The US will ban Russian oil and gas imports. That’s a good move. Now to complete the exercise, unleash American energy.
Said Biden at a Tuesday press conference, “The decision today is not without cost here at home,” he told reporters. “Putin’s war is already hurting American families at the gas pump. Since Putin began his military buildup on Ukrainian borders – just since then – the price of gas at pumps in America went up 75 cents. And with this action it’s going to go up further.
“I’m going to do everything I can to minimize Putin’s price hike here at home,” Biden continued. “In coordination with our partners we already announced that we are releasing 60 million barrels of oil from our joint oil reserves.”
“To the oil and gas companies and to the finance firms that back them – we understand Putin’s war against the people of Ukraine is causing prices to rise. We get that. That’s self-evident,” Biden also said. “But it’s no excuse to exercise excessive price increases or padding profits or any kind of effort to exploit this situation or American consumers.”
The European Union gets 40% of its gas and 30% of its oil from Russia. The US gets only 10%. Thus any ban would hit the Euros much worse than us. The Brits say they will phase out all Russian oil and gas imports by the end of the year.
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Echoing Churchill almost verbatim, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a speech to the United Kingdom Parliament Tuesday, said “we will not give up and we will not lose.
“We will fight till the end, at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost,” he continued. “We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”
“I would like to add that we will fight on the banks of different rivers… we are looking for your help, for the help of the civilized countries,” Zelenskyy said. He received a standing ovation.
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Ukranian forces are holding on better than anyone expected. Arms are flowing into the country, jets are on the way, and the Russians are bogged down. This could last for months, especially as the roads will be soon turning to mud because of the spring thaw. Putin nor his military counted on this.
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Zelenskyy is starting to get too needy. This will backfire on him, as a No Fly Zone is tantamount to war with Russia.
“Russia, in the last 30 years, has not lost as much of military air equipment as it has lost in these 13 days in Ukraine. But they still have enough equipment for killing, enough rockets for terror, still enough 500 kg bombs in order to throw them down on us, regular people, on Chernihiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkiv, Poltava, Zhytomyr, on many, many dozens of Ukrainian cities, on millions of peaceful Ukrainian people,” Zelenskyy said.
“Thirteen days, during which we`ve been just hearing promises, when they tell us that yes, very very soon you`ll get help in the sky, there`ll be planes given to us…The fault lies with the invaders,” Zelenskyy added. “But the responsibility for this lies also with those who have not been able to make an obviously necessary decision somewhere in the West, somewhere in the offices for 13 days. Those who have not yet secured the Ukrainian sky from Russian murderers. Those who did not save our cities from airstrikes, from these bombs, missiles, although they can.”
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Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, “Two things about Vladimir Putin: He’s got a significant appetite for risk when it comes to Ukraine. He’s identified three capitals of Christianity in the world: Rome, Jerusalem and Kyiv.
“If you want to get inside of his mind, this is almost like a West Bank situation for him,” he continued. “This is sacred holy ground to him, and it’s the first step in reconstituting the former Soviet Union.”
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Jen Psaki has got to be the worst spin doctor in DC history.
Doocy: "[Y]ou say…you're going to do everything you can to reduce the impacts…high gas prices have…We're asking other countries to think about…pumping more oil. Why not just do it here?"
Psaki insists "federal policies are not limiting the supplies of oil & gas" pic.twitter.com/bZGeewR6v9
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 7, 2022
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FNC: “An estimated 5,138 people in 72 Russian cities were arrested Sunday as protests against the invasion of Ukraine swept the country, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights project focused on political persecution in Russia.
Since then, Blinken said, “more than 1.5 million people, mostly women and children, have had to flee Ukraine, flee their homes.”
“In the last several days, more strikes have killed and wounded civilians as they try to leave the cities that are being surrounded by Russian forces,” Blinken said, pointing to the “women and children, the elderly, wounded civilians, people with disabilities” trying to “escape cities where there’s no heat, no electricity, relentless bombardment, and where they’re running out of food and medicine.”
***
The Russians want refugees walking into Russia so they can be held hostage. Russia wants Ukrainians fleeing the war to go to Gomel in the Russia-controlled Belarus. Civilians in Kharkiv and Sumy in eastern Ukraine would have to escape to the Russian city of Belgorod.
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No matter what, NBC still will go after Trump. If the sun exploded tomorrow the NBC headline would be “Trump Causes Energy Shortage.”
Chuck Todd: “There was this focus group- and it’s qualitative, not quantitative- where swing voters, Trump-Biden voters seem to buy the idea that Putin wouldn’t have done this in Trump was president.”
“I don’t buy that,” the MSNBC host stressed.”I don’t think that matches logic, but voters do. That’s a perception issue.” At least he got that right.
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Zelenskyy gets Reagan Award. “The world applauds President Zelenskyy and all that he stands for—democracy, individual liberty, freedom and hope,” chairman of the foundation and institute board of trustees, Fred Ryan said.
“These are the values and principles that Ronald Reagan fought for all his life and what his foundation promotes today,” Ryan said. “President Zelenskyy’s devotion to the cause of freedom is truly a symbol of man’s highest aspiration. He deserves to receive the Reagan Freedom Award.”
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NYC could be target. “Russia’s military attack on Ukraine’s cities and buildings have happened in conjunction with cyberattacks waged on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure – from its banks, to departments of government,” Senator Gillibrand told press. “And there’s no guarantee that those attacks will be limited to Ukraine. Following the sanctions that the U.S. and our allies have levied on Russia, there’s an increased risk that Russia will carry out retaliatory cyberattacks, particularly against New York state infrastructure and individuals.”
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Russian POW admits the truth. FNC: “Russian Lt. Col. Astakhov Dmitry Mikhailovich was flanked by two badly bruised men as he said they were told in Russia “that Ukraine’s territory is dominated by fascist’s regime,”
“Nationalists, Nazi’s have seized power,” the commander went on, about what he and his troops were allegedly told. He added: “You are in a tense situation going against your own commander. But this is a genocide. The people are just killed.”
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Bill Barr on Biden and the Ukrainian invasion: “And then when he essentially took America out of energy independence, increasing the leverage of Russia dramatically, I thought it was inevitable.”
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Genocide? Yes. Irrefutably. This is like an exact remake of a WWII movie. While Hitler struck a decidedly more militaristic pose than Putin could ever muster, Putin is using each and every one of Hitler’s techniques that the Nazis applied in Poland. One thing is for sure, Putin must well recall Hitler’s tanks mired in Russian mud. The Russian winter froze and annihilated the Nazi war machine. The same very well could happen to Russian forces becoming increasingly exposed to elements over which they will not have any control. The time to call the game is now.