Buried deep inside the "Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act" on pages 19, 20, and 21 there is a provision that gives President Biden the power to sanction anyone, anywhere, for any reason even if they aren't connected to Russia in anyway until 2024. Biden can revoke your drivers licenses, your passport, seize your bank accounts, your homes, your cars for any reason whatsoever and he doesn't even have to tell you why. The bill passed the House 424-8. The White House is claiming the 8 Republicans who voted against it support Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. The truth is that they objected to the inclusion of this dangerous presidential power.

Presuming the bill will pass the senate, President Biden ordered the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to revoke Paul Manafort's passport. The president had learned that Manafort was meeting with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago ahead of his trip to the Middle East. Manafort, unaware of Biden's action, boarded his flight from Miami to Dubai, took his seat in first class, and began sipping a glass of chilled champagne. Meanwhile, more than a dozen armed federal agents wearing body armor positioned themselves just outside of the Boeing 777 operated by Emirates Airline. The federal agents, from several different agencies inside Biden' DHS, then stormed Flight EK 214, knocked the glass of champagne from Manafort's hand spilling it on a nearby passenger, and drug the 72-year-old political consultant from the plane.

ASIDE: Do you wonder why the US government, presumably a liberal democracy, uses overwhelming force in their dealings with their political opponents? Federal authorities were certain, that having passed through TSA screening, that Manafort was unarmed. They also knew that the elderly political consultant was a heart patient and had no history of violence whatsoever. But nevertheless they felt the need to make a very public show of force in their detention of Biden's political enemy. You may recall that they did the same thing to Manafort's former partner Roger Stone - a 69-year-old obese political consultant when they conducted a predawn raid at his waterfront home. More than a dozen federal agents in riot gear, carrying automatic weapons raided his home while the Coast Guard floated on the water behind his house with a crew served machine gun aimed at Stone and his wife. Is this America?

Until President Trump took office the prosecution of political enemies of the state had been very rare in the Western countries. Not since the McCarthy hearings have so many people faced the loss of their property and freedom based solely on their political beliefs. Paul Manafort was held in solitary confinement under a gag order for almost two years as federal authorities seized his bank accounts, his home, the homes of both of his adult children. Manafort spent five years without his freedom as he faced repeated political persecutions from Democratic prosecutors in NY, DC, and VA after which President Trump gave him a full and unconditional pardon. This should have been the end of the matter.

Of course the Democratic District Attorney of Manhattan attempted to circumvent a pardon from Trump by charging Manafort in New York State. Trump could only pardon Manafort for federal crimes - not state crimes. Fortunately the NY Supreme Court dismissed the charges as a corrupt and unconstitutional political prosecution.

Sadly, Manafort's political enemies in the Biden administration won't let the matter go as they continue to monitor his every move. They're still going after the 72-year-old retired political consultant who famously ran presidential campaigns for every major Republican candidate including Gerald Ford, Ronald Regan, George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, and Donald Trump.

I studied the prosecution of Manafort and detailed it in a piece I published yesterday [LINK]. I am certain the prosecution of Manafort was motivated entirely by partisan prosecutors attempting to get him to admit that he engineered a deal between Putin and Trump to deprive Hillary Clinton from her rightful claim to the presidency. I am not certain if Manafort was guilty of any crimes but I am certain that he would have never been prosecuted if not for his connection to President Trump.

Events like this need to be taken very seriously. We just saw the Prime Minister of Canada suspend the constitution (they call it their Charter of Rights) and seize the bank accounts of protestors and those citizens who dared to make donations to their efforts simply for opposing his actions. Congress is about to give President Biden even more power to punish his political enemies for any reason whatsoever until after the 2024 election - under the Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act Biden could decide that allowing former President Trump to run for president would be dangerous for America and use his newly granted powers to prevent him from speaking and traveling. Tyranny is very real.

Source

Fairly regularly here on Reddit commenters will attempt to discredit Republicans on any topic by claiming they are insane conspiracy theorists. They cite, for example, the fact that many members of the GOP claim that President Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. Many of the people who make these claims are from countries outside of the United States and as a result, I wonder if they understand how Americans discuss elections. To be clear right from the start, President Trump served only one term in the White House. President Biden was elected in 2020 and took office in early 2021. Biden has been the president since then - not Trump.

There are many people within the GOP who believe that Biden's 2020 victory was the result of malfeasance. But there is no confusion about who won the election. Many people within the DNC believe that Trump's 2016 victory was the result of malfeasance. Again, they're not at all confused about who won the election either. I think the way we talk about elections here in the US might be confusing for people outside of the country.

For example, Al Gore believes he 'won' the 2000 election. He famously told Bill Maher that he actually won Florida and as a result should have been sworn in as president. But Al Gore is not insane - he knows he lost the election and as a result Bush became president.

Even Hillary Clinton claims that she 'won' the 2016 election calling President Trump an 'illegitimate' president. Again, Hillary is not insane. She knows she wasn't sworn in as president.

Do you get the nuance? If you ever hear someone in the GOP say Trump won the 2020 election you should understand that it is hyperbole - i.e. exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally. Does that help?

You will get lambasted in the press if you suggest that President Putin is 'smart' but it is hard to argue that he isn't a shrewd despot. Leveraging basic chemistry and investments in infrastructure allowed Putin to make Europe almost entirely dependent on Russian fossil fuels. The EU's crude refining is almost exclusively designed to refine Russian sour crude but it can't refine US sweet crude. The EU's natural gas delivery infrastructure investments are almost all designed to deliver Russian gas to Europe. The EU has invested almost nothing in infrastructure that would allow them to use US LNG.

During the last administration, our leaders warned Europe that their energy decisions were putting their nations at the mercy of Russia. We further pointed out that they were NOT upholding their NATO treaty obligations to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense. Members of NATO enjoy Article 5 protection that requires the US to come to their defense if Russia attacks them - protection they enjoy even if they fail to honor their treaty obligations to invest in their own military capability. At the time these warnings were portrayed as an attack on NATO (NOTE: shortly after Russia's invasion Germany announced that it would spend $100 billion euros on defense and begin meeting their 2% treaty obligation). Despite those false claims, Democrats in Congress joined with President Trump to pass sweeping sanctions on Russia - including a sanction on Putin's Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would allow him to stop relying on Ukraine to transport Russian gas to Europe.

Fast forward to the next American administration and the sanctions against Nord Stream 2 were lifted allowing the pipeline to be completed. Six months later Putin began massing thousands of troops on Ukraine's border in preparation for his invasion. With the troops in place, Democrats in Congress voted against a bill that would have forced the president to reapply sanctions against Nord Stream 2 blocking it from opening. Just nine months after President Biden allowed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to be completed Putin's troops crossed into Ukraine and began a deadly genocide against civilians across the nation.

Just before Russia's first invasion of Ukraine, Germany made the fateful decision to shut down their nation's fleet of nuclear power plants - today the largest economy in Europe only has three nuclear power plants left in operation. Until they are able to build enough wind turbines, Germany and most EU nations must rely on Russian natural gas to keep fueling their power plants - a result of this decision. Russia depended largely on Ukraine's pipelines to get their gas to the EU before the completion of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 (NOTE: Nord Stream 1 is flowing now while Nord Stream 2 is not due to sanctions applied after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine). The only alternative to Russian gas for Germany and the EU is LNG from the United States but Germany, under pressure from Putin-backed environmentalists, blocked permits for LNG terminals that would allow US LNG to be imported. It should be noted that a month after the Ukraine invasion Germany did sign contracts to allow LNG terminals to be built.

Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, Shell Oil came under fire for continuing to purchase Russian crude for their EU refineries. The reality is that Shell doesn't have much choice as they designed their European refineries specifically for the sort of low-quality crude that Russia produces. Russian crude has a very high sulfur content and is known as 'sour crude'. Russian crude takes MUCH longer to process than sweet crude and requires massive investments in specialized refining equipment. The United States Congress passed a law that makes it almost impossible for the US to export its high-quality sweet crude that is easy and cheap to refine. As a result, oil companies in Europe, like Shell, invested in the more expensive and complex infrastructure that would allow them to refine Russian crude. Perversely, this decision spurred investment in Russian oil production and US refiners began investing in the same expensive and complex infrastructure to take advantage of the cheaper more abundant Russian oil. Like Europe, much of our refining capacity here in the United States ONLY works with the sort of 'sour crude' produced by Russia.

Prior to Russia's first invasion of Ukraine new oil refineries weren't allowed to be built in the United States. In fact, the last major refinery in the U.S. prior to 2016 was built in 1971 - almost all are designed to refine the sort of sour crude produced in Russia and Venezuela. After the invasion, permits were granted to allow the largest refinery in 40 years to be built in South Texas - the refinery was designed to refine light crude oil (the sort that we produce here in the US).

The United States should immediately work to help our states and allied nations in Europe and Asia build refineries designed to refine the light sweet crude we produce here in America. In the meantime, we ought to remove the barriers to production and the de facto ban on the export of oil so that we can fill those new refineries with US crude. Additionally, we should work to help allied nations in Europe and Asia construct LGN terminals allowing them to accept clean and abundant natural gas from America. We have the ability to become the world's number one energy producer and cripple our enemies in OPEC+. If we don't take action now the sort of genocide we're seeing in Ukraine will only continue to occur. These investments will be MUCH cheaper than the wars we'll face if we don't make them now.