Speaking Of The Senate And Russia Sanctions

I wasn’t, but others were.

For example, Larry Johnson brought up the topic with Judge Nap:

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 23-May

Trump has been—whether he wishes to acknowledge it or not—as guilty of provoking this conflict with Russia as anyone else. Now, the Russians are still giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. They're accepting the fact that he has, so far, avoided the the trap that the Europeans laid for him. Basically, [the Europeans] wanted Trump to go try to get some concessions out of Putin and, if he couldn't get concessions, then to immediately declare “bone crushing sanctions”. Trump has shied away from that but, frankly, I don't think Trump's going to be able to avoid that because of what the senate and the House are doing. You've already got 80 US senators insisting on the “bone crushing sanctions.” They continue to portray Russia as this imperial force intending to take over the world, and there's no amount of reason or logic that you can apply to them to bring them back to reality. So I think we could get into a situation where Trump is going to be penned up by his own legislature—he won't have any other option but to take a a confrontational approach with Russia.

80 US senators in agreement on anything is pretty amazing. The tell here is that “reason or logic” isn’t involved. That tells you that something else has led to this surprising near unanimity. My guess is that that something else is money—how ‘bout you?

Next, I picked up this snippet from a transcript that Sundance that dates back about a week or so:

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, I want to move on to other topics. But lastly, your former Senate colleague, Lindsey Graham, was next to you in that meeting with the Ukrainian foreign minister. He has a veto-proof majority on this bill to put sanctions on Russia. How quickly do you want the option for more sanctions on Russia? Or are you asking him to wait?

SEC. RUBIO: No, we’re not [i.e., not asking Lindsey! to wait before voting more sanctions on Russia]. Look, the Senate is going to act, ultimately. I mean, I think in the past, we’ve asked to give us a little time to see if we can make some progress on our talks. But we’ve also been pretty clear with the Russian side for weeks now, going back six or seven weeks. We’ve been communicating to the Russian side that this effort was being undertaken. That we anticipated that, when all was said and done, it would have close to 80 cosponsors in the Senate and, I imagine, a comparable percentage of support in the House—that that was an effort we couldn’t stop and don’t control, that ultimately Congress and—particularly the Republicans in the House and Senate—have tried to give the president space and time to negotiate something here. But we’ve advised the Russians repeatedly now, for almost two months that this was coming, if no progress was made. So I think that’s just coming to fruition now. And it’s one of the things that I confirmed, again, being with Lindsey Graham this week in Turkey, is they’re now up to 77. He thinks they could get close to 80 or more. And that’s just a fact, and something we’ve told the Russians about for weeks was coming.

Finally, Danny Davis and John Mearsheimer got into a lengthy discussion of this issue. It’s important to note that Joni Ernst places her in support for sanctioning the shit out of Russia in the context of … supporting “our partners in the Middle East?”

John Mearsheimer: Putin Orders BUFFER ZONE /U.S. Dazed & Confused

DD: Some of President Trump's biggest political allies here in the United States seem to have radically different views about what's even possible. Here is Joni Ernst, first of all praising Trump for what he did in the Middle East last week, and then having some pretty big consequences on the other side:

He stood with our partners in the Middle East to strengthen the historic Abraham Accords, and he delivered a strong message to Vladimir Putin: end the war. Today I stand in support of a sovereign Ukraine and echo the president's call to Putin to stop this bloodbath that never should have happened. This is an issue that not only affects a close partner under siege, but also the strength of the United States of America and the security of the free world. Let's be clear here folks--China is watching! So is Iran and North Korea. And, of course, Vladimir Putin is watching, too. They call it the new Axis of Evil for a reason.

DD: Yeah, what, the first Axis of Evil from Bush was a disaster and should never have been done! Why do we want to have this new Axis of Evil, first of all, but you see she predicates that by talking about how powerful the United States is and we can demand outcomes everywhere. But what you just described is, militarily, we don't have the capacity. And we haven't even talked about our economic wherewithal.

Prof: Well first of all there's no there are no hard facts in her comments. she's just blathering, and it's very easy to blather in the American political context. … My sense just watching all this is that most of the people in Washington are divorced from reality and this is why American foreign policy is in so much trouble. We lose war after war. It seems like we have the Midas touch in reverse--everything we touch goes to hell. Something is badly wrong here and when you listen to the senator speak it's not hard to understand why, at least in my opinion.

DD: ... when you say things like, 'there is an Axis of Evil, a new one,' and it's it's all these powerful nations--China,Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.--does that have any consequences, even if you're not talking about reality ...?

Prof: Yeah. They laugh uncontrollably. That's the big quotes. They're just laughing uncontrollably. Here's the United States of America. It is supporting a genocide in Gaza and we have a lot of help from our European allies, yet we are the good guys and we're dealing with an Axis of Evil. Excuse me, the hypocrisy here is stunning. Has Senator Ernst complained in any meaningful way about the genocide in Gaza? No. She's probably applauding the Israelis. So when people start talking in moral terms where there are good guys and bad guys and we're portrayed as the good guys, I laugh loudly. And I'm sure that the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and people all over the world laugh loudly. Outside of the West most people think the concept of Western civilization is a contradiction in terms—and how could they think otherwise when they watch us support a genocide in Gaza that is visible to anybody who has access to the internet?

So what’s the money angle? Here’s a clue: Joni Ernst is the top money earner in Iowa—as measured by money received from AIPAC. How do you get an 80% consensus in Congress for a crazy policy? You pay them off, and here’s how that’s done, in a picture:

You can look up any Rep or Senator here: The Israel Lobby in Us Congress. AIPAC is probably the only lobby—certainly the only foreign lobby—that can get that kind of unanimity.

Have I mentioned recently that I read ALL comments? I mention that because—no matter how much I document this, no matter how many times I demonstrate that it’s all connected—there are always people who pop up and say things like, C’mon, Mark, we know all about AIPAC and the Middle East, but what’s this about the Jewish War on Russia—there’s not much of any connection there.

So, first of all, regarding the misguided notion that AIPAC is about Israel and that Israel doesn’t really have a position on Russia …

In fact, AIPAC and Israel are firmly on the side of Ukraine and against Russia. Here’s a blog that explains the main arguments—hostility to Russia because of past anti-semitism and current relations with Iran:

AIPAC: Support the Ukraine-Israel Aid Package

Here’s a page that explains Israel’s support for Ukraine—it’s several years old, and in fact the US has redeployed Patriot systems and other munitions from Israel to Ukraine. There are also multiple reports of Israeli special forces being active in Ukraine:

Israel Helping the Ukrainian People

My point is simply this. You can take it to the bank that AIPAC—which lobbies for Israel—strongly supports sanctions and more sanctions against Russia and continued military aid to Ukraine, especially because of the Russia’s ties to Iran. The same goes for China. Therefore, AIPAC handlers are doing their utmost to keep Congress in line with more sanctions on Russia. This is simple fact.

For anyone interested in some of the history behind this—some, not all—here are two archived posts that I haven’t linked recently. In other words, in addition to those that I regularly link when these issues come up:

Alastair Crooke Interprets Putin

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While it’s true that Putin presents Poland as pretty much the villain of the anti-Russia crusade, in reality Hungary and Lithuania and Poland are a pretty puny collection of enemies, with a fairly dubious connection to the present conflict. Poland’s importance currently is not as a military threat to Russia—that would be a bad joke—but as a conduit for American and NATO weaponry. Russia has faced far more formidable foes, in more recent times, with a more direct relation to the present—and they all go unmentioned: French (Napoleon), French, British, and Turkish (Crimean War), Japanese (1905), Austrian and German (WW1), and German—with Rumanians and Hungarians (WW2).

That recitation, overall, doesn’t present a picture of invincibility so much as a picture of muddling through, helped by geography. From my perspective, WW1 has real importance. For starters, Russia was defeated soundly, and geography didn’t really offer much help. But that was just the start. What’s really important is the coup that followed Russia’s defeat. The Bolshevik coup came about as the unholy alliance of Big Money and Deep States, without much regard for nominal alliances. The goal was Russia’s treasure house of resources. The prime movers were heavily, but by no means exclusively Jewish—this was the world against Russia. The Bolshevik insiders were, likewise, heavily but not exclusively Jewish. The prime mover, with connections to Western capital, was Lev Bronstein—a Ukrainian Jew better known as Leon Trotsky. There were Poles (Feliks Dzerzhinsky) and the odd psychopathic Georgian and criminals of all nationalities included. You can read about it here, but here’s the conclusion:

Wall Street & the November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution

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Things didn’t work out too well for Big Money at the time, but they’ve been trying ever since. The end of the Cold War, strangely, brought another Western backed coup in Russia and the establishment of Ukraine as a separate nation. It also unleashed the looting of both countries by “oligarchs”. Once again, heavily but not exclusively, Jews were involved. Ironically—or not—the money man behind the Ukro-Nazi movement is Ihor Kolomoyskyi, a Ukrainian-born Israeli–Cypriot billionaire businessman, once considered the leading oligarch in Ukraine. Then came Putin to spoil things for the oligarchs who were looting Russia’s resources.

Which, strangely, led to machinations by assorted globalists and Neocons—with many—Nuland, Blinken, and others—once again, having a Ukrainian Jewish background. Wait a minute. Did I forget the Poles with Ukrainian backgrounds? Zbigniew Brzezinski, Neocon godfather? Oh, there are more of them, too. It’s almost as if people with an ancestral axe to grind against Russian are leveraging the US government for that purpose. That’s what Michael Hudson says, and he would know. Doug Macgregor says that, too. Between globalists, Neocons, and the Israel Lobby’s ownership of US foreign policy Putin and Russians generally must have an acute case of Déjà vu—all over again. And the Big Money people are all lining up to “rebuild” Ukraine. That’s a code word for “loot”. No wonder our ruling class is desperate to keep Ukraine somehow going until they can talk Putin into a deal. All that “foreign aid” money the Senate is trying to shovel to Ukraine? It’s seed money to save something to be looted. Some things never change.

And:

Trump, Netanyahu, Putin

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Sachs pulls no punches and offers a big picture perspective. Sachs, as befits an economist, really understands leverage—including in politics:

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Biden and Wider War.

Sachs: Netanyahu has done more damage to America than any of our miserable presidents have done in all of their failed policies. Because Netanyahu has used America, misused America, repeatedly. Because the Zionist Lobby is so powerful that Netanyahu basically has had control over the Pentagon to fight wars on behalf of Israeli extremism. The war in Iraq in 2003 is a Netanyahu War.

Judge: Right

Sachs: The attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, starting in 2011 and continuing 14 more years of war, is a Netanyahu War.

Judge: Right.

Sachs: The overthrow of Moamar Gaddafi in 2011--unleashing instability not only in Libya but across Africa--is a Netanyahu war. Netanyahu and his friends in the US government--these arch Zionists so-called--have had effective control over the US military. They have cost you and me and the rest of us as taxpayers trillions of dollars. It's quite a dandy deal that the Israel Lobby or the Zionist Lobby puts in, say, a hundred million dollars into campaigns and it gets trillions out--trillions, not billions, trillions out. And so when Netanyahu speaks it's bizarre to me. It's not who Trump is appointing or naming. It's that the United States of America has let itself be used by a band of extremists on serial wars that have been disastrous for America's interests. Fighting Israel's wars so that Israel can maintain its extremism and its occupation of Palestinian lands and its apartheid rule over Palestinian lands is not in America's interests. President Trump, who speaks for America, should be saying to Netanyahu, first day: 'I am president of the United States. You no longer run our country, Bibi.' That's what I hope President Trump will say.

Sachs: It's one thing that Israel has been taken over by extremist murderers---which it has--but it's another thing for the United States to give away its sovereignty and its military to that purpose. So I'm just asking for something more modest. I'm not asking for us to fix Israel. I'm just asking for us to say to Israel, to Netanyahu in particular, 'You are not running our country anymore. You are not leading us into wars anymore. You do your own thing, we'll do ours.'

Let me add one thing. In speaking of the Israel Lobby, the narrative misses another important aspect of Jewish political influence in America. Obviously the Israel Lobby draws support not only from Jewish Americans but also from a large number of Gentiles—not least, from Trump’s over 65 base. However, while Sachs correctly notes that Jewish political influence—in the specific form of the Israel Lobby—has led to Israel being able to lead the US into multiple disastrous wars, he leaves another aspect of Jewish political influence unspoken.

... If Sachs can call the Middle East wars Netanyahu’s wars, then in a real sense the the war on Russia is a Jewish war on Russia. It’s not a coincidence that so many of the leading bureaucrats (Nuland, Blinken) and opinion shapers happen to be Eastern European Jews by ancestry. Again, this isn’t black and white. Stephen Cohen comes to mind, for example. It’s a question of tendencies.

There is also the matter that, from the time the great Jewish banking families came to prominence—at the time of the Napoleonic wars, when the Rothschild’s bankrolled the British war effort—the Jewish banking families have supported wars against Russia, especially by the British Empire. The Crimean War. The Russo Japanese War (British Jewish bankers funded the Japanese navy that was built by the British). The 1905 Revolution in Russia. The Bolshevik Revolution (Trotsky and Lenin were funded by New York and London Jewish bankers, among others). The Cold War and the aftermath. And now this war.

It’s a huge topic. Be aware of it. It’s not that all Jewish Americans—or British Jews—are war mongers. It is the case, however, that Jewish Americans are overwhelmingly the funders of American politics—the 2024 election was the most extreme example of pandering to Jews for money that we’ve ever witnessed, so one can only imagine to what point of disproportion matters of campaign financing have arrived. Jewish Americans also are, of any American demographic, the most disproportionately consumed by foreign policy. It has skewed American politics for the worse, as Jeffrey Sachs makes clear so eloquently.