A Monroe Doctrine for Russia

Pat Buchanan, When the Union was fighting to preserve itself in the Civil War, the France of Napoleon III moved troops into Mexico, overthrew the regime of Benito Juarez, set up a monarchy and put Austrian Archduke Maximilian von Habsburg on the throne as Emperor of Mexico — one month before Gettysburg.

Preoccupied, the Union did nothing.

At war’s end, in 1865, however, at the urging of Gens. Ulysses S. Grant and William Sherman, the Union sent 40,000 troops to the Mexican border.

Secretary of State William Seward dispatched Gen. John Schofield to Paris with the following instructions: “I want you to get your legs under Napoleon’s mahogany and tell him he must get out of Mexico.”

The U.S. troops on Mexico’s border convinced Napoleon to comply, though Maximilian bravely refused to leave and was captured and put before a firing squad.

The point of the episode for today’s crisis in Ukraine?

A powerful army on a nation’s border can send a message and dictate terms without going in and without going to war.

Whether Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to send his 100,000 troops now on the Crimean, Donbass and Belarusian borders of Ukraine into the country to occupy more territory we do not know.

But the message being sent by the Russian army is clear: Putin wants his own Monroe Doctrine. Putin wants Ukraine outside of NATO, and permanently.

If his demands are unacceptable, Putin is saying with his troops on the border, we reserve the right to send our army into Ukraine to protect our vital national intserests in not having a hostile military alliance on our doorstep.

U.S. officials have been describing a Russian invasion as “imminent,” an attack that could come “any day now.”

Given the Russian preparations and size of its forces, some U.S. officials said last week Kyiv could fall within hours of an attack and there could be 50,000 civilian casualties and 5 million Ukrainian refugees.

Ukrainian leaders are less alarmist, arguing that an invasion is not imminent and there is still room for a negotiated settlement.

Russian officials are contemptuous of U.S. claims that they are about to invade. Last weekend, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN tweeted, “Madness and scaremongering continues. … What if we would say that US could seize London in a week and cause 300k civilian deaths?”  READ MORE...

Miserable Liberals

Stephen Moore, Replacing former President Donald Trump with President Joe Biden was supposed to bring joy to the land from sea to sea.

We were going to be a united people at last. Every problem known to man would get solved by cradle-to-grave government. Biden was even going to save us from the rise of the oceans.

I’m the kind of guy
Who never used to cry
The world is treatin’ me bad
Misery

— The Beatles

But just the opposite: A survey by the University of Chicago found that record percentages of people in 2021 described themselves as “unhappy.”

For most of the past 50 years, about 1 in 10 people have described themselves as unhappy. In 2021, 1 in 4 say they are unhappy. Typically, almost 1 in 3 say they are “very happy,” and now less than 1 in 5 do. The happiness index is falling like a stone. People are depressed.

Gee, I wonder why the public is so glum all of a sudden.

Let me count the ways. First, there is isolation and loneliness from lockdowns, stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions. Then there is out-of-control crime and a significant rise in business failures (from lockdowns), both clearly associated with depression. People are still worried about their health two years into the pandemic that Biden promised to shut down. The border is out of control.

Then there is the financial stress on families from everything being more expensive. Children are depressed because schools are still doing remote learning or they are stuck wearing masks for eight hours a day. The “woke” movement has people feeling like they are tied inside a social straitjacket. Nothing is funny anymore. Don’t you dare say an off-color joke or you will be banished.

People are afraid to laugh at anything for fear of offending someone somewhere. When was the last time you saw a funny movie?

But here’s what’s most interesting about the results of the happiness survey. The people with the most significant happiness deficiencies are Democratic voters. Liberals are miserable. Only 1 in 6 Democratic voters say they are “very happy.” Almost twice as many Republicans say they are “very happy.”

Why is that? I have several admittedly unproven hypotheses. I will toss them out, and readers can decide for themselves if they agree or disagree.

First, liberals are much less religious, patriotic and interested in getting married and having children than conservatives. It’s a Grand Canyon-sized division between liberals and conservatives. I’d venture to say that the love of country, God and family make people happy.

If you don’t believe in these things, you will likely believe in false idols, such as big government, as your savior. That’s hardly a path to happiness.

Liberals are less likely to be working and more likely to be on government assistance. But every study shows that work is highly associated with happiness. Giving a person a fish rather than teaching a person to fish leads to very different life satisfaction outcomes.  READ MORE...

Global Supply Chain Collapse

Michael Snyder, If CNN starts sounding like The Economic Collapse Blog, what does that mean? Unfortunately, the truth about what is in our immediate future is becoming apparent to everyone. Global supply chains are in a state of complete and utter chaos, and this is driving up prices and causing widespread shortages all over the country.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have written five articles with either “shortage” or “shortages” in the title, and some have accused me of being a little alarmist. If that is the case, then CNN is being alarmist too, because one of their top stories today openly warned of a “global transport system collapse”…

In an open letter Wednesday to heads of state attending the United Nations General Assembly, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and other industry groups warned of a “global transport system collapse” if governments do not restore freedom of movement to transport workers and give them priority to receive vaccines recognized by the World Health Organization.

For decades, we have all been able to take our extremely complex supply chains for granted. Things have always been where they need to be when they needed to be there, and many of us just assumed that it would always be that way.

But now organizations that represent 65 million transport workers around the globe are openly warning that “global supply chains are beginning to buckle”…

“Global supply chains are beginning to buckle as two years’ worth of strain on transport workers take their toll,” the groups wrote. The letter has also been signed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Road Transport Union (IRU) and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). Together they represent 65 million transport workers globally.

“All transport sectors are also seeing a shortage of workers, and expect more to leave as a result of the poor treatment millions have faced during the pandemic, putting the supply chain under greater threat,” it added.

Things are particularly bad at our ports. Right now, there is a backlog of approximately 500,000 shipping containers waiting on ships off the west coast waiting to be unloaded…

As an estimated 500,000 containers are sitting on cargo ships off the Southern California coast, many are wondering how to handle the backlog.

Needless to say, we have never seen anything like this before.

But what most Americans don’t realize is that the backlog off the coast of China is even worse…

There are over 60 container ships full of import cargo stuck offshore of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but there are more than double that — 154 as of Friday — waiting to load export cargo off Shanghai and Ningbo in China, according to eeSea, a company that analyzes carrier schedules.

The number of container ships anchored off Shanghai and Ningbo has surged over recent weeks. There are now 242 container ships waiting for berths countrywide. Whether it’s due to heavy export volumes, Typhoon Chanthu or COVID, rising congestion in China is yet another wild card for the trans-Pacific trade.

If you are waiting for something to come in from overseas, you may be waiting for a very long time.  TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS CATASTROPHY, CLICK HERE...

Tantalizing Tuesday in the Valley

Currently (1942), the temperature outside the house is 87 degrees Fahrenheit with 60% humidity and a 10% chance of rain...  inside the house, we have our central air operating at a temperature of 78 degrees and it is very comfortable inside...  not too hot and not too cold...  however, I am dressed in shorts and a t-shirt.  Our home is well insulated so the heat or cold loss is minimal.

I mention this only because the weather forecast for the rest of the week is going to be even higher as it approaches the mid 90's.

On the big screen is the Food Channel's show CHOPPED which is interesting to watch every now and then, but it becomes rather redundant if watched for several hours in one sitting.  While the baskets are different, cooking is cooking...  at least to me.

What is different today for me is the fact that I have created an account on PARLOR which is a conservative social media forum that is competing with Facebook...  but, unlike Facebook, Parlor is basically a site for people who want to read a lot of conservative opinions.  It does not allow for much interaction..  It is like FOX News but instead of listening to people you are reading what people have written...  and those people are people with reputations rather than the common everyday individual which is what I was expecting.

I pretty much already know what conservative talking heads are going to say or write...  so, I'm not gaining that much since it is basically a reiteration of what FOX News has already conveyed to me...  but with some new twists and turns.

Just Joined

This morning, for some reason, I decided to look for conservative websites that I could join, instead of having to deal with the biased approach taken by FACEBOOK and LinkedIn...

I found these:

1. Rumble
2. Parlor

Rumble, it appears, is only a site for those who want to publish videos that will not be censored; whereas, Parlor is very similar to those two social media sites that I wanted to leave,

So far, all I have seen on Parlor is well known conservatives like Bongino, Levin, and Hannity, etc., are the ones who are posting comments...  so, it is a really good site to read those kind of posts, but I do not see any (at least so far) posts from the everyday conservative Americans like myself...  which is really what I was looking for...

Maybe I just need to give it a little more time...