Friday, February 25, 2022

JOE BIDEN GETS TAKEN DOWN BY A RUNT PIG-FACED CAB DRIVER CALLED VLAD - Russian troops are advancing briskly into Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has brushed off Old Joe Biden’s sanctions and made it abundantly clear that he is not afraid of Biden, as Democrat operatives and their propaganda arm, the establishment media, have long insisted.

 Putin's Palace



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2P154dMR_c


Navalny reveals investigation into ‘Putin's Palace’ | DW News


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8J2dW-QYQY


Putin's palace. History of world's largest bribe


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipAnwilMncI

 

Inside Putin's Secret $1 Billion Mansion

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alusg5KG714&list=WL&index=8

Putin Sizes Up Biden, Invades Ukraine

Weakness invites aggression.

  44 comments

Russian troops are advancing briskly into Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has brushed off Old Joe Biden’s sanctions and made it abundantly clear that he is not afraid of Biden, as Democrat operatives and their propaganda arm, the establishment media, have long insisted.

This is what happens when America has a feeble president, an obvious figurehead, and our military is compromised by Leftist ideologues. Clearly Putin is taking advantage of Biden’s obvious weakness and the decimation of our Armed Forces by wokeness and Covid hysteria. He knows that there is little likelihood that Biden will touch off World War III by committing American troops to the defense of Ukraine. Putin also likely considers that even if the American military does end up confronting Russian forces, that the U.S. military’s concentration on pushing Critical Race Theory and other Leftist agendas on the troops, as well as the culling that took place due to vaccine mandates, have left our military in such a weakened, distracted, and confused state that it will not pose any significant threat anyway.

Meanwhile, Putin emphasized in his remarks announcing the beginning of the operation against Ukraine that “in December 2021 we once again made an attempt to agree with the United States and its allies on the principles of ensuring security in Europe and on the non-expansion of NATO. Everything was in vain. The US position did not change. They did not consider it necessary to negotiate with Russia on this important issue for us, continuing to pursue their own goals and disregarding our interests.”

If this is an accurate summation of what happened, and there is no reason to believe that it isn’t, then the fecklessness of the Biden administration’s foreign policy is as much to blame for this conflict as Putin is. The questions must be asked: was it really necessary to begin maneuvering to incorporate Ukraine into NATO, and to ignore all Russian entreaties that may have led to the formulation of an agreement that was mutually acceptable to both parties? Were State Department officials too preoccupied with implementing the woke agenda to bother to negotiate with Putin over NATO?

The establishment media is portraying Putin as the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler and doing its level best to stir up war hysteria, but even if he is the new Hitler, which is by no means obvious, his conflict with Ukraine is not our fight. The only American interest in the region is our need for Russian oil, which Joe Biden himself has created by closing the Keystone Pipeline and ending the energy independence we had achieved under President Trump. There is no chance that Biden will reopen the Keystone Pipeline, so it is unlikely that he will risk a confrontation with Putin that could jeopardize our energy supplies. And Putin knows that, too.

Donald Trump has left us the example of an America-First president; keeping the best interests of Americans at the fore, Trump challenged our putative NATO allies to contribute their fair share for their own defense, and he did not threaten Ukraine’s security or unnecessarily provoke Russia by insisting on Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO.

The current situation can be ascribed to Biden’s rejection of the America-First principle and determination to ensure benefits for the military-industrial complex. A new Cold War with Russia will almost certainly secure profits for that sector for some time to come, but Biden and his Leftist handlers and allies are playing an extremely dangerous game. They’re playing chicken with a man who doesn’t appear to be easily cowed or intimidated. They’re trading on the historical memory of American power at a time when Leftism has corroded that power to the extent that it is not at all certain that America would prevail in a confrontation with its old Cold War adversary.

Meanwhile, Putin issued his own threat: “Now a few important, very important words for those who may be tempted to intervene in the ongoing events. Whoever tries to hinder us, or threaten our country or our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to consequences that you have never faced in your history. We are ready for any turn of events. All necessary decisions in this regard have been made. I hope that I will be heard.” Will he be? Doubtful, in the White House today.

It could be that after Ukraine, Putin will call the security bluff and challenge our Leftist-run, wrongheaded military. The consequences could be catastrophic.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

 


Watch: Biden in 2001 Praises Putin for Embracing the West, Compares Him to Peter the Great

Vice President of the United States Joe Biden, left, shakes hands with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, March 10, 2011. The talks in Moscow are expected to focus on missile defense cooperation and Russia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
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A video unearthed from 2001 by the Republican National Committee’s research team revealed then-Senator Biden praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for embracing the West, heralding his actions as comparable to Peter the Great.

“I’m close to amazed by how far Putin seems to have come in making – throwing – his lot in with the West,” Biden said as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He seems to have – out of all the briefings I’ve gotten – actually stiff-armed his military and stiff-armed some of the browns and reds in his government and out of government.”

“And made a very – I don’t think anybody since Peter the Great has made such a significant – at least an initial move to the West,” Biden claimed:

Peter the Great was the first Emperor of Russia. Through multiple wars, he expanded the nation into a major European power. He also moved to transpose medieval political systems with the western enlightenment.

Biden’s comparison of Putin with Peter the Great is unfounded. Putin is seeking to restore the lost twentieth-century boundary of the old Soviet Union and denied the “real statehood” of Ukraine in a televised address to the nation on Monday. Putin further stated Ukraine was part of Russia’s “own history, culture, spiritual space.”

Biden has a history of questionable foreign policy judgment and analysis. Robert Gates, George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s secretary of defense, wrote in 2014 that Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Biden’s foreign policy judgment before he became president are as follows:

  • Suggested sending $200 million to Iran, “no strings attached.”
  • Voted against the successful Persian Gulf War that forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.
  • Insisted “the Taliban per se is not our enemy.”
  • Opposed the troop surges that brought some stability to both Iraq and Afghanistan
  • Claimed he was responsible for ending the genocide in Bosnia
  • Voted against trade agreements with Singapore, Chile, Oman, and the Dominican Republic
  • Opposed the raid to kill Osama bin Laden, telling Obama “don’t go.”
  • Opposed killing Iranian terrorist Qasem Soleimani

On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump asserted that Russia’s “taking over” of Ukraine is due to Biden’s weakness. “I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done during the Trump Administration what he is doing now, no way!”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told CBS News Biden’s decisions as president could increase the price for a barrel of oil past $100 and perhaps to $115.

“I don’t believe the sanctions will stop them from doing what their plan is but I do think that if you don’t pay a price for doing this, he’s going to do more of it,” Rubio said. “I think Ukrainians are gonna fight back but this is gonna have an impact on Americans even though it seems to be really far away.”

Gas prices are already at their highest level since 2014.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø

Sanctions Against Russia Include Designation of ‘Elites’ – But Not Putin

By Patrick Goodenough | February 22, 2022 | 11:25pm EST

  
President Biden prepares for his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva last June. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
President Biden prepares for his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva last June. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is not himself targeted in the sanctions rolled out by the Biden administration on Tuesday, although a White House official said that “no option is off the table, as the president said.”

Among the package of measures responding to Putin’s recognition of two proxy states in eastern Ukraine are sanctions against five individuals, described by deputy national security advisor for international economics Daleep Singh as elites who “share in the corrupt gains of the Kremlin, and they will now share in the pain.”

“Other Russian elites and their family members are now on notice that additional actions could be taken on them as well,” he said during a White House briefing. 

Asked what it would take to target Putin directly, and why the decision was not taken on Tuesday, Singh replied, “I'm not going to telegraph exactly what it would take and under what circumstances that would occur. But no option is off the table, as the president said.”

President Biden described the sanctions announced Tuesday as a “first tranche,” and said that the U.S. and allies “will continue to escalate sanctions if Russia escalates.”

He described Putin’s recognition of the “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk as “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Asked last month if he could envisage Putin personally being sanctioned, should Russia invade Ukraine, Biden replied “yes,” then added, “I would see that.”

Biden went on to say there would be “enormous consequences” for Russia if Putin sent his forces in to invade the entire country of Ukraine – “or a lot less than that as well” – although he did say he was referring not only to economic and political costs for Russia, but also to consequences worldwide.

 

In Paris on Tuesday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also confirmed that Putin was not among 27 Russian individuals and entities targeted in new E.U. sanctions for “playing a role in undermining or threatening Ukrainian territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence.”

Sanctions announced by the U.K. government included three oligarchs – “three very high net worth individuals,” in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s words – but not Putin.

While U.S. sanctions against sitting heads of state are not common, there have been precedents.

The U.S. in 2016 sanctioned North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses, and U.S. administrations have sanctioned Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko since 2006, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011, and former Burmese strongman Than Shwe since 2007.

Other former heads of state sanctioned in past years include Charles Taylor in Liberia, and the late Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

‘Kleptocracy’

The U.S. Treasury Department described the five individuals targeted by the U.S. as “powerful Russians in Putin’s inner circle believed to be participating in the Russian regime’s kleptocracy and their family members.”

The sanctions block any property and property interests the five men have in the U.S., block any entities in which they own at least 50 percent stake, and make liable for sanctions any person or financial institution that does business with them.

Two of the five are already under U.S. sanctions – imposed last March in response to the attempted assassination by nerve agent of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in 2020.

They are Sergei Kiriyenko, a former prime minister and head of the state nuclear energy giant Rosatom, who is currently first deputy chief of staff at the Kremlin; and Aleksandr Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), successor to the Soviet KGB.

Kiriyenko and Bortnikov, along with a third of the five men listed – Bortnikov’s son, Denis Bortnikov, deputy president and chairman of the management board of one of Russia’s biggest banks, VTB Bank – are among 35 Russians listed in the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

The legislation, which Biden signed into law last December, requires the president within 180 days (that is, by June 25) to submit to Congress a determination on whether the 35 individuals named should be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, a 2016 law that provides for punitive measures against human rights abusers and corrupt actors.

The other two Russian “elites” targeted in the sanctions announced on Tuesday are:

--Kiriyenko’s son, Vladimir Kiriyenko, a former vice president of the state-controlled digital service provider Rostelecom, and now CEO of Russia’s biggest social media network company, VK.

--Petr Fradkov, CEO of Promsvyazbank, a state-backed bank that supports Russia’s defense sector. (He is also the son of a former prime minister and foreign intelligence service (SVR) chief Mikhail Fradkov, who was sanctioned by the Trump administration in 2018 “in response to worldwide malign activity.)

‘A glorified piggy bank for the Kremlin’

The sanctions against the five are part of a broader package, the most significant including the blocking of two major banks and their subsidiaries. The two are Promsvyazbank and Vnesheconombank (VEB), Russia’s fifth-largest financial institution, which Singh called “a glorified piggy bank for the Kremlin that holds more than $50 billion in assets.”

The two banks will no longer be able to carry out any transactions with the U.S. or Europe, and their assets in the U.S. and European financial systems are frozen.

Other highlights were an agreement by Germany to shut down the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and the cutting off of the Russian government from Western financing, meaning the Kremlin will no longer be able to raise money from the U.S. and Europe, or trade new debt in U.S. or European markets.

“This was the beginning of an invasion, and this is the beginning of our response,” Singh said.


Poll: Biden’s Approval Rating Underwater on Russia/Ukraine Conflict 

ukraine
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
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President Joe Biden’s approval rating on the Russia/Ukraine conflict is underwater, a Wednesday Politico/MorningConsult poll revealed.

Just 40 percent of voters approved of Biden’s management of the conflict, while 45 disapproved, including 35 percent who said they strongly disapproved.

Overall, the poll handed Biden a negative approval rating (44 – 53 percent).

A majority (58 – 28 percent) of respondents also indicated they would find Biden responsible if the Russian/Ukrainian conflict increases American gas prices.

Biden told the nation on Tuesday Americans will bear a financial cost for the conflict. “Defending freedom will have costs, for us as well, and here at home,” he said upon announcing sanctions on Russia. “We need to be honest about that.”

Moscow’s ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov seemed to agree with Biden, suggesting that the sanctions will hurt American consumers more than Russians.

“There is no doubt that the sanctions imposed against us will hurt the global financial and energy markets,” Antonov said. “The United States will not be left out, where ordinary citizens will feel the full consequences of rising prices.”

“With regard to Moscow, new US sanctions will not solve anything, Russia has learned to work and develop under restrictions,” he added.

With gas prices expected to increase, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told CBS News on Tuesday the price for a barrel could surpass $100 and perhaps reach $115. Gas prices are already at their highest level since 2014.

“I don’t believe the sanctions will stop them from doing what their plan is but I do think that if you don’t pay a price for doing this, he’s going to do more of it,” Rubio said. “I think Ukrainians are gonna fight back but this is gonna have an impact on Americans even though it seems to be really far away.”

The national average price of gas per gallon is $3.535, up nearly a dollar from last year’s price of $2.645.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø

W.H. Deputy NSA on Ukraine’s Call for More Sanctions: ‘There’s Almost a Bloodlust’ for Sanctions, But I’m Not Saying Ukraine Has It

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On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh responded to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s call for harsher sanctions against Russia by stating that he wonders “if there’s almost a bloodlust out there for sanctions as an end in themselves.” But denied he was saying Kuleba has this bloodlust and said the sanctions announced on Tuesday were “a demonstration effect, and that demonstration effect will go higher and higher.”

Co-host John Berman read from Kuleba’s tweet and then asked, “How do you explain to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister why you are not hitting harder now?”

Singh responded, “Well, John, sometimes I wonder if there’s almost a bloodlust out there for sanctions as an end in themselves. But let me just be really clear, we did hit hard yesterday, and it was only a demonstration effect. … But the point the Ukrainians are making is right. These costs are going to escalate from here.”

Berman then asked who Singh thinks has a bloodlust for sanctions. Singh answered, “I hear it from many in the media, why didn’t you impose all of your sanctions on day one? And so, what I’m saying to you is, we saw the beginning of an invasion yesterday –.”

Berman then cut in to point out he was quoting Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, and ask, “So, does the Ukrainian Foreign Minister have a bloodlust for sanctions?”

Singh answered, “No. No. I’m not saying that. I’m saying I hear from questions out there and commentary, people wondering why didn’t we implement the full package of sanctions yesterday. And what I’m saying to you is, yesterday was a demonstration effect, and that demonstration effect will go higher and higher.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett


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