Let's not forget that Justin was frightened and humiliated by a popular grassroots movement and is still punishing those who made him wet his pants publicly.
Speaking Tuesday at a rally in a Reno, Nevada, Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin had a little fun with her counterpart on the Democratic ticket, thanking Joe Biden for warning Barack Obama’s supporters to “gird your loins” for an international crisis if the Illinois senator wins.
Palin helpfully offered four scenarios for such a crisis, one of which was this strange one:
After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.
And here we are:
Five people were killed and another five were wounded after missiles hit Kyiv on March 1 within hours of Russia warning that its military would launch strikes at sites in Ukraine’s capital.
China will help ... itself:
When Western countries hit China with an arms embargo following the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Beijing turned to Moscow, restarting an economic relationship that had dwindled in the last decades of the Soviet Union. In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, it was China’s turn to help, providing Moscow relief from Western sanctions through a raft of energy deals.
Today, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine turning it into what U.S. President Joe Biden has termed a “pariah on the international stage,” and the ruble’s value crashing in the wake of new sanctions, Moscow will again be looking to Beijing for succour.
“With the West and many allies and partners around the globe united in sanctioning Russia, the country’s economy is bound to take a severe hit, and only a few countries will be willing and able to help Russia mitigate this,” said Helena Legarda, a lead analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies. “China’s economic support will be key.”
**
China has suggested itself ready to take part in working toward a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, having on Tuesday denounced the crisis in "its strongest comments yet," the Financial Times reports.
In a statement following a phone call between Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, China said it is "extremely concerned about the harm to civilians" in the ongoing conflict.
... says the country that mowed down its own citizens in Tienanmen Square.
A country that might actually help, Moldova:
For three decades, one of Europe’s poorest countries has been emptying out: More than a million people have departed Moldova since 1991. They’re still leaving, at a pace of 35,000 a year. Across the country, 100,000 homes stand empty.
Now, Ukrainian refugees are pouring into Moldova – more than 88,000 so far – and its government and companies are scrambling to give them chances to work through acts of charity that coincide with a national need for labour.
The government is sweeping away legal barriers to their employment and opening its classrooms to Ukrainian teachers. Meanwhile, companies are offering jobs as graphic designers, office managers, construction workers, restaurant staff and IT workers.
It’s part of an outpouring of national generosity that has seen Moldovans drive hours to border points to pick up strangers and homeowners offer spare rooms to fleeing families in need of a place to sleep.
“We cannot ignore their hard times,” said Mihaela Lavrov, an office manager at Purcari, the country’s oldest winery, which has allowed people to sleep free of charge in its vineyard chateau – and rented a hotel in another location for extra beds.
Win-win.
Herein lies the fundamental dynamic that is literally "fueling" Putin's power: the countries that have been weakest on Russia's aggression are the ones that rely on Russian energy to heat their homes, drive their cars, and power their economies. In fact, almost 40% of the European Union's natural gas comes from Russia.
This is a problem for two reasons.
One: It means Putin holds the cards when he's negotiating with Europe. He can turn off the pipes if he wants to amp up the pressure.
Two: By buying Russian oil and gas, Europe has been filling Putin's war chest, giving him the money he needs to build up his army and invade his neighbours.
It's like walking up to the bully to give him your lunch money before he even asks for it.
Europeans must beg Russia for energy. So, Putin holds the cards.
But Canada can help take those cards away. We have what Europe needs, and lots of it: energy.
We have vast, untapped resources from coast to coast – a total of 1,300 trillion cubic feet of marketable natural gas resources according to estimates from the Canada Energy Regulator. But as the Financial Post points out: "Canada currently has no natural gas export terminals on either coast, thanks in part to a regulatory environment that often delays projects for years." We have it. But we can't sell it to Europe or Asia.
There is good news: there are a number of projects across Canada that can unlock new markets for that very same liquified natural gas—also called LNG.
Take LNG Newfoundland and Labrador for example. This organization is proposing a $10 billion project that would liquefy and ship natural gas extracted off the east coast to Europe. Newfoundland has the added benefit of being the closest point in North America to Europe, which means shorter shipping distances. If developed, it would produce some of the cleanest liquefied natural gas in the world. Local First Nations are partners in the project and will get paychecks for their people and self-sufficiency for their communities. So will many others across the province.
Approving this project would help Europe kick its addiction to Russian gas, so they can properly stand up to Putin, rather than funding him.
More money for Canadian paychecks. Less for Putin's war chest.
Unfortunately, Canada's bureaucratic gatekeepers are likely to block it, like always. Justin Trudeau says he wants to phase out our oil and gas production and one of his most trusted Cabinet Ministers was arrested for anti-energy protesting.
Every time Trudeau kills a Canadian energy project, dictators like Putin in Russia or Maduro in Venezuela do a victory dance—because they get to sell more of their energy when we sell less.
One of Trudeau's worst laws, Bill C-69, makes it almost impossible to ever get a pipeline approved.
He's also vetoed the Northern Gateway Pipeline and added red tape and bureaucracy to kill the energy east pipeline, which would have taken western Canadian oil to eastern refineries.
Companies across the country have been pulling out of energy projects. Many don't even bother trying anymore.
The worst irony is that the constant blocking of these projects hurts the environment. Natural gas can replace dirty coal-burning for electricity and reduce greenhouse gases. There are thousands of coal plants around the world that could be shut down if Canada could provide the world with the clean natural gas it needs.
The real enemy is Trudeau.
He'll turn on the taps when China invades Taiwan.
Just watch.
How dare they try to feed their families?!:
A group of Manitoba mothers is awaiting a tribunal’s decision after appealing $35,000 worth of tickets they received for travelling to buy groceries and diapers during a stay-at-home COVID order in January.
Kattey Hart, a mother of four in Nelson House, Manitoba told True North that she and seven other women made the decision to travel to Thompson an hour away on Jan. 20 to buy much-needed essentials including baby food, infant supplements and milk.
The women live in Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN), about 670 kilometres north of Winnipeg. Hart said the grocery store in the NCN had been closed since Dec. 17, and the community’s paid grocery delivery system was far behind schedule.
Hart said they were originally given permission to leave the community to go to Thompson but that they were stopped on the return home.
There was a confrontation involving First Nations Safety Officers and RCMP that eventually saw the women let through.
The first RCMP officers to respond to a mass shooting in April, 2020, in Portapique, N.S., ditched their police cars and walked into the community on foot because they were concerned their vehicles would make them targets, a public inquiry revealed Tuesday. ...
But while the Mounties took a cautious approach to entering the rural community, leaving their vehicles behind and walking slowly down the dark, wooded roadway, the gunman continued his killing unabated. Over the course of at least 40 minutes after the first 911 call, he went house to house, killing 13 people in Portapique and lighting their homes on fire – before it’s believed he avoided a police roadblock by driving down a little-used private road through a blueberry field.
It would have been easier to subdue the suspect had he been a grandmother on a mobility scooter.
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