“No One Expected Sanctions Would Prevent Anything”

Among the revealing data points in yesterday's news was President Brandon's remark to the press, “no one expected sanctions would prevent anything.” The story at the link asks the obvious questions:

Huh, what? Then what has the Biden team been talking about, by threatening sanctions over the past month? If they thought that, why have they just been talking about sanctions?

Why did Kamala Harris claim that the sanctions would deter Putin?

Biden also tripped over White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who said the same thing.

. . . Biden’s statement was such a stunning lie and flip-flop on what his team had been saying that even CBS News’ Margaret Brennan called it out.

“I thought that was so interesting when President Biden said, ‘No one expected sanctions to prevent anything, Brennan said. “Actually, that’s exactly what his foreign policy team said again and again, and it’s what his secretary of state said to me on Sunday.”

My own view is that the remark is completely consistent with the real Joe Biden: he believes, as I've noted (for instance here) , that he's "a skilled Machiavellian manipulator, operating in a behind-the-scenes dimension of Realpolitik beyond conventional expectations." As a true crime fan, it reminds me of confessions by hardened psychopaths outlining heinous torture-murders in utterly matter-of-fact tones -- of course I did it that way. That's how I operate.

So in my view, this wasn't just a slip, a misspeak, or even a casual falsehood. For good or ill, he was outlining his actual agenda. It appears that his intent was to permit an elaborate kabuki for months, leading up to a Russian invasion of Ukraine that would be just as inevitable as the bungled evacuation of Afghanistan. Of course it was going to happen. That's how world leaders operate. Don't be so naive.

Let's look at other data points in yesterday's news. Take Secretary Blinken's remarks:

On Thursday’s broadcast of “CBS Evening News,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to a question on whether the United States will cut off purchases of oil and gas from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine by stating that we’re trying to ensure “that we inflict maximum pain on Russia” while at the same time, “minimizing any of the pain to us.”

Host Norah O’Donnell asked, “Russia’s economy’s fueled by gas, and the U.S. is a consumer. So, would the U.S. consider cutting off oil and gas purchases from Russia?”

Blinken responded, “Well, what we’re doing, Norah, across the board, is making sure that we inflict maximum pain on Russia for what President Putin has done, while minimizing any of the pain to us.”

He also stated, “We’re in full coordination with other countries, both consumers and producers alike, to minimize any impact that this may have on energy prices and on gasoline.”

According to CNN,

President Joe Biden, facing the risk of a destabilizing energy price shock, is promising to blunt the impact of rising energy prices on American families. But that won't be easy.

The Russia-Ukraine crisis has already helped lift oil and gasoline prices to levels unseen since 2014. Further sanctions on Moscow could drive pump prices closer to $4 a gallon. Biden is bracing the public for just that, acknowledging on Tuesday that "defending freedom will have costs."

. . . There's a long history of voters blaming presidents for high gas prices -- fair or not. Yet presidents have limited power to drive down energy prices, as Biden himself has learned painfully in recent months.

So this sounds like it'll be another months-long charade from Biden and his handlers: they'll make a show of trying to lower fuel prices, but they'll go up anyhow as the Russians profit from their continued rise. And at a certain point, President Brandon will blurt, "Of course I knew I couldn't do anything about gas prices. That's how world leaders operate."

It's almost as though the guy was colluding with Putin to put on a noisy chorus of complaint about his invasion of Ukraine while welcoming an excuse to raise gas prices behind the scenes. Why would he do this? Well, for one thing, Zelensky fired Hunter from Burisma. For another, high fuel prices are a key part of the Democrat agenda. Look at John Kerry's remarks from yesterday:

Republicans have torn into 'despicable' former Secretary of State John Kerry for saying he hopes Vladimir Putin will still help fight climate change just before Russian fighter jets, troops and tanks rolled into Ukraine in an all-out invasion.

President Biden's climate envoy said frozen Russian land is 'thawing', Putin's 'infrastructure' is 'at risk' and urged the Russian tyrant to 'help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.

Well, the best thing Putin can do for the climate is make sure fuel prices rise, and he's certainly up to doing that. And whoever gets burned or maimed or blown up many time zones distant will be collateral damage (and they had it coming for firing Hunter anyhow). There's a strange detachment among all the key people here. Never let a crisis go to waste.

The US truckers are on their way. One of their key grievances is the rising price of fuel. And this has been under Biden's control from, the start. As Texas Gov Abbot put it,

Biden's closure of pipelines because of shutting down leases and things like that, the ability to drill, that's one thing that's caused the price of gasoline to go up so much because the price of oil is going up so much. Biden knew when he was getting into this situation with regard to Russia and the Ukraine, he knew that the price of oil would be going up even more. And so everybody watching this show, the price they're going to be a paying at the pump will be going up even more in the coming days. If Biden would rely on American-based energy, we could solve that problem.

Working class protests are powerful things. Especially after Canada, people are paying attention as the US convoy nears Washington.