tax Increase That’s Hidden in Plain Sight
Americans have less money than they had last year — though taxes haven’t been raised. So what’s the problem? Inflation, which has increased at a 40-year high annual pace of 7.9%. It acts as a hidden tax because we don’t see it listed on our tax bills, but we sure see less money on our bank accounts.
In fact, inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings for private employees are down about 2.5% over the last year. This means a person with $31.60 in earnings per hour is buying 2.5% less of a grocery basket purchased just last year. “For a typical family, the inflation tax means a loss in real income of more than $1,900 per year,” stated Joel Griffin, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Read MoreRussia Says Will Reduce Military Activity in Parts of Ukraine
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Formin said Tuesday his country will “reduce military activity” in the Ukraine cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv in pursuit of an agreement to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The announcement follows what Russians are calling a productive day of diplomatic talks in Istanbul, Turkey, with the invasion now roughly four-weeks old.
Russian state media quoted Formin saying: “Due to the fact that negotiations on the preparation of an agreement on the neutrality and non-nuclear status of Ukraine, as well as on the provision of security guarantees to Ukraine, are moving into practice, taking into account the principles discussed during today’s meeting, by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in order to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations and achieving the ultimate goal of agreeing on the signing of the above agreement, a decision was made to radically, at times, reduce military activity in the Kiev and Chernihiv direction.”
Read MoreTrump Suing Hillary Clinton, DNC over ‘Russia Collusion’ Narrative
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday sued former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several other Democrats on the grounds that they attempted to rig the 2016 presidential election by creating a false narrative that tied his campaign to Russia.
“President Trump is going on offense. He’s naming names,” Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington told “Just the News – Not Noise” hours after the lawsuit was first announced.
Read MoreUranium, Oil and Technology: How Russia Got Stronger as Bidens and Clintons Got Richer
In the early days of Russia’s war on Ukraine, President Joe Biden boldly declared he was ready to seize “ill-begotten gains” of the region’s oligarchs.
But in the years before Moscow twice invaded Ukraine, Democrats enriched themselves politically and personally from such oligarchs and businesses in the region while empowering Vladimir Putin with energy and technology deals that still haunt America today.
Read MoreNewt Gingrich Commentary: Time to Defeat Putin in Ukraine
As President Joe Biden prepares to go to Europe, we must recognize that, unless things change, there are likely to be two outcomes to the Russian war on Ukraine – and both are bad for America and the rule of law.
First, the terror campaign of destroying cities and killing women and children is having a devastating effect. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, out of compassion for his people, is talking more and more about a negotiated settlement. A negotiated settlement will clearly give Vladimir Putin most of what he wants. It will be a Russian victory – an expensive Russian victory, but a Russian victory.
A negotiated settlement with Russia winning will be a disaster for the rule of law. It will be a signal to dictators everywhere that with a weak American President and timid democracies, despots can attack their neighbors with virtual impunity.
Read MoreCommentary: Blame Putin, Yes, But Also Blame Biden
As Ukraine coverage blankets the news nonstop, I keep asking myself: are we really so gullible as to be hoodwinked by an administration and political class covering for their massive failures at home and abroad by mustering up a frenzy of dangerously jingoistic militarism? Not only have they escalated the situation and brought us to the brink of World War III but they have also imposed—and will continue to impose—senseless costs on an American economy already grinding to a halt.
I am not suggesting that any of Joe Biden’s major missteps, whether now or in the past, in any way excuse Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion, which is in violation of international law and being conducted with reckless indifference to—indeed, the direct intent to inflict—civilian casualties. Although there is no question (details below) that Biden majorly provoked Putin, nothing Biden did stripped Putin of his agency in doing what he is now doing, much less did it demand he do it in the manner in which he is doing it.
Read MoreCommentary: New Afghanistan Report Warns of China’s Emerging Role
At a time of tectonic shifts in foreign policy alliances, with Russia and China forming a new pact and aggressively asserting themselves on the international stage, Washington’s national security community is splintered across the ideological spectrum on how best to counter the dual threats.
Yet, even before Russia invaded Ukraine, a group of national security practitioners, military veterans, and scholars began trying to move beyond their policy differences to help repair the damage inflicted by the last U.S. foreign policy failure – the chaotic U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan nearly seven months ago.
When the Vandenberg Coalition, a group of primarily Republican experts representing diverse foreign policy views and approaches, began their Afghanistan assessment, its members couldn’t have known that international alarm over Russia’s bloody land grab would soon eclipse the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan. Some national security experts believe that the two U.S. foreign policy nightmares are inextricably linked – that America’s ignominious retreat in Afghanistan emboldened Vladimir Putin to move on Ukraine.
Read MoreUkraine Crisis Will Accelerate China’s Push for the Yuan as an International Currency
For years, Beijing has pushed to have the Chinese yuan accepted as an international currency, while countries unfriendly to the U.S. such as Venezuela, Iran, Russia, and North Korea have been looking for a dollar alternative for international trade. Western economic sanctions against Russia are now accelerating talks between Moscow and Beijing about finding “workaround” solutions, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell is warning the invasion of Ukraine may step up Beijing’s efforts to cut its dependency on the dollar.
Over the past decade, it has irked Beijing that, in spite of being the number two economic power, China’s currency has never become truly international. Technically, the yuan’s admission to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Special Drawing Rights currencies (SDR) in 2016 makes the yuan an international currency. In practice, however, the yuan has very limited internationalization. Only 10.9% of the SDR is comprised of yuan. The only country which recognizes the yuan as an official currency is China, whereas about 15 countries use the U.S. dollar as their only official currency or an additional official currency.
Read MoreCommentary: 10 Realities of Ukraine
One. Reassuring an enemy what one will not do ensures that the enemy will do just that and more. Unpredictability and occasional enigmatic silence bolster deterrence. But Joe Biden’s predictable reassurance to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will show restraint means Putin likely will not.
Two. No-fly zones don’t work in a big-power, symmetrical standoff. In a cost-benefit analysis, they are not worth the risk of shooting down the planes of a nuclear power. They usually do little to stop planes outside of such zones shooting missiles into them. Sending long-range, high-altitude anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine to deny Russian air superiority is a far better way of regaining air parity.
Three. Europe, NATO members, and Germany in particular have de facto admitted that their past decades of shutting down nuclear plants, coal mines, and oil and gas fields have left Europe at the mercy of Russia. They are promising to rearm and meet their promised military contributions. By their actions, they are admitting that their critics, the United States in particular, were right, and they were dangerously wrong in empowering Putin.
Read MoreCommentary: Sanctions Are an Act of War
The United States is at war with Russia. Without a vote in Congress, a specific announcement by the president, or even meaningful awareness on the part of the bulk of the populace, the United States has stumbled into conflict with another nuclear power.
True enough, American “boots on the ground” are not yet (openly) engaged in combat in Ukraine. But the devastating sanctions put in place unilaterally by Joe Biden on Russian property constitute an act of war nonetheless. On Tuesday morning, Biden announced he was unilaterally banning the importation of Russian fuel and oil products into the United States. This decision is a direct attack on the Russian economy. It is designed to dictate a certain political outcome to the Russian government.
Such a dramatic act, therefore, constitutes participation in armed conflict against the Russian regime. It is an act of war.
Read MoreAs Gas Prices Reach Record Highs, Biden Bans Russian Oil Imports
President Joe Biden announced a ban on the importation of Russian oil, coal and gas as a response to the nation’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine just as gas prices in the U.S. reached a record high Tuesday.
Biden said Tuesday that the decision was intended to “inflict further pain” on Russian President Vladimir Putin and defund his war in Ukraine. He also acknowledged it would further raise the price of gasoline for Americans.
Read MoreCommentary: Trump Knew How to Handle Putin, But Biden Has No Clue
Sometimes we need time to pass and distance to extend to gain fuller perspective on what we did not see contemporaneously from too close. Indeed, G-d tells Moses that no person can see His face (which I teach as meaning an up-close encounter) and live, but people can see the back of G-d’s head (which I teach as meaning a more distant previous encounter, growing ever more distant). See Exodus 33:18-23.
In their October 22, 2012, debate, Obama mocked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for expressing concern about Russia and Vladimir Putin:
Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al Qaeda is a threat because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.
Read MoreCommentary: The Bear, the Lion and the Bunny Rabbit
The best way to understand the current extraordinarily dangerous tragedy in Ukraine is to imagine a fight between a bear, a lion, and a bunny rabbit.
The bear of course is Russia, as President Ronald Reagan brilliantly evoked in his 1984 re-election commercial “The Bear.” As the narrator said:
Read MoreCommentary: When I Met Putin
Going through Checkpoint Charlie into gloomy and dark, dank East Berlin was always frightening. The Wall itself was ominous, the guards were the fiercest looking on the planet, and the barbed wire and landmines were right there for everyone to see. All of us have seen jaw-dropping spy movies about the infamous Friedrichstrasse and what happened on the other side of it. They were commies, after all.
Read MoreCommentary: The Russia-Ukraine Conflict Has the Potential to Turn into Another Forever War
According to the criteria for their respective medals, the Iraq War that began in 2003 lasted more than eight years; yet the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which commenced just weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, has lasted more than 20 years. And despite the U.S. withdrawal, the destruction of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, and the loss of so much equipment to the Taliban, that war still has, at this writing, no official end date.
Read MoreBiden at SOTU: Putin ‘Badly Miscalculated’ His Invasion of Ukraine, Meeting a ‘Wall of Strength’
President Joe Biden opened his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night saying that COVID-19 kept America’s political leaders apart last year but now we’re “together again.”
Read MoreTrump Wows CPAC Crowd: Torches ‘Weak’ Biden, Calls Ukraine Crisis ‘An Assault on Humanity,’ Decries Crackdown of ‘Peacefully Protesting’ Canadian Truckers
ORLANDO, Florida – President Donald J. Trump was in full-fighting form, less than two years before the 2024 Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary as he whipped up a packed-out crowd into a frenzy at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference.
“The socialists, globalists, Marxists, and communists who are attacking our civilization have no idea of the sleeping giant they have awoken,” said the 45th president to the more than 5,000 conservatives at 95,000-square foot Gatlin Ballroom in Orlando’s Rosen Shingle Creek resort.
Read MoreCommentary: Russian Roulette in Ukraine
I admit, I was surprised by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. I thought Vladimir Putin had decided, instead of invading, to recognize the separatist republics and send in “peacekeepers.” Given the binary choice of invading or losing face, Plan C seemed the most clever, something similar to the limited “hybrid” campaign in Crimea. Instead, he has launched a massive, multipronged attack on Ukraine with the goal of “demilitarizing” the country.
The best analogy is the Russian attack on Georgia in response to its attack on the separatist province of South Ossetia in 2008. There, Russia surprised the West with its swift, decisive, and effective action against the pro-Western Georgians. Russia succeeded in its aims to degrade Georgia’s military and strengthen the separatists. These actions sent a message to Georgian leaders and its neighbors that a dalliance with the West may come at a high cost if Russia perceives it as a threat.
A war of some kind has been going on for eight years in Ukraine. While the West is now hyper-focused on the Russian invasion and its costs, the people of Donetsk have been shelled nearly every day by Ukrainian forces since 2014. And the so-called Revolution of Dignity was the culmination of a months-long violent riot in Kiev.
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