What Happens When

This is an example of what happens when President Joe Biden (D) presses his assault on our nation’s energy production industry, presses his enthusiastic destruction of our energy independence, and does his kowtowing to Russia (and to OPEC) regarding that nation’s and that cartel’s oil and natural gas production and sale.

He’s reduced the United States of America to begging other nations for energy, and those nations along with Russia are now showing their contempt for Biden’s obsequiousness.

The headline summarizes the matter.

As Oil Nears $100, Saudis Snub US, Stick to Russian Pact Amid Ukraine Crisis

And this:

Rising oil prices and fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine have created a dilemma for Saudi Arabia: help the West by pumping more crude to tame the market, or stand by a five-year-old oil alliance that is helping Moscow at the expense of Washington.
For now, the world’s largest crude exporter is sticking with Russia.

And this:

President Biden has repeatedly called on Persian Gulf producers to pump more oil to reduce gasoline prices that, for Americans, are about twice as high as they were earlier in the pandemic. Those calls have grown more urgent as oil prices have risen toward $100 a barrel….
Instead, the Saudis have said they won’t pump more than they agreed to last year as part of a deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia[.]

It doesn’t matter a whit to Biden that this problem wouldn’t exist if he got his Biden-Harris administration out of the way of our domestic oil and natural gas production so we could go back to being independent of our enemies and acquaintances for our energy, our economic life.

It doesn’t matter a whit to Biden that European nations’ dependence on Russia for their energy wouldn’t exist if he got his Biden-Harris administration out of the way of our domestic oil and natural gas production so we could go back to supplying Europe with oil and natural gas.

Monarchism Returns to Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked his nation’s Emergencies Act because Canada’s national security is at risk from the truckers’ peaceful protests against his government’s…over-exercise of Federal power.

The blockades are harming our economy and endangering public safety. We cannot and will not allow illegal and dangerous activities to continue.

As is typical of modern-day liberals, who resemble 18th century monarchists more than they do actual liberalism, Trudeau is shifting blame for the crisis in Canada, while also mischaracterizing the actual crisis.

What’s actually harming Canada’s economy are the vaccinate-or-be-fired mandates that prevent, for instance, Canada’s shipping industry from shipping.

The actual crisis is Trudeau’s monarchical invocation/misuse of the Emergencies Act to directly assault Canadians’ individual liberties, demanding, in the present instance, vaccinations in complete disregard of those personal liberties. Trudeau’s invocation is aimed at Canadians’ right to protest their government’s misbehaviors and is nothing more than a personal power grab in response to his ego being bruised by those peasants not listening to him.

Maybe the truckers need to go truly nationwide and without any sort of blockade, even by Trudeau’s fevered standard, simply refuse to ship anything at all, at least to Federal government facilities.

Did Biden Refuse the Invitation or the Challenge?

President Joe Biden (D) and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a phone call Saturday. Over the course of the call, Zelenskyy invited Biden to travel to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian description of the call. Zelenskyy

invited him [Biden] to visit Ukraine: “I am convinced that your arrival in Kyiv in the coming days, which are crucial for stabilizing the situation, will be a powerful signal and contribute to de-escalation.”

It’s telling that

[t]he White House statement on the call with Zelenskyy does not mention the invitation to Kyiv.

Why is Biden so reluctant to accept the invitation? Or is he ducking away from the challenge?

A Putin Supposed Draw-Down

Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be withdrawing some of his troops from the “exercise” he’s been holding along the Belarus-Ukraine border.

Russia announced Tuesday that a select number of units participating in military exercises will return to their bases, sparking hope the Kremlin may not invade Ukraine in the coming days.

I have some possibilities for the claimed withdrawal.

Maybe the “select number of units” are being withdrawn because they performed poorly in these invasion rehearsals.

Maybe the “select number of units” are being held back to act as exploitation reserves in the coming invasion.

Maybe the “select number of units” are being withdrawn as a stage show to get the West to let our guard down even further.

Putin’s, Lavrov’s claimed willingness to negotiate further could well be nothing more than a repeat of the 1941 Japanese government “negotiations” with the US, differing only by Putin’s firmer control of his military than the then-Japanese government had.

Bureaucrats Exercising Personal Power Because They Can

The Biden-Harris administration is urging Americans in Ukraine to get out of that nation as fast as they can go. Biden-Harris even trotted out his National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, to issue a panicky plea for our citizens to get out—because Biden-Harris intends to strand those who don’t make it out just as thoroughly as he did in Afghanistan.

Enter Biden-Harris’ State Department bureaucrats.

The US State Department is requiring American citizens fleeing Ukraine into Poland to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination, according to a press release issued Saturday.
US citizens are allowed to enter Poland through its land border with Ukraine, but the State Department says those evacuating “must present a valid US passport and proof of COVID-19 vaccination.”

On top of this [aside: this seems a tacit Biden-Harris administration admission that vaccines against the Wuhan Virus don’t proof folks against subsequent infection as Biden-Harris had originally touted.]

Travelers are also encouraged to present a negative test result from a PCR or antigen COVID-19 test, which will facilitate entry into Poland[.]

This is just Biden-Harris’ bureaucrats exercising power for the sake of the exercise.

Even stipulating, arguendo, that the threat of the unvaccinated spreading the Wuhan Virus is real or has serious consequences, there are just too many ways for State to handle American “travelers'” who lack vaccination/negative test proof after their entry into Poland from Ukraine for this demand to be anything other than the ego trip of power.

State’s statement containing these barriers requirements can be read here.