I noted a few interesting things, some worrisome, over the last few days. Before getting into that, however, I want to also note the passing of Madeleine Albright today. She was a remarkable woman, and was appointed by Bill Clinton as the first woman to serve as Secretary of State, after serving for several years as our UN Ambassador. Her resume before and after those years remains impressive. I never had the opportunity to meet her, but did share a United flight with her returning from Europe 15 years ago, which is only to say I saw her in person…once. A huge loss for us today.
Now, as our president arrives in Brussels for an emergency meeting of NATO, I’ve noted several things that are stark reminders of how far we’ve slipped in the last 14 months. First, it strikes me that the four most influential world leaders on the “good guys” side today are: The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg; The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister of the UK, Boris Johnson, and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Our president doesn’t even make the top 4…
Second, we continue to take a reactionary posture. We “wring our hands” every time Russian leadership mentions the possibility of using weapons of mass destruction. Never in these conversations do we take a firm posture to say that we will not tolerate X, Y, or Z. Never do we say what a red line is … and cities continue to be shelled into oblivion, and 4 million refugees are fleeing to neighboring countries while over 10 million (1 in 4 Ukranians) are now displaced from their homes. Now many of you understand when many of us called out that Joe has been on the wrong side of strategic decisions for 40 years – he’s made or advised the wrong call every .. single .. time. Obama even called that out.
And let’s not forget our Afghan departure – where US interests were not secured as was the original plan. The original plan was to not release prisoners from Guantanamo Bay … but Obama released four of them in a prisoner swap for Bergdahl. ALL FOUR are now top commanders in the new Taliban government. The original plan was to leave US mining interests in place, with protection, but Biden scrapped ALL of that. Now guess what? Yup – the mostly US-built Bagram Airbase is populated by the Chinese – with a whole huge mining contingent. What are they mining? Only some of the world’s largest deposits of Lithium, Copper, Nickel, and Cobalt; all the things we use in electronics and car batteries. And heaven forbid we mine any of that ourselves – the environmentalists tie up all of those permits in courts faster than a Shelby in a Gran Prix. Oh – just like they do for U.S. oil drilling, lest we forget about the “9,000 leases” Biden keeps throwing at us as proof all of this is “not his fault”. Shoot – we can’t even get a road to a drill site permitted, much less the rig itself (yes, you also have to permit the road access on upstream worksites, and utilities access, and…).
But one of the more annoying pieces this past week was the New York Times revelation that the Hunter Biden laptop emails were actually all legitimate after all. Wow. Really? That story came out before the election and was quickly discounted by “50 top intelligence officials” as Russian Disinformation. Now almost all of them have gone silent (Clapper is still doubling down for some unknown reason). So, let’s see … the New York Post runs the story before the election. Its twitter is immediately killed. Anyone who carries the link is banned off social media by FB, Twitter, etc. The Big 5 all downplay and then kill the story. Biden lies about it in the second debate. On live TV. All before the election. Meanwhile, the FBI starts to investigate. In February of last year, it surfaces that the FBI is actually looking hard into it, as the email evidence implicates Hunter and Joe in a significant number of foreign deals with relatively nefarious players, including Ukraine Oligarchs, Chinese officials and investment firms, etc. A poll is put out here that comes back with 1 in 6 Biden voters saying they would not have voted for him if they knew about all of this. All the while, crickets from the White House and FBI. But now – Hunter’s legal team are “cooperating” with investigators, he’s written a check for the massive taxes he failed to pay, the millions he was given for their joint business deals are now all found to be true after all, and the FBI is indicating a possible indictment soon – but I don’t believe that will ever happen (it’s Joe’s boy Merrick in the driver seat at Justice). But now that we’re 14 months into this mess, and Ukraine is all over the news, it’s safe for the NYT to run the story. And the Big 5 media outlets: Still giving zero air time.
This is the corrupt mess you elected. But thank goodness for our VP – who’s lost (as of yesterday) 10 staffers and is reportedly not playing nicely with the White House… The other guy who lost – well, after years they still can’t “trump up” charges on him. Collusion was a bust. The investigation into his businesses by the New York authorities is really starting to slip – the newly-elected democrat DA is looking at killing the entire investigation (because it’s not turning up anything substantive).
Too many of our elections are turning into “pick your poison” – I agree. But really … which poison gives you heartburn vs. which one burns your whole house down?
And one last note: Saudi won’t take Joe’s calls (news last week). And for the last month US military leaders can’t get Russian counterparts to take theirs. Huh.
