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Obama Tells Europe that Conservatism is Coupled to Putin

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Yves Herman

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Yves Herman

By Neil Munro.

President Barack Obama used his set-piece speech in Europe on Wednesday to couple Vladimir Putin’s crudely nationalist takeover of Crimea with the increasingly popular opposition to his big-government, progressive agenda.

“Casual indifference [to President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Crimea]… would allow the old way of doing things to regain a foothold in this young century,” he declared.

Progressive “ideals have often been threatened by an older, more traditional view of power… Often this alternative vision roots itself in the notion that by virtue of race or faith or ethnicity, some are inherently superior to others and that individual identity must be defined by us versus them,” he claimed.

Throughout his speech, Obama contrasted progressives’ supposedly universalist ideals with conservatives’ ideal of smaller governments that are tailored to the preferences of their unique populations.

The progressive ideals include the “United Nations and a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international law and the means to enforce those laws,” he said.

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Lindsey Graham: Russia’s a Gas Station Acting Like a Country

By Todd Beamon.

Russia is merely “an oil and gas company masquerading as a country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an attack Wednesday on both Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.

“The value system of Mr. Putin is that of a KGB colonel,” the South Carolina Republican said on the Senate floor, Politico reports. “I understand where he is coming from because of his value system. I just don’t agree with it.”

Graham was joined by Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire in accusing Putin of manipulating Moscow’s vast oil resources to expand its power throughout the world.

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Ted Cruz: The Russians are ‘Openly Laughing’ at Obama

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Photo Credit: AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko

Photo Credit: AP / Alexander Zemlianichenko

Sen. Ted Cruz believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian leaders no longer respect President Obama because of his failure to lead.

“The only thing Putin respects is strength … At this point the Russians are openly laughing at the president,” Cruz, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner.

Cruz added that Putin’s aggressiveness was “a direct consequence” of the absence of American leadership in the world.

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Obama: I’m Concerned About a Nuke Being Detonated in Manhattan (+video)

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Speaking at a brief news conference in the Hague, President Obama said he’s more worried about a nuke being detonated in Manhattan than he is about Russia:

“With respect to Mr. Romney’s assertion that Russia is our number one geopolitical foe, the truth of the matter is that America has a whole lot of challenges,” said the president.

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Harry Reid Blames GOP for Helping Russia Invade Crimea

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Photo Credit: AP / Max VetrovSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that Republicans may have helped Russia annex Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in a surprisingly sharp attack ahead of a test vote on a bill authorizing more U.S. sanctions on Russia and $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine.

Outlining the Senate’s agenda after a one-week recess, the Nevada Democrat said the first item would be the Ukraine bill that Republicans blocked just before lawmakers went on break. He urged Republicans to consider “how their obstruction affects United States’ national security as well as the people of Ukraine” and said their delay of any congressional action “sent a dangerous message to Russian leaders.”

“Since a few Republicans blocked these important sanctions last work period, Russian lawmakers voted to annex Crimea and Russian forces have taken over Ukrainian military bases,” Reid said. “It’s impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice.”

Reid’s charge comes despite widespread support among Republicans and Democrats in Congress for providing Ukraine with much-needed economic assistance and hitting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government with sanctions.

And GOP Senate aides noted the House has passed different legislation, meaning the Senate bill could not have become law before recess anyhow. They blamed Reid and Democrats for blocking the Senate from taking up the House legislation.

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Excluding Russia From G8 ‘Like Suspending a Vegan From a Steakhouse’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News A “Special Report” panel today discussed how G7 leaders met in The Hague and announced that they would be excluding Russia from the G8 and boycotting a planned summit in Sochi.

Jason Riley, of the Wall Street Journal, said Russian President Vladimir Putin is rebuilding the Russian empire while President Barack Obama and our allies in Europe are sitting around discussing international law and “kicking Putin out of clubs he doesn’t care about in the first place.”

Riley said Putin knows that the administration doesn’t have the stomach for confrontation and will continue to take advantage of that.

“Suspending him from the G8 is like suspending a vegan from a steakhouse,” Ron Fournier, of the National Journal, said.

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Biden Blames Putin Homophobia for Crimea Invasion

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Photo Credit: CNNBiden links Russia’s anti-gay laws to incursion into Ukraine

By Kevin Liptak.

Russia’s “gay propaganda” law that makes it illegal to tell children about gay rights is linked to the nation’s takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea, Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday night.

Speaking at a gala in Los Angeles for the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, Biden suggested countries that don’t respect the rights of gays, lesbians and transgender people also disregard borders.

“As the great Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov said, ‘A country that does not respect the rights of its citizens will not respect the rights of its neighbors,’ and we’re seeing that today, we’re seeing that today in Ukraine,” the vice president said.

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Vladi­mir Putin, Russia’s spy in chief

By Jim Hoagland.

Shake hands with Vladimir Putin, as I have three times, and you do not feel you are in the presence of a master strategist or a visionary ready to change history with his ideas. Putin comes across in conversation as vain and petulant, with a taste for cruelly needling others.

This is key to understanding where the Crimea crisis goes next. The Russian Supreme Spy will probe for weaknesses and exploit them by buying, bullying or backstabbing his adversaries. Like all spies, he assumes there is a little treachery, and a lot of larceny, in us all. Proving that is what makes him tick.

Russia’s move to slice Crimea from Ukraine was an example of “black ops,” as Tom Donilon, President Obama’s astute former national security adviser, put it over the weekend. The White House may be going to school on the espionage novels of John Le Carre and Robert Ludlum rather than the memoirs of Dean Acheson and George Kennan.

The available evidence suggests that the former KGB colonel did not set out to restart the Cold War. He is not operating from a grand design to dismember Ukraine, though he would greedily pocket that outcome if it happens.

For now, he intends to extend his invasion deep into Ukraine’s east only if events encourage or, in his view, force him to do so. He acts out of opportunism and an obsession with inflicting payback on his professional rivals. He is, however, containable if confronted with consistency and clarity.

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Photo Credit: AP / Sergei GritsUkraine fears Russia ‘ready to attack’

By Dmitry ZAKS.

Ukraine’s Western-backed leaders voiced fears on Sunday of an imminent Russian invasion of the eastern industrial heartland following the fall of their last airbase in Crimea to defiant Kremlin troops.

Saturday’s takeover involving armoured personnel carriers and stun grenades provided the most spectacular show of force since the Kremlin sent troops into the heavily Russified peninsula three weeks ago before sealing its annexation Friday.

Alarm about a push outside Crimea by Moscow’s overwhelming forces — now conducting drills at Ukraine’s eastern gate — were fanned further Sunday by a call by its self-declared premier for Russians across the ex-Soviet country to rise up against Kiev’s rule.

The interim leaders in Kiev fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin — flushed with expansionist fervour — is developing a sense of impunity after being hit by only limited EU and US sanctions for taking the Black Sea cape.

“The aim of Putin is not Crimea but all of Ukraine… His troops massed at the border are ready to attack at any moment,” Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy told a mass unity rally in Kiev.

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GOP, Democrats Spar Over Obama’s Foreign Policy, Amid New Fears of Putin Takeovers

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Photo Credit: REUTERSTop Democrats and Republicans squared off Sunday over President Obama’s foreign policy, in the aftermath of Russia taking over part of Ukraine and amid new fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin is just getting started.

The deepening dispute between East and West is expected to dominate Obama’s visit to Europe, which begins Monday in the Netherlands. Obama will join world leaders at the Nuclear Security Summit and head a hastily arranged meeting of the Group of Seven – the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney delivered perhaps the most stinging criticism of Obama’s handling of the Ukraine crisis.

He accused Obama of being naïve about Putin’s world views and “lacking the judgment” and foresight to perhaps have stopped the Russian president from taking over Ukraine’s Crimea region before he even ordered troops across the border.

“There’s no question but that the president’s naiveté with regards to Russia, and his faulty judgment about Russia’s intentions and objectives, has led to a number of foreign policy challenges that we face,” Romney, also a former Massachusetts governor, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

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How Sanctions Against Russia Could Signal the Beginning of ‘World War III’

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Photo Credit; AP Photo/Alexander ZemlianichenkoRussia is preparing to fight World War III against the United States, not with conventional weapons but with the American dollar, a financial analyst told TheBlaze.

Kevin Freeman, a global financial analyst with expertise in financial warfare and terrorism, warned that Russia, along with allies like China, could cripple the U.S. financial system.

It’s not a theory but a “very real reality” that should not be ignored, he said.

“The real risk is if we go after them with economic weapons, they come back after us and this creates World War III,” said Freeman, who has consulted for the Pentagon, CIA and FBI. “This is a very tough game of chicken that we’re playing, and Putin is serious.”

On Wednesday, The Blaze TV’s For The Record investigative news magazine show will examine the global impact of the Ukraine crisis in “Resistance” (8 p.m. ET). For The Record will take viewers into Ukraine and reveal firsthand accounts of the deadly violence that has gripped the country, and explain how the international tug of war over Crimea could change the world.

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Russia Warns West it May Change Stance On Iran, in Retaliation Over Sanctions

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsBy Fox News.

Russia reportedly is prepared to change its stand on Iran nuclear talks in a high-stakes gamble to counter expanded sanctions by the United States and the European Union over Crimea.

After the Obama administration on Monday hit 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials with sanctions — a move criticized by Republican lawmakers as too timid — Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted Wednesday by the Interfax news agency as saying the country may have to alter its position on the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

The statement is the most serious threat of retaliation by Moscow since the disputed Crimea region voted to join Russia over the weekend, and Vladimir Putin’s government moved to annex the peninsula.

NATO and U.S. leaders say they’re prepared to do more.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that the administration is looking to expand the sanctions further. “If you look at the executive orders, they provide a great deal of flexibility and an expansive range potential designations for sanctions including Russian government officials, the arms sector of Russia, and individuals who, while not holding positions within the Russian government, have influence over or provide material support to senior Russian government officials,” he said.

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Russian forces seize two Ukrainian bases in Crimea

By Aleksandar Vasovic and Maria Kiselyova.

The United States warned Moscow it was on a “dark path” to isolation on Wednesday as Russian troops seized two Ukrainian naval bases, including a headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol where they raised their flag.

The dramatic seizure came as Russia and the West dug in for a long confrontation over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, with the United States and Europe groping for ways to increase pressure on a defiant Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“As long as Russia continues on this dark path, they will face increasing political and economic isolation,” said U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, referring to reports of armed attacks against Ukrainian military personnel in Crimea.

Biden was in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, as part of a quick trip to reassure Baltic allies worried about what an emboldened Russia might mean for their nations. Lithuania, along with Estonia and Latvia, are NATO members.

“There is an attempt, using brutal force, to redraw borders of the European states and to destroy the postwar architecture of Europe,” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said.

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Russophobia and Islamophilia

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Photo Credit: American Thinker It’s hard to believe that it has been a quarter of a century since Ronald Reagan began to dismantle the ideological wall that divided Europe. Harder still to believe that American politicians, Right and Left, are trying to resuscitate the Cold War — or something hotter. Recent events in the Ukraine seem to be giving the citizens of Europe and America hot flashes of deja-vu.

At the tactical level, US policy has devolved to “regime change.” At the strategic level, US policy is simply incoherent, if not nihilistic; swapping corrupt oligarchs for neo-fascists or religious zealots. The logic for supporting recent coups have little to do with common sense — or democracy. And with Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, and now the Ukraine, language needs to be coined to avoid words like coup.

By any other name, a coup is still a coup. And using a post-facto election to legitimize a coup is a little like putting a new hat on a dead cat. The Kerry/Obama team is giving subtlety and sovereignty bad names.

When Vladimir Putin, tongue in cheek, says there are no Russian troops in the Ukraine, he mocks John Kerry and Victoria Nuland who orchestrate dissidents in Maidan square, in some cases neo-fascists who did not get their way on the bail-out treaty with the EU.

The auction for the Ukraine is now closed. The price doubled overnight, from 16 to 35 billion dollars and counting. Politicians break it, now the taxpayer gets to pay for it. Kerry is now offering to buy the next Ukrainian election too.

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