By Nick Arama | RedState
What’s astounding about Joe Biden and some of the Democrats is that they are still refusing to acknowledge how his bad policies have led to this situation with Russia invading Ukraine. Perhaps more importantly for our own country, he fails to understand how these bad policies have put us in a box and made us more dependent not just on foreign oil but on Russian oil specifically.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said it in a nutshell, “Joe Biden becoming president is the best thing to happen to Vladimir Putin.” He helped Russia get their Nord Stream 2 pipeline completed and he cut our energy production ability into the bargain, two things that Russia couldn’t want more. Meanwhile, our buying of Russian oil increased under Joe Biden, with us still reportedly buying 595,000 barrels a day, even now, after they’ve invaded.
So what did the administration say in response to this? Are they planning to do anything to change that? Nope.
As we reported before, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki indicated they weren’t planning on making any changes to increase American production and she reiterated that over the past couple of days on ABC “This Week” on Sunday and then on Fox. She just says that we should reduce our need for oil.
Now, you wouldn’t want sanctions to affect Americans more than Russians, but she’s not saying they’re going to make any effort at all to move away from Russian oil and produce more of our own. That’s madness, especially given the stark reality of what that oil dependence can lead to.
But now, while the White House is still refusing delivery on reality and is going to try to spin some kind of tale to the American public tonight about how wonderful everything is, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) — the sane Democrat — isn’t buying it. Manchin is calling for Biden to ban all Russian crude oil imports.
“It makes no sense at all for the United States to be buying millions of barrels of Russian oil and other petroleum products while Russia attacks the free and sovereign nation of Ukraine,” the West Virginia senator tweeted on Tuesday. [….]
Russia provided more oil to the U.S. than any other country except Canada last year, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed. In total, the U.S. imported nearly 3 billion barrels of oil, or roughly 670,000 barrels per day, from Russia in 2021.
Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said that this dependence posed a national security threat and he called for increasing domestic production.
“The entire world is watching as Vladimir Putin uses energy as a weapon in an attempt to extort and coerce our European allies,” Manchin said in a statement Monday. “While Americans decry what is happening in Ukraine, the United States continues to allow the import of more than half a million barrels per day of crude oil and other petroleum products from Russia during this time of war.
“This makes no sense at all and represents a clear and present danger to our nation’s energy security,” he said. “If there was ever a time to be energy independent, it is now.”
Of course, that makes a lot of sense. Manchin says he wants to hear a plan from Biden to deal with inflation and deal with these issues. That should be the message that Biden delivers. But chances that Joe Biden will listen to Manchin’s sense? No chance at all. As we previously noted, they’re still talking with Russia about things like climate change and not cutting that off. Priorities.
Biden should listen to Manchin, but of course, he won’t. He is completely in the pocket of the left which means he will do this country in if it means bowing to their climate narrative. You may hear a tip of the hat to how he cares about prices going up for Americans — yet he will do nothing to make it stop or move us back to the independence that we had under President Donald Trump.
Original Here